Page 42 of Fated In Blood

When the man reached up and flipped off his hood, I saw just how fucked I was. My blood flickered, like a jolt of instant recognition, every hair on my body standing at attention.Vampire. There was a goddamned vampire down here.

Then I lost him in the crowd, catching glimpses of the top of his dark head as the vampire made his way toward me.

But Vincent wasn’t watching my opponent. His eyes were on me.

“Surprise, Evie. You’re not throwing this fight. In fact, you’ll be lucky if you survive.”

21

EVANGELINE

Looked like I was fighting a vampire tonight.

In the basement of Valentine’s.

And not any vampire. One who was well trained, strong enough to take on an entire army and be the only one to walk off the battlefield. Or in this case, Valentine’s basement.

My heart thrashed in my chest, a sliver of fear cutting my thoughts short when he gave me the coldest, cruelest smile I’d ever seen. He was roughly handsome, with dark, shaggy hair that looked like he cut it himself, a shadow of stubble on his square jaw.

His worn leather jacket must not have had any sentimental value, because he was still wearing it when he broke through the crowd and stalked toward me, blackness bleeding through the whites of his eyes.

I blinked and yeah, they stayed like that.

Not a trick of the light.

Vincent carried on with his usual blah blah blah introduction, but all I wanted to know was this asshole’s name. “And tonight, Collum takes on our very own Evie.”

The crowd went wild as Collum lifted his arms over his head and pumped his fist in the air like he was in the WWE. His leering grin widened. “Can’t wait to taste you. You smell delicious.”

“Ew. That’s gross. I don’t evenknowyou.” I wrinkled my nose and pretended to be offended, even though Collum was smelling pretty delicious himself. I was literally starving, and a girl had to eat, right?

I bounced from one foot to the other, my skin prickling from the smoke, from hunger, from all this fucking adrenaline coursing through me. My entire body was a live wire and anticipation mixed with mind-numbing fear was a bad, bad combination.

I sucked in a breath and ran the tip of my tongue over the points of my fangs.

I couldn’t lose control.

Not here, not in front of a roomful of humans.

I didn’t know if Vincent somehow heard I’d been turned—he did have his sources—or if this was his idea of evening the score, but whatever his motives, I had to lose tonight’s match, not out myself as a bloodsucker, and somehow survive, which was a lot of multitasking. From the wicked smile creeping over Collum’s face, I doubted any of those scenarios were a given.

From the corner of my eye, Vincent dropped his hand, and Collum became a blur.

Time stopped. I barely saw his outline; he was moving so fast the humans were left staring at the empty spot he’d been, mouths half open, drinks sloshing in their glasses.

I spun out of the way, but not fast enough. The bastard’s nails sliced four deep furrows in my upper arm, the pain catching up with me a second later. I slammed into the rough stone wall, driving the air out of my lungs.

Okay. New plan. Losing wasn’t going to be the problem, walking out of here would.

“Little baby vampire. I still smell the human on you, you’re so fresh.”

“And you reek like an undead corpse,” I countered, positioning myself for his next attack. I’d always incapacitated my targets with silver and wolfsbane. How I wished I had my knives right now.

I’d been an absolute fool to leave the house without them.

He attacked a second time and again, I was too slow, barely able to evade his crushing assault, ending up flat on my back with a bruised kidney. Then came the gash on my cheek, another strike leaving me with two broken fingers.

My left hand, thankfully, but they hurt like a motherfucker.

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