Page 62 of An Acquired Taste

I feel the prick of fangs and try to scream, but it comes out as a hoarse croak. I squeeze my eyes shut.

Then, in an instant, the weight on top of me is gone. I gasp for air, vision rushing back, and roll over onto my side. A tall figure steps up beside me, glaring at Alexander where he’s been thrown against a bench.

“Keep your hands off my valentine,” Sebastian snarls.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Heart in my throat, I raise to my knees on the grass.

Sebastian looks far from his usual polished, reserved self. There is a look of pure murder in his eyes as he watches Alexander pull himself to his feet. With his eyes dark and his fangs out, he looks almost like a stranger. He lets out a low hiss that I’ve never heard him make before, a feral noise.

Alexander bares his fangs. “You have no claim to her,Sebastian.”

The vitriol in the way he spits the name makes me realize, with a dawning horror, that I am in the middle of something I do not understand. I have been this entire time.

Sebastian is still, his eyes locked on the vampire challenging him. “That is where you are wrong, Alexander,” he says, his voice frighteningly quiet. “She is under contract with me until midnight.”

Alexander grabs my phone from the grass and shows Sebastian the time:12:05. “As I said,” he spits. “You have. No. Claim.”

Sebastian shrugs off his coat and leans down to tuck it around my shoulders. He straightens up and rolls up his sleeves. “Again, you are incorrect,” he says. “She sets her clock ten minutes fast.”

I gape at him. He… remembered that? Then I turn to Alexander, who is staring in disbelief. He takes out his phone to verify it, and for a moment, something like fear flickers across his face.

“Fine,” Alexander says. “I can wait.”

“But I cannot,” says Sebastian, his voice very cold. “You’ve harmed my valentine. I demand redress.”

Alexander lifts his shoulders in a theatrical shrug. “Have your court take it up with mine, then.”

“You mistake me.” Sebastian cracks his neck and rolls his shoulders back. “I am old-fashioned. I’ll take my right of trial by combat. Now.”

Alexander stares at him for a moment. And then he laughs, taking off his own coat and tossing it carelessly aside. “Fine,” he says. “It’s your funeral.”

He launches himself at Sebastian without another word. He’s a blur of movement, and I cry out and press a hand to my mouth, but before I can comprehend what’s happened, Sebastian is holding Alexander by the wrist. He twists Alexander’s arm behind his back, but then Alexander snarls and breaks free.

The following exchange of blows is dizzyingly fast and eerily silent. I catch only snippets: Sebastian with his hand around Alexander’s throat; Alexander with his fangs in Sebastian’s shoulder; both of them struggling in a tangle of limbs on the ground. It is fast and dirty and feral. The opposite of everything vampires pretend to be at these balls.

My head spins as I try to keep up. All I can do is climb to my feet, stumble out of their way, and hope that Sebastian has the upper hand. I should probably run, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t leave before I know if Sebastian is okay.

All at once, it stops.

Alexander is face down on the grass. Sebastian has a knee on his spine and a hand on the back of his neck, holding him prone.

“Yield,” Sebastian says. Dark, viscous blood drips from the wound on his shoulder where Alexander’s teeth found skin. His hair is askew, his clothes rumpled and torn. I’ve never seen him so thoroughly uncomposed—but he won.

Alexander struggles, spits words that are muffled by a mouthful of grass.

Sebastian presses his knee harder. “Yield,” he says.

Alexander’s spine pops, and he shrieks. “I yield,” he says, barely audible.

Sebastian releases him, stands, and brushes himself off. I’m tense, wondering if this bout will bring out the frightening side of him I saw when he almost bit me that night at the estate. Yet the violence disappears from him the moment he turns to me.

“Are you hurt?” he asks, his eyes falling to where Alexander gripped me by the neck earlier. I can feel the bruises forming, but I shake my head.

“I’m fine,” I say hoarsely. “But your shoulder—”

“It’s nothing.” He can’t seem to look away from my face. He tucks my hair behind my ear with a care that is more shocking after the power and violence I just witnessed. “Amelia…”

---