Page 55 of Taming His Vampire Mate

The other three feral vampires ignored us, going straight for the bedroom windows at the back of the house—right for the male nurse and his patient, too sick to move. They were on the other side of a thin pane of easily broken glass.

I took care of all three in rapid-fire succession, snapping their necks before they could crash through. It wouldn’t kill them, but it would keep them unconscious until they healed.

I turned back to Jeremy and Quinn, forcing myself to look.

Jeremy stood, hands no longer claws. Quinn lay unconscious at his feet.

My lips parted in surprise.

“I saw how you were looking at him,” Jeremy said softly. Then he smiled. “If you need a trial run, he’s as good a candidate as any. We’ll take him back to Seattle with us.”

My words came out thicker than they should have. “We?”

Jeremy grinned, eyes sparkling, mischievous and handsome in the moonlight—impossible to refuse. “Yeah.We.”

I stared, a hot lump in my throat, frozen in place, too stunned to speak or move.

And that’s why I didn’t react immediately when another vampire in oil-stained overalls charged around the house and leapt onto Jeremy’s back, riding him to the ground.

I started toward him, but I wasn’t nearly fast enough.

The vampire ripped my wolf’s throat out with his teeth.

My mind short-circuited as the smell of blood filled the air, sending the feral newborn vampires on the other side of the fence into a slavering frenzy.

Overalls went for Jeremy again, lips glistening red in the moonlight.

I tore him off my mate with enough force to dislocate his shoulder.

The vampire howled in fury.

In a haze of white-hot rage, I grabbed him by the throat one-handed and squeezed until bone broke.

I dropped the unconscious body and fell to my knees beside Jeremy.

The wound on his neck was bad. Even with his rapid healing, he was losing blood too quickly. His skin had already turned chalky. His breath sounded like a shovel of mud on his grave.

“You idiot!” I snarled, tears burning my eyes, my voice a harsh croak. My fangs dropped and, without even thinking, I bit down. Pain flared. I ignored it. What mattered was breaking skin so black blood could well up. If Jeremy were human, my blood would heal him.

I had no idea what it would do to a wolf. But I had no choice. His carotid had been punctured. Without my help, he wasn’t going to heal in time.

Even moving at vampire speed, I still felt nightmarishly slow.

Jeremy was about to die.

I pressed my wrist to his lips.

He turned his head, eyes widening in alarm. He coughed. “I don’t want to be a vampire.”

“Jeremy, youass!” I rasped, my voice like broken glass. “Drink the damn blood before Imurderyou!”

He let out something almost like a chuckle, but faint enough I might have imagined it. He didn’t fight me when I pressed my wrist back to his lips. For a horrible moment, I thought it was because he couldn’t. His heart slowed to a dull thud—one of the most awful sounds I’d heard in eight centuries.

Then, right before he passed out, he swallowed.

* * *

Jeremy woke four hours later, a trace of my blood still on his lips. Morning sunlight streamed through the bedroom windows. Backup had arrived just after sunrise. Outside the bedroom, I could hear witches and vampires planning how to proceed with Rookwood.