Page 38 of Vampire's Choice

Her brother and Mal had been discussing magical theory, mixed with ecology and science. Ruth had closed her eyes, as the male voices overlapped, separated, lifted and fell, modulated by humor, intrigue, serious insights.

She’d been sitting next to her mother, working at her loom. The comfortable clack, clack, clack had been a fitting background for the conversation, Elisa’s foot working the pedal while her hands moved the shuttle. The world was all good, as long as the four of them could hold the fabric of it taut between them.

A shift to her left, and shadows flitted through the forest, the light clomp of hooves reaching her ears. Because a vampire’s scent was more earth-based, the forest was the environment in which she could most easily blend. So she approached the hoof owners without detection. As they materialized, she felt a thrill.

Centaurs. Three of them. Children, two boys and one girl.

If they’d been human, she’d estimate their ages at eight or nine years old. They had bows and arrows, and were practicing with a target they’d hung from a tree branch. The girl and one boy were damn good, consistently hitting the X they’d marked. The third was having more difficulties, but one arm wasn’t as long as the other, the fingers curled and inflexible. A birth defect or old injury?

No one had discussed centaur protocol with her yet, but since they were part of the Circus, she assumed she shouldn’t be hiding. They weren’t wild animals she’d startle if she made her presence known. She liked being around children. Some of the married second marks on the island had children, so she’d enjoyed having them as playmates. After Mal taught her and Adan how not to break them.

She moved forward, purposefully making noise. When the girl turned and saw her, Ruth nodded. “Hello.”

In a blink, all three had their bows up and aimed in her direction. The boy with the deformed arm lost his grip on the string and the arrow released.

She leaped out of its way, though the tip grazed her neck before the collar of her coat deflected the arrow’s trajectory. It spun away and embedded itself in a tree.

“I come in peace.” She lifted both hands. “I’m new to the Circus. I work with security.”

Was that translation spell working? She sure as hell hoped so, because the ground was vibrating. She spun to see several more centaurs coming toward her, vaulting over foliage and dodging around the trees.

Not children. Three fully grown males, with enraged gazes, showing pure hostility and aggression. Shit.

She dodged behind the nearest sturdy tree with a half-baked plan to call out her intentions and defuse the situation. Only they weren’t slowing down to hear it. One of them had a much bigger bow, and he was drawing it, the lethal arrow tip gleaming. As she bolted, the arrow whizzed past her. If she hadn’t run, she would have been hit.

Her coat snagged on the dense foliage so she left it behind. The centaurs were making angry whistling noises, like an enraged stallion protecting his herd. She’d seriously fucked up. She needed to get the hell out of here, make it back to camp and figure out how to fix her gaffe.

Except more centaurs were coming out of the woods to her right. Another flight of arrows streaked by her as she changed direction, again just in time. Wooden arrows. If one of them hit her in the chest, she’d be done.

Staked over a misunderstanding. Shit. Great.

She’d treated the centaur children like kids on a playground, and she knew better. Many species were rabidly protective of their young.

Being way-the-fuck bigger, at least the male centaurs had to navigate the forest accordingly. Though this wasn’t her home ground, she knew forest terrain as well as they did. She should be able to use her vampire speed to slip away.

Nope. Reinforcements had arrived, and they worked together, keeping her hemmed in. The only way she’d break through their line was by going on the offensive, and she wasn’t going to do harm if she could avoid it.

The universal message of surrender wasn’t going to register before she was trampled, but maybe it would prevail against the arrows. She dropped to her knees and held up her hands, appealing for mercy before she became a pin cushion.

A weight hit her in the back, driving her to her stomach. Her chin bounced off the leaf-packed earth. While her instincts screamed at her to fight for her life, logic prevailed long enough to recognize what had shoved her down so forcefully, and it didn’t have flesh-cutting, trampling hooves.

Merc. He closed his wings around her body, his feathers brushing her skin. A dubious but still appreciated shield. Were his wings arrow proof? She didn’t want him hurt, either.

Guttural snorts and angry, piercing squeals surrounded them, along with the vibration of hooves. Merc snarled back, punctuating it with a hiss that would have sent most cats at the preserve scrambling.

When he spoke, his words became understandable mid-sentence. The translation spell must have glitches. Or maybe adrenaline blocked the spell’s effectiveness, so that she had to calm her rapidly beating heart to let it penetrate.

“She’s a new hire. Yeah, we should have told her before she wandered around, but she didn’t know, Pholos. She’s no threat. Look at her.”

“Get off of her and we will.”

“Not until you lower the fucking bows.”

Some other time, she’d argue with the no threat shit, but occasionally she was smart enough to know when to hold her tongue. The edge to Merc’s voice, the tension in his upper body, pressed over hers, his knees planted outside of her thighs, said things weren’t close to okay.

She would have tried apologizing or explaining now, but the hard squeeze from his hand on her shoulder told her that she needed to be silent.

And show complete submission.

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