a blur. Adam moved first, diving at Boris. He never made it; the soft-spoken brother beside Boris blocked off the path with a barrelling charge, the two of them crashing into each other as the female vampire sprang forward, sweeping her leg round in a wide arc that took Adam’s legs out from underneath him. Between her and Boris’s brother, they had him on the ground so quick it was as though someone had edited a slice out of reality before Lucy’s eyes.
Before Boris could snap her neck, Lucy kicked backward wildly, connecting with Boris’s knee with a crack. As a howl of surprise came from him, she reached behind and grabbed at his face with her nails, scraping down, one finger catching his eye. It was pure, undiluted panic kicking in, but it did the trick.
Howling, he threw her to the ground. She hit with such force it drove the air from her lungs and she coughed, trying to catch her breath. Before she had the chance, Marcus was on her. Her hand scrabbled in the dirt for anything she could use as a weapon; it found nothing but cold concrete.
Marcus hauled her up like she weighed no more than a tin of beans, and punched. The fist landed square in her chest, audibly breaking several ribs as she began her flight backward through the air.
Even before she hit the ground, she could tell something was wrong. Breath came liquid, shallow. She hit the ground awkwardly, doubling up over herself but rolling away from the fight, desperate for breath. Her mouth filled with blood.
She lay still, fighting for air, drowning in the blood filling her lungs. She stared back at the fight, knowing Marcus’s attention could spell the final moments of her life. But he’d turned away already, back to the full-on assault against Adam.
The other three vamps had him on the ground at their feet, lashing out with kicks strong enough to move a six-foot, well-built man between them like he was nothing more than a football. Adam let out moans of anguish, more animal than man; his face bloodied and beaten. Each time he tried to stagger up, another boot connected with him, sending him back to the concrete.
Lucy didn’t have time to worry about it. Her breathing shallowed, her lung capacity down to almost nothing. She was going to drown here on this concrete, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Her gaze went to the night sky. The stars were out, even with the light pollution from the city. Stars. Always calming. Through a haze of memory, she thought back to nights out under the stars as a teenager, her first boyfriend beside her, both staring up with the same thought in their minds, neither yet willing to act on it. It was a strange memory to come back to, a moment long forgotten, but it brought her a level of serenity, even as her heart pounded in her chest and her lungs deflated with every shallow attempt at breath.
Across the concrete, a roar. The sounds of ongoing violence. Thuds, slap, grunts. That Adam struggled on was admirable, she thought, but he should give it up. Lay down next to her and hold her hand as they slipped away into the night. Maybe the vampires would allow them that.
A downward pull washed over her like a tide tugging her down into the earth. Calm washed over her with each pull. She knew what it was. She’d seen it so many times. Held so many hands and locked eyes with so many people as they went through it, always wondering if it was a comfort for her to be there with them, or if she was intruding on the last private moment they would ever have. She wished someone was there to hold her hand, which answered her question. She’d done good in this life, she knew. A life not entirely wasted. She just took a wrong turn.
Something scooped her up, something she was tangentially aware of. She looked away from the stars. Adam’s face was above her, looking around wildly. He was quite handsome, even with blood dripping in cuts from several parts of his face.
Was he rescuing her? That was nice of him. Pointless, perhaps. But nice.
Motion. Was he running? Was that why everything was moving? She was so tired. She closed her eyes. The motion felt like gentle rocking, like being held by her father. Something dripped onto her face. It ran into her mouth, which felt abstractly grim.
‘Hold on,’ Adam said, his voice pained, stretched, distorted into something weird. He sounded like he needed to chill out. The thought made her laugh inside, but the laugh was no longer connected to her mouth, drifting out of her body to a different plain.
Wow, that was interesting. Maybe there was something to religion, after all. She knew she should have paid more attention in matins in school.
The icky something dribbled down her throat, which convulsed. Her body shook, and she could feel it. Pain blossomed where it had gone numb, and breath rattled through her lung once more.
The pain. By God, it hurt so bad it pulled her off whatever cloud she’d floated off on and crashing back into the body being carried down the road by an injured vampire. She coughed, blood misting up the surrounding breath. His, her own. Who could tell? What she knew was her collapsed lung was healing alongside the ribs holding it, and it felt roughly akin to having her chest cracked open and the insides being scooped out.
She coughed again, blood gargling up in her mouth. It splashed on Adam’s face.
Abruptly, he turned down an alleyway, guiding her down from his arms to set her feet down on the floor in one fluid movement, like a dancer putting an inept partner’s feet where they need to be for the next move. Before Lucy could react, Adam had her pinned firmly against the wall, his mouth on hers. The taste of copper filled her mouth as his tongue searched out her own.
Hands running through her hair, he pressed himself against her, his kiss urgent, almost violent. His tongue pressed against hers, hungrily. The weight of his body pushed against hers, grinding her against the wall. She tapped on his arm, weakly, unable to stop him. She was too weak to fight him off, but she didn’t want to, either. The pain in her chest turned to something else, a tingling sensation that spread out throughout her.
She kissed him back, her tongue exploring his mouth with frantic urgency. His hands reached up to her face, taking it gently but firmly, and the grinding urgency of his pressing into her changed from urgency to sensuality. As the delirium of the moment threatened to overwhelm her, he pulled away, a guilty look on his face. The cut above his eye had mostly healed. Something beyond the exhilaration of the moment coursed through her; his blood as hers ran through him.
‘Sorry,’ he said, sheepishly. She pulled him back, their second kiss more tender, but growing more urgent by the second.
Pulling away more gently, he smiled. ‘We need to get out of here,’ he said. ‘The others…’
‘Where are we going?’
‘My place,’ he replied, and the ends of her fingers tingled at the prospect.
‘Oh, okay.’
They walked on in brisk silence, Lucy stealing glances up at his face whenever she could. She hadn’t been this excited since, well, she honestly couldn’t remember when, but there would have been posters of pop stars up on her wall. Her heart fluttered in her chest, and the tingling sensation at the end of her fingertips didn’t seem to be going anywhere in a hurry. She bit her lower lip as she walked.
‘Won’t they be looking for you there?’ she asked, not wanting to ruin the moment, particularly, but concerned nonetheless.
‘They don’t know where I live,’ he replied. ‘And besides, there are protections.’
‘Oh,’ she said. The last word brought her back to what was about to happen. Could vampires even… would she need…
The whole thing was as exhilarating and terrifying as anything she’d faced over the last few days, and yet there wasn’t the remotest hesitation in her mind about it. As they reached Adam’s front door, it was all she could to resist throwing him against the door, her toe tapping impatiently against the front step as he unlocked the door.
Across the threshold, they barely had room to close the door behind them before he had her pressed against the wall, his lips finding hers with breathless anticipation. Her fingers fumbled uselessly at his shirt, but before she could pull the fabric apart, he’d lifted her up once more, pressing himself against her in a way that let her know exactly his intentions. He walked her effortlessly up the stairs as they kissed again, softer, her eyes fixing his. No hint of violence, the brooding intensity replaced with wide-eyed excitement. That he looked and felt as excited as she set the flutter in her chest going once more. He opened the bedroom door and carried her through the threshold to his enormous bed, setting her down with gentle grace. She reached up and pulled him down to join her.