God, I was so sick of people just launching themselves at me without warning. Big-time rude, not to mention hell on my nerves. I backpedaled like mad, physically and verbally.

"I didn't do anything to - "

Her fist was a blur, and I took a teeth-rattling punch in the mouth, which wasn't fun at all, and threw an elbow into Richard's throat before he could do the same.

I chastised myself immediately: I was fighting like a human, but Fiends didn't need to breathe. He did cough and grab his throat, which I figured was good enough, so I turned my back on him, seized Jane by the hair, and spun her across the room.

Richard recovered faster than I expected. He delivered a blow to my right kidney, which hurt - oh, man, getting punched in the back was no fun at all - and then delivered a roundhouse kick to my left kidney, which hurt even more.

"You told us you would not try to trick us!" he seethed, hurting me some more with his fists. Kick, kick. Stomp. Best I could tell, Richard was apparently quite the kickboxing champion in his former life. "You swore!"

"I said," I gasped between blows, "that after Nick left... ooof... I would let you have at me. Feels like... ow, ow, oh God ow! . . . I'm keeping my end of the bargain. Shame... aggh!... you couldn't keep yours."

"My end of the bargain," he hissed in my ear, "is to survive. That's all you taught me to do."

The fire inside me kindled, and I felt a surge of power, as something made Richard stagger back. It didn't knock him unconscious, much less kill him, but it did give me enough space to get up and straighten myself to my full height.

And yes, I was still wearing my Marc Jacobs heels, which helped.

"Maybe you're not as good a student as you think." I couldn't help the disdain in my voice, though normally I tried not to sound like such a snob. What was wrong with this man? His queen had spared his life from the wrath of her husband, offered an apology, reached her hand out in friendship - and he had slapped it down?

What was wrong with him? Who the fuck did he think he was?!

My blood ran super-hot again, and he shrieked as if I had struck him. Again, he seemed too strong to suffer worse than a blow - or maybe the fact that he shared my blood spared him from the worst I had to offer - but it didn't matter. His kickboxing career was over.

"On your knees!" I snarled at him. When he didn't move, I ignited my blood again - yes, I think I was controlling it now, at least somewhat - and made him get down. And I won't lie. I wouldn't deny it felt good to see him submit. To make him submit.

I turned long enough to ensure that Stephanie and Jane were not coming at me - they weren't, since they, too, were on their knees - and then I gave Richard my full attention again.

Nick's chair had been upturned in the fracas; I reached down and snapped a leg off the bottom. "You and I will come to terms of peace," I suggested, "or you will die." A dim thought that this wasn't exactly the best way to enforce peace was immediately shoved to the back of my brain.

Richard's body was beaten, but his eyes were still full of defiance and distrust. "I see your true colors. No peace, my queen."

"My true colors. My true colors!" I felt my fangs spring from my gums and resisted the urge to bite him on the face. I raised the stake and brought it down faster than he could possibly move...

... right into his throat.

I don't know what made me miss his heart. Maybe it was poor aim - swinging a stake in lavender pumps is harder than it looks. Maybe the part of me that wanted him dead wasn't as strong as the part of me that just wanted him to shut the hell up.

Pulling the bloody stake from his throat, I turned to the others, who were still (willingly) on their knees. His body made a soft thump on the plush carpet behind me. Yes, he'd be out of action for hours. "And now, what to do with you two," I said grimly, hands on hips. Richard's black blood dripped slowly onto my - oh no! - Ann Taylor linen pants. I quickly rearranged the stake.

"I, um, think we should let her go," Stephanie managed with her head down.

"Perhaps there can be... forgiveness," Jane said, also not looking up.

"Maybe," I agreed. "I guess that'th up to each of you."

"What?"

"Never mind." This was no time to let the Fiends know that I lisped whenever my fangs came out. It wouldn't exactly strike terror in their heart of hearts.

I could hear the squeal of brakes outside the windows, familiar voices, the front door opening, and pounding footfalls.

"In the thort time we have left alone together," I suggested, "you two thould probably do everything you can to look ath - as - unthreatening as you possibly can." Thank God, my fangs were retracting. I was still pretty thirsty, but it would appear that the energy I'd gotten from my family, as well as from Richard, were keeping the worst of the pangs away. "Because if you think I'm bad? You should see my husband in action."

They swarmed into the room like a pack of wolverines. I relaxed, smiled at the first face I saw, and felt some of the fire leave my blood.

"Don't you bitches touch - oh." Antonia skidded to a halt, then nearly went sprawling, as Sinclair almost ran her down. "Oomph! Um, we're here to save you."

