Claws // Colby Brock

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☯︎☯︎☯︎☯︎☯︎

Colby and the others took my proclamation as a sign to come out of hiding. I felt an intense breeze all around me as they appeared, surrounding Tom. I should have realised they would, considering they're just as vampiric as any other vampire.

"Colby Brock," Tom muttered, his eyes on the man over my shoulder. His entire demeanour changed — he wasn't aggressive or defensive, purely terrified.

Colby responded to the recognition, shifting forward about to attack, but I held my hand out to stop him. His chest bumped my forearm and I felt him look at me.

"No," I said simply. "Tom, why would someone like you be allied with Aiden and Paula?"

"Someone like me?" he repeated slowly, taking a big step back away from us. Unfortunately for him, he stepped into Mike, who hadn't quite gotten the memo of what was happening and punched him.

"Mike!" I snapped, rushing forward to kneel beside Tom. The guy had gone down like a brick, almost panting as he tried to scurry away from Mike and the others. "I said no. Leave him alone."

"Amira, what are you even doing? The plan was to ambush these guys, not make friends." He narrowed his gaze. "You're being impulsive."

I huffed. "For the record, I was going to have you ambush him here and bring him unconscious back to his clan before we take them down, too, because it sounded fun. But I've changed my mind. So back off." Twisting my head to catch Tom's gaze, I gave him an apologetic smile. "Do you have a One, Tom?"

"No," he muttered.

"When you find them, you better treat them like you've treated me. You're not a bad vampire, in fact you're one of the good ones." I patted his shoulder as I stood up, taking a step back. "For a word of advice, get away from Aiden or this won't be the last time we show up out of the blue."

I began to turn, intending on just walking away, but Colby stepped to the side into my path. "Amira, we're not leaving empty-handed. We haven't sent a message yet."

"I set their restroom on fire" — I briefly turned to Tom, who looked slightly annoyed suddenly — "sorry about that" — and back again — "so I'm pretty sure enough of a message has been sent."

"Not to Aiden," Colby argued.

I rolled my eyes. "Don't be brutish, some people are allied with bad people because they have no choice. That doesn't mean they are bad, too." My arms crossed over my chest as I felt my lips tugging up at the corner. "I'm a werewolf, which you hate, but you have no problem fucking my lights out still. So do what you did before and get over yourself to be nice for once to this guy."

"You're hot, he isn't," he replied with a shrug. "Pretty girls get away with a lot more."

"He's not so bad," I mused.

"Amira."

"Alright, alright. We're going to ignore the fact that's the first time you've called me pretty and I'm going straight to the part where I tell you I'm not backing down on this." I was staring up at him directly into his eyes, my arms still crossed and my body firmly in place. I refused to move until he backed down instead.

A few moments passed. I could hear Mike's voice very faintly trying to convince Colby otherwise, to ignore me and deal with Tom and his clan without remorse. But Colby was silent, considering. I'd never seen him quite so conflicted before.

Tilting his head back in frustration, he sighed, and I knew exactly what it was he had decided. Man, being pretty had so many perks.

I spun quickly to the vampire who was still on the ground. "Looks like your life is spared."