Wild Things: A Chicagolands Vampire Novel (Chicagoland Vampires) by Chloe Neill

shook the earth; others batted away the shifters with a dip of wings that sent wolves flying.
    A harpy spied us, the only vampires on the field, dropped her head, and dove toward us.
    “I’m open to suggestions,” I yelled to Ethan over the din.
    “Stay alive!” he offered back, blading his body toward the harpy, limiting her access to vital organs. I did the same, moving closer beside him so we were a combined vampiric weapon, immortal and strong, although my heart raced like life was a delicate and fragile thing.
    And wasn’t it?
    “I don’t suppose you know anything about harpy anatomy?”
    “Not a lick, Sentinel. But they look like ladies to me!”
    A lot of help he was.
    The sound was ferocious now, the beat of her wings as loud as a jet plane, sending gusts of air across the field. She was close enough that I could have seen the whites of her eyes, if she’d had any. Her eyes were solid black; regardless the shape of her body, they carried no visible trace of thought or humanity.
    She extended her arms and scratched out her claws, their tips aimed at our necks. We dropped to the ground, her smell—pungent and sour—streaming past as she flew above us.
    “She did not get perfume for Valentine’s Day,” Ethan surmised, spinning to watch her bank and turn back for a second shot. The width of the harpies’ wingspan helped them rise and fall quickly, but their turn radius was substantial. It took seconds for her to spin back in our direction, but only a moment for her to dip again. She’d learned the mistake of her first effort and, instead of swiping at us on the move, came straight for us and didn’t veer.
    We hit the ground, rolling away in different directions to avoid the claws on her feet, which were as black and sharp as those on her hands.
    She decided to follow me. I was on the ground, a few feet away from the spot where she’d fallen to earth, and it wasn’t far enough. She followed and scratched, talons raking at my arms and abdomen with vicious effectiveness.
    The claws had looked pointy and sharp, but they were jagged like serrated knives, and they tore at flesh instead of slicing through it. They were weapons of destruction. She scraped my face, and the skin burned like fire beneath her nails.
    Fear turned to fury, but it took me a moment to remember the dagger in my hand, and I thrust it upward again and again, the knife bouncing off bones I couldn’t see, hitting no true target but causing enough of a painful nuisance that she backed off.
    “Here!” Ethan yelled, pivoting back and forth behind her to let me get to my feet.
    I stood, adrenaline numbing the cuts I’d already received, and wiped the dagger’s handle, slippery with the harpy’s wine-dark blood, on my pants. The smell of it was just as pungent as the rest of her body, more like vinegar than the penny scent of human blood. Even for a vampire, there was nothing appealing about it.
    She turned on Ethan and flapped forward only a few feet off the ground.
    That, I thought, was my chance. If flying was her advantage, I’d have to take it away from her. And I only needed gravity for that.
    Distract her!
I silently told Ethan. He obeyed, weaving back and forth as she tried to follow him, her wings too large for quick maneuvers.
    While she focused on him, I dropped . . . and lunged for her ankles.
    She screamed out, bobbing in the air as she fought off my weight, kicking at the vampire who’d become her uninvited (and literal) hanger-on. But I held tight, sinking my face into the curl of my arm to avoid the barbs at the tips of her wings, which were as jagged and sharp as her nails.
    Gravity won, and the harpy pitched forward, taking me with her. I hit the ground, rolling quickly to avoid her frantically beating wings, but she kicked out and hit me square on the left cheekbone, which cracked and sang with pain strong enough to bring tears to my eyes.
    As she rose again, I uttered a curse that would have had my prickly mother