GABRIEL

Well, we’d had a good run.

Now the shit was about to hit the fan.

I nodded at Mikah, who nodded back and braced himself for a fight. His muscles flexed under his shirt, and I had to tear my eyes away from him to watch the door. Now was not the time for confused arousal.

The door swung open to reveal two demons dragging the screaming human woman inside the room. They threw her on the ground in front of us and stopped short, obviously not expecting to see a werewolf and a vampire in the room where they detained all their enchanted humans until…well, whatever the hell they did with them.

The demons’ eyes widened, and my lips tugged up into a wolfish grin.

Time to kick some demon ass.

My fingertips shifted into razor-sharp claws, and I pounced on the demon nearest me. No sense in giving them time to ask questions or call for backup. Utilizing the element of surprise was one of my favorite fighting tactics for a reason. Putting your enemy on the defensive, forcing them to be reactive, tended to skew the fight in your favor, and it never failed to put me at least one step ahead of whatever monster crossed my path.

I slammed the first demon to charge at me into the floor and pinned him with one claw-tipped hand against his chest. I drew my other hand back, razor-sharp claws gleaming, ready to rip out his throat. The demon’s leg shot upward and wrapped around my neck before yanking me down to the side with surprising strength, and we wrestled on the ground until he pinned me beneath his heavy weight.

What the hell? I had no idea I was fighting Black Widow.

The demon raised a knife with both arms and lurched forward to plunge it into my chest. I caught his arms just in time to avoid being gutted, my claws shredding into his forearms. He screamed as blood rushed down my hands and arms in rivulets, and I took the opportunity to throw him off of me.

Nearby, I heard Mikah fighting with the other demon, but I couldn’t look away from my own target to determine who was winning. Per-fucking-usual, the humans in the room were zero help at all. The demon with whom I’d just dealt gathered his strength and geared up to have another go with me. His forearms looked like ground beef, but he lunged at me anyway, snarling.

I jumped out of the way to avoid being tackled by the pissed off monster, but he clipped my side and we fell back onto the floor in a tangle of limbs, grappling for dominance. He pinned me beneath him again, and white-hot pain lanced up my face. The demon pulled his fist back to punch me, but this time I was ready.

His fist made contact with my face again, but I was prepared for the heat that rushed up the opposite side of my face. The demon, on the other hand, was not prepared for my razor-sharp claws slicing into his stomach like a hot knife through butter.

The demon let out a shocked croak, and all the color left his face. I twisted my wrist, severing his insides, and watched the lights go out of his eyes. He slumped onto me, bleeding profusely from the fist-shaped hole I’d punched into his guts, and I shoved him off of me and onto the floor before wiping my bloodied hand on his shirt.

I stood up, a little worse for wear, but generally unharmed, and turned to help Mikah. He had his demon in a chokehold, and once the demon passed out from a lack of oxygen, Mikah let the monster slump to the floor, unconscious.

He did a double-take when he saw me, half-covered in demon blood, and then looked at the corpse on the floor. “Seriously?” he muttered, shaking his head.

I frowned. “What?” Why was he looking at me like I’d just kicked a puppy?

“Did you really have to kill him?” he asked.

“Um, obviously. Only one of us was going to live, and it was either him or me. I chose me.”

“Except it obviously wasn’t him or you.” Mikah gestured to the unconscious demon at his feet, and then back at the roadkill I’d left on the floor. “You didn’t have to eviscerate the guy to disarm him.”

I rolled my eyes. Of all the vampires in all the world, I wondered how I managed to get stuck with a demon rights crusader. “There was a job to do and an obstacle in the way and—” I took a breath. “You know what? This isn’t the time to get into life and death semantics.”

I headed toward the door. “We need to find the offices or owner of this place.”

Mikah didn’t budge. “No, we have to check on the humans first.”

“Why?”

He shook his head again. “You really don’t get it, do you? We have to make sure they’re okay.” He turned to the group of humans clustered on the other side of the room and headed over there without another word.

“After you, Mother Teresa,” I muttered.

As soon as we reached the group of humans, I had to concede that checking on them wasn’t the worst idea in the world, because they all looked like they were about to lose their collective shit.

“Where am I?” one of them gasped.

“What’s going on?” another asked, looking around with wide, tearful eyes. Her eyes landed on Mikah and I, and she stumbled back with a little scream.

“Uh, Mikah, what’s going on?” I asked.

He surveyed the group. “They were probably under an enthrallment spell that was linked to the demons. Knocking them unconscious probably broke the trance.”

The woman who’d been dragged in by the two demons stared at me, her face ashen. “Did you just kill that guy?!”

“What answer would make you feel more comfortable?” I snapped. “He’s napping?”

She shrank back, and the rest of the humans started chattering in panic. I rolled my eyes and glanced at Mikah. “Think you can use your powers to get them to shut the hell up?”

He ignored me and stepped forward, approaching the group. “Everything is fine! We’re here to help you all get out of here. Everything will be just fine,” he assured them, his voice low and soothing. I’d never heard him sound like that before.

I followed behind him and whispered, “Exactly how do you think we’re going to get out of a frigging Fae club with a pack of humans—without anyone noticing?”

“I’m improvising,” he whispered back. “Let’s just make sure they all stay calm. We don’t need a bunch of hysterical humans getting in the way.”

The woman who had been so upset about my murdering her abductor rushed up toward us. “What’s going on here? Really? Tell me the truth.”

Mikah reached out and gently put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to need you to calm down. Everything is under control.”

“Can’t you just magic her into forgetting all of this?” I murmured.

He shook his head. “Not if you want me conscious.”

She looked between us, her eyes wide, looking more confused now than afraid.

I rolled my eyes again. This was the last thing we needed. Getting Xavier and the gang in here and through the portal was going to be hard enough. Now we had a herd of panicking humans to rescue, too?

“What’s your name?” Mikah asked the woman.

“Tabitha.”

“Okay, Tabitha. We’re getting you out of here. Trust us.”

I fought the urge to snicker. A vampire asking its food to trust it. Not that I was a safe addition. Werewolves and humans didn’t have the friendliest history, either. Cali sprang suddenly to mind. Well, there always had to be one exception to every rule.

Mikah turned to the group of terrified humans. “Everyone stay here. Since we took care of the guards, no one should come back here to bother you for a while.”

“Yeah, try not to go freaking hysterical,” I added. Mikah glared at me, and I shot him an unrepentant smirk.

The humans were hardly placated with this response. “How did we even get here, and why are there guards? Who are you guys?” The questions continued.

I sighed. This was such a huge waste of time.

“The only thing you need to know is that we are going to get you out of here,” Mikah explained, backing away from the group. They would have kept us there all night if we didn’t put a pin in this.

We quickly made our escape, shutting the door to the waiting room behind us and continuing down the hallway. This was already getting so much more complicated than I’d anticipated. I turned to Mikah, “Why the fuck would you think to promise a bunch of humans that we’d rescue them? Are you crazy? The second they show their faces outside, every demon and Fae in this joint is going to recognize the humans they put in cold storage.”

Mikah spun on me just as fast, his teeth flashing. “Not all of us are mercenaries! I don’t let innocents get hurt just because they’re humans. Their lives are not worth less than ours, and the second we start thinking that, we become no better than the monsters we hunt.”

Christ, this goody-goody vamp was going to get us both killed.

“Still going on about being the one pure vampire in the world? Like it or not, whether you’re a werewolf or a vampire, on some level, you’re a killer—just like me,” I said.

“What the hell do you mean—werewolf or vampire?” Came the distinctly urgent, panicked, human voice behind us.