My name is Lena, and I am a princess. At least, that's what the woman in my dreams calls me. In real life, in the Wolf King's house, I am not a princess. I am not even a person. I am Item Number Seven. The vampire slave. I was on my hands and knees at 6 AM, scrubbing the marble floor of the main hall. The floor was already clean. There was a cleaning robot that could do it in ten minutes. But the wolves liked to see me like this. On my knees. Above me, on the second floor balcony, the pack meeting was happening. All the important wolves of the Shanghai Wolf Pack in black expensive suits. Their voices were low, but my vampire hearing could hear everything, even through the burning pain of my collar. The silver collar around my neck was thin and pretty, like a choker. But it was poison to vampires. For nineteen years it had burned my skin, leaving a permanent red scar. It locked away everything I was. My fangs only came out when I was bleeding badly. My speed was gone. I was slower than a human girl. "We lost the East Bund project," Elder Zhang growled. "The Northern Pack is angry. They want their payment. Two million and a bride to seal the alliance." Marcus Wolf, the Wolf King, sat on his large chair that looked like a throne. He was tall, his hair grey at the sides, his eyes still yellow even in his human form. Every wolf in Shanghai feared him. I called him Father in my head, but he never once called me daughter. "We have no daughter to give," Marcus said coldly. "My son Ethan is not married, but we have no daughter." Ethan Wolf, his real son, the Crown Prince, laughed. He was twenty-two, handsome in the cruel way that rich boys are handsome. He leaned over the balcony and looked down at me. Then he lifted his polished black shoe and stepped right onto my hand. Hard. On purpose. I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. The taste of my own blood always did something strange to me. It made the world go red for a second. "We do," Ethan said, grinding his shoe into my fingers. "We have the little blood pet. The vampire slave. She's nineteen. She's untouched. And Alpha Gunnar from the North likes... exotic pets. He told me last time he always wanted to taste a vampire." The other wolves laughed. One of them whistled. "Little Lena, you should be honored," another wolf said. "Alpha Gunnar is sixty, but he is very strong. He killed his last two wives because they annoyed him, but you are a vampire, maybe you will survive a week longer." My fingers were numb. My nails were digging into the cold marble. Under my cheap grey maid uniform, hidden under my shirt, my mother's jade pendant felt hot against my skin. It was the only thing I had left. A broken piece of dark red jade, carved with a small bat with its wings open. The wolves told me my mother was a low-level blood whore vampire who seduced a wolf and died giving birth to me. That I should be grateful the Wolf King didn't kill me as a baby. But I had dreams. Almost every night. A woman with my same long silver-white hair, wearing a beautiful ancient red dress, holding me as a baby and singing a lullaby in a language I didn't know. She would touch my forehead and whisper, "You are Yue. My little princess. Don't forget. Your blood is royal." Marcus Wolf finally looked at me. His yellow eyes were empty. Like looking at a chair. "Prepare her," he ordered. "The Northern Pack comes tomorrow night. It's full moon. We will gift her to Gunnar to seal the deal. Wash her. The silver collar stays on. We don't want her vampire side to act up." No. No no no. I stood up. My legs were shaking so much I almost fell. Nineteen years of washing their clothes, cooking their food, being bitten when Ethan was drunk and wanted to taste vampire blood because he said it got him high, being called pet, dog, blood bag, thing. "I'm not a thing," I said. My voice was very small, but in the silent hall, everyone heard it. "I'm a person. I have a name." The hall went dead silent. Ethan's face turned dark. In less than a second he used wolf speed - he was in front of me. He grabbed my collar and yanked me up into the air. The silver burned, sizzling, smoke coming off my neck. The smell of my own burning flesh filled my nose. "You are what we say you are," he hissed into my face. His teeth were growing longer, his eyes yellow. "You are a slave born in the house of wolves. You have no pack. You have no clan. If we throw you outside, the vampires will kill you too because you smell like a dog. Remember that, pet." He threw me to the ground. My head hit the marble. Blood trickled from my forehead, and instantly, my fangs - small and weak because of the collar - slid out on their own. "Lock her in the basement," Marcus said without emotion, already turning away. "So she doesn't try to run