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I didn’t want to acknowledge the race in my pulse, or how the grief-stricken window into his past had upset me more than I thought it would. Or how I desperately wanted to show him he could still love and care about people and it would never be a waste. Loving someone would never be a waste.

But maybe that was the self-centered teen in me.

I couldn’t pretend to know what he’d seen or gone through. As I stewed in my own thoughts, I realized how outright impertinent and immature I sounded.

Shit.

My phone dinged and I removed it from my pocket, not immediately recognizing the number.

It simply read:“I need to talk to you.”

Confused, I texted back asking who it was.

Phillip panned the area, scratching along his chin for a moment. His eyes were razor sharp, and I nearly missed the follow-up ding to another text. I looked down at my phone screen, barely hearing the uptick of chatter around me.

“It’s Nigel.”

My mouth opened in flabbergasted surprise, ready to tell Phillip he was wrong about Nigel, but shrill screams rang out into the night and the crowd scattered. My phone was instantly in my pocket and I stiffened next to the other vampire hunter, already hyperaware of our surroundings.

A woman’s lifeless body was laid out over the pavement, torn at the waist and chest. Blood pooled underneath her, and it was clear whatever got to her wasn’t human. The long cuts across her chest looked beast-like.

A Shifter?

In unison, we hurried through the crowd over to the body, and the scent of blood infiltrated my nose. I could track whatever it was from here. My guess was it likely fled nearby and took advantage of the chaos.

“Stay close,” Phillip instructed.

We flitted so fast that no human could see us. Our speed took us right to the thing, already onto its next frightened meal. It reacted by tossing the poor dude, already dead, onto the floor. Then it sprung out at Phillip and became a blur in my vision.

The speed wasn’t vampire. It wasn’t even Shifter. This was something else entirely.

Its beaming red eyes, fanged mouth, and tar-black skin were the things of nightmares. Almost like an illusion, not fully solid and made entirely of translucent black mist, it moved between us. Both of us were forced to fight defensively, taking turns to evade its slashing strikes.

When it caught my shoulder with sharp nails, it was pure agony. For as long as it took for my skin to instantly mend, I was tortured by a pain no memory came close to.

“You okay?” my companion asked while fending off another attack. “Its claws are poison to our blood.”

“No kidding,” I remarked breathlessly. “Fucking hurts.”

“It’s not pleasant, no,” he said, laughing in spite of our current situation.

The Austrian’s pale eyes tracked the beast as it crouched low in a corner to prepare for another attack. Then his response was instantaneous. Without hesitation, Phillip grabbed me around the waist just in time to evade another clawed hand. Thankfully, the swift action of the other Hunter snapped out of the daze I’d been put into with the pain and unknown enemy.

Now wasn’t the time to get lost to questions.

“Just for future reference, getting decapitated is almost a sure-fire way to end your life. Remember that.” His serious voice tickled my side. “Not even you and I can survive an injury like that. You know, no genes for re-growing heads exist. Well, none to my knowledge.”

“What the actual fuck, Phil?!”

“No time,” he said, pulling his claymore out of its sheathe. “I’ll explain everything later.”

His sword swung out, and the beast effortlessly blocked the blade’s path with a shadow-blade it had somehow manifested out of nothing. But the weapon, though appearing more like mist, acted solid when hit.

It wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen.

But my Hunter training kicked in. I could ask questions later. Assuming first that we survived the encounter.

Getting my head back into the game, I wielded a long dagger in both hands and went after the creature with all my years of practiced training.