Blood Cure: A Paranormal Vampire Romance (Vampire Huntress Chronicles Book 3)

by Jessica Wayne

  “Hey, pet, let’s not start off on the wrong foot, all right?” A man missing two of his teeth grins at me as he doesn’t even bother to hide the fact that he’s eye-fucking me.

  “This pet bites,” I retort. “So unless you want to lose that pathetic thing between your legs, I suggest you start talking.”

  The man’s cheeks redden, but he steps aside without another word.

  “That would be me.” A man sitting in a booth at the back of the bar gets to his feet. I take him in as he walks across the bar, taking special notice of the eye patch over his left eye and the way his arms are covered in scars that look an awful lot like claw marks.

  “And who the fuck are you?”

  He comes to a stop a few feet in front of Elijah and me, and his gaze drifts over the four of us with complete and utter distaste. “Two hunters running around with a vampire and a shifter.” He clicks his tongue, and I don’t bother correcting him on the fact that Elijah used to be a vampire himself.

  No need to let word get out that there’s a cure.

  “Hell of a lot better company than the piss-poor group you’ve got here.”

  He throws his head back and laughs. “I like you, little huntress.”

  “Then how about you answer my fucking question. You know who I am. Who are you?”

  “Bones,” he replies, and it takes everything in me not to laugh.

  “How original.” My smile is lacking any and all humor and meant more as a warning.

  “My process wasn’t to be original but to let my enemy know what will happen should they cross me.”

  “Yes, I can see you’re fearsome. Where’s my friend?”

  “You mean the lycan lover?” he asks and glances around at Willa. “This the whore? I can see why she was able to seduce him. Bitch could even change me if she really tried. How about it, honey?”

  Willa lunges, but Tarnley holds her back.

  I clear my throat. “Remember how I said I bite? That one is more likely to rip your throat out and leave you to drown in your own blood.”

  Bones chuckles. “Bring him in,” he orders, and two of his men disappear around the back. I take in the other three—not including the big man himself. None are moving, and as of right now, all three of them are focused on their leader.

  The two who disappeared return moments later and toss a bloody, bruised Jack at Bones’s feet.

  “You son of a bitch,” I growl as I take in Jack’s broken state. From what I can make out, his jaw, nose, and at least one arm are broken. My best guess is that his leg is as well, but I can’t see anything hidden beneath his bloody clothing.

  Bones shrugs. “We had to keep breaking shit so he’d shut up.”

  Elijah takes a step back, and I can almost guarantee it’s to keep Willa from shifting before we have the information we need. I wasn’t entirely sure we were going to kill these bastards, but now? There’s no fucking way they’re walking out of here alive.

  I meet the one good eye of the man I have every intention of killing with my bare hands. “What do you want from me?”

  “You are going to make me an offer that’s better than the one I already got.”

  “Or?”

  The door behind us opens, and more enter the room. Though, based on their heartbeats, they aren’t all hunters. I can sense shifters, vampires, and—to my great dismay—a fucking witch. “Or, we’re going to rip you all apart.”

  “Didn’t think you could take me on alone?” I ask sweetly.

  “I think I don’t take unnecessary risks.”

  Risking a glance over my shoulder, I meet Elijah’s enraged gaze. I smile at him and wink before grinning savagely at the creatures who thought to surround us. The steady buzzing in my blood increases as I pull at it, slowly urging it forward.

  But this time, instead of the lights flickering, I feel the heat traveling down both arms and gathering in my palms. “Heather has grossly underestimated me from day one,” I say calmly. “It’s such a shame you did the same. Fearghas?” I call out. “It’s time.” The fae appears beside me, and Bones jumps back.

  “That’s right, dickbag.” Reaching down, he touches Jack, and they disappear.

  “Kill them!” Bones roars and his five hunters charge toward me.

  A wolf howls as I lunge for the leader, slamming into him with both palms. He roars in pain as the stench of burning flesh replaces the smoke and sweat. Shoving him backward, I withdraw my dagger and take my stance.

