TJ Michaels

Enjoy this snippet from HATSEPT HEAT, Vampire Council of Ethics Book 3
Copyright 2009, TJ Michaels
Available in Print and eBook
(don’t forget to visit the other Snippet Saturday authors. You’ll find links to their snippets at the bottom of this excerpt. Merry Christmas!)

The scene Kenoe rushed in on would have been somewhat satisfying if Shinju hadn’t been covered in blood, both hers and her attackers’. The air was full of the scent of rogue, rotten to the core and unmistakably rancid. The smell mixed with Slade’s and all three women’s.

Slade was injured and crawling with the last of his strength to get to and cover Shinju’s body with his own. Bowie knife still drawn, Carin was trying to push Slade back enough to examine Shinju. Tameth stood guard at the alley entrance.

With an aggravated tap on his earpiece Kenoe called in the cavalry.

“Hatsept here. Clean up, fast. Sending GPS coordinates. One Seeker injured. Four rogues down.” Not just the two Slade originally reported as tailing her. Squashing his rage, he spoke through gritted teeth and reported, “And one human also down. Dr. Carin is already on the scene.”

Thank God.

Shinju lay flat on her back twitching weirdly. A strange yellow foam bubbled up out of her mouth and dribbled down her chin.

Two steps had him at her side.

“Is it okay to move her? Anything broken, severed? How can I help? What can I do?”

“Kenoe,” Carin snapped. “Get hold of yourself. Her vital signs are weakening, but none of her injuries are life threatening. Something else is going on here.”

Easing Shinju off the cold, hard pavement and carefully into his arms, Kenoe saw Carin was right, as usual. A quick inventory revealed no serious wounds at all. A few cuts and scrapes along her arms and legs, a cut under her eye and a goose egg over her brow. One injury, a deep sluggishly bleeding slash from her left ear down to her collarbone made it appear the dogs had aimed to kill but simply missed by sheer luck.

None of it explained the woman’s deep level of unconsciousness or the frothing liquid pouring past her lips. What the hell had they done to her?

Slade filled in some of the blanks. “They were waiting for her.”

Kenoe looked up and briefly met the gaze of his fellow Seeker. Slade had managed to push himself up against the wall to sit up. His eyes were bright, unclouded. And pissed off.

“I followed them around the corner expecting two bad guys. Instead there were five. One got away. Outnumbered, the women were already kicking ass and holding their own pretty good. Even without a weapon, Shinju was in the thick of it. Next thing I know she screams like you wouldn’t believe. I turned in time to see one of them stick her in the neck with something. She fell to the ground and started flopping around. I was running to her. That’s when one of the bastards got me in the back.”

“So how are they down if you were already out of the fight?” Kenoe wondered aloud. But he never took his eyes off the now convulsing body of his woman, her skin so unusually pale, clammy and blood slick. Where the hell was the clean-up crew, damn it?

“I said one of ’em got me in the back. Never said I was down,” Slade grunted with a wry, tight smile as he sat up a bit straighter, one hand holding his ribs. “I sliced ’em, then I hit the pavement.” Slade’s chuckle became a hack, then he spat a wad of mucous-laden blood off to the side.

Tameth strode over, reached down to help Slade up then turned to a sulking Kenoe. God, he never sulked. This was new. Couldn’t look past the fact that his best friend thankfully had been there for Shin when he hadn’t.

“Come on, Key. The ambulance is here.”

Tameth paused and cocked her head sideways. The fat braid down her back was mussed as it flopped from side to side.

“Kenoe, I know that look. This is not your fault.”

Easing to his feet, he moved to one of the unmarked ambulances that had just backed into the alley. Trying not to jostle Shinju’s battered little body, he kept his eyes front and his gait smooth.

“Thanks for being in the right place at the right time, Tam. I should have been with her.”

“But it would have been worse if you hadn’t put Slade on her. You knew she was going to sneak off. I’d fault you if you knew it, but did nothing about it.”

“I knew she would pull something. It’s in her nature to work things out on her own. But I should have been the one tailing her. It’s my responsibility.”

“Yes, but it was her choice.” Tameth said gently, firmly.

Carin had already climbed into the ambulance and was busily, and rather loudly, batting away the hands of the attendants.

“Damn it, I’m not the one who’s hurt. Stop groping me already!”

But her hair was plastered against the side of her face with a clotting bloody gash, and more of the red stuff was sprayed down the front of her shirt.

The hands kept reaching for her.

“Shinju is the one who needs your attention. Now quit it or I’ll put something in your food to give you a flaming poo!” Then she looked up and locked eyes with Kenoe. Confusion, concern, it was all there in her expressive eyes as she motioned for him to move faster.

Before he handed his lovely mate over to the ambulance techs, he cut Tameth a glance and said, “What a fucking mess, Tam. First Max and Sasuke, and now Shinju. I mean, what are the odds that my woman and her only family in all of Japan would be laid up in the hospital at the same time because of the same shit?”

A low, miserable groan from behind them caught Tameth’s attention. But Slade was there first. The vamps they’d knocked out all had been cut in one place or another. They were now semi-conscious and barfing like dogs. Good. All hail Dr. Carin’s barfinator serum smeared on the edge of their blades. A nondescript van pulled into the alley just as the ambulances pulled away.

Bix and Alaan jumped out, followed by Alex and several more Clan Li Iudex Judges. Yep, interrogation was going to be fun.