Page 47 of Taming the Beasts (Crooked Point #3)

“You need to take Zoey and Emma to the bank.” Bennett pulled out his keys and held them out to Callum.

“I can’t be alone with them,” Callum said through gritted teeth.

His eyes were as black as night now. He was perfectly still. Like he was worried if he moved he’d kill one of us.

Bennett cursed under his breath and handed me the keys. “Zoey, I need you and Emma to go to the bank.”

I shook my head. How was Bennett so calm right now? I didn’t care if werecats were put on this earth to protect humans from vampires. They were too outnumbered!

“Baby, listen to me. You need to get to the bank and lock yourself into a vault.”

How?

“Not so fast,” Elias said. He grabbed Bennett by the arm and shoved him off of me.

My heart started pounding even faster and Elias smiled, his eyes falling to my neck. “I’ve been looking for you, Zoey. You smell even sweeter than I imagined.”

Bennett shoved him away from me.

Elias laughed and turned to him. “Who the hell are you?”

“Her boyfriend.”

Elias laughed again. “I don’t think so. Zoey is coming with me.”

WHAT?!

Elias reached out to grab my arm.

“Run, Zoey!” Bennett yelled as he lunged toward Elias, shifting mid-air. He knocked Elias down onto the ground as his back arched. A guttural groan escaped him as he shifted. And then he was in his new form. I was cornered at the gazebo.

Spittle flew out of Bennett’s mouth as he growled down at Elias.

But Elias was able to shove him off and roll out of the way.

Callum hadn’t been joking when he said that vampires were strong.

Bennett jumped on top of Elias again.

More growls erupted as the rest of my boyfriends shifted, unleashing their fury on the vampires. The beautiful white chairs were covered in blood. People were lying motionless on the ground. More people were hunched over chairs, screaming in agony as they changed into monsters.

Callum turned toward us. And he didn’t look like himself at all. It looked like he was seconds away from lunging on top of me and ripping out my throat.

“Run,” he said.

He didn’t need to tell me again.

Emma grabbed my hand and pulled me back onto the gazebo.

“There’s nowhere to go!” I yelled.

Emma climbed up on the side of the railing and jumped out the back of it.

Okay, fine. There was somewhere to go. I climbed up after her and jumped down into one of the bushes. I tried to ignore the sting on my legs where the branches were cutting me. I pushed myself out of the bush and started to run.

“Help!” Emma yelled .

I turned around. Her long bow had gotten caught in the bush she’d jumped into. Shit. I ran back and tried to help. But the more I pulled, the more tangled it got.

A high-pitched scream made me lift my head.

I watched as Kebe tripped out of the aisle she’d been sitting in. Grudge was walking toward her, a menacing look on his face.

“Stop!” she yelled.

But Grudge grabbed her arm.

“Stop it! I made you!”

Grudge ignored her as he pulled her closer, lowering his face to the side of her neck. It looked like he was just about to take a bite when one of my werecat boyfriends took a swipe at Grudge’s leg.

Grudge fell to the ground and screamed in pain.

No. But I only had a second to feel bad for Grudge, because he turned and tackled my boyfriend to the ground.

Fuck.

Another vampire tried to get to Kebe. I was pretty sure it was either Huxley or Ace that stopped the guy this time.

Because he looked almost identical to the werecat that had stopped the first attacker.

He snarled and scared a few more vampires away.

But then two vampires lunged at him at the same time, knocking him onto his side.

Titan growled at the top of his lungs and ran toward Huxley and Ace. I knew it was him because he was the biggest and most ferocious of the five.

Blood splattered across the side of my face as a Ray bit into a wedding guest just a few feet away.

“Zoey, help me!” Emma shrieked .

The bow was attached to her dress. I tried to tug it off, but I couldn’t figure out how to remove it or how to get her untangled.

Screw it. “We’re losing the dress.” I unzipped the back of her dress as I kicked off my shoes. We were getting the hell out of here.

Emma cursed under her breath as she fell out of the bushes in just her lingerie. She kicked off her shoes too.

More blood splattered this way, hitting Emma this time. I was glad she didn’t scream. It would have just made Ray aware of us.

I stared at the unfortunate person that had tried to run past Ray next. Luckily Ray was currently satisfied with his new victim. I didn’t think that was how you changed someone into a vampire. There was no way that guy was living through veins in his neck being pulled out of his flesh.

It looked like Emma was about to say something, so I slapped my hand over her mouth. I put my finger to my lips and shook my head.

She nodded.

If we were going to live, we needed to be quiet and somehow sneak out of here unnoticed.

I dropped my hand from her mouth and grabbed her hand.

We both started running as fast as we could.

At first it was nothing but soft grass under our bare feet.

But then we reached the trees and our feet started crunching on the fall leaves.

I turned to look over my shoulder. I didn’t see anyone following us. But I did see Titan on his hind legs, trying to swat away vampires. He fell backward.

Emma squeezed my hand, pulling my attention back to our escape .

I cringed at the crunchy leaves. But we somehow made it out of the town square unscathed. Main Street was completely deserted since we’d invited everyone to the wedding. And the screams of agony behind us made it seem like we were in the maze at the Fall Festival all over again.

Two people had died in that maze.

The death count here seemed significantly higher. Unless the whole town was slowly changing into vampires. I honestly wasn’t sure what was worse. I think I was feeling lightheaded from the sight of all that blood.

“I knew Kebe was a lying whore,” Emma said.

She didn’t usually use such foul language. And for some reason I laughed. Once I started, I couldn’t seem to stop. I kept laughing all the way up the bank steps.

“How are you laughing?! Everyone invited to my wedding is either dead or a vampire!”

“I don’t know!” I kept laughing. “At least the blood didn’t stain your lingerie.”

She looked down at the splattering of blood on the tops of her breasts that matched her red lingerie.

“You’re acting hysterical, Zoey.”

I kept laughing.

She slapped me hard across the face.

And that snapped me out of it. My laughter quickly morphed into sobs as I pulled out Bennett’s keys.

“I’m sorry,” Emma said. “I was just trying to help.”

There was no helping. I pictured Otto being attacked by all those vampires. And Bennett fighting with Elias. My boyfriends were completely outnumbered.

My hands were shaking so badly that I dropped the keys.

“Oh fuck,” Emma said .

“It’s fine, I’ve got this,” I said through my tears. I grabbed the keys off the ground.

“I’m not talking about the keys!” Emma pointed back toward Main Street.

Where Kebe was running toward us.