  He quickly recovers, and soon is standing before me with a short sword and a furious smile. Without a word, he takes a large step toward me and swings out. I dodge, leaning back and missing the blade by only inches.

  Ducking to the side, I slash out with my own and catch his abdomen.

  He spins around, and this time, I don’t move quite fast enough.

  Pain stings my arm as warm blood drips down my biceps.

  “That hurt, little girl? There’s more where that came from.”

  “Then come and get me, big boy.” I grin and rush toward him. Hand to throat, he coughs and stumbles back. I bring my foot up and slam it into his chest, sending him flying backward as one of his minions charges me.

  Spinning, I kick and knock him back. Another rushes toward me, so I wrap my arm around his throat and jerk, snapping his neck with a crunch that’s barely audible over the grunts of the fighting behind me.

  Bones gets back to his feet with a deafening roar, and I brace for impact. Before he can reach me though, power surges through my body and hits him and the other four hunters with so much force that it sends them through the concrete of the wall and into the adjacent building.

  I rush forward and jump, landing beside a groaning man. Driving my blade down into his throat, I waste no time as I rip it out and spin, slicing the throat of another.

  Finally, it’s just Bones and me in the lobby of what appears to have once been a restaurant but is now nothing but dust and broken-down tables.

  “What are you?” he roars.

  “I am a hunter.” I move toward him.

  “You are no hunter.”

  “I am a predator, and you,” I trail off, using my jeans to wipe the blood from my blade. “You are my prey.” I run toward him, and he moves to the side, bringing his blade up. Metal clashes as it meets mine. With my other hand, I draw a dagger and shove it in between his ribs. He stops moving, stumbling backward as his blade clatters to the ground and he sinks down beneath it. “Tell me what she wanted from you, and I’ll make your death quick.”

  Bones shakes his head.

  “You chose the wrong side,” I tell him. “And you will pay for it with your life. It’s completely up to you how painless it is.” Reaching down, I yank my blade free.

  “I won’t tell you a fucking thing.”

  “Fine. Willa?” Turning, I catch sight of a wolf stalking toward me. Her fur is matted with blood, teeth dripping with it.

  Bones’s eyes widen almost comically.

  “Last chance,” I say.

  This time, he doesn’t respond with words but rather spits at my feet.

  “Fine. Kill him.” I turn to leave as Willa lunges.

  Stepping through the hole in the wall, I take in the dead cluttering the ground of Tarnley’s blood bar.

  “You okay?” Elijah asks me, and I nod.

  “You?” His shirt is splattered with blood, and other than a split lip and a gash on his forearm, he appears okay.

  “Fine. Tarnley stepped out to call his cleaners.”

  “He’s dead,” Willa offers as she moves into the room completely naked since her clothes are in tatters on the floor, olive skin smeared with blood. I glance over at Elijah, amused to see him looking literally anywhere else as he takes his shirt off and offers it to her.

  “Thanks.”

  “Yeah.”

  I move past Elijah and stare down at the faces with complete disgust. Supernatural bodies are piling up, and for what?

  “What the hell is going on?” Wi
lla demands. “What does Heather want? Why send the hunters after Jack?”

  “She wants a war,” I answer honestly. “To turn the tables so she can shift the power in her favor. And as far as the hunters and Jack, my guess is that they were here for him in the first place—possibly me too—but Heather made them a deal instead. Jack was his way of drawing me out.”

  “For Heather?”

  I shake my head. “He wanted me to make him a better deal.”

  “Then, how the hell did he end up with a small supernatural army?”

  “I don’t know. But we need to find someone who does. Fearghas?” I call out, and the fae appears on top of the bar.

  “You rang?”

  “How’s Jack?”

  “He’s pissed you lot didn’t let him stay behind and kick some ass. Before you ask, I did remind him that he was half-dead, but apparently that’s no excuse.”

  “Can you take me to him?” Willa asks, stepping forward, and Fearghas leans down to touch her shoulder.

