119 | NO SAFETY

I snap out of my daze just in time to move one of my free arms. My knuckles fly into the elongated jaw of the creature above me, the repulsive aura threatening to burrow into mine as our skin connects. With the angle of my punch and that of the practically unhinged nature of the Revenant’s lower jaw, I catch the unmistakable crunch of bone breaking.

The Revenant makes a noise somewhere between a hiss and screech, rearing back to get it’s face out of my vicinity. For a second, I stare at my now bruising knuckles in utter surprise. *How the hell did I just do that?* It was instinct, to make a move directed to the jaw or limbs, some sort of niggling feeling that such a blow from me could help me out. *But how did I know?*

And then I recall something Hale told me once about our eerie green eyes, and how that specific color in a vampire’s irises means the vamp has the potential to be a Royal or Guardian. And Guardians are the only things that have the track record of taking out Revenants. I wasn’t sure how that could be possible at the time, and since I’ve run into the Revenant that was once the King, I hadn’t noticed anything so special about my abilities… *Was I wrong this whole time? Thinking like a human or Wolven rather than letting the vampire part of me do the deciding?*

I'm shoved back into reality as the Revenant’s black-tipped claws come hurtling through the air. My heart’s beating a mile a minute and I find myself breathing raggedly as I force the human thoughts of rolling away and running, and that of the Wolven in me wanting to snarl and shift in order to fight, and focus on the eerie chill that is the vampire within. That side of me wants to wait, bide our time to deal the proper blow. It takes an insane amount of concentration to stay absolutely still and not jerk out of the way.

At the very last second, when the hairs on my arm have risen in response to the pressure of the sickly aura straining to push against mine, my body snaps into motion. The vampire strength and speed makes me fluid as one hand reaches out to the shoulder joint of the Revenant, the other pressing the flat of our palm into a sort of heel strike against the center of the monster’s chest. Had it not been for the foresight of my secondary move, the Revenant would have used my forward momentum to try to get at my neck again. But the way I’ve moved now has left only a slight opening for the creature to retaliate as I shove us both up from the ground.

The creature’s other clawed hand cuts into my left side where they try to burrow deep into my body. The pain is dulled as my brain sends up warning flares via the screaming nerves being shredded and muscle along with it. I grit my teeth, feeling my fangs puncturing my bottom lip with the grinding motion, but the pain there barely registers in comparison of the other. My left knee jerks up between our bodies and I manage to shove the Revenant back a few inches - just enough for it’s now red-slick claws to dislodge from my side.

Blood bursts from the back of my throat, coating my lips as my body jolts in response to healing rapidly. The uncomfortable feel off my tissues knitting themselves back together echoes though my side, but it’s better than having the Revenant’s claws anywhere near my heart. Something tells me that, had the creature managed to take hold of the organ, I’d be dead, sure, but it would then become even stronger than it is now. That thought floods me with dread.

There are only so many Guardians left after the King massacred the Court, though I know Mina’s been trying to rally her forces, it’s clear it isn’t enough.

I get another moment to skim the graveyard, catching sight of the vicious three-to-one fight that’s going on at the other side of the area. Hale and Zoe are blurs of motion, only their glowing eyes giving them away. Ms. Jin’s got Mikyle in a grappling match, their glowing red eyes locked as the two flash their fangs at each other. Blue’s rushing up from behind the slower Revenant he, Hale, and Zoe are facing down, but my mate’s struggling to keep up. I think I see red matted in my mate’s grey fur, but I can’t be sure since the King finally gets his act together again.

One of the talon-like hands of the Revenant who was once the King grasps my throat, choking off the already minimal supply of oxygen to my lungs. My hands automatically reach to stop the fist from tightening even further around my neck as the Wolven part of me snarls back to the surface. Instinct to survive and fight barreling over the tentative hold the vampire part of me had taken control over. The intensity of scent and sound are muted as the Revenant’s impressive strength makes the scrabbling of my nails over his skin nearly useless.

Spots of darkness flood the field of my vision as oxygen depravation sets in, my mouth making fish-like gasping movements to try to get air into my lungs.

There’s a terrifying look of triumph in the too-wide set of the smile on the Revenant’s face as it leers over me, the thing’s disgusting aura choking something in me almost as horribly as the creature is doing in actuality. The chill of my vampire side roars to life as the thin threads of invading aura begin to bleed into mine. I shudder, my hands dropping as the vamp part takes over once more. This time, the hold it has is sharper, the icy void of it spilling liberally into my cells and making my whole body relax with an unshakable calm.

The revulsion I feel towards the Revenant is thicker now, but cooler somehow, too. More like a deeply ingrained instinct and sense of wrongness that reinforces the path I need to take to dispatch it. Something like this thing before me can’t be allowed to exist. The matter-of-fact calculation of my thoughts on strategy flutter through my brain like the wings of a hummingbird is oddly satisfying. There’s no emotion to trip me up or make me hesitate as I put my plan into action.

I can feel blood vessels in my eyes bursting with the pressure building there as the Revenant’s grip tightens degree by degree. There’s a vicious emptiness in the undead King’s eyes, but also too much emotion. Anger and hatred mixed in with a skin-crawling look of desire and need. I know what it wants, and if I do nothing, my head’s going to roll and he’ll drink me dry to get it. We stare at each other in a silent standoff, waiting to see what the other will do - who will make the next and final move.

It’s in that brief moment when I think I can feel my vertebrae separating from the disks between the bony prominences, that the Revenant gets distracted. Just like I knew he would, his eyes dart hungrily from mine, forgetting that we were watching for each other’s next move, and dropping to stare at the bruising on my neck where his claws have my neck in a strangle-hold.

My hands clap together, the ends of my fingers flaring pointedly as I channel my vampire strength into them and shoot them into the center of the Revenant’s chest- only, he’s no longer there.

*I took too long*. I know it in the second that follows as my body drops to the ground, and the sounds of snarling and rending flesh reach my ears. Ignoring the pounding of blood flooding back into my head and horrible pain that follows, I look up to see Blue’s giant wolf body thrashing to fight my adversary. Before I can warm my mate to get the fuck away from the deadly creature he has no chance of taking down, the unthinkable happens.

Just as Blue seems to be winning, his hulking wolf form towering over the Revenant like the creature under him is prey and not a manifestation of evil, the Revenant turns the tide. The Revenant reaches out to grasp the two front paws of my mate that had been attempting to rip through the creature’s chest and, with a resounding crunch, ruins his chances of running from the soulless vampire. Blue’s whine of agony spurs me into action as I dart up from the ground and attempt to get between the two. The Revenant sees me coming, it’s too-wide jaws opening wide as it ducks down to rip into Blue’s throat.

The Wolven side shoots to the surface before I can even think of restraining it, making my chilling calculation sputter out as the roaring heat of emotion floods me. My hands grab the barely functional upper and lower jaw of the Revenant, stopping the creature from making a larger wound and wrenching the horrific teeth from my mate’s neck. I shove between the two as Blue drops to the ground the moment he’s free and pause, listening for the telltale thump-thump of a heartbeat to let me know my mate’s still alive.

It’s in that moment of hesitation that the Revenant lashes out at me, burying it’s sharpened claws into the still-healing injury n my side and making my arms reflexively drop from his mouth. I spew curses, fresh blood coating my lips as white-hot agony flashes through me, and by the time I’ve recovered enough to see straight my eyes can only confirm what I already sensed. The Revenant’s gone.