Read Online Last Vamp Standing by Kristin Miller - Free Book Online Page A

wasn’t really happening. Her physical self, her body, was with Echo . . . and he was dragging her God knew where.
    What would she do when her projection started to wear off? Where would she re-materialize? Would she still be in the forest? And what kind of danger would she be faced with?
    “Hey,” Dante said, turning to face her and shaking her arm, drawing her back to the present. “I asked you a question.”
    “Maybe a minute before you came into the room.”
    “I didn’t see you enter.”
    “No.”
    His face puzzled. “And I thought I was firing short of a full chamber.”
    The floor shook, and Dante’s woodsy scent was overpowered by the unmistakable odor of therians.
    Splaying an arm to his side, Dante guided Ariana behind him, then slid behind the open door. Two burly shifters passed the entry. The rapid pounding of their boots slowed to a hush.
    They’d caught wind of something. Of them.
    “They’re coming back to check rooms.” Dante craned his neck around. “Stay here.”
    “You can’t order me around like I’m—”
    He slipped around the door and into the hall before she could finish her protest. She didn’t want to stay behind the door, trapped in the chamber. If Dante wanted to call attention to himself and get staked by Juan Carlos’s guppies, so be it. Dying wasn’t on her agenda tonight.
    Debating her next move, Ariana peered into the crack between the door and the jamb. Dante was a whole lot of pissed-off vamp, crouching low, an expression of pure hate slathered across his face. He’d situated himself in the middle of the hall, his shoulders nearly brushing the sides.
    He stepped out of the aura of light coming from a wall sconce and into a shadow. Then he put two fingers to his lips and ferried a whistle like he was calling for Lassie.
    “What do you think you’re doing?” Ariana pressed against the door, aching to steal a glimpse down the hall.
    “You two hungry?” Dante yelled, his voice booming through the chamber. Though Ariana couldn’t see a damn thing, Dante must’ve caught their attention. He hunched lower, ready to spring. His fangs dropped, two thick tusks of white, brushing his bottom lip. “Then come and get it.”
    He was calling them to him so that she could remain safely in the chamber. But Ariana wasn’t about to sit back and wait for Dante to get himself killed so they could come after her next. She scanned the room fast, determined to find another way out.
    No window. One door with a war being waged outside it.
    She was trapped.
    She smelled the therians before she saw them. Reeking of aggression and wet fur, the therians charged Dante fast, shifting as they clambered over the walls and floor. In a flash of speed, one shed its skin and shifted into a mangy, white wolf while the other shifted into some sort of monstrous black cat.
    Dante didn’t look fazed in the slightest.
    As the wolf leaped through the air and chomped at Dante’s neck, he swatted it away, looking more irritated than worried. It slammed against the wall with a thud and landed in a tangled heap of limbs and fur.
    The cat clawed up the wall and vaulted at Dante, nails and teeth aiming to tear into his flesh. Dante sailed a fist at the cat’s open jaw, dropping it straight to the hardwood. Momentarily stunned, as if it hadn’t expected Dante’s speed or strength, the cat shook out its fur and bound to its feet.
    Dante took a step back as the two shifters regained strength.
    What was he waiting for? Why did it look like he was enjoying the fight more than he was trying to finish it? As the two animals stalked forward, side by side, Dante smiled, his nails elongating to curved picks at his side.
    Ariana choked back a gasp. Vamps didn’t have nails that extended like fangs. It chilled the blood rushing through her.
    The thought that Dante was something entirely different flashed through her mind. Not therian. Not vamp. Something else. He looked like a vamp, with fangs and the enormous