and embarrass us." Two young wolves dragged me by the chain of my collar like an animal down to the basement. Concrete room. No windows. A bucket. A thin blanket. The same room I had lived in since I was seven years old. The iron door slammed. Lock clicked. I lay on the cold floor and tried to cry, but no tears came. Vampires don't cry easily when collared. We bleed instead. I pulled out the jade pendant. In the dark basement, it was glowing. Faintly, pulsing red, like a heartbeat. Thump. Thump. Thump. It had never glowed before. Never in nineteen years. Outside, through the tiny vent window near the ceiling, I could see a sliver of the moon. Tomorrow was full moon. The wolves would be at their strongest. Their howls would shake the whole city. And they would gift-wrap me and give me to a sixty-year-old monster. If I stayed, I would die. Or worse, live as his tortured bride. If I ran, where would I go? The wolves always told me no one wants a half-breed slave. The human world would not want me. The vampire world would kill me because I smell like wolf. But anything was better than being a bride to a man who kills his brides. I made a decision. I would run tonight. Right now. I held the pendant tight and whispered to my mother, to whoever she really was. "If you were a princess, help me. If I am a princess, give me strength. Please." The pendant suddenly burned hot - so hot it burned my palm. I gasped and dropped it onto the concrete. And then something impossible happened. _Crack._ A tiny, hairline crack appeared on my silver collar. A puff of black smoke came out of it. The collar made a hissing sound. The silver collar had never cracked. Never. Not even when Ethan once tried to cut it with a silver knife to scare me. My heart was beating so fast it hurt. I touched the crack with shaking fingers. Underneath, my skin was not burned. For the first time in nineteen years, the skin under the silver was pale and clean, not red and scarred. From upstairs, a howl started. The pack was starting their pre-full-moon chant. The whole house vibrated with their howls. Awooo! I stood up. I grabbed the broken leg of an old wooden chair - the end was sharp. With all my strength, with all nineteen years of anger, I jammed it into the crack of the collar and pulled outward. Pain. Fire. White light. My neck felt like it was being ripped apart. I screamed, but the howling upstairs was louder and covered my scream. _CRACK! - CLANG!_ The collar snapped in half and fell to the floor, still smoking and spitting sparks. Instantly, air flooded my lungs like I had been underwater for nineteen years. Power - wild, hot, cold, ancient power - flooded my veins. My back arched. My head snapped back. For the first time in my life, I felt my fangs slide out fully, long and sharp and dangerous. My nails grew long and black and sharp. My eyes - I saw my reflection in the dark water bucket - my eyes were glowing solid blood red. And deeper, even deeper than that, behind the vampire power, something else woke up. A low, angry, lonely growl that was not vampire. It was coming from my chest. From my bones. From my soul. A wolf. I clapped a hand over my mouth. No. That's impossible. I am a vampire. The wolves always said I was just a dirty vampire slave. Then why is there a wolf howling inside me? There was no time to think. Heavy footsteps were coming down the stairs. Ethan's voice, annoyed: "Pet? Are you ready to say thank you for your wedding gift? I brought you a pretty dress to wear for Alpha Gunnar." I didn't think. I jumped. I jumped up to the tiny vent window - a jump no human girl could ever do - smashed the glass with my fist and squeezed through, cutting my shoulders and back on the broken glass. Blood poured, but I didn't feel it. Fresh air. Rain. The city of Shanghai at night, lights blurring in the rain. Freedom. I ran. Barefoot. In my bloody maid uniform, covered in blood from my neck and shoulders. I ran ten blocks, twenty blocks, my new vampire speed making cars look like they were standing still. Behind me, far behind, I heard the first furious roar. They realized I was gone. "SHE BROKE THE COLLAR! FIND HER!" I didn't stop until I couldn't breathe, until my legs gave out and I collapsed in a dark wet alley behind a street full of red neon lights. A street I knew wolves never came to - because it was Vampire Street. Blood Moon Nightclub. Humans thought it was just a goth club. Wolves knew better. The rain poured on my face, washing away blood and dirt and nineteen years of being called nothing. Then a shadow fell over me, blocking the neon rain. A man stood there. He wore a long black coat that cost more than the Wolf King's whole house. His hair was black as ink, his skin pale as snow. He was beautiful like a forbidden statue, but