Page 20 of Mated Exile

"I'd love to," he says, his low, deep voice a rumbly burr against my back and neck. "I'll go right, you go left."

We split up, Bastian crouching near one end of the SUV, me near the other. I dip my fingers into the bag of paralytic, ready to use it. As the vampire stalks around looking for us, a scowl on his face, he gets close, and I tense. Bastian taps against the side of the SUV once, giving me a signal, then rushes out in front of it and whirls to face the vamp.

"Looking for me?" He gives the bloodsucker a wolfish grin and cracks his knuckles. "I could take that other hand of yours, if you're interested. In fact, I could use the meal."

I wait only until the vampire is turned fully away from me, then leap from the shadows and blow a handful of powder at him. He whirls at the sound of my footsteps, lips drawn back from fangs—then coughs, once, and falls over motionless on the asphalt.

Staring at him, I whistle in appreciation. "This is potent stuff, isn't it?"

Bastian smirks, then looks up at me—and jerks in alarm. "Delilah, behind you!"

I turn just in time to spot the other vampire coming for me. Frantic, I blow the remaining powder off my palm, but it isn't enough to put him out. I'm reaching in to grab another handful when he blurs forward super-fast, grabs both my wrists, and yanks me against him.

"Hey there little doggy," he says, smirking as I squirm in his grip. "If you're a bad girl, I'll have to swat your nose with a newspaper."

"Let her go!"

"No." the vamp says lazily, whirling me around and holding his claws up to my neck. "I'd rather not."

I stare into Bastian's frustrated face, scowling as four sharp claws sink into my skin. The powder bag falls somewhere on the asphalt and spills its prize out. In an amused tone, the vampire tells Bastian, "I'll let you go, since you've been such a loyal dog for so long. And a useful hound indeed. But this one? We have big plans for her, and I won't be letting her go."

Bastian's hands draw into fists, his chests heaving as he takes a menacing step forward. The vampiretsk-tsksand digs his claws deeper into my neck. He won't kill me yet, I know, but already I feel a sliver of vampire venom in my blood as it leaks out of the deadly black claws extended from the end of all his fingers.

I still against him, knowing that every movement I make will only dig them in deeper and risk paralyzing my entire body. Once I'm out, I have no idea what Bastian will do, but I get the feeling he'd let himself be caught again out of some foolish idea of male nobility, and the last thing I want is another ten years of his imprisonment hanging over my head.

There has to be another way. I try to yank my wrists, gathered in the vampire's free hand, out of his grasp. Twisting my fingers up, I listen to the beat of my heart and imagine another rolling wave of water smashing down on the vamp. But that won't happen this far from Glass Pack Territory, especially since I have no ideawhyit happened in the first place. The land rejected me the instant it got me out, so I couldn't have had anything to do with it.

Closing my eyes, I frantically imagine what I want to happen: for the vampire to fall over unconscious as a stray breeze whisks the spilled powder off the ground and shoves it straight into his nose. There's enough of it on the asphalt to take him out and then some, but it's too far from both Bastian's reach and mine. I take a deep breath and hold it, imagining the powder brushing over me and into the vampire's mouth and nose.

A beat of my heart passes. Two. Bastian says, in a strangled voice, "If you take me, maybe—"

The claws on my throat go slack, and there's athumpas the vampire holding me falls away all at once. Jerking forward, I run a few steps away then turn around to blink down at him, stunned and paralyzed on the ground.

"Wow." I glance up into Bastian's face. "Some luck we've got."

"Yeah, that's..." He frowns, brows drawing together. "I don't know how that happened."

"Let's not look a gift horse in the mouth. Come on." I grab his wrist, flushing as he startles at my touch, his amber eyes wide. Loosening my grip, I step away and murmurs, "Sorry. We should go."

"It's okay, I—yeah," he says suddenly, "let's go." A pause. "Where, though?"

"Home," I tell him simply, enjoying the taste of the word in my mouth. "I think you're gonna like it there. And if you don't, at least you'll get to leave."

He watches me, a strange expression on his face, as I lead him away from the parking lot and towards the empty space beside the road. In a low voice he murmurs, "I think I'll like it there, too."

I haven't even told him a single thing about whathomeis, in all its complicated glory. It doesn't matter, though. Reaching inward, I find my wolf waiting for me, ready to spring from my body at a moment's notice. So I flow into her form, and look to my left, where a moment later Bastian is standing in his long-legged dark brown wolf form, tan eyebrows framing strange red eyes.

Tilting my muzzle up, I scent the wind to get my bearings. Then I turn away from the highway, charting a path parallel to it but a good distance away from the cars coming down the road, one of which will have the vampire leaders inside. Bastian follows me after a moment, and together we set off, the ground rolling easily beneath our strong four feet.

It occurs to me, after a moment, that there was no breeze in the parking lot earlier. There's no breeze now, either, and there wasn't one when I blew the powder in the vampires' faces.

The only breeze that showed up tonight was the lucky one that did what I wanted.

A breeze I pictured only in my mind.

But I set the moment aside, my pulse racing, and force myself to think only about the present moment. My fur flies, my legs churn, and the earth moves beneath my quick feet.

Whatever happened back there, I can try to understand it later.

---