It was the middle of the night, and the sound of screaming woke Cara up from a deep sleep.

She jumped up with such surprise that she tumbled straight off the bed and over the nightstand. It tried it’s best to hold her, but the nightstand didn’t stand much of a chance; it crumbled like tinfoil under her weight.

“Fuck!” she snapped to nobody in particular, stumbling and grabbing her phone to turn the light on.

She hurried to the door of her room and unbolted the deadbolt, grabbing her gun before dashing out the front door. Not too many things made Reuben scream like that. The werewolf was almost indestructible. She’d seen him shot, beaten and experience every other form of pain known to man, but he’d never screamed like that.

She dashed over to his room.

“Hey! Quit screaming!”

In retrospect, she wished she would have come up with something more eloquent such as, ‘Are you okay or are vampires in there with you?’ But in the heat of the moment, telling him to stop screaming was the first thing she could think of. After all, they were in a hotel and she didn’t want him to wake the guests and draw attention to himself.

Normally, she could sleep in the same bed as Reuben, but tonight was the full moon. She didn’t want to be anywhere near him when he started to transform, as he lost all control of his actions when the beastly side took over.

For the past few days, they had been staying in hotels as they made their way to Texas to meet up with Reuben’s friend. Cara had recently got mixed up in a vicious battle between Reuben and a clan of vampires, which is why they were on the run. The vampires had found her with Reuben, so now they were after her, too.

The screaming died down. She could still hear him breathing, but he wasn’t screaming anymore.

“Cara,” he snarled. “Let me out.”

“Why were you screaming like that?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

Well, she did end up eventually asking him about his wellbeing in a more articulate way. It still counted.

“Let me out. Now!”

Apparently, he was fine, but she couldn’t open the door to see for herself. The last person who’d tried it had probably ended up in the morgue. Reuben was a dangerous man to start with, but in his werewolf form, he was insane. If there was a vampire in there, it was dead.

A drunken couple emerged from the elevator and stumbled towards their own room. Cara felt like an idiot with her face up against the door of a hotel room, trying to console an enraged werewolf. She raised a hand and wiggled her fingers in an awkward wave. The man shot her a finger gun and winked.

Drunk people always tend to be amusing, thought Cara, which was really one of their only redeeming qualities.

“Let me out!”

Reuben bashed up against the door again.

“Kinky,” the drunk woman said before she vanished into her hotel room with her partner.

“It’s not like that,” Cara called pathetically after her. “It’s not… forget it. Reuben, it’s late. I’m going to bed. Try to keep it down.”

The last thing she wanted was for the hotel staff or the police to show up and try to rescue Reuben from his room. Cara dreaded the thought. They only had twelve more hours of driving until they reached their destination. She hoped they would make it there without any more challenges.

She wandered back over to her room and sat down on the bed, trying to piece the nightstand back together before finally giving up. It seemed as if Reuben was finally calming down, and for that, she was grateful. He had been transforming into a werewolf every night due to a spell that had been placed on him. They had broken into the Enchanted Society building, where she’d been able to crack the code to break the spell. Thankfully, Reuben was back to normal. Well, about as normal as a werewolf could be.

The nights when Reuben didn’t transform were amazing, and she didn’t get any sleep for a completely different reason. Getting used to sharing a bed with a man every night was taking some time. She’d slept alone for so long, she had gotten used to sprawling out. Cara liked her space. However, she much preferred being spooned in a powerful man’s arms every night after wild sex.

She plopped down on the bed with a low moan, making sure to avoid letting the gun hit too hard for fear it would go off. That would surely draw unwanted attention.

It made Cara laugh to think about how that conversation would go down. ‘Excuse me, ma’am, but you don’t appear to be a registered handgun owner. Where did you get this gun?’

‘Oh, my friend gave it to me to protect me from vampires.’

‘…. I see. And where is this friend? Can we speak to him?’

‘He’s the one across the hall – the werewolf that’s currently ripping up the furniture and sounds like a trapped man desperately trying to escape.’

‘I see. Well, I guess you’re good to go.’

She had expected problems when she first started traveling with him. The most obvious one was Ezekiel. The vampire was still out for revenge. Cara and Reuben had spotted a couple of Ezekiel’s thugs a few towns back, but they didn’t dare to attack at night since Reuben could transform on cue if there was moonlight. His only uncontrollable transformation was during the full moon.

Oddly enough, the vampires only attacked during the day when the threat from the sun was less deadly than the threat of Reuben. The vampires just had to cover themselves up with all manner of clothes to keep their skin from dissolving in the sunlight.

After everything she had been through, the one problem she hadn’t expected was boredom.