his eyes - when he looked down at me - his eyes were glowing purple-red, just like mine. He knelt down slowly. He didn't look disgusted by my bloody bare feet or my torn dress. He looked... shocked. Like he was seeing a ghost. He reached out, his cold fingers so gentle they trembled, tilted my chin up, looking at my broken collar on the wet ground beside me, and then at my long fangs, and then at my neck where the scar was still there. He inhaled. Smelled my blood in the rain. "Royal blood..." he whispered, his deep voice shaking with disbelief and anger. "A pure royal vampire princess... how is a pure royal princess wearing a dog's collar in my city?" Behind him, two more men in black appeared out of the shadows. They saw me, then they saw him kneeling, and they instantly bowed their heads low and whispered in fear and respect, "Your Majesty..." My eyes widened. Your Majesty? The man in the black coat smiled at me, and his own fangs slid out - longer than mine. So long they touched his lower lip. Beautiful and terrifying. "Little one," he said softly, picking me up in his arms as if I weighed nothing at all. His coat smelled like cold night and roses and blood. "The dogs hurt you for nineteen years. Would you like me to help you kill every single one of them?" And for the first time in my nineteen years of life, I wasn't afraid of the dark.

I woke up to the smell of blood. Not the cheap, metallic smell of the blood bags the wolves sometimes threw at me like I was a stray dog. This was warm. Rich. Alive. Like roses left in wine. I tried to move and couldn't. My wrists were soft. My neck was not burning. The silver collar was gone. I bolted upright, gasping. I was not in the basement. I was not in the alley. I was in a bed bigger than the entire basement I had lived in for twelve years. Black silk sheets. Black velvet curtains. The room was huge, dark, gothic, with high windows that showed the Shanghai skyline at night. Rain was still hitting the glass. A fireplace was burning with pale blue fire - vampire fire, not human fire. It gave no heat, only light. And I was wearing someone else's shirt. A man's black shirt. Too big. It fell to my knees. My maid uniform was gone. My cuts from the glass - gone. My neck - I touched it frantically - the scar was still there, but the burning was gone. The broken collar was not on the floor. Someone had bathed me. Someone had changed me. Panic shot through me. The wolves! Ethan! "You're awake." The voice came from the shadows by the fireplace. He was sitting in a large black chair, one leg crossed over the other, watching me. The man from the alley. The man in the black coat. In the light, he was even more terrifyingly beautiful. His black hair was slightly wet from rain. His skin was snow white. His eyes were no longer glowing red - now they were a deep violet, like twilight. He had taken off his coat. Underneath he wore a black silk shirt, open at the throat, showing a pale chest. He looked twenty-seven, but his eyes looked two hundred years old. The Vampire King. I scrambled to the far end of the bed, pulling the shirt down, baring my small fangs at him. A weak, stupid defense. My fangs were nothing compared to his. "Stay away from me!" My voice was hoarse. He didn't move. He just looked at me, and then his eyes dropped to my neck, to my hands where my nails were still long and black. "You broke a high-grade Alpha silver collar with a piece of wood," he said calmly. "Do you know how strong you have to be to do that? Even a full-grown male vampire can't break it." "Where is my pendant?" I asked, ignoring him. My hand went to my chest. It was gone. "Where is my mother's jade? Did you steal it?" For the first time, his calm face changed. A flicker of something. He stood up slowly, walked to the marble table beside the bed, and picked something up. My pendant. The broken red jade bat. He held it out to me in his palm. It was not glowing anymore. "I didn't steal it. It fell in the alley. I kept it safe for you." I snatched it from him. My fingers brushed his. His skin was ice cold, but a shock went through me anyway, like electricity. He stared at where I touched him. "What's your name?" he asked. I hesitated. In the Wolf King's house, I was not allowed to have a name. I was "hey," "pet," "blood bag." "Lena," I whispered. "My mother... in my dreams she calls me Yue. Lin Yue." His eyes widened. Just for a second. Then he masked it. "Lin Yue," he repeated, as if tasting the name. "Do you know what Lin Yue means?" I shook my head. "Do you know who your mother was, Lin Yue?" "The wolves said she was a low vampire... a whore who... who died." He laughed. But it was not a happy laugh. It was a cold, angry sound that made the blue fire in the fireplace flare up. "A low vampire," he