  As soon as they’re gone, I reach for Elijah, who pulls me against him and presses his lips to mine. The kiss restores my energy—but not because I long for another fight.

  Tarnley clears his throat, so we pull apart, but I don’t go far. Elijah wraps an arm around my shoulders, and I lean against him.

  “You two really need a cold water hose.” The vampire grins. “Cleaners are on their way.”

  “Sorry about your wall.” I gesture to the massive hole in the concrete, and he shrugs.

  “They’ll take care of it. You two may want to get out of here though. I’d rather remain a neutral party, and if I’m seen with you lot, I’ll paint a massive target on myself.”

  “You’ve got it.” Before I can call his name, Fearghas appears beside Elijah, and we’re gone in the blink of an eye.

  30

  Elijah

  Hand in a bag of Skittles, Rainey sits on the back porch of Bronywyn’s cabin. Hair in a messy bun atop her head. She wears a long, white sweater and black leggings, her feet covered in plush socks with the words ‘fuck’ and ‘you’ stitched into the soles.

  The whole picture is so normal it makes me ache for a time when we aren’t at war. Soon. All we need now is to put Heather down, and the second Agatha finishes the tonic for Rainey to jam down her throat, we will do exactly that.

  She glances over at me and grins. “Hey, you.”

  “Hey.” Taking my seat beside her, I reach into the red bag in her lap and shove some Skittles into my mouth. I’m actually developing a taste for them, which is great since Rainey practically lives off the damned things.

  “How was your shower?”

  “Nice. Though, I long for nights of taking one for a reason other than rinsing the blood from my body.”

  Rainey chuckles. “That will be a nice change, for sure.”

  We fall into companionable silence. Somewhere, an owl hoots as insects chirp their nightly songs. It’s all so calming, this being out here with her.

  “What do you think our future holds?”

  Calming effect spoiled. “A beach and lots of sex, I hope.”

  She bumps her shoulder into mine. “Obviously those things, but I mean the others. Will you be okay if I want to try and get my job back?” Before I can reply, she sighs. “If that’s even possible at this point.”

  “If it’s what you want, we’ll find a way to get you back in. There’s not a damn thing I’m willing to let stand in the way of your happiness.”

  Turning her head, she smiles up at me in the soft moonlight. The freckles on her nose and cheeks are dark shadows against her skin, and I long to trace my fingers along each one. “What about yours?”

  “What about it?”

  “What do you want? You searched for the cure, but now you have it. What will you want to do when all of this is over?”

  I sigh. “Honestly, I truly haven’t given that much thought to it.”

  “Will you want to stay in Billings?”

  The weight of her question is apparent in the wide set of her eyes, the way she swallows hard as she awaits my answer. The fact that she would think for even a moment I would leave her, is appalling. “I will be wherever you are, my love.”

  “Really?”

  “Why are you so surprised?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I just figured you’d probably want to go somewhere else, do anything else. Being with me can’t be easy.”

  “You are quite a pain in the ass,” I admit, and she bumps her shoulder into mine again.

  “Not what I meant. I’m a hunter, a cop. I might as well be a magnet for danger. And given the amount we’ve gotten into lately, I wasn’t sure if that’s something you’d be willing to tolerate any longer than you have to.”

  “There’s not a damn force in this world that can keep me from you, Rainey. Especially not after everything we’ve gone through.”

  “Good.” Her reply is short, simple, but I can feel her relax beside me. “It was nice getting to see Delaney,” she says softly.

  I hadn’t brought it up, unsure if Rainey wanted to talk about it or not, but I’m damn glad she is. “I’m glad you got to see her even if it was brief.”

  “She told me that she’s proud of me.” Rainey’s voice cracks at the end of her sentence.

  “She should be.”

  “And she told me that she asked Cole to kill her because she was afraid of what she’d do to me if she stayed alive. She said Doloris was trying to get her to do things to me—to hurt me.”

