When I gain control of my breath, I nestle against Ashen’s chest and listen to the blood that surges through his veins. “Maybe we should just stay. Let the werewolves make their hybrid. Bar the door. Have Bit Akalum deliver booze and blood and food. Watch the Mandalorian. Bask in your sex sheets.”

Ashen breathes a laugh into my hair and tightens the grip of his embrace. “I wish we could. I have my doubts that the immortals of the Living Realm would be too pleased with werewolves taking control. Nor would any humans once they realize so many of their myths are true. We should go now, before Ember is up. I would rather avoid her if possible. I might be too tempted to kill her if not," he says, but even still, we stay for a while just lying wrapped in one another and the thoughts that weigh us down.

When we finally do get up, we dress and pack in silence, not bothering to shower. We straighten things up a little in the room and I wonder if I'll ever be back here. It's a thought that hasn't occurred to me until this exact moment, but now that it has it won't leave. I know I'm not really meant for this place, regardless of what happens or how I feel. This bittersweet thought is turning over in my mind as I make the bed and Ashen finds another bag to carry the heavy books to the Living Realm.

"I'm sorry I ever doubted you," I whisper to the sheets in a dramatic soap opera voice as I smooth out the ripples and wrinkles across the surface of the bed.

"Are you talking to my sheets?"

"Yes. You were right. They're amazing," I say. I kiss my fingertips and press them to the bed. "Goodbye, lovers. Always remember me."

Ashen smiles as I turn my sly grin toward him. "I was wrong, what I said the other day."

"What's that?"

"Your mind is not a terrifying place. It's an unusual place. Sometimes a bizarre place."

I chuff a laugh as I pick up my notebook and pen. I take Ashen's offered hand. "Your sweet-talking skills might need some improvement."

"But most of all, it's a wondrous place, vampire." Ashen leans down and lays a sweet kiss on my cheekbone, letting it linger as he takes a deep breath.

We leave Ashen's room without further delay, moving in silence down the corridor and the stairs. As we pass into the grand hall there's a sound in the shadows, a scraping of claws against stone. Ashen pulls me into the darkness behind a pillar as I catch the scent of something musky and feral in the distance of the room.

"Shit," he whispers, leaning forward to peer around the column. I hear a chattering sound, recognizable for its uniqueness. Another calls back in reply from the opposite side of the room.

Hyenas.

I lean around the other side of the column, into the shadow. I see the hulking shape in profile as the creature sniffs the floor close to the cauldrons. It's enormous, about the size of a truck. Bits of fur and flesh hang from its skeletal face. The bone of a leg is visible through a tear in its skin.

Not just hyenas. Really fucked up hyenas.

I move toward Ashen behind the safety of the column.

"What the fuck?" I whisper. Ashen looks down at me and draws his sword from its sheath with a slow and practiced hand.

"They shouldn't be in here," he replies, his voice barely more than a breath of sound.

"You don't say."

He looks at me for a long moment and I see the concern in his eyes. He bends carefully to set the bags on the floor, then lets the strap of my katana slide from his shoulder. He hands the sword to me. "Do you have Angelwing on this one too?" he asks as he rolls up his sleeves. I nod and unsheathe my blade. "Good. You're going to need it."

"Great, because I'm dressed to kill," I say, glancing down at my dress, the same one he found for me at the house in Cairo. I meet Ashen's eyes and smile, giving him a wink. This is going to be great. He smiles in return.

"Ready, vampire?"

I give a single nod. Ashen leans down, folding his free hand across the back of my neck and pressing his lips to mine in a searing kiss. He pulls away and looks into my eyes. I expect he'll say something like be careful, or stay behind me.

"Have fun. Don't hiss too loud," he says. He gives me a wicked smile as he turns away.

And fuck me if I don't realize that very instant that I've fallen head over heels in love.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 26

Ashen stalks down the hall. The hellfire comes alive across his blade, black smoke billowing behind him to flow across the floor. The hyena next to the cauldrons looks up and lowers its head and shoulders. It braces for a fight. It yips and cackles. Another dissolves from the shadows. I can hear more in the depths of the room, their attention drawn to us.

A third hyena surges from the dark recesses behind the pillars and lunges for Ashen, but his sword is already carving an arc through the air. It sweeps from down low and cuts the darkness. I hear the sound of rippling flame.

A yowl echoes up the columns as Ashen hits the shoulder of the creature. The jaws snap toward him. He ducks. The animal spins in fury but Ashen is already swinging. His sword lodges into its side.

The beast falls from Ashen's blade. Its jaws smack shut as its face hits the stone. It lies unmoving, and I can smell the thick blood that glistens on the floor.

Ashen is already making his way further into the room to attack the next beast. There's grace in the way his back and shoulders carry power through every swing of his sword. He's calculating. He's formidable. He's really fucking hot.

He's also having all the fun.

I unsheathe the kaiken from my thigh and kick off my shoes. The stone is cool and slick beneath my soles. I take a deep breath as I lean against the column and look up. All praise to M.I.A. for the hype tune tracking through my mind. Live fast, die young, bad girls do it well.

This is gonna be great.

I smile and then turn into the shadow and run in the darkness between the pillars.

I hear the first hyena galloping for me from the left, from Ashen's direction. Just as I start to think he'll get to it before me, the creature leaps into my path and I drop to the floor, sliding on my hip beneath its jaws. I come to a stop below its heart. I thrust my kaiken into its chest. The animal stutters to the side and I roll away as it falls.

I'm up and running before I hear it hit the floor. The first one I saw by the cauldrons is skulking toward the open corridor where I can hear Ashen's blade tearing through muscle and bone. By the time it realizes I'm coming, I'm already in the air. I bring the katana down against its neck with a hiss. Thick, putrid blood sprays across my face.

As the hyena and I fall together with a thud of fur and bones across the stone, I look toward the corridor of the hall and see Ashen's blade slicing light into shadow. The fire illuminates his face, his dark hair falling across his brow. The flame in his eyes glows bright with deadly focus. A hyena runs toward him and he readies his sword.

Before it can meet Ashen's blade, it meets mine as I burst from the darkness. I catch it in the throat with my katana and spill its blood across the floor.

"That was mine," Ashen says as I stop next to him. I look up and smile at the devious grin that alights within his skin.

I turn away and run to the shadows of the other side of the room as Ashen strides onward to meet the next beast. I kill one more before the odds turn against me.

As I'm running for the darkness between two pillars, a force knocks me from the side, hurtling me into the center of the room. My blades fall from my hands when my ribs hit the stone. The air leaves my lungs in a whoosh and I can't suck it back in. I roll onto my back and I hear Ashen calling my name.