~

 

Fallon knew that she had only one shot at Jaxon and only one shot to get it right.

She’d covered her tracks well on her route to the standoff – staying upwind from the vampire – using her magic to dull the sound of her approach – to hide her presence in every way shape and form that she could, and she’d used the distraction of the others to get into a good position right behind the man…

Now, she needed to do something that was alien to her – work as a team to take the bloodsucker down, because it wasn’t just herself that she needed to think about, she needed to make sure that everyone walked away from this but Jaxon.

Her magic was practically begging to be unleashed, and she didn’t disappoint it.

She used her magic to rip the vampire’s arm down and then backwards, taking his razor sharp claws away from Chloe’s throat. She heard the satisfying crunch of bone breaking and she unleashed a blast against the man’s back that propelled both of the vampires forward.

Raising her hands; she used her magic to lift them from the ground in a whirlwind of her own making, tossing them around and around until he lost his grip on the female, and then she tossed them apart in two different directions…

Chloe’s lifeless body hit the ground first with a sickening thud that made her mate wince, and Monty was torn between rushing to his mate and protecting the others that were there…

The fever within his blood said kill the damn vampire, but his heart and soul told him to protect his mate…

Jamie moved fast, rushing towards his mate to put his beast’s body between Jaxon and Fallon, and in doing so; he blocked her line of sight of the vampire. There was little that Fallon could do, because she couldn’t unleash her magic for fear of hitting the wolf.

Monty headed towards Dorothy to protect her, but it was too late – Jaxon had already rebounded from his landing place, and his position was closer to the elder witch than Monty was. He knew that he stood no chance of getting to her first.

Dorothy let her magic loose on the vampire as he came at her, but it wasn’t enough.

Jaxon had seen the attack coming and had dived right, tossing his body down against the hard ground, spinning over and over, and had sprung back up onto his feet as her magic tore through the air and exploded against the trunk of a tree, tearing through the hard wood and sending shards of light and splinters flying…

Jaxon was on her in a heartbeat.

Dorothy saw the bloodlust in his eyes a moment before his claws embedded in her flesh and he swiped hard, taking her body sideways with the motion, and the pain screamed through her as she dropped to the hard ground under her own weight.

“No!” Fallon screamed.

There was no way back from what he had done.

Her kin – her flesh – her blood was lying there on the hard ground of the woods.

Fallon reached deep for the anger fuelled energy that had rushed to being inside of her. It wasn’t hard to find – it bubble and boiled and waited for an exit.

“Move…!” Fallon yelled at Jamie’s wolf as she stalked forward.

She raised her hands up in front of her as the beast moved aside and called her magic to her fingertips. The wolf was matching her step for step – ever vigilant against the vampire that threatened her safety…

The pain started as a white hot burn within Jaxon’s body, drowning out thought, reason, or a sense of anything other than the urge to flay his own skin off his body to cool it down – but that was not possible.

His body was wrenched upwards from the ground, suspended in the air high above the earth, as his blood boiled and fire raged inside of him …

Monty’s eye were fixed on the vampire and it was hard to tear them away from the macabre scene that was unfolding in front of him – but his brain kicked his backside in to gear and he knew that Dorothy needed him.

At least, he hoped that she still did. Hoped she still clung to life.

He forced himself to look away, but what he found was even more unbelievable. Chloe, sitting there cradling the elder on her lap and feeding her vampire blood…

“She’s not such a bad old bag, but if you tell her I said that I’ll kill you,” Chloe grumbled.

It was taking a lot of her willpower not the have the favour returned by the elder, not to take a little bite of the fae blood – and yet, somewhere deep within Chloe a switch had been flipped, and the woman knew that after the events of the day, things were never going to be the same for her ever again.

“Well, I sure as hell heard it,” Angela announced – dragging her eyes from the flaying vampire that was writhing in agony, down towards her friend lying in the vampire’s lap.

Dorothy’s eyes were closed, her blood covered her skin and clothing, and it hurt Angela’s heart to see her like that … and yet, there was something fighting back that pain within her – hope – hope for Chloe after what she had done for Dorothy.

