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Hold steady…

I choked backitself into a long snout One that ended in a dark nose, set below bright red eyes And beneath all that… a sight that flushed ice water through ed rows of razor-sharp, canine teeth

Steady…

There wasdeath Her jaws parted slightly, and her legs coiled beneath her A second later she sprang, and my entire world disappeared

Karessa leapt just as I put ether…

… and pushed

34

DAMIEN

I’d taken only a dozen steps outside the citadel, and one thing was certain: I was being followed

Followed in the sense of stalked, really But I knew my brood My clan I kneas on me even before they knew I’d made them But none of thaton

Karessa was s, but a loser wasn’t one of them She didn’t knohat it was like to be on the short end of the stick In all the years I’d known and loved her, she’d never tasted defeat Which hy it wasn’t like her to just let h to catch me

Unless, of course, it wasn’t in with

Dammit Karessa

I’d been foolish, leaving the hotel And now that foolishness was going to cost me, or possibly Broderick, or even Serena

For that, I had no one to blame but myself