Biting Cold: A Chicagoland Vampires Novel (CHICAGOLAND VAMPIRES SERIES)

up.”
    He suddenly sat up, coughing and sputtering for breath as if Mallory had sucked out the rest of his oxygen. “I’m okay. I’m fine.”
    Tears bloomed at my lashes. “Thank God. Did it work?”
    “I think so. I felt so much magic. If he’s not cleaned out, he has a hella large tank.”
    I couldn’t help the sarcasm. “Who says ‘hella large’?”
    But Ethan’s focus was better than mine. “Sentinel,” he weakly said, pointing back to the fray.
    Dominic had Seth pinned in the mud and was whaling, older brother–style, on his twin. I made it to my feet again, my sword now filthy with mud, and wiped it on my leather pants.
    I was just about to launch my attack, hopeful Ethan was right about Dominic, when I caught a new trouble blooming.
    Mallory was standing again, her hair spread out around her like a static halo, and a gleam of dark magic in her eyes.
    I sighed, my stomach curling with the fear that she’d never be able to come back from her addiction. Not if a little demonic filtering took her out.
    But she looked at me, and I saw the fight in her eyes.
    She wasn’t succumbing to the dark magic. She was just trying to hold it in.
    “Paige, Catcher. Help her. She needs to let the magic go!”
    When they rushed to her aid, I turned back to Dominic and Seth. I blew out a breath.
    “Now or never,” I muttered, and called out his name. “Dominic!” I twirled the sword in my hand once, then twice.
    Dominic glanced back at me, grinned maniacally, then stood up. Seth was still in the mud, and he didn’t move. There were bleeding gaps in his wings, and a deep red gash across his shoulder.
    If this was going to happen, I was going to be the one to do it.
    “Hello, Ballerina.”
    “You don’t have the right to call me that.” I backed up a bit, moving the fight away from everyone else.
    “Don’t I?” he said. “I was there for all of it. I saw everything that he did, all of your interactions.”
    One of his wings shot out, and I rolled across the ground to get away, popping up muddy and bruised again.
    “You weren’t invited,” I pointed out. “You were a spy.” His other wing whipped out. The claws at the edge of this wing grazed the ground, and I jumped into the air to avoid it, popping down in a crouch on his other side.
    “You’re all flair,” he said, turning to face me.
    He thrust out with his sword, and I silently apologized to my katana for any nicks I was about to create, and met his thrust directly.
    The jolt sent a wave of pain down my arm.
    Dominic laughed and thrust down. I parried, pushing his sword to the side, and used the momentum to swing myself into a butterfly kick. I managed a punch to his kidney, but his wing dipped forward. I still caught the tip of a claw, and it ripped a gash in my calf. The pain was sudden and intense and carried a nauseating sharpness that had to be magical in nature.
    I stumbled away, regripping my sword, and turned to face him.
    “Hurts, doesn’t it?”
    Water dripped into my eyes from my ratty, muddy bangs. “It doesn’t feel like purring kittens,” I admitted. The pain be damned, I ran forward, slicing down with a shot that put a four-inch gash in the top of his left wing.
    He screamed out and tossed me away like a doll. I landed on my back again in a puddle of cold water, promising myself a hot bath if I’d only get back on my feet.
    One hand behind me, I arced my body and popped up again.
    His wing gashed and bleeding, and obviously in pain, Dominic limped toward me. “You don’t know when to quit, do you?”
    “I’d say the same for you.” I regripped my sword.
    He was tired and injured, and his next shot was sloppy but still powerful. A forward thrust I had to drop down under. I rolled across the ground, clenching my sword to keep from losing my muddy grip, and kicked his leg out from under him, knocking him onto the ground. I scrambled away, but he caught the hem of my pants.
    “We weren’t done,” he said, dragging me backward again.
    “We were totally done,” I assured him, kicking his brick-solid chest until he reflexively let me go again.
    Now breathing a little harder than I did in my practice sessions, go figure, I made it to my feet again. I could keep fighting for a while, but he was going to nail me in terms of brute strength and endurance. I would lose a war of attrition against him.
    I remembered what I’d said earlier. Change the odds .
    While Dominic got to his feet again, I looked around . . . and