by Leia King
Now was her chance!
Cora ran at Oriana.
“I will find a way. No being is truly invulnerable. There’s always a loophole,” Oriana muttered as she studied Orion.
Cora’s heart jumped to her throat when she saw Oriana invoke a teleportation spell. “No!” she screamed. “Stop!”
It was too late.
Oriana teleported away.
Cora slumped to her knees, catching Ryan’s eye and seeing the same pained expression on his face that was currently ripping through every part of her.
He struggled over and knelt with her.
“We’ll get him back. I promise. Whatever I have to do, Cora.”
She jerked away from him. “I don’t need your help. I don’t need anything from you anymore.”
She rose to her feet and stalked over to the battle raging between Michael and Vazra. Vazra was winning. His magic was much stronger than Michael’s. Vazra had him on his knees in a defensive position, struggling to hold a magical shield against his ruthless attack.
Cora clenched her fist, crushing Vazra’s ball of magic. Michael nodded his thanks, but she ignored it. She focused her unforgiving glare on her father. She saw the shock all over his face at the ease with which she’d crushed his magic.
“Call her back here with my son.”
“No. You are on the wrong side here, Cora.”
“Last chance,” she warned, shuffling her feet until they were shoulder-width apart.
“Cora, no!” Nathanial called to her weakly. He knew exactly what she was going to do. He was the one who had taught her how to battle with magic.
She ignored him and demanded, “Bring my son back.”
Her outward calm wasn’t really calm at all. It was a result of her being beyond enraged. Things were clear now.
And so, when her father shook his head at her, she let the darkness within take her.
She thrust both her palms at him, putting all of her magical weight behind it.
Her magic exploded forth and Vazra screamed as it tore through his body.
The tremendous force of her power shook the entire room, the entire palace. Tiles pulled from the walls. Chandelier after chandelier fell from the ceiling, smashing to bits as they hit the marble floor. The stained-glass windows shattered to pieces.
Cora heard cries in the distance. She ignored them, pushing them away as she concentrated all of her efforts on the task at hand. Destroying her father. He tried to raise his palms to defend himself but her magic was too strong. Too powerful. She was too powerful. No one could hurt her now.
“You dare to threaten me? You thought you could bring me to my knees? You? You are nothing! I hold all the power now!”
“Please, Cora. Stop!” he gasped.
Her gaze hardened and she moved closer. “Goodbye, father,” she spat.
She fisted both her hands and clenched them tightly.
Vazra screamed as silver flames engulfed him, ripping him to shreds, burning through his very essence. His entire body shuddered violently.
And then he was gone in a bright flash of white light.
Dead.
Cora hissed as she felt a burn in the pit of her stomach. It spread quickly. Soon, she felt it everywhere. She looked down at herself and saw that she was literally on fire.
White fire engulfed her.
It was her own power.
She knew exactly what it meant.
Death. Her death.
“Cora! Focus on your anchor!” Nathanial called to her.
“Gone. Everything’s gone,” she rasped, struggling against the waves of agony travelling through every part of her.
Her son was gone. Her bond with Ryan was shattered. And she didn’t know what was real anymore. There was too much manipulation. Everywhere she turned there was only pain. She’d tried to hold on for everyone’s sake because they’d needed her to take down Oriana.
But she couldn’t bear it any longer.
There was nothing left.
Just ashes.
And so, she lowered herself to her knees and threw her head back.
Closing her eyes, she stopped struggling against the white fire.
She welcomed it and let it take her.
“No!” Ryan screamed, skidding to his knees beside Cora.
He felt everyone crowding around him. He looked to Nathanial. He was well again, thanks to Marella and Luca casting out Oriana’s sunlight-infused magic. “Heal her. You’re the strongest.”
Ryan watched a look pass between him, Luca and Michael.
“What? Heal her, okay? Heal her, Nathanial!”
Nathanial shook his head sadly. “She is dead, Ryan.”