“You, I’d gladly kill,” Chloe flicked a dark glare at the elder and Angela raised just one eyebrow back at the newbie vampire.

“Sure you would…” she offered dryly. Not offering anything more than that…

“Remind me never to piss off my granddaughter…” Hank said as he tore out of the woods and came to a screeching halt at the sight that befell him.

He eyed the tortured body of the vampire a moment before Jaxon’s body exploded outwards … then he caught the scent of fae blood in the air, and snapped his head around to where his mate was lying.

The elder growled a long hard warning at Chloe…

“Hey – hey, this is a new shirt,” Monty grumbled, rolling his eyes back towards his mate as she dropped Dorothy to the ground without ceremony and got the hell away from her before the elder wolf decided to take go all fang-crazy and try to take a bite…

She was being a good Samaritan, but she wasn’t a saint.

“I didn’t like that shirt anyway,” Chloe whispered as she leaned in towards her mate. Then her eyes brightened… “Do we get to play hide and seek now?” She grinned, a fangy grin that made Monty want to growl like one of the pack…

“Oh, Crap!” Monty bit out. “The alpha…”

“He’ll heal on his own,” Chloe snorted with an absent wave of her hand in the man’s direction.

“Be nice, because I now know that you can be,” Monty sang back.

“I think it was just a brain fart and I’m back to normal now,” Chloe assured him, but they both knew differently – something had changed inside of her and she couldn’t say if it was for the better or not until she got used to it a little more.

Fallon stalked across the grass towards Dorothy, and Chloe sidestepped the witch in order for her to pass…

“I don’t have call to say this to vampires often,” Fallon bit out, “thank you.”

“Oh, don’t thank me – feed me,” Chloe grinned and Fallon snorted her contempt.

“Really?” Monty sighed. “That’s your pitch?”

“What? No,” Chloe shot back with a look of disbelief.

“You’d suck in sales,” Monty assured her and she snorted.

“No I wouldn’t. I’d drink the rest of the team, ergo, I’d win,” Chloe offered back.

“I’m going to go feed a bad mood alpha that won’t want my help, my blood. If you could refrain from trying to drink the witches – it would be appreciated.” Monty offered with a smug smile.

“If you could refrain from being so damn condescending, it would be appreciated, because then I won’t have to punch your fangs down the back of your throat,” Chloe bit out with a sneer.

“Fine, deal. I’ll start trusting you a little more if you stop behaving like the neighbourhood leech.” Monty shrugged.

“Well, if the neighbourhood wasn’t a damn, all you can eat buffet of witches, that might be helpful too, don’t you think?” Chloe tossed her hands onto her hips and Monty knew that he’d lost the fight.

Every time that she got defensive she got hungry, and he didn’t need her to get hungry right then.

“We’ll move,” he assure her, as he stalked towards Nathan, and Jamie growled a warning… “He’s not your mate, dumbass,” Monty snapped at the beta. “Go protect the witch from my ravenous mate!”

“Oh – my – Goddess!” Chloe bit out and Monty snapped a quick look at her. “You just so threw me to the wolves!” She hissed in disbelief.

“Did not!”

“Did too,” Chloe snapped.

“Can someone fix my mate, he looks a little … broken,” Sarah tossed up her hands in disbelief at the pair of them arguing while Nathan needed the vampire’s blood to heal him faster.

“I’m getting to it,” Monty grumbled.

“While tossing your mate under the bus,” Chloe snorted.

“Even if I did toss you under a bus, you’d survive,” Monty grumbled as he crouched down next to Nathan and the alpha growled… “I’m having a bad day, don’t start with me.” Monty snapped at the man…

“Me too…” Nathan growled back.

“Not if it rolled over my head and damn well decapitated me,” Chloe hissed back.

“The bus? Would you let it drop?” Sarah grumbled.

“Don’t give me that blood,” Nathan growled out, and Monty rolled his eyes…

“Do you see what I have to deal with?” The vampire said, grabbing a handful of the alpha’s hair and not being too gentle about it as he wrenched his head back on his neck…

“Hey!” Sarah bit out … she was more than ready to hand the vampire his backside…

“What now?” Monty grumbled.

“Be gentle!” Sarah snapped back.