said. "Is that what Marcus Wolf told you? That lying dog." He suddenly moved - so fast I didn't see him move - and he was sitting on the edge of my bed. I flinched back, but he didn't touch me. He just looked at me, close. "Your mother was not a low vampire, Lin Yue. Your mother was Princess Lin Xiya. The only daughter of the last Vampire Emperor. My fiancée." The world stopped. "What?" "Twenty years ago, the Vampire Empire and the Wolf Pack had a truce meeting. Your mother was there. She was beautiful, powerful, and she believed we could have peace. Marcus Wolf was there too. Young, ambitious. He told her he loved her. He tricked her. He got her pregnant and then when she told him, he locked her up because he was ashamed that the future Alpha had a vampire child. He told everyone she ran away." My hands were shaking. "You're lying..." "Am I?" He reached out, and this time I let him. His cold finger gently lifted my chin. "Look at your hair. Silver-white. Only the royal bloodline has it. Look at your eyes when you are angry - royal red. And that pendant - that is the Imperial Jade of the Vampire Clan. Only a princess can wear it and make it glow. It glowed for you in the basement because you finally broke the collar. It recognized its owner." Tears - real tears - finally came to my eyes. For nineteen years I thought I was nothing. A mistake. "My mother... is she..." He was silent for a long moment. His violet eyes were sad. "Marcus killed her. The day you were born. He told his pack she died in childbirth. He put that cursed collar on you as a baby to suppress your royal powers, so you would never know who you were. He raised you as a slave to hide his crime. If the vampire council knew he murdered a royal princess, they would have wiped out his entire pack twenty years ago." I couldn't breathe. The room was spinning. My father... my father murdered my mother. And enslaved me. A sound came out of my throat that was not human. It was not vampire. It was a wounded animal sound. My fangs grew longer. My nails dug into the silk sheets, tearing them. The other voice inside me - the growl I heard in the basement - roared awake. _Kill him. Kill them all._ My body started to shake violently. Pain shot through my spine. My bones felt like they were breaking and reforming. I cried out and fell to the floor. "What is happening to me?" I screamed. The Vampire King was instantly on the floor with me, holding me, but keeping a distance, as if afraid to hurt me. "Your wolf. It's waking up. The collar suppressed both sides. Now that it's gone, your wolf side is coming out for the first time. It's your first shift. It's going to hurt. Breathe, Lin Yue. Breathe." "I'm not a wolf! I'm a vampire!" I sobbed, my back arching. I could feel hair growing on my arms, then disappearing. My teeth were changing - fangs, then canines, then fangs again. "You are both," he whispered in my ear, his voice steady, anchoring me. "You are the first hybrid born in a thousand years. Half vampire princess, half Alpha wolf. That's why they collared you. That's why they feared you. A hybrid is more powerful than both." The pain was unbearable. I felt like I was being torn in half. "I can't! It hurts! Make it stop!" He hesitated for only a second. Then he did something I didn't expect. He bit his own wrist. Dark red, almost black blood welled up. Royal vampire blood. He pressed his wrist to my mouth. "Drink. My blood will help you. It will calm the wolf and the vampire. Drink, little princess." Instinct took over. I bit down. His blood hit my tongue and it was like drinking stars and night and power itself. It was sweet and cold and ancient. It flooded me. The pain stopped instantly. The shaking stopped. The growling inside quieted to a low purr. I pulled away, gasping, blood on my lips. His blood was on my chin. He wiped it gently with his thumb. My eyes met his. My eyes were still red, but now there was a ring of silver - wolf silver - around the red. We stared at each other. The air between us was heavy. "Better?" he asked softly. I nodded, unable to speak. I could feel his blood inside me, strengthening me. I could feel... connected to him. "What is your name?" I finally whispered. He smiled. A real smile this time. It made him look less like a monster and more like a man. "Kade. Kade Ye. But you can call me Ye Ming in Chinese. I am the Vampire King of the East." He stood up and pulled me up with him. I was still in his big shirt, barefoot, small compared to him. He looked down at my neck where the scar was. "Lin Yue," he said, his voice low and serious. "Marcus Wolf gave you to the Northern Alpha tomorrow. The wolves will be looking for you tonight. They will not stop until they find you. If you stay here, I will protect you. But nothing is free in my