Love at First Bite by Susan Squires Page B

firmly over whatever he would have said. She took her place beside him.
    He looked down at her with such love in his eyes that the thing inside her welled up and shouted gladness. Life seemed to hum in her veins. But there was no time to tell him. Movement made her glance out at their enemies. The wall of red eyes ahead advanced. Who were these men? Why were they here? Only what they wanted was plain. They wanted the four before them dead. Fedeyah and Rufford spread out to give themselves room to swing their swords.
    "Decapitation is the only way," Davie whispered, his eyes hard. "It's difficult. Aim for the neck. I'll finish them."
    Emma swallowed. Killing people? Had she thought this through? Even such creatures as these? But what choice was there?
    At that moment, a heavy man in the center let out a piercing ululation, and the line broke into a melee of bodies as they charged forward. This was it, the doomed last stand against chaos.
    Emma hefted the sword with both hands. Davie stepped in front of her, slashing. A body launched itself into the air from the side.
    Emma held her sword out, frightened. The body was impaled upon it, wrenching it from her grip. She shrieked in horror. But then the creature stood. He slashed at her. A cut opened on her shoulder. She gripped the hilt of her sword where it protruded from the creature's breast and pulled. Davie slashed at the vampire's neck. She didn't think anything happened, but the creature fell back. She pulled her sword back with both hands and slashed at the neck of an oncoming boy, even as horror shrieked inside her. The blade thunked against something. A horrible cut opened up, but the boy raised his sword. Davie cut at three others now descending. Shadows cascaded behind them. There were too many. Rufford fought like a slashing demon. Too many!
    In the center of the melee, whirling darkness spread, obscuring even the closest of figures. Emma just pushed the young boy vampire with the glowing eyes and blood spurting from the cut she'd made back into the crowd. The darkness was everywhere, in among them. Had she not seen that strange kind of darkness before? A cutlass found Davie, and another vampire was twisting Davie's head. Emma slashed at those arms furiously. The attacker fell away, howling. A hand grasped her shoulder. She turned.
    Another young man hardly out of his teens hissed at her, brandishing a knife. She pulled away.
    Time slowed as combatants on both sides took in a new reality. The darkness was seeping into the earth, it seemed. And taking its place, standing among the attackers, still like statues, were perhaps twenty men and women, some dressed as monks, some in rich garb from many nations. The stillness lasted but a moment. They began to move almost faster than the eye could comprehend, rending, slashing at the hordes. And their eyes glowed red.
    "How did you hold out?" a tall man with luxuriant mustachios asked. Emma sat in a corner just behind Ian Rufford, hoping not to be noticed. The power careening around the room was intimidating. Energy vibrated in different notes and tones. Davie had taken several of the newcomers upstairs to bathe and dress, but perhaps fifteen of the victorious were arrayed around the grand dining room in various states of dishevelment. Wounds were healed and now a cold collation and the hotel cellar's finest vintages were being consumed with relish by monks and noblemen alike. "Must have been the blood of the Old One that runs in your veins."
    "We would not have held through tonight if you had not come." Rufford frowned into the dregs at the bottom of his glass.
    Emma recognized the stunning woman with hair like banked coals who poured Rufford another glass of wine. Beatrix Lisse, Countess of Lente and toast of London's male society. It was disconcerting, no, stunning to discover that she had been vampire all along.
    "Why so anxious, Rufford?" the Countess asked. "Asharti's army is broken."
    "Here," he growled. "But there is