Ryan gathered Cora into his arms, rocking her against him. “No. No, she can’t die. She can’t. She can’t die.”
“Her heart’s not beating,” Michael said quietly.
Ryan laid her back down and started CPR. “I can restart it. It’s okay. She’s strong. It’ll be okay. She’ll be okay.”
He caught sight of Marella looking at Nathanial with tears in her eyes. She laid her hand gently on his shoulder and told him, “Her magical essence has gone. There’s nothing there. I’m so sorry, Ryan.”
Ryan broke down, unable to hold back his pained sobs as he brushed Cora’s hair out of her face and gazed into her now empty blue eyes. “It’s all my fault. What I said. Cora, I’m sorry. I love you. I love you so much. Please don’t leave me. I need you.”
“I can turn her,” Luca spoke finally.
“What?” Ryan asked, lifting his head to see him kneeling at Cora’s other side.
“I can turn her,” Luca repeated.
“No,” Marella said. “She will be a creature of the dark if you do that.”
“She’ll stay dead if I don’t.”
“Luca, to turn someone, they must still be alive,” Michael reminded him.
“A sorceress with her power always leaves behind some magical essence, some shred of life, for a brief period. It should be enough for the turning to work.”
“You want to vamp her?” Ryan asked, incredulous.
“Let her go, Luca,” Nathanial said. “It is what she wanted. You saw for yourself. She let the fire take her.”
“She wasn’t herself. She was devastated by losing her son.” He glared at Ryan accusingly. “And other things.”
Ryan brought his hands to his face. Luca was right. He’d driven her to it. He’d hurt her. She’d been in too much pain and she’d lost control because he’d thrown the Jada thing in her face. Losing their son had pushed her over the edge.
“She won’t be the same if she becomes a vampire,” Ryan said worriedly.
“She also won’t be dead,” Luca shot back. “If I’m going to do this, it has to be now. Her essence will dissipate quickly and then it will be impossible to turn her.”
“She’ll be sired to you if you turn her.”
“It’s either me or Michael. My father won’t do it. He’s against it.”
Nathanial let out a growl of displeasure and turned away. Despite his objections, Ryan could see that he understood it wasn’t his call to make.
Ryan hesitated.
“What will it be, Ryan?” Luca pressed.
FATED BLOOD
Book 5
1
“Ryan, look at me.”
Ryan uttered a disgruntled growl at her request. Pulling out of her, he commanded, “On your knees, Jada.”
“Ryan—” she started to protest.
“On. Your. Knees.”
She hesitated for a moment more before complying and moving onto her knees. He smiled when she pushed her ass into the air submissively. Just the way he liked her.
Despite her brief protest, he knew she couldn’t deny him anything. The pull she felt for him was too strong. She gave him whatever he wanted just to be near him.
He came to her every night, but it still wasn’t enough for her. She wanted him with her all the time, but he wouldn’t give her that. Th
e only thing he would give her was mind-blowing sex. They didn’t even talk anymore.
It had been that way for the last three weeks.
Since her.
Jada moaned as he circled her clit, spreading her juices everywhere. “Yes! More!”
He thrust inside her, burying himself right to the hilt.
He didn’t waste any time being gentle as she screamed out her pleasure. He never did anymore.
Digging his claws into her ass, he fucked her hard, mercilessly.
She shrieked out her release, coming all over his cock. She tried to slump down on the bed, spent. But, he wasn’t done. He held her up, as he pounded into her. Over and over. Minutes flew by and he still wasn’t any closer to coming.
“Fuck,” he growled, pulling out in defeat and slumping onto the bed.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jada reaching out to him. He turned, rolling onto his side before she could.
“Ryan,” she said gently, stroking his arm.
He tensed from the unwanted contact. “Don’t,” he murmured.
“Please talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“You’re hurting, because of what happened to Cora.”
He bolted off the bed and yelled over his shoulder, “Don’t say her name!”
He snatched his boxers off the floor and pulled them on quickly.
“Why do you come to me when you’re only thinking about her?”
