Page 17 of A Token of Blood and Betrayal (Kennedy Rain #4)

A traitor’s knife plunged into Jared’s back.

Blake and Nora shifted, intercepting Satine’s people, and I shoved Jared’s attacker as hard as I could.

All that did was piss the vampire off… and give Jared the half second he needed to pull the blade from his back and slash it across the woman’s throat.

I turned away as he grabbed her head and yanked it off.

I searched for some way to defend myself and spotted the mini-bar to my right.

A broken bottle wasn’t much protection, but it was something.

I scrambled that way, fully expecting Satine or one of her vampires to grab me before I grabbed the bottle.

I wrapped my hand around the neck, turned, and swung.

The bottle shattered against the skull of a vampire, slashing his face and slicing into my hand. I cursed and launched the glass remains at the vampire I’d just thoroughly pissed off. He sprang forward, his teeth aiming for my throat.

I screamed half a second before he did, but he kept screaming as I hit the floor. The impact knocked the air from my lungs, and the weight of the vampire on top of me kept me from drawing in more. He thrashed and wailed. His head clipped my chin, and a fist or an elbow cracked against my ribs.

I tried to shove him off, tried to wiggle out from beneath him, but his flailing limbs and spasms battered my body. He kept me pinned because I kept having to protect myself.

Suddenly his weight was wrenched away.

Blake. In wolf form, he took down a vampire I hadn’t seen coming, then he ripped out the throat of the one still screaming and thrashing. That’s when I realized the treaty had saved me, the treaty and then Blake.

I pushed back to my feet and stood unsteadily. The surprise attack and the massive spike of adrenaline had put me in reactionary mode. It had shut down rational thinking. I wasn’t completely unarmed. I had Christian’s bracelet tied around my wrist.

The strobe grenade was the best one to throw. It would handicap Jared along with the other vampires. Blake and Nora wouldn’t love it, but they’d shake it off fast.

I slid the marble out of its netted cage as Blake’s teeth latched onto another vampire’s throat.

He wrenched his head left, then right, then left again, ripping through cartilage and bone until Blake tore free.

The vampire remained upright another moment, long enough to see that his head was attached to the spine by the smallest amount of flesh.

I gagged. Ash replaced the body in seconds, but the image etched itself into my mind.

Blake snapped and lunged at me, clearly commanding me to get my ass out of there. I looked toward the exit. Vampires fought there as well—more must have come when they sensed the violence—but I might be able to make it. If I chose to run.

I’d be a distraction if I stayed. I knew that. I also knew I’d feel responsible if any of my friends died.

No more hesitating. I launched the marble into the stone floor. The chamber erupted in a cacophony of discordant sound and flashing lights, like a thousand cameras blinking in rapid succession, fissuring the room into a million mirrored shards.

I squeezed my eyes shut tight, trying to save my vision.

When the grenade fizzled out, I blinked the dark splotches away.

I made out Nora and Blake in the twisting blurs and shadows.

They were crouched low to the floor, but their reaction was nothing compared to the vampires’, who stumbled into walls and furniture and each other.

It might have been comical if blood and black ash hadn’t painted the chamber floor.

Another hard blink, and I found Jared. Then Satine. Both appeared to be blind and in pain, but Satine was recovering much faster than Jared.

Satine had been mini-grenaded before. Christian had shattered one when she’d ambushed us outside of Austin. The fury in her eyes when they landed on me said she remembered that moment clearly.

Between one blink and the next, Satine crossed the chamber.

I tried to run. She shoved me down, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and jerked my head sideways to expose my throat. Her fangs glistened with blood and saliva.

“Know that I could snap your neck like a twig.” Her face came closer. Her breath smelled like death. “Know that I could drain you to the brink of death. I could revive you with my blood, then do it over again.”

Panic engulfed me. I threw my left fist at her face. She knocked it aside, laughing. The next time I punched out, she gripped my wrist. Then she fastened her lips over my bleeding palm.

I screamed. I swung at her again and again. She sucked on the wound so hard it felt like the small bones in my hand shattered and broke. Blood leaked from the corners of Satine’s red lips.

My brain sloshed around in my head, the chamber spinning, a blackout threatening to take me. I kicked, tried to melt into the wall behind me. Nothing stopped her.

Something stabbed into my hip. I stopped pummeling Satine long enough to reach down and grab the—

The broken wine bottle.

I thrust the sharp glass into her stomach.

It stabbed through her dress, her flesh.

Blood soaked my fingers. I rolled away from her, choking and coughing and trying to recover.

My vision started to clear enough to see the fury in Satine’s eyes.

She jerked the glass free from her stomach, tossed it aside, and raised her fist…

Someone was going to die. I could hear it in the undertones of the argument taking place on the other side of the dark—an argument I couldn't quite follow.

I struggled to open my eyes, but that made the left side of my face throb worse than it already was.

I was bleeding, and I tasted something strange. Not something bad, just… sweet metal.

A hand clasped my shoulder. I flinched despite the gentle pressure, and my eyes shot open.

Nausea lurched through my stomach. My vision blurred and refocused, then blurred and refocused again, making everything worse.

I wanted to slip back into the black void of nothingness, but there was a face in front of me. I recognized it.

Jared. Why was he staring at me with such an intense gaze?

Motion behind him drew my attention. Blake and Nora stood facing each other, violence and magic ricocheting between them. They were in nude human form, and they were poised to kill each other.

Weird. They were like brother and sister. I had to be misinterpreting this. I needed to wake my brain up and make connections, figure out why Jared was focused on me instead of Blake and Nora. And why I was sitting on an ash-covered floor…

Jared’s hand stopped my attempt to spring to my feet. “Relax,” he commanded.

I melted back against the wall, my heart rate returning to a normal rhythm. My nausea abated as well, and I was able to draw in slow, smooth breaths.

The throbbing ache that covered the entire left side of my face didn’t fade though, and something didn’t feel right.

My gaze swept across the chamber. Christian was here. Was that new? He stood rigid, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. It felt like he was deliberately not looking at me.

Two werewolves in their animal forms were here as well.

Hood Wolf and Gray Wolf, I remembered. The only other people present were a cluster of vampires standing near the chamber’s center.

I counted eight, no, nine of them, all strangers except for one, Marco, whom I hadn’t seen since my parents missed their first Turnover.

I’d known him since I was a child, and he was the only vampire in the group who looked at me directly, giving me a small, almost invisible smile that was both an encouragement and a warning.

A warning about what?

I focused on Jared again. His hand was still on my shoulder. He’d been soothing me. He’d told me to relax… because I had been on the verge of panicking.

“Did you magic my emotions away?” I asked, curious.

One second passed, then another. He removed his hand from my shoulder. “You are okay.”

“The fuck she is.” Blake's voice cut through the air and ricocheted off the chamber’s walls.

All at once, my memories slotted back into place.

“What did you do?” I demanded with the rage that should have been in my previous question.

Jared’s jaw clenched. “I did not give you much.”

Much of his blood. That’s why I had a metallic taste in my mouth and why Nora and Blake faced off. Blake wanted to murder Jared, and Nora stood in his way, willing to kill or die to protect her husband.

My heartbeat surged back into panic mode, where it should have been this whole time.

“It was a small amount,” Jared said. “To mend your skull. Without it, months would pass before you recovered. If you recovered at all.”

“You didn’t ask.” Bracing a hand on the floor and another against the wall, I willed my shaky muscles to push me to my feet.

Then I prayed for my equilibrium to kick back in, for the room to stop spinning.

I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath, trying not to pass out, which was admittedly stupid considering I needed air to stay conscious.

Jared straightened. “You were in no condition to respond.”

Logically, that made sense, but I still felt wronged.

Add this to how casually he’d mentioned killing Garion, and I wanted to scream.

He acted as if life and death were his to dole out.

He didn’t see anything wrong in what he’d done, but I did, and I was one breath away from throwing every ounce of fury I had left straight at him.

“You must calm yourself,” Jared said.

My eyes widened. He did not just…