Chapter 75

Tessa’s POV

I ran toward my bedroom. Once I saw the window in the living room was opening, slamming the door shut behind me.

The hissing coming from the window in my room had me nearly paralyzed.

The window was pushed in and shattered to the ground. I stumbled backward as an unfamiliar face crawled through the window.

I screamed, wondering if Joseph could hear me.

I thought he could teleport. Why wasn’t he here?

Just as I ran toward the door, my bare foot snagged on a piece of glass on the ground and blood spattered around me.

I yelled out in pain, nearly falling to the floor. My foot throbbed from the cut, and I heard the vampire gasping. When I turned back, I saw the hunger in his eyes. He opened his mouth, revealing fangs, and his breathing grew immensely. Dark swirls covered his face, and his eyes were black like the night sky.

He lunged toward me in a quick motion. I managed to grab the door and pull myself out of the room, slamming the door shut just as he reached me. He ran into the door, but it snapped off its hinges as he did so.

I ran through the living room and toward the front door. More vampires began to hiss and growl as they made their way into the apartment. I saw my phone on the ground, and it was ringing like crazy.

It was Mulligan calling me again.

I ran toward the front door just as vampires got their footing in the apartment and noticed me running with a trail of blood from my foot.

Before I could reach the door, it swung open, and another vampire made his way into the apartment.

I screamed as loud as I could.

I needed to figure out how to buy some time before Joseph could get here.

Running toward the kitchen, I grabbed a knife off the counter, turning to face the vampires.

There were about 4 of them.

“Stay away from me!” I growled.

“Oh, but you smell so delicious. I bet you taste even better,” One of them, a female, hissed, stepping toward me.

She spoke with a low and threatening tone.

“You didn’t think you could hide from us, did you?” She said as the others laughed.

“What do you want from me?” I asked, keeping the knife pointed in their direction. Sure, it might not be able to stop them, but it might hurt them.

“We want to drink every last drop of blood,” a man said, his smile giving me a sharp chill down my spine.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” I said, trying to keep my voice from trembling in fear. “You don’t have to do this. You can go with Joseph and go to that vampire school. You can learn to not want blood. You don’t need it to survive—”

Just as I sputtered the last few words, the woman in the front swiped her hand in my direction, slashing her nail across my cheek. Blood spilled from my face, and I held it, trying to keep it from spilling anymore, but it oozed through my fingers.

It stung painfully and made tears form in my eyes. I wasn’t going to cry though. I wasn’t going to give them this satisfaction.

Another hand came in my direction, but this time it knocked the knife out of my hand, making it fly across the room and stab the wall.

They closed in on me. There was nowhere for me to go. They smelled of musk and old blood, making it difficult to breathe.

“She’s pretty,” a man breathed from behind me, smelling my hair and sending shivers throughout my body. “Can I keep the body when we are done?”

I wasn’t going to let them take me. The window across the room was unoccupied and open. I could run through it and jump. It would hurt when I landed, and I could possibly die if I didn’t land on the platform below this window. But it would be better than dying at their hands.

I refused to allow these new vampires to kill me.

“I’m going to take my sweet time drinking your blood,” the same man said huskily.

“No,” I said through my teeth.

Before I could think of a better plan, I was running through them. They obviously didn’t expect me to be so bold and run because I got quite a distance before they gathered their thoughts and ran after me.

I was dumb to think I could make it.

They grabbed my arm with force, stopping me from going any further, and as I turned my body to twist my arm out of their grasp, I felt a sharp pain going up my neck as my arm twisted around my back.

A heal went into my backbone, knocking me to the ground. I felt a sharp crushing pain in my hand, and I realized quickly that a heal went straight into my palm.

I screamed in agony.

“You are going to taste so good,” I heard another vampire whisper against my ear, pressing me harder into the ground.

…

Joseph’s POV

“They are using magic,” someone from headquarters spoke through the shared earpiece alerting everyone that these vampires have been using magic to hide themselves. “It just showed up on our radar out of nowhere.”

That’s why I haven’t been able to find them.

I looked up just as the vampires started becoming evident. They were climbing up the building.

“It seems to be wearing off,” Mulligan responded through the same network.

I didn’t stick around for the rest of the conversation, I ran toward the building and was about to teleport inside, but the teleportation refused to work. I tried again, but to no prevail.

“Fuck!” I hissed.

Their magic was blocking my abilities.

I ran closer to the building but was nearly knocked to the ground with incredible force.

Mulligan was quick to be by my side.

“What happened?” He asked.

“There’s a shield,” I said through my teeth. “I can’t get in.”

Mulligan pressed a button on his earpiece.

“There’s a shield. Find a way to break it,” he ordered.

“There’s no time!” I growled.

I stood up and ran toward the shield again with all my speed and strength. Electric bolts shot through my body, making me grit my teeth in pain. I wasn’t going to stop until this shield was broken.

I ran into it again, and again. Each time, I felt the shield growing weaker. I ignored the pain. It was irrelevant to me.

My main focus was getting to Tessa.

I ran into the shield again, feeling it cracking. The electric bolts no longer affected me, or maybe I was used to it.

For the final time, I ran into the shield, and it blasted around me, falling apart at my feet. I didn’t stop running though, as soon as I was through the shield, I climbed up the side of the building.

I heard Mulligan yelling orders to his officers, but I tuned him out.

I’m coming, Tessa.

As soon as I got through her window, I could smell her fresh blood. Vampires knelt on top of her, one of them, digging her heel into the palm of Tessa's hand, causing her to bleed even more and making it impossible for her to move.

Tears sprung in Tessa’s eyes as she screamed in pain.

I didn’t waste any time. I ran through the apartment and began to beat the living shit out of them. They weren’t a match for me. They might have been sneaky, but I was much stronger and way more trained.

I was also a lot faster. They got in a few shots, but it was nothing compared to what I could do to them.

Not before long, the door was swinging open and Mulligan and some of his officers ran into the apartment with guns loaded with silver bullets.

Lethal to vampires.

“Get down!!” Mulligan growled at the new vampires.

A couple of them did as Mulligan ordered, fearing for their lives. But the other two tried to put up a fight, resulting in them both getting shot in the leg and forcing them to the ground.

The smell of Tessa’s blood and the sounds of her cries pulled me from the scene in front of me. She was trembling on the ground, tears gushing from her eyes.

“I…I didn’t think you’d be here on time,” she said through tears and gasps of air.

She was bleeding from her foot, her face, and her hand. She had a red mark that would turn purple from being hit. She had bitten her lip so hard that it was bleeding as well.

She struggled to sit up from being in so much pain. She winced at the movement.

“We need to get you to the hospital,” I told her, trying to help her move. Just as I was about to lift her, she stopped me.

“Wait…” she said in a broken whisper. “Just stay with me…”

I was about to protest, but she began to cry again, covering her face with her hands.

Sighing, I wrapped my arms around her, allowing my warmth to soothe her body. She buried her face in my chest, and I felt her body relaxing. It wasn’t trembling as badly anymore.

“I’m not going anywhere…” I whispered to her, ignoring the agonizing want for her blood.

After a moment, she lifted her tear-filled gaze to mine.

Blood glistened on her bottom lip, and it was unphased by her.

I used both my thumbs to wipe the tears off her face and her eyes shifted down to my lips. I saw the lust in her eyes. She rubbed the palms of her hands on the back of my head, making goosebumps form on my arms.

Soon, she was pressing herself close to me, and our lips connected.