world." "What do you want?" I asked, my heart beating fast. "I want revenge too," he said. "Marcus killed my fiancée. Your mother. He stole you from me - you were supposed to be my daughter, if she had lived and married me. So I want to help you. I will train you. I will teach you how to use your vampire speed, your mind control, your wolf strength. And when you are ready..." He leaned close, his lips almost brushing my ear. His cold breath made me shiver. "...we will go back to that house together. And you will make them kneel. You will take back your crown. As my Queen." My Queen. Nineteen years I was called pet. Now this beautiful, terrifying King was calling me Queen. I looked out the window. Far in the distance, I could hear it. Even in the city. A wolf howl. They were searching for me. Ethan's howl. Angry. I looked back at Kade Ye. At his outstretched hand. I had two choices. Run alone and die like a stray dog. Or take the hand of a Vampire King and become a monster that monsters fear. I put my hand in his. My small, scarred hand in his large, cold, powerful one. "Teach me how to kill them," I said. His violet eyes flared red with excitement. He squeezed my hand tight. "With pleasure, my little hybrid." From outside, another howl - but this time, it was not a wolf howl. It was mine. A new sound I had never made before. Half howl, half hiss. And every vampire in Shanghai heard it and looked up. The hybrid princess had awakened.

The first thing Kade Ye did after I said "Teach me how to kill them" was throw me into a swimming pool. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" I crashed into the cold water in his oversized shirt. I flailed. I had never learned to swim. The wolves never let the slave use their pool. I was choking, sinking. Strong cold hands grabbed my waist and pulled me up. Kade's face was inches from mine, wet. His black shirt was plastered to his chest. "You can't swim," he said calmly, holding me afloat easily. "Wolves can swim. Vampires can't. But hybrids? Let's see what you are." "I said teach me to fight, not to drown me!" I coughed, clinging to his shoulders. My shirt was transparent now. I realized it and tried to cover myself. He didn't look. His violet eyes stayed on my face. "Lesson one," he said, ignoring my embarrassment. "Your wolf side is afraid of water. Your vampire side hates it. If you panic, you die. If you control both, you breathe." He let go. I sank again. Panic shot through me. I kicked wildly. Water filled my mouth. The growl inside me roared - _NO!_ And then... my feet touched the bottom. I stood up. The pool was only four feet deep. He had thrown me into the shallow end. I glared at him, wiping water from my eyes. My silver-white hair was stuck to my face. I must have looked like a drowned cat. Kade Ye actually laughed. A short, surprised laugh. "You are very easy to tease, little princess." "I am not little!" I shouted, splashing him. "I'm nineteen!" "Nineteen years as a slave. Zero years as a princess. You are a baby vampire. A baby wolf. You don't know how to use your claws, your fangs, your nose, your ears. Marcus made sure of that." He stepped out of the pool in one smooth motion. Water didn't even drip off him. He offered me a large black towel. I wrapped myself in it, shivering. Not from cold. Vampires don't get cold easily. From anger. "So teach me then. Stop laughing." His smile faded. He became the King again. "Fine. Come here." He led me to a huge glass room attached to the mansion. I realized we were not in a normal house. We were on the top floor of a skyscraper in Lujiazui - the richest part of Shanghai. One whole floor was his. The pool was on the roof. The training room was all mirrors and steel. "Your senses," he said. "Close your eyes." I did. "What do you smell?" "Water... your cologne... blood..." I sniffed. "There's blood downstairs. A lot." "Three floors down, my clan is having dinner. Blood bags. Your nose is working. Good. What do you hear?" I listened. At first, only the rain. Then... more. "I hear... heartbeats. Many. Downstairs. And... on the street, 20 floors below, a woman arguing with her boyfriend. And... a dog barking two blocks away. And..." "And?" "And... wolves. Far away. Howling. They're still looking for me." Kade nodded. "Ethan Wolf and his hunters are searching every street. They have your scent from the collar. But they cannot enter vampire territory without starting a war. You are safe here. For now." I opened my eyes. "How long do I have before they try anyway?" "Tomorrow is the full moon banquet. Marcus promised you to Gunnar. If you don't show up, he loses face. He will come for you tomorrow night whether it means war or not. So you have 24 hours to learn to not die." 24 hours. "First, fangs," Kade said. He walked