Page 52 of Winter Unleashed
Philip watched her leave the room as she answered the phone. When she was too far away to hear anymore, he turned to Liam. “Do you think it’s wise to wait on Astrid?”
“I do.” Liam’s tone left no room for argument.
He may be a lot younger than Philip, but he was his Alpha and the Vinur. Not that either of those statuses ever stopped Philip from picking at him in the past.
Philip wanted Cybil dead. He’d wanted to kill her since she’d turned him. I got the feeling he was prepared to push at Liam until he agreed to go to Cybil without waiting for Astrid to finish whatever she was doing.
An absurd thought popped in my head, and to break the tension, I went with it. “Phil, why don’t you have a last name?”
He turned to me with a befuddled expression. “What?”
“Why don’t you have a last name?” I repeated.
He relaxed into his usual blasé demeanor. “No one used surnames when I was born.”
“Interesting…” I muttered. His answer meant he was even older than I’d thought.
“Is it? I guess to someone your age it might be.”
We turned to the doorway when Stella came bolting back into the room. “There’s trouble at the Academy.”
“For fuck’s sake, why didn’t Fleming call me?” Then I realized my phone was in the bedroom. “Fuck,” I said, kicking myself for the oversight as we all ran out of the house to our cars.
The Academy was normally about twenty minutes away, but we made it in half the time. “How do you never get pulled over?” I asked as Liam made the turn into the school parking lot.
“I’m very generous with my donations,” he said simply.
A laugh escaped me, then we opened the car doors and the energy hit me. “Oh, this is gonna be bad.”
Chapter Fourteen
We followed the trail of power to the field where we train the kids to shift. Belial and Celeste were in the middle of an all-out fight. Parents and teachers who we had trained to fight vampires had formed a wide circle around the two angry beings. They all had grimaces on their faces from the sting of the power pulsing through the area. None of them stood a chance against the fairy or the demon, but it was nice that they were trying to protect the children.
I hissed when Belial punched Celeste in the face so hard a spray of blood arced through the air. She stumbled for a second then held her hand out to send Belial flying. He landed on the ground with a thud, and I heard the air expel from his lungs. He gasped in a breath while bounding back onto his feet. With a yell, he charged at her. He moved so fast he wasn’t even a blur. The next second they were both on the ground, him on top, scratching and punching each other.
I leaned in toward Liam. “Looks like you’re not her only ex-lover.”
He grunted but said nothing. I was sure I was right. There was something in the way they fought that held a hatred only former lovers could have for each other.
“Hey Wendy,” I said as I stepped up beside the woman. “The kids still inside?”
She didn’t take her eyes off the fight. “Yeah, we’re too scared to let them outside even just to hop in their parent’s car.”
Next, I moved to where Bruno stood not too far away from Wendy. “Hey, thanks for calling Stella about this, but what were you doing here?”
He looked at me with his deceptively innocent, boyish face. He could be the sweetest or most lethal vampire ever to live. I hoped I hadn’t pissed him off with my question. What he lacked in height he more than made up in muscle. But his tree-trunk legs and arms didn’t stop him from being super-fast and deadly.
“I felt Celeste nearby. I followed the feeling here and called you guys.”
“Okay, thanks,” I said again.
My face scrunched up with concern when I saw the fight was getting worse. The energy sparking off them hit some of those who were keeping guard. When a teacher cried out and grasped his arm, Liam growled in frustration.
“Everyone, go inside. Stay with the children,” Liam said without revealing his aggravation.
He never had to yell to get the attention or compliance of others. In fact, I’d only ever seen him raise his voice to Isaac… and I had to admit it had been justified seeing as how Isaac and I had shared a few kisses at the beginning of my relationship with Liam.
The parents and teachers did as Liam said without argument. That left Isaac, Ciara, Philip, Stella, Bruno, Liam, and me to fight two immensely powerful and potentially evil beings. Good times.