It wasn’t like she could go hang out somewhere, and she didn’t turn on the television for fear of vampires sneaking up on her and using the sound to mask their movements. Writing used to quell her boredom, but she’d left her laptop back at her apartment. All of her writing was lost when she left her laptop behind, which brought on a deep sadness. After all, Cara had spent upwards of nine months trying to work on that story before losing it. At first, it hurt. It hurt badly. She could almost feel the absence in her heart. Maybe when her current vampire situation was resolved, she’d be able to go back to her apartment and retrieve her writing. Maybe. Hopefully.

She laid back and stared up at the light from the ceiling fan. Since she’d met Reuben, she’d started to sleep with the light on. Not because of her childhood fear of a boogeyman, but for the imminent danger she faced. The light didn’t burn vampires, but it let her know if they were ever inside the room.

She closed her eyes and tried to get some sleep. She was a light sleeper. Back when she lived at the apartment, everything would wake her up—especially the elevator and the garbage truck. Ugh. That garbage truck. It woke her up at five o’clock in the morning every Tuesday.

The quietness subsided when something thumped against the door. Her eyes widened and her heart started beating uncontrollably. Placing her hand on the gun gave her a small reprieve from fear, but she continued to listen intently for another sound that might indicate she wasn’t alone.

Another thump. This time followed by a moan.

“Oh! Oh, yes! Yes! Yes!”

The couple from the hallway were making love right on the other side of the cheap wall. No, that wasn’t right. Making love was special; it was the sharing of two people’s kindred spirits and their bodies. These two weren’t making love. They were – as Cara’s old boss liked to rudely say – doing the nasty.

Cara banged on the wall.

“Hey! I’m trying to sleep over here. Keep it down!”

“What? You want to join us?” the guy called over, slurring his words. “What do you think, babe?”

“I don’t know. Is she hot?”

Cara could just barely hear the woman’s voice.

“I thought so. Really hot. She’s a brunette and, with, uh, like a really hot body.”

There were mumblings.

“We’re coming over!” said the man’s voice.

“What?” Cara banged up against the wall. “No! I don’t want to...” She tried to think of the right word. “No! Just stop being so loud!”

There was the sound of movement from the other side of the wall. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. About thirty seconds later, she realized that it was, in fact, a bad thing. They knocked on her door.

“Door’s locked! Go away.”

The drunk guy called out, “Let us in!”

She threw back her head with an exasperated groan.

“I’m not having sex with you two. Go back to your room.”

“But you already said you would, girlie!”

Girlie? Who uses the term girlie to try to pick up a woman?

“No. Go away.”

She almost added, ‘Or I’ll call the cops,’ but she knew she couldn’t do that with Reuben across the hall in his current state. The police would probably try to get into his room. Then Cara would have to convince them to go away, and they wouldn’t so she’d be in an even bigger mess.

“Hey,” the guy said from outside. “Come on over. I promise, you’ll enjoy—”

That’s as far as he got before there was a horrible slashing sound and something slammed against the door. Then silence—terrifying silence—except for Reuben’s general incoherent complaining from the other room.

Cara slowly got up.

“Hey, drunk guy? You okay? Drunk girl? Please tell me you’re fine, and that no horrible monster is out there and just killed you.”

She slowly loaded the gun with a clean clicking sound. It was a handy skill that Reuben had taught her. Although they couldn’t practice shooting too often, she was getting used to handling the weapon. Reuben made her carry it around for hours at a time to get used to the way it felt. He wanted her to see it as a tool instead of being intimidated by it. She switched the safety off and chambered a bullet.

She crept towards the door slowly, holding the gun in a way that she thought probably looked cool.

“Hey, drunk guy? Drunk girl?”

She heard a noise, but it sounded like something was twitching on the ground outside. Part of her wanted to throw open the door and see what was going on, but the rest of her wanted to stay in the safety of the hotel room and act like nothing had happened.

“You’re not out there, are you? You’ve been killed in a horribly violent way, haven’t you?”

No response.

“Please. Please answer me,” she muttered under her breath.

Something spilled under the door. She almost shot it because her nerves were so frazzled, but she quickly realized it wasn’t a horrible monster attacking her feet. It was just liquid – a deep red liquid that looked entirely too much like blood.

“Anyone up for some wine?” Cara whimpered quietly. “I really, really hope that’s wine.”

“Cara, let me out!” Reuben yelled from the other hotel room in his typical werewolf fashion.

She groaned and put her eye to the peephole. That’s when her brain decided to remember a movie where a woman had made the rather unfortunate mistake of looking through the peephole as the villain on the other side drove an ice pick through the glass. Why her brain decided to bring up that image right then, she would never know.

But nobody drove an ice pick into her eye. The dangerous creature—which definitely was not human—wasn’t interested in her.

Cara couldn’t see much of the woman, but what she could see impressed her. The woman was tall, with ivory skin and a muscled, yet surprisingly curvy frame. A thick mane of jet-black hair was tossed over her shoulders, hitting her mid-back. She was holding a glowing whip with tendrils of blue energy spiraling off it.

Uh-oh.