"Go save Nick," I suggested. "He's in the bushes on this side of the house."

"You will pay for - oh," Sinclair said, straightening as he took in the three prostrate forms around me. The others piled in behind him and did the same. "Hmm."

"Yeah, so, thanks for showing up, but I took care of things. Pretty much. Of course, in the last week you guys whittled down their numbers for me. That was," I decided, "a big help."

Tina and Antonia each nodded. Garrett, hiding behind Antonia, swallowed with what looked like a mixture of relief and lingering fear. He tried a shy smile, and I smiled back.

"Stake 'em all!" Nick hollered, limping through the doorway and waving his arms like the Winter Carnival grand marshal. "Betsy, too!"

Jessica rushed to Nick, clearly relieved that he was unharmed (well, it was possible he had a sprained ankle, and that was a helluva scratch on his forehead... and he seemed to be favoring the ribs on his left side... ).

"Agreed," Sinclair said, sighing at the three Fiends. "Well, not agreed about my wife. But the others must die now. In fact, it is long overdue."

"As you wish." Tina pulled out a thin mahogany stake from somewhere within her navy blue wool sweater and skirt set (truly frightening efficiency), and stepped forward.

"Forget it!" I said, holding up my hands. "We are going to be magnanimous in victory."

"Magnanimous equals pussy," Antonia commented.

"Again?" Tina whined. "We're going to let them live again?"

"Elizabeth, they are too dangerous to simply - "

"I didn't say we were going to set them free. They'll have to earn their freedom." I turned to the three Fiends - well, okay, the two that were conscious. "You had a grievance with me. You should have stuck with me. Had all seven of you done that, seven of you might be alive now. I'd like it if you three, at least, stayed alive. It's up to you."

"What - " Stephanie swallowed, then tried again. "What do we have to do?"

"You guys can be the queen's personal bodyguards and doers of annoying chores. Or I can leave the room, right now, and my husband and friends will chat with you. A lot. Until you have cavernous facial wounds." I tilted my head toward the exit and not coincidentally to the people who would stay behind. "Your choice."

"Pick the stake," Nick suggested, wiping streaks of blood from his face. God, that made me even hungrier. And wouldn't he just shit? "You don't want to spend the next thousand years doing that twit's dirty work." He turned to me. "You almost killed me, you numb fucking twat! Again!"

"I did not! I saved you."

"You threw me out a fucking window!" Nick was actually going purple with rage.

I tried to hide my amazement. Unlike occurs in the movies, Nick clearly hadn't suddenly forgiven me and been warmed by my selfless act. We weren't going to ride off into the sunset together (so to speak) and get Blizzards from Dairy Queen.

Frankly, I didn't get it. In the movies, when the heroine did something heroic and cool, everybody loved her at the end. Okay, I didn't really expect life to be like the movies... uh. That was maybe a lie.

"You are a menace, and if I could make it stick, I'd throw your ass in jail for the next hundred years."

"Nicholas J. Berry!" Jessica gasped. "What is the matter with you?"

"With me? You should have seen this psycho bitch in action."

"That is enough," she snarled, hands on scrawny hips. "When are you going to get it through your head that Betsy isn't the cause of all your problems?"

I was frantically trying to signal to Jessica, making a slashing motion across my throat, the universal gesture for "shush!" Although it made me sad, I felt Nick's rage was a perfectly appropriate reaction to the evening's festivities. I appreciated Jessica sticking up for me - she always stuck up for me - but she didn't have all the facts.

He had been attacked. Again. Violated by vampires... again. I was amazed he hadn't gone fetal in the hedges.

"How many times do I have to say it," Jessica was saying. "How many times do you have to see it? She's a good guy!"

"No, Jess, it's okay, he - "

"She drinks blood, because she's dead," he said, spitting on the floor - spitting blood, I might add, and I was ashamed, because my fangs were out again. I didn't dare speak anymore; I didn't want him to know I wanted to drink and drink and drink. "She's a killer, and you know it."

"I love her, she's the sister I never got, and you know that."

"Ah, perhaps we could, ah, step into another room and discuss, ah, the new terms for surrender," Tina said, because even the Fiends looked uncomfortable to be witnessing the lovers' quarrel.

"Or maybe you could talk about this later, when everybody's calmed down," I tried.

"Don't make me choose," Jessica warned, ignoring us. For her, the only person in the room was Nick.

"I'm not making you choose. I'm choosing. We're done." He wiped his face again, and we all pretended not to notice how his hand shook and how he couldn't look at her.

"That's right," Jessica replied coolly. "We are."

And just like that - it was over. They were over. We could all practically hear the snap.

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