Page 25 of Prince with a Chance of Darkness (Grimm Cove #7)

Chapter Twenty-Five

Mina

I ran through the campus, heart in my throat, boots hitting the pavement so hard I felt it in my spine. Bram and Jonathan were right behind me, with Henry and Dave somewhere in the mix.

There was a butt ton more Van Helsings rushing through the campus with us, with more seeming to arrive along the way. Students scattered in every direction, their screams carrying on the night air.

I came to a fast stop as my slayer alarm bells went off. I’d spent eighteen years baking cookies for bake sales and volunteering at the girls’ school, not hunting demons, but in that moment, it felt as if I’d never left the calling. I knew I could kill a demon with ease, out of practice or not. I could do anything to protect my daughter and my niece.

"Temperance!" I shouted, scanning the crowd. I tried her cell again. The call went straight to her voicemail for the tenth time. She hadn’t answered any of my texts on the way over either.

Bram came to a stop beside me. “My men have found something! Come!”

I didn’t waste any time asking for more information. I ran alongside him.

Jonathan leaped over a stone bench in the quad and landed crouched, his eyes bright, his expression wild. He looked like the predator I knew he could be.

Good.

We needed that.

“Why would Dracula hurt the girls?” I asked as we ran. I was thankful I at least kept up on daily running over the years, or I’d have been huffing and puffing like a lifelong smoker climbing Mount Everest.

Bram stopped so fast that I nearly collided with him. He grabbed my arm, his gaze narrowing on the darkness off to the side of campus. A second later, robed monks came rushing out and at us. Some students in the area began to scream as some monks were holding daggers and swords.

From the lack of full-on pandemonium, I figured most of the students assumed this was a college prank.

Bram drew his shoulders back and lifted his arms. “Run!”

I felt the power in his command. Had I not been a natural-born slayer with a lot of vampire traits, I’d have probably felt compelled to obey. The students scattered like roaches when a light came on.

Suddenly, the air around us felt wrong.

Wild and unstable.

Exactly like that night eighteen years ago.

Fear slammed through me. What if there was another white light incident? What if it happened and my daughter was whisked off to another state, never able to get close to me again for the next two decades? What if all of the things that attacked the Gallows Lane home all those years ago had returned, and right now, my baby girl was trying to fight them off?

Jonathan was to me in an instant, grabbing my elbow and leading me in the direction of the Gallows Lane home.

We ran, not bothering to hide the fact we were more than human, as noted by the speeds we were able to achieve. None of us cared. Our only concern was for the girls. We were almost to the house when I saw vampires coming in at us from all angles and wolf shifters attacking them head-on.

While I'd only been back in Grimm Cove two weeks and didn't go running nightly in wolf form with my sister and her mate (for obvious reasons), I recognized a few of the shifters. They were Harkers’ wolves.

Thank God!

Not that I needed to worry about it since three men jumped in to save me as if I wasn’t born a slayer. I jumped over the man who had tackled the vampire and kept running toward the Gallows Lane home. Jonathan remained by my side.

In the street, in front of the home, was a mass of robed men, vampires, and cat-shifters of all things. My throat constricted as fear for my daughter and niece consumed me.

Jonathan’s upper body began to shift, and he was left covered in gray fur with more mass to him. He jumped into the air, and when he came down, he beheaded two robed men. One of the men had been carrying daggers. I grabbed them from the ground and rolled over the back of another, slashing out and stopping a vampire in its tracks. It gave me a confused look before I thrust a dagger into its heart.

Poof.

It was no more.

There was a massive growl a second before a huge tiger came jumping out of nowhere at me. I went low, intending to gut it from below. There was a flash of blonde curls, and the tiger was suddenly on its side with a petite woman in a long blue gown sitting on it. Her hand was covered in blood, and it took my head a second to realize she was holding a heart, drinking from the valve as if it were a straw. She smiled up at me, and I spotted fangs. They were pinkish from blood. “Hello.”

I blinked; sure I was seeing things. When I realized I knew her, I gasped. She was one of The Weird Sisters. The one who had covered Lucian’s junk from our view when he’d been naked outside of the cave in Romania twenty-two years ago.

