Read Online Wild Things: A Chicagolands Vampire Novel (Chicagoland Vampires) by Chloe Neill - Free Book Online

even—what are they?”
    “Harpies, I think. Is this a fight with the Pack? Did the Pack piss someone off?”
Perhaps by inviting vampires to his woods?
I silently wondered, hoping this wasn’t because of us.
    “I’m sorry, but I don’t know. This is so horrible, Merit. So awful.”
    The bare limbs above us shook as harpies circled overhead, looking for a place to dive into the undergrowth. I pulled the dagger from my boot and stood up again.
    “You’re going back.”
    I nodded. “The Pack still needs help, and Ethan’s still out there. I don’t quit until he’s safe.”
    There was bravado in my voice—the kind of bluffing I actually could manage—and it masked the fear. My allies were engaged in battles of their own, and I had only a slim and slender dagger to take down a woman-bird with an attitude problem.
    But Tanya smiled at me like I’d seen Gabriel smile before. Knowingly. Wisely. And with utter calm. “You can do this, Merit of House Cadogan. Go save your man.”
    I nodded, somehow buoyed by the sentiment, and left Tanya and her subjects in the trees. Flipping the dagger nervously in my hand, I walked back to the tree line and peered into the darkness.
    She dropped to the ground in front of me, torchlight flickering across her naked body.
    She seemed, somehow, even larger on the ground. At least six feet tall, with a twenty-foot wingspan. Her eyes were solidly black, hair blowing wildly in the wind, revealing small breasts and a web of battle scars across her abdomen.
    She tucked her wings behind her and moved forward, knees bent, the motion bouncy and unnatural. Harpies clearly weren’t meant to run; they were meant to fly.
    She opened her mouth and screamed. I winced at the aural assault and resorted to my standard defense mechanism. Sarcasm.
    “You are not going to Hollywood with pitch like that,” I advised her.
    Her dark eyes flicked back and forth like a bird’s, but it didn’t appear she actually understood what I’d said. Maybe she didn’t understand English. Or finely grained sarcasm.
    Regardless, she understood battle. She attacked, vaulting forward, teeth bared.
    For a moment, I was too transfixed to move. She looked like a creature from an ancient time, a warrior from an era when gods and goddesses reigned in gauzy robes and gold laurel crowns. If
The
Ride of the Valkyries
had begun to play, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
    I kicked, trying like I had before to get her off her feet. She avoided the shot by taking to the air, then gave back better than I had, kicking forward and hitting me square in the chest, sending me flying.
    I hit the ground on my back, knocking the wind out of me. I clutched at the grass at my sides, gasping for air, as the ground rumbled beneath my feet.
    “Up, Merit!” yelled Tanya behind me, and I reared back, then hopped to my feet, as if her words had been an order instead of a frightened suggestion. I was tiring, still healing and dizzy from my last round, adrenaline beginning to fade, and I was beginning to react on autopilot. Fortunately, I’d been trained to fight beyond fear, beyond exhaustion.
    Standing again, I bounced on my feet. The harpy’s eyes narrowed and she moved forward again. I looked for a target, recalled how ineffective my dagger had been against the other harpy’s abdomen, and picked a new target.
    If I couldn’t beat the human, I’d go for the bird.
    I beckoned her forward, and she windmilled her claws as she moved toward me again, looking for purchase and a soft bit of flesh to tear. I swerved to the left, and she followed. Her legs moved awkwardly, and her wings provided just enough drag to make me faster than her. I dodged back to the right, and she moved back again, but slower this time . . . giving me just enough time to make my move.
    Her wing brushed me as she sought to move again, and I grabbed the top of it, a long rib beneath a covering of slick and oily feathers, and stuck with my dagger.
    She screamed in