Page 131 of Vampire Kings Box Set

“Maddox!” Will arrived about ten minutes after Maddox and Lorien. Unlike those who traveled in a vehicle, he had not had to stop for any traffic lights or slow down for any people crawling down the street looking for particular addresses. He arrived in naked human form, dashing across the well-manicured back lawn. “Henry and his men are…”

He didn’t finish the sentence before they arrived. Also naked.

“We’ll take him,” Henry said, looming out of the darkness.

“You most certainly will not,” Maddox said. “Get out. Now. Before you are seen. Will, you too. All of you, get out. Captain Candy does not need five naked men in her yard.”

“We’ll leave once Ivan is dead,” Dante chimed in.

“Get out this instant,” Maddox hissed.

The wolves were insistent. Ivan was unable to move enough to save himself. Lora was looking from the chaos in her back garden to the house where Chuck could be seen through the windows watching sports. She was very much on edge.

“I’m not going,” Henry insisted.

Maddox’s eyes became truly cold. He had been patient. He had been diplomatic. He would not be either any longer. “Yes. You are. Because if you do not, I will kill you. But not first. First, I will kill the weakling, and then I will dismember the other two before your eyes. I will drink your blood. I will bathe in it. I will gorge myself on their essences while you wait your turn to be ended. And you will be ended, dog. Get out of my territory, or I will hunt you down like the mangy cur you are.”

Will felt a cold spear running down his spine. This was the Maddox few people ever saw, but anyone with real sense felt. Henry was arrogant. Henry had mistaken Maddox’s request for help for weakness. Henry had just been told otherwise.

“Guys, go back to the house, collect your things and get the next bus home,” Henry said, speaking over his shoulder. He didn’t take his eyes off Maddox. There was going to be a fight. A very bad fight.

Will wasn’t entirely certain it was going to happen, until Henry’s boys actually melted away into the shadows. The tension in the garden shed was palpable. Will grabbed a pair of nearby overalls. He did not like being naked, especially with Lora Candy standing right there, or rather, crouching there next to his badly wounded father.

He did not say a word to Ivan. He looked pathetic and weak and still absolutely evil. And, of course, he was causing trouble in a way that was going to get a lot of good people hurt. Typical fucking Ivan.

“Let me at him!” Henry was almost mad with need to kill. The usual mature facade had melted away and left him with nothing but naked murderous ambition.

“NO!”

Henry lunged at Maddox, in wolf form. Maddox retaliated, in Maddox form. He didn’t bother to change to his more terrifying vampire lord skin, he stayed in his suit. It was like watching a martial artist fight a massive beast. Except the beast wasn’t actually trying to hurt Maddox. He was trying to get past him to maul Ivan.

Will got clear, not knowing what to do, or who to help. Lorien had come to much the same conclusion. The two of them stood off to the side, watching Henry make the worst mistake of his life.

And then things went very badly indeed.

“Mom!”

Will turned to see a young man standing out on the back porch. The lights from the deck seemed to be hiding the worst of the action taking place out in the shadows behind the ring of darkness, but if he wandered out, he was going to get caught right in the middle of it.

Will ran up to the deck and grabbed the kid. He snatched him by the shirt and dragged him inside, where a man was watching television while sitting on a couch, completely fucking oblivious to the immortal struggle taking place outside his window.

“Take your kid and get the fuck out of here,” he told the man. “Get way the fuck away from here. There’s a fight going on out there. This place is going to be a bloodbath.”

“Who are you? What are you doing in my house? Let my kid go!”

“Don’t worry about who I am. Worry about…”

The man scrabbled for his phone and pressed three numbers.

“I’m going to call the police!”

“Okay. Great. They’re at least ten minutes away. Do you know how long it takes for a wolf to eat you?”

“No?”

“Less than half that.”

Outside, the sound of a wolf and a vampire fighting was obvious through the open sliding door. The snarls and the growls, the barks and the yaps, it could have been mistaken for a dog fight, but not one you wanted in your backyard.