He spun around angrily. “Because it’s the only time I feel anything. It’s the fucking bond between us.”
“But it’s not enough? Not what you had with her? You feel the loss of it since she… passed?”
As Ryan slid on his jeans, he saw the hurt on her face. But he just couldn’t find it within him to reassure her, to take it away. He didn’t have that anymore. He didn’t have anything.
“What do you want from me?” he thundered.
“You! I want you, Ryan!”
“I come to you. We fuck. You get off. Isn’t that enough?” he asked, as he snatched his shirt off the floor and pulled it on.
“You don’t even come.”
He growled low in his throat. “We’re not talking about that.”
“You won’t even look at me when we make love.”
He scoffed. “Make love? You and I have never done that. We fuck. That’s it. I thought you enjoyed it. If you don’t, please fucking let me know.”
“I do, but—”
He shrugged on his leather jacket and pulled out a pair of sunglasses and slipped them on. He turned back to her. “I thought so.”
“Ryan!”
Throwing up his hands, he bellowed, “I don’t have anything more to give you! Understand that!”
She started to cry. Oh, fuck this bullshit. He turned away and bolted from the room, slamming the door behind him.
Nathanial watched from the shadows as Ryan rushed out of the guest room where Jada was staying.
He cringed as he watched Ryan spin and slam his fist into the wall repeatedly. A pained roar ripped from his throat. Nathanial had never heard anything like it. It cut right through him.
Ryan slid down the wall, collapsing to his knees, breaking down. His pained sobs echoed down the deathly quiet corridor. He began to murmur Cora’s name in sorrow, then Orion’s.
Nathanial wanted to go to him, to comfort him.
However, he knew better.
Ryan was not ready for that. Nathanial had come to know him well. Ryan dealt with things on his own first. He would seek help when he was ready and Nathanial would be there for him when he did. But until then, all he could do was keep a close eye on him.
Aside from his personal feelings towards him, there were also his duties as King of the Dark Realm. So far, Ryan had not shown any sign of weakness outwardly. They had completed the coronation ritual two weeks ago, effectively cementing peace between wolves and vampires in the realm. Ryan had been strong and decisive in his new role as Wolf King of the Dark Realm. But Nathanial knew that he was just going through the motions. He was keeping himself busy. In the human realm, he had been working non-stop to relocate all of the wolves who had been under his care for so long at the wolf compound. With Michael and Luca now on their side, there was no longer any threat against them so they could return to their lives. Unfortunately, many of the packs’ homes had been destroyed during the height of Michael and Luca’s threat. Ryan had enlisted their help to rebuild them. Given their supernatural abilities, the work had been completed quickly. Now the compound was empty. Ryan’s pack had returned to their homes outside the compound and Ryan had returned to his biker bar.
But, despite the stability that Ryan projected to the wolves under his command and to their subjects in the Dark Realm, Nathanial knew that, beneath it, Ryan was drowning. He had lost his son and his wife on the very same day. His grief was overwhelming.
He never took those sunglasses off even on the darkest of nights. He was shielding his grief behind them. Nathanial had seen him remove them once when Ryan had assumed no one was watching. Then Nathanial had seen the truth. The exhaustion in his eyes, the prominent dark circles. It had been obvious that sleep eluded him. His normal five o’clock shadow had grown into an unruly beard. His hair was a wild mess, barely washed most of the time, except during meetings of the court.
He was, indeed, right on the edge. As such, Nathanial ensured he was always within reach, always watching to ensure he did not slip over it.
The situation with Jada had not been resolved. Ryan required some semblance of relief and she was the only one who could provide that. All efforts had been directed to finding Orion and his psychotic captor, Oriana. But, in spite of the immense reach they possessed between them, they had failed to turn up any concrete leads. Nathanial knew that Ryan had secretly been ripping into his contacts in the human realm in his own search. His friend, Josh, had been at his side and managed to prevent him from taking things too far. Thankfully, it had saved Nathanial from having to get involved. The wolