Page 121 of His Ruthless Match

I took a step back. The pavement tilted beneath my feet. My fingers brushed against the alley wall for balance, but even stone felt unsteady under my touch.

Jareth didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. He stepped forward, shoulders wide, legs planted, every inch the soldier.

“You picked the wrong fucking woman,” he said, voice low and deadly.

The lead vampire’s lips peeled into a too-wide smile. “We’ll see about that.”

They moved first.

No warning. No sound.

Just a blur.

The one on the left lunged for me, and for a split second, I saw fangs. Jagged and yellow, too long for a mouth that size.

I wasn’t fast enough to run from them.

Jareth slammed into him mid-air. I didn’t even see his movement. One moment he was beside me, the next he had his hands around the vampire’s throat, twisting until bone and muscle gave way with a wet, ripping snap.

The body dropped.

And then everything unraveled.

The second vampire came for me.

He was smaller and quicker. He darted past the fight like smoke, fingers outstretched, nails curled into claws. I stumbled back with a strangled gasp, reaching blindly behind me for anything to use—brick, pipe, hell, even a trash lid—but there was nothing.

Just the cold certainty that I wasn’t getting away.

His hand closed around my wrist.

I screamed.

The sound barely left my throat before Jareth barreled into us, shifting mid-leap in a ripple of shadow and muscle. One second, man. The next, a sleek black cougar, eyes glowing like embers, tore the vampire off me.

Blood sprayed across my jacket as he sank his jaws into the creature’s chest. I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t breathe. The sound of crunching bone and wet snarls filled the alley like something out of a nightmare.

He didn’t stop until the body stopped twitching.

My back hit the wall. I slid down, knees giving out as I panted for air. My wrist throbbed where the vampire had grabbed me. Hot, sharp pain spread like fire under my skin. I looked down.

Blood.

My blood.

The third vampire hesitated.

He’d seen the others die. He should’ve run. I think he wanted to. But his eyes flicked to me, and he made the wrong call.

He lunged.

I braced myself. Tried to duck. But I was too slow. Too human. He was so fast. Faster than Jareth, but not as lethal. He was almost on me. Too fast, too close. I scrambled, legs useless beneath me, hands sliding on the dirty pavement as I tried to crawl away, but he was already towering over me, eyes glowing like coals in a skull too tight with hunger.

He grabbed my shoulder.

I screamed and kicked, but he was inhumanly strong, and then his knee was pressing into my thigh, pinning me in place as he leaned in.

I could smell him.