Page 134 of Tin God

“This wasn’t supposed to happen! Henri said this wasn’t?—”

“Shut up and find a weapon.”

“—our kind.It’s our kind.”

Beneath him, Carwyn heard the whoosh of grappling hooks whizzing by his head. One hooked on to the edge of the deck, and the rope was within reach. He grabbed for it, yanking down to make sure it was anchored before he swung his weight onto the rope and hauled himself up, the cuts on his arm healing as he moved.

He swung his leg onto the deck and immediately crouched in the darkness, but Jennie’s people were already on board, dropped by air vampires who’d been patrolling overhead or climbing over railings from vessels that had come alongside theNautilus.

Brigid crawled up the grappling line behind him. “Really?” She picked up his arm and glared at the healing cuts. “You’re being careless.”

He wasn’t being careless—he was angry and pumped with amnis. It didn’t matter that he was away from his element. His mate’s blood was churning in his veins, and his body was primed for violence. What he didn’t have in elemental strength, he’d make up in brute force.

The Almighty hadn’t made him a giant for nothing.

“Let’s go,” he growled.

They moved quickly along the deck, Brigid with her gun drawn and Carwyn with the long bowie knife he preferred to use when he was hunting vampires.

The first immortal they encountered was armed even though he was wearing a tuxedo. Carwyn could smell human blood on his clothes, and his fangs were bared. He looked Norse, with brown hair and pale blue eyes set in a square face. He was as tall as Carwyn but not nearly as wide.

The vampire rushed Carwyn as soon as he saw him, his blade lifted, aiming for his neck.

They met like two stags colliding in the forest, Carwyn’s righteous anger roaring as he drove the other vampire back, ignoring the icy, pelting rain the water vampire directed at his shoulders. It sliced through his clothes and cut his skin, but Carwyn was blind to the pain.

He knocked the water vampire to the deck, punching the blunt end of his hunting knife into the vampire’s face. Bone cracked under his fist, but Carwyn didn’t have time to relish in the man’s injury. There could be over one hundred enemies on board this ship, and he needed to move fast.

The vampire under him wasn’t rattled. He hacked at Carwyn’s thigh with a short sword, flipping it to plunge the tip into his knee, but Brigid was backing her mate, and she fired at the man’s hand, blasting the sword from it and making him scream.

Carwyn gripped the vampire’s hair in his fist, yanked up, and sliced the back of his attacker’s neck in one quick movement.

The vampire stilled, his amnis going dead, and his body thunked to the deck.

“Let’s go!” Brigid yelled.

Carwyn could already hear more footsteps approaching.

Vampires were silent predators, but on the deck of theNautiluswith no humans to hide from, Carwyn was cast into a melee.

Pink glowing bracelets marked Jennie’s people, so Carwyn aimed his fury at the dark figures without glow sticks, most of whom were wearing formalwear.

Apparently they’d interrupted an event.

A female vampire wearing a thick pearl necklace drew a sharp jian and braced for Carwyn’s blade, but Brigid didn’t waste time with an elegant fight. She raised her 9mm and fired directly into the vampire’s neck, quickly shooting her two more times in each shoulder and driving her to the slippery wooden boards, which were starting to run with blood.

“Go!” Brigid waved him toward another vampire as she walked to the fallen woman in the pearls. His mate picked up the woman’s head, sliced her neck with a silver knife, and let her body drop.

Just then he heard a rage-filled scream, and a column of water wrapped around Brigid’s ankle, yanking her from the vampire in pearls and hurtling her toward the edge of the boat.

“No!” Carwyn ran to grab her hand, but whatever water vampire had Brigid in its watery grip was too fast.

Her eyes met Carwyn’s and went wide a second before she went over the deck.

Bodies and partsof bodies were strewn across the bloody deck—most of them wearing formal clothes—when Ben landed. He looked for anyone familiar and immediately saw Carwyn twisting the neck of a vampire in a black dinner jacket. The body fell with a thud to the deck of theNautilusas Carwyn spotted him.

“Benjamin!” Carwyn pointed to the port side of the vessel. “Brigid is in the water, and I’m no use to her there!”

“Fuck.” He lifted from the deck and flew down to the surface, careful not to get too close to the waterline where waves were churning with elemental energy and he was a prime target for a water vampire.

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