behind me, and in the mirror I saw us - him tall, pale, powerful, me small, wet, wrapped in a towel, eyes red with a silver ring. "Call them out." "I don't know how." "You did it in the basement when you were angry. Do it again. Think of Ethan stepping on your hand." I thought of Ethan. Of his shoe. Of being called a pet for nineteen years. Heat flooded my face. My fangs slid out with a soft _click_. Long, sharp. "Good. Now retract." I tried. Nothing happened. "You have to want it. Like a cat with claws." I focused. Thought of being normal. Slowly, they slid back in. "Again. Out. In. Out. In. Faster." For ten minutes I did it like an exercise. Out, in, out, in, until my jaw ached. "Now claws," Kade said. "Same thing. Think of scratching Ethan's smug face off." I laughed despite myself. Then I growled. And my nails grew - black, long, sharp as knives. "Good girl." The words made my stomach flip strangely. No one had ever called me good. "Now both at once. Fangs and claws. And eyes." I did it. In the mirror, I looked terrifying. Red eyes, fangs, claws. But also... beautiful. Powerful. Not a slave. Kade stepped closer behind me. He was so close his chest almost touched my back. I could feel his coldness. "Now the hard part. The wolf." "I don't want the wolf," I whispered. "The wolves were cruel to me." "The wolf is not them. The wolf is you. Your father's blood is cruel, but your wolf is yours. If you reject it, you will never be whole. And a half-powered hybrid cannot beat Marcus Wolf. Call it." "How?" "Howl." "What?" "Howl, Lin Yue. Like you did last night." "I can't howl in an apartment!" He smiled in the mirror, his fangs showing. "This building is soundproof. No human can hear us. The wolves outside? They already know you're here. Let them hear what you have become." I hesitated. Then I closed my eyes. I thought of the moon I saw through the vent. I thought of running. Of freedom. Of the wind in my hair for the first time. A sound started in my chest. Low at first. Then louder. It wasn't a human sound. It was not a vampire hiss. It was a howl. A clear, high, silver howl that made the mirrors vibrate. My body changed. White fur sprouted on my arms - then vanished. My ears became pointed. My teeth became all sharp, not just fangs. For a second, in the mirror, I saw a white wolf with red eyes. Then I was back, panting, on my knees, sweating. Kade knelt with me. He looked almost... proud. "You did it. First shift. Most wolves take years. You did it in one day." I was exhausted. "Am I... am I a monster?" "You are a Queen," he said firmly. He lifted me up, bridal style, again. I was too tired to protest. He carried me out of the training room, back to the bedroom. He placed me on the bed and pulled the blanket over my wet towel. "Sleep. You need blood to recover. When you wake up, you will drink properly for the first time. Not blood bags. Real feeding training." "Will it hurt?" I asked, sleepy. "No. It will feel good. Too good." His eyes lingered on my neck. On my scar. I felt my pulse under his gaze. He turned to leave, but I grabbed his cold hand. "Kade... why are you helping me? Really? Because of my mother?" He looked down at our hands. My small tan hand in his pale large one. "Your mother was my first love. I failed her. I will not fail her daughter," he said quietly. "And also..." He leaned down. His face was close to mine. So close I could see the tiny flecks of silver in his violet eyes. "...in 200 years, no one's blood has ever smelled as sweet as yours does. Your hybrid blood... it calls to me. It's driving my whole clan crazy downstairs. They all want a taste. But only I get to taste. Because you are mine. Remember that." My heart hammered. Before I could answer, the whole building suddenly shook. A loud BANG from downstairs. Alarms. Kade's head snapped toward the door, his eyes flashing blood red. "What was that?" I whispered. His fangs slid out fully. His expression turned murderous. "The wolves. Marcus didn't wait for tomorrow. He came now. He brought the entire pack to my door to take you back." A second bang, louder. And then Ethan's voice, amplified, shouting from the street 60 floors below, but we could hear it clearly with vampire ears: "LENA! LITTLE BLOOD PET! FATHER SAYS IF YOU DON'T COME OUT IN TEN MINUTES, WE WILL BURN THIS VAMPIRE BUILDING TO THE GROUND WITH ALL YOUR NEW BOYFRIENDS INSIDE! YOU BELONG TO US!" Kade looked at me. I looked at him, terrified, but also angry. My new claws came out on their own. He held out his hand to me again. "Do you want to hide, little princess? Or do you want to go downstairs and show your family what their slave has become?" Outside, the wolves howled, a hundred voices. But inside me, my wolf and my vampire both snarled back, ready to fight. I took his hand.