Keystone (Crossbreed #1)(68)
I jerked the doorknob and slammed the door.
Why did seeing him with another woman have an effect on me? A sickly mixture of desire and hatred. Christian was worlds apart from the kind of man I found attractive—not only physically, but also personality-wise. The things he said when he opened his mouth should have instantly turned me off, but I found myself even more curious about him. In many ways, he was like every other Vampire I’d staked. But he’d also carried me to his car and covered me with his jacket. Ripping his shirt to make a tourniquet had been necessary to stop the bleeding, but why had he taken the extra measure to keep me warm? He’d also carried me to his bed but made no sexual advances even though I was drenched in blood like some kind of Popsicle stick for Vampires. Maybe I was more curious to know if he really hated me as much as he professed.
The sooner I forgot about him, the better.
I made a beeline for the front exit, passing by a table of men on the right who caught my attention. I was the kind of girl who noticed things—especially someone watching my every move.
It was Cyrus, the man who’d attacked Niko and me in the alley with his goons. He raised his glass and gave me a sardonic smile. When I glowered at him, his table erupted with laughter and he took a slow sip, resuming conversation as if I were inconsequential.
Outside, the streetlight cast a spell on the falling mist, the ethereal glow giving the appearance of a thin veil between two worlds. I pulled my hood over my head and circled around the right side of the building where I’d hidden my duffel bag in the alley. It took more than rejection to kill my spirit, but it was wounded. What did it take to get a leg up in life? The more I thought about my situation, the angrier I got.
“Let me go!” a young man shrieked.
I heard the familiar sound of physical blows—a skirmish up ahead. As I drew closer to the Dumpster, my heart thumped wildly. A bald-headed guy with rolls of skin behind his neck was straddling a man who might have been my age. With immortals, you could never tell. I didn’t look over twenty-five, and that was the age I’d forever remain even when I was three thousand. Sometimes you could sense a person’s true age in their eyes, and other times it had to do with how submissive and fearful they were in dangerous situations. This kid was new, and I picked up on his Mage energy. He was flaring, perhaps hoping that would lead someone to help him.
All it would do was attract the wrong kind of attention in a dark alley.
Like the juicer on top of him, gripping his hands and drawing out his energy for a high.
The young man’s head bobbed in my direction, his eyes glazed over, his nose a bloody mess.
Something came over me like I’d never felt before, even when taking out a lowlife. I felt rage.
Pure. Raw. Rage.
As I stood witness to the evil that thrived in our world, I wanted to kill every corrupt Breed in Cognito.
I wanted to be the Shadow for real.
Chapter 20
As I approached the two men, I drew my push dagger and then sliced it across the juicer’s back. “Get up, you filthy bastard.”
He roared and launched to his feet, raking me over with his heavy-lidded eyes.
Men like him deserved to die—deserved to suffer as their victims had. Why had I wasted time with only the most nefarious men when corruption came in lesser degrees? These men should be stamped out before they hurt more innocents.
He was high on Mage light, and that made him especially dangerous. I’d never been a fighter; I just knew how to move fast and get the job done. Still, the possibility of failure hovered as I took note of the openness of the alley, shifting my stance in search of a good angle so the Mage wouldn’t flash out of my grasp.
Which he did.
The juicer flashed beside me and put me in a headlock, seizing my wrist with his other hand. He squeezed until a sharp pain radiated through the bones in my wrist, but I refused to drop my dagger. I adjusted my grip on the handle and then rotated my hand in a circle until the blade slashed his arm. With nothing to stanch the bleeding, rivulets of blood ran down his arm, causing him to loosen his bruising grip on my wrist. I bit into his other arm and stomped my foot, seeking his instep with the heel of my boot in hopes he’d let go of my neck.
Tiny pinpoints of light flashed around me like pulsing stars.
We struggled, and when my blade pierced through his fleshy thigh, he let go. I staggered forward—gasping for air—and just as I pivoted on my heel, he struck me in the face with a closed fist.
Blood filled my mouth, the metallic taste triggering my fangs to descend. I quickly concealed them, relying on the element of surprise when he got close enough. All I could do was stand my ground and wait for him to advance.
The juicer paced around me with cool confidence despite a slight limp from the deep puncture wound on his right thigh. He reminded me of a cowboy getting ready for a gunfight.
“You’re not exactly seasoned,” he said. “Didn’t your Creator teach you how to defend yourself?”
I wasn’t concealing my energy, so he knew what I was.
Or thought he knew.
He flicked a glance at my dagger, and I tightened my grip on the T-shaped handle, keeping it close to my body. When he flashed at me the second time, I spun around—anticipating his attack from behind—and sank the blade into his chest. It wasn’t a stunner, so it wouldn’t paralyze him, but it would be painful enough to slow him down. Or so I thought. He pulled out the blade and tossed it across the alley, then gripped my neck with both hands.