Finishing off the last of the vamps, Jonny rose and snatched Ashley's arm.
She yanked away, but he grabbed her again, this time allowing his magic to leak into her. She was too fast to stop, but he could slow her down, and he did just that, forcing her muscles to relax the way he often did the women he drained for dinner so they wouldn't fight back either.
He Traveled with her out of the restaurant and to the beach nearby.
She wrenched free the moment their shoes touched the sand. "Get the hell away from me!" she hissed.
Jonny was about to read her the riot act for taking on vamps when she whirled and glared up at him.
He'd always loved her blue-gray eyes that bordered on silver at night. Her cheeks were flushed, her willowy form balanced and crouched as if she were considering attacking a god. Until this moment, he had remembered her only as the delicate, almost too thin seventeen-year-old who tried to kill herself.
She'd grown into a woman in the past four years. Her body was shapely, her hips flared and breasts large enough to fill his hand. Training to fight rendered her toned, and she'd lost what remained of the baby fat in her face to reveal high cheekbones with natural hollows beneath them and a softly shaped chin.
Ashley was stunning in a way few women were, from the contrast of her dark hair and pale complexion to the shapely musculature of her thighs and calves outlined by her snug leggings.
What shocked him more? The unfamiliar fire in her eyes or the fact she wasn't the vulnerable girl he left?
"You have a lot of nerve!" She spoke before he could recover from his surprise.
"For rescuing you?" he retorted.
"For getting near me!"
"Because you'll run and hide behind Xander."
"I won't run and hide," she snapped. "I've been waiting for this day for years." She stepped back and shifted the knife he had given her from her left to her right hand.
He studied her, realization dawning. "You're going to fight me?"
She nodded.
"I thought you were crazy taking on vamps but this is insanity," he said, unable to help his amusement. "You can't kill me, Ash."
"You destroyed my life and almost killed my cousin. I want to repay you for that."
He crossed his arms, not expecting Ashley to be furious at him four years later. "I'm not a normal vamp. I won't play fair, either."
"Figures."
"All right then. Come on." He dropped his arms. "I'll let you hit me once before I show you why no one messes with a god."