  I swallow hard in an attempt to beat back the anger over the fact that I can’t go back in time and kill the old witch all over again for everything she’s put Rainey through. “Did she tell you why she left the box?”

  “For me to find. She didn’t tell me why, just that it was done on purpose.”

  “If you had to guess?”

  Rainey lets out a sigh and rests her head against me. “If I had to guess, I would imagine she wanted me to stop the lunar witches from being murdered and warn me that someone was after me.”

  “Which is why the supernaturals were gunning for you in the first place.”

  Rainey nods. “I can’t confirm that since we killed anyone who came after me, but that would be my guess. The Witch Council wanted me dead, and they were willing to do damn near anything to make that happen.” She cocks her head to the side to glance up at me. “They weren’t counting on me finding a big, mean vampire to protect me.”

  I smile down at her, appreciating the stroke to my ego. “You could have kicked their asses alone, I’m sure.”

  “Probably.” With a grin, she sets her Skittles to the side and climbs onto my lap, her knees resting on either side of my thighs as she straddles me.

  Hands going to her thighs, I stare up at her as the blood in my veins turns molten.

  “But if you’ll allow me to be the hero, I’ll gladly take on the role.”

  “I thought you told me in the beginning that you were no hero?” She lifts a finger, resting it on the side of my face and trailing it down my jaw.

  “For you, Rainey Astor, I’ll be any damn thing you need.”

  Her answering smile is intoxicating, and when she leans down and presses her lips to mine, lightning surges through my body, an intense reaction to the unbanked heat she pours into me. The new magic in her blood calls to me, and I grip her hips as she rubs against me.

  Dick hard, the clothing between us feels more like prison bars. Especially when she buries both hands into my hair and grips it hard, her tongue slipping into my mouth and tangling with my own.

  Not wasting time, Rainey reaches between us and grips me, her fingers wrapping around my length through the soft cotton of my shorts and squeezing just hard enough to send a wave of pleasure through my body.

  Still holding her, I get to my feet and set her down long enough to shove her pants down before lifting her again and setting her on the porch railing and taking her mouth again. With her soft lips beneath mine, I kiss her like i
t’s the first and last time—because who the fuck knows anymore.

  Then, I shove my shorts down and drive into her, filling her completely as her wet heat surrounds me. Each thrust brings us both closer to the edge, and when she cries out my name, the passion behind the simple word is so damned overwhelming it breaks me.

  “Marry me,” I whisper against her lips before pulling back and helping her down off the railing. She gapes at me, eyes wide, mouth partially open, lips swollen.

  “What did you say?”

  “Marry me, please,” I add with a grin.

  “I—” She reaches down and pulls up her leggings, so I do the same with my shorts. “Really? You want to get married?”

  “To you,” I confirm.

  “But we could die. Tomorrow, Elijah. My life span is not confirmed to be a long one.”

  “Isn’t that every reason to move forward? To do what we want to do when we can?”

  “But marriage—”

  “You don’t have to answer me right away if you need to think about it.”

  “I don’t need to think about it,” she replies quickly.

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  Nerves frantic now, I stare at her, trying to wait patiently. But, despite my long life, patience is not something I possess much of. “Well? You going to answer or leave me guessing?”

  Rainey grins up at me. “I was rather enjoying watching your wheels turn. Yes, Elijah, I will absolutely marry you.”

  I reach for her, fingers digging mercilessly into her ribs as laughter rips from her, a bubble that consumes me. Unfortunately though, in true fate fashion, that happiness is spoiled when a certain fae appears directly behind her.

  “What are we laughing about?”

  Both Rainey and I glance over at Fearghas, not even the least bit surprised that the fae decided to pop in. “Why are you here?” I ask.

  “Checking in on my favorite and least favorite hunter,” he replies with a wink. “You two get to figure out who I’m talking about. Go ahead, argue amongst yourselves.”

  “Raincheck,” Rainey retorts.

  He stares out over the forest beyond the back of the cabin. “Agatha sent me after you. Seems our bitch put-down potion is ready to go.”