Pain and terror blossomed in her mind, but still she clutched the blade.

Off in the darkness of the huge room, she caught a glimpse of something—no, somebody. A man—the glitter of his eyes. Nothing about that one glimpse made her shudder with fear. In fact, that one glimpse had something warm and easy rolling through her.

It gave her the courage she needed to gasp through the pain, “I bet the knife does a better job than you.”

He shattered her wrist and she screamed with the pain. The blade fell from her useless fingers and he backhanded her, sent her flying to the floor. She landed at the feet of the woman who’d brought her here. She grabbed the front of Vanya’s skimpy black dress and yanked her up, but whatever she might have said was cut short by a harsh gasp.

As one, the two women turned their heads, watched as a long, brawny arm came out of the thick, seemingly impenetrable darkness—why was it so dark? A scarred hand grabbed the neck of the demon who had broken Vanya’s wrist. He screamed, but the scream ended abruptly in a wet, nasty gurgle.

His head, sans body, rolled across the floor like a macabre bowling ball, coming to a stop a few feet away from Vanya and the woman.

The woman shrieked and threw Vanya to the floor, staring off into the darkness.

“Who is there?”

Vanya, through the pain, started to laugh.

“You…” The demon looked at her. A furious hiss escaped her and she lunged for Vanya, gripping the bodice of her dress. “Who is there? What have you done, you little cunt?”

Vanya laughed harder. If there was something hysterical to her laughter, it couldn’t be helped.

The woman’s eyes narrowed and she reached down, touched the silver chain Vanya wore. Something that might have been fear entered her eyes. “You’re not…”

Then she grabbed the chain, spilling the silver cross out. And she heaved out a sigh of relief.

“No. You’re not what I thought you were.”

Abruptly, Vanya stopped laughing. Behind the demon, another two of her men disappeared. Damn, she was losing them left and right, and the bitch was standing here worrying about Vanya? Vanya wasn’t the damn problem.

Then he was there—bigger than life, his hair the palest blond, his face…damn, that face, it was too beautiful, too perfect to be real, and over one muscled shoulder, he had an axe. Blood dripped from the gleaming silver blade.

Vanya looked at the demon and smiled. “No. I’m not what you thought. But something tells me he is.”

Her shriek could have made ear drums bleed—Vanya thought hers just might. Then she was too busy worrying about the nausea roiling through her gut as the woman snatched her up, jarring her shattered her wrist. A hand fisted in her hair, jerking her head back so far it was a wonder it stayed attached.

“Get back, Grimm, or the mortal dies.”

He didn’t say anything, just pointed his axe at another one of the demons—a blond man, one of the few that remained.

The blond gulped, shot the woman a look…and took off running.

Vanya might have laughed.

If she wasn’t busy screaming.

BN | Amazon | Samhain

Dying is hard enough… coming back to life is brutal.