“This early,” she said with a wink at me past his shoulder, “it’s almost always empty.”
Relief at having a moment to collect myself without spectators trumped her insinuation. “Thank you.”
An usher met us at the door and guided us to prime seats using a flashlight he trained on the floor.
Gwyllgi had near-perfect night vision, but I appreciated the escort if for no other reason than he kept me from being alone in a dark theater with Corbin.
Exhausted from my ordeal, I removed the carrier, slumped into my chair, and set the pack on my lap. I angled it to ensure Keet had a perfect view of the screen then let my head fall back. Beside me, Corbin settled in, sprawling his legs until our knees bumped. I cut him a glare out of the corner of my eye, but he was too busy pretending the singing fish pals on screen were a blockbuster movie to notice.
Ten minutes into the thirty-minute show, I was falling asleep. As much as it galled me to admit, Corbin’s presence at my elbow allowed me to let my guard down and close my eyes.
As my breathing leveled off, I registered shuffling footsteps behind us and resented other latecomers would be invading our territory. That meant I couldn’t afford that nap after—
A line of fire cut across my throat, and I dropped the pet carrier onto the floor. Stretching out one leg, I kicked it under the row ahead of us to protect Keet from getting stomped as we fought off our attackers.
Vicious snarls rose beside me, explaining why Corbin hadn’t leapt to my rescue. He was caught in the same trap, a garrote cutting off his air. Unlike made vampires or Last Seeds, he required oxygen.
The width of the seats meant our attackers had made a fatal error. In my case, anyway. The backs were deep and curved inward. I was pinned, for the moment, but I had room to wiggle my right hand through the gap up to my meaty forearm, relieving the pressure on my windpipe.
As soon as I had that barrier against suffocation in place, I thrust my other arm through the hole on its side. The thin wire cut into my skin as I flexed forward, and the man behind me hit the chair with a thud. That gave me slack to duck under the garrote and free myself.
Hands planted on the armrests, I kicked off the floor and flipped myself over my seat and my opponent. I landed on his heels, shoved him forward, and he flopped over the chair to land on his butt on the floor. He must have hit his head, because he sat there stunned for a beat until he slumped sideways.
With Ormand out of the way, I turned on Corbin’s attacker. Mathieu. He retained his punishing grip on the silvery wire, torn between finishing what he started or helping his brother.
Nice girl that I am, I made the decision for him. I cocked my arm and punched him in the side of the head so hard, he staggered back from the blow, but he kept his grip on the garrote’s wooden handles.
As Mathieu fell, Corbin let himself get dragged over the back of his chair to avoid decapitation.
They landed one on top of the other, but Corbin was still caught.
Before Mathieu regained his senses, I punched him again, right in the nose. His eyes rolled back in his head, and I claimed the garrote from his limp fingers. I lifted the wire gently, but Corbin hissed as the metal released his throat.
“Back off,” Ormand snarled, rising from between the rows with Keet’s backpack in hand. “Or I finish what the tiger started.”
“That’s a fight you really don’t want.” I sank my nails into my palms. “Leave him out of this.”
Gaze locked on mine, he ripped the pack open, ruining it, and groped the bottom. “Where did he…?”
“Save our oceansss,” Keet shrieked, diving straight for him. “Oceans, oceans, oceans!”
The parakeet went straight for the eyes, clawing and raking until Ormand screamed and cursed him.
Coarse hands clamped over my neck from behind and squeezed until I saw stars. Mathieu. Again. I stepped back, hooked a leg through his, and yanked it out from under him. He fell, but he took me with him. I landed on top of him, sinking rapid elbow strikes into his muscular stomach, but his grip held firm.
A loud squelch preceded a spray of warm blood that hit the top of my head and rained on my face.
“Are you okay?” Corbin lifted me off Mathieu with vampire-quick reflexes. “Can you talk?”
Healing the damage would only take a few minutes, but I held my throat and shook my head for now.
Glancing behind me, I found Corbin had stomped Matthieu’s skull in with his boot.
I swung my head toward him, shock pounding through me, but an odd light filled Corbin’s eyes.
“He hurt you.” A feral ruthlessness carved his expression. “He had it coming.”
No words came to mind for the brutal display of violence that would do any gwyllgi proud.
Pack life kept my hands covered in blood. I had killed, and I would kill again. Those were the hard truths anyone ranked above middling in any shifter pack accepted as inevitable. But just this once, I had a white knight, and it was…
…nice.
“Save. Our. Oceans.”
Corbin turned his attention to his phone, and I was grateful for the excuse to look away.
“Keet?” I spun around, searching for him. “Where did he go?”
We followed the sound of sobbing to where Ormand knelt, his hands covering his face. Blood seeped between his fingers, and he wept while Keet tore skin off his busted knuckles, the parakeet rubbing his face in crimson rivulets.
And, yeah, that was Keet, bathing in the blood of his enemies.
Thank God he was on our side.
“You ambushed Eva,” Corbin snarled, “and she’s not crying about it.”
The big man got to his feet, weeping blood through his fingers. “Where’s Matthieu?”
“Dead.” Corbin made no bones about it. “Give us any more grief, and you’ll be next.”
The thread of eagerness in his voice, the desire for more violence, was unlike the chill man I had known. I couldn’t call foul, not when I was smeared in others’ blood, but he had always hidden his vampire side. I wasn’t sure what it meant that he let me glimpse it now. I wasn’t even sure he meant to let me see.
Throwing his head back, Ormand unleashed a mournful baying noise from his human throat.
His face was a patchwork of fine scratches and Keet-sized bite marks. His eyes, well, there wasn’t much left of them until he had time to regenerate.
Blinded by rage, and the aforementioned lack of eyeballs, he charged us. He smacked into an aisle seat with his hip, bounced off, and kissed the floor at my feet. Fresh blood spread in a puddle under his chin, and I figured he must have bitten off his tongue.
While he lay there, sobbing quietly, Keet lit on his head and began plucking out hairs.
I really, really hoped Keet didn’t find any tongue and bring it home as a souvenir/snack.
“That bird is something else.” Corbin stared at the crimson stain. “He’s got a bloodthirsty streak.”
“I would never say this to Aunt Grier’s face, but, at the end of the day, the little guy is a zombie.”
Had he been any bigger than a parakeet, say, a macaw or cockatoo, we might have been in danger of him cracking open someone’s skull with his beak and eating their brains.
“That’s harsh.”
“Hey, I’m just keeping it real.” I slid Corbin a smile. “Or should I say, Keeting it real?”
“That’s terrible.” A soft laugh huffed out of him. “I can’t believe you went there.”
“I thought it was funny.”
“Well, you were just strangled. Twice. It probably restricted the blood flow to your brain for too long.”
“Very funny.”
“I thought so.”
Grateful for the empty theater, I debated on the best course of action, considering there was a fatality.
“I’ve already texted the cleaners.” Corbin bobbed his shoulder. “Mathieu attacked a sentinel.” He gestured to his spattered shirt. “Plus, I’m a vampire. That’s how we do things.”