Page 40 of Fangbanger

“Don’t be foolish, mate.”

Her gaze ices over. “You admit it. Why didn’t you tell me? Were you planning to bind me without my consent? Turn me, perhaps?”

She tricked me. She pulled me to her, just as my sire used to yank on the bond. Just as I was chained to a wall.

“Never,” I snarl. “I don’t want a mate.”

Her nostrils flare. “I don’t want you either.”

That’s not what I said. I swallow the words. “Good. We’re agreed. We aren’t sealing the bond.”

“I would rather die,” she growls. “Now let me up. I have a job in town.”

Reluctantly, I push off her. My fangs throb with the need to claim her, and my skin feels too tight. I cannot breathe, and my body only warms when feeding, and I feel the lack of those things acutely. What I wouldn’t give in this moment to be human, to be soft for her, to tell her that I would try to be with her.

If only I were not me.

“I have a rabid kelpie to kill,” she mutters. “I don’t have time for this.” She gathers her weapons from the ground. I silently pass her the ash stake.

“Do not put yourself in danger, mate.”

She tosses her head angrily. “Try me, vampire. You show up when I’m on a job, and I’ll use you as a Halloween decoration.”

Just another reason I can never seal the bond with her. If she dies, I die too. And she is so fucking breakable.

I snap my fangs at her. “You just bought yourself a guard dog, slayer. Get used to it.”

25

LEAH

Ishiver in the shallows of the town pond two hours later. The kelpie circles me. It’s tiring, bleeding green blood into the murky water. Dawn’s sister caught it trying to eat one of her kids earlier.

It’s October at two a.m., and the murky pond is cold. Bare oaks rub their branches together under a sliver of moonlight. My feet are going numb and algae coats my arms from the bouts I’ve already fought with the evil beast.

I shudder and track the creature with my gaze. The pouch of silver filings is in my left hand, my silver-tipped stake in the right. Throwing silver filings is far better than being caught by the kelpie’s conical poisonous teeth and being tossed onto its back and dragged away.

It weaves left, then strikes, the nightmarish maw of teeth in a horse’s head rearing out of the water. I toss the iron, miss, and swear.

I need to be faster.

I’m weak from Marcus’s feeding, and there’s a pit in my stomach that keeps distracting me.

Focus.

There. It lunges again. I swipe with the stake, but my aim is poor, and it latches on to my hand. Pain scalds my nerves, radiating up my wrist. Spots dance in my vision.

Fuck. I grind the filings into its eyes with my opposite hand, and it screams, an ear-piercing, terrifying sound. I smash more filings into its mouth, rubbing them over its teeth and into its gums as it shakes me and pain blackens the edges of my vision. The monster makes a horrible whining sound as it releases me and starts to sink under the surface of the water. I lunge and bury my stake in its head for good measure. Green bubbles spread from the dissolving head.

I catch sight of my wrist, and whimper before I muffle the prey sound. It’s torn to shreds. I see bone. My stomach rolls. I shouldn’t drive like this. My truck is a stick shift—I need both hands.

I sigh and start trudging out of the water. I’m shivering and blood drenches my arm. The wound is on fire. My truck is so far. Ten steps feels like a mile. I grit my teeth. Most of my nights end like this. I have spelled bandages at home, and I’ve driven with one hand before. Badly, but I did it and I didn’t get pulled over. With any luck, the vampire will be gone when I get back.

Just thinking about him makes that pit grow.

I’d never admit it to Karina, but sometimes on nights like this, I think about having a partner. I don’t let myself fantasize too much, but I imagine someone there to clean me up when I get home. Whatever the slayer equivalent of “honey, dinner is ready” is. Probably stitches and a bottle of whiskey.

Ugh, whatever. Twenty more steps. I feel like I’m melting with every step. The night is so quiet that I can hear my blood dripping onto the ground. I don’t even want to look.