She held the heart out to me as it dripped blood. “Want a sip?”

I shook my head.

She glanced around as if she were afraid of being caught before using her free hand to reach down the top of her gown, between her breasts. She pulled what looked like a juice box straw from the area. She held it out to me next. “Here. You can use this.”

A vampire rose up behind her, and I threw a dagger at it, scoring a chest hit. Dust rained down on the blonde. She closed her eyes, kicked her feet and giggled, sipping from the heart. “This is so much fun. I’ve missed you, Mina.”

I didn’t have time to figure out if she was truly a friend or just bat crap crazy.

She began to sing softly, and I stiffened, recognizing her voice then.

“You were there. Eighteen years ago,” I said fast. “When I was with…”

“Tempi!” screamed Hannah.

I was running in that direction in the blink of an eye, desperate to reach the girls. The crazy blonde vampire followed, bringing her on-the-go-heart-drink.

I ducked and weaved, dodging strikes by too many things to count. When I reached an opening, I found Hannah being yanked in one direction by two robed men, and Temperance at the mercy of three cat-shifters who had her cornered near a tree.

Suddenly, a huge black wolf was leaping up and over my head. It landed by Hannah and grabbed a robed man by his arm, ripping the appendage off before spitting it aside and going at the other man.

I went right for Temperance and the cat shifters. “Get the fuck away from her!”

Their attention came to me.

Good.

One of them charged me at the same time Temperance looked past me, her eyes widening.

“Look out!” she screamed.

The blonde vampire handled the attacking tiger. She was left with a heart in both hands. She began taking turns drinking from both.

“Yummy,” she said.

Something snatched hold of me from behind, and I was instantly taken back mentally to eighteen years ago when the demon had grabbed me in the house and choked me until I passed out.

I’d been in better fighting shape back then and still couldn’t beat it. But back then, I was lacking one thing—a daughter. I was a mother now, and nothing was going to keep me from protecting my daughter or my niece.

I broke the hold of whatever had me and twisted.

A tall man with dark hair and green eyes was there. He was beautiful, yet there was something dark about him—something that said he was evil to the core. Strangely, he made me think of Drac instantly. He looked a lot like him.

He grinned, showing fangs as he looked me up and down. “You are what all the fuss has been over?”

His voice was nearly identical to Drac’s. Any hope I had that he was in the area vanished. It had probably been this asshole I’d heard. Not him.

He tried to grab me, but I deflected his hand.

Surprise showed on his face. His attention went past me to my daughter. “Uh-oh, it would appear your offspring is in something of a predicament. Hurry. And be sure to tell Vlad there is no place on this earth he can hide you or her that I will not find. Fratele meu, dragonul. ”

Ignoring him, I spun and went for my daughter. The crazy blonde woman was already there, killing two vampires who had been close to her.

Temperance was backing away from the two remaining tigers who were herding her from the tree area toward the woods near the house.

Robed men came rushing from the woods and grabbed for her.

I tried to get to her but couldn’t. Not with the number of things filling the gap between us.

There was a flapping noise, and then suddenly, what seemed like a hundred or more bats came flying by me. They went at Temperance, and I readied my remaining dagger to throw at them if need be. They converged near her, taking the form of a tall man.

At first, I thought it was the asshole who had told me to give some other guy a message, while also threatening me. Then, the man turned and ripped a tiger-shifter in half—literally. I saw his profile and sucked in a big breath.

It was him!

It was Drac.

He roared and went at the other tiger while I stood there, too stunned to move. He killed the threat and went right for Temperance. “Are you injured?”

She shook her head.

“Good,” he said. A second later, the blonde vampire was near him. He looked down at her. “Teya, guard her. Do not leave her side.”

The blonde vampire inclined her head, sipping from a heart. “Yes, Master.”

Master?

“No fucking way,” I whispered, the pieces starting to fall into place. I thought back to the moment he’d told me his name all those years ago. I’d thought he was joking. That he was playing a part. Turns out he was the real deal.

“Dracula?” I asked, my voice barely there.

He stiffened and then turned slowly, looking across the chaos at me. His green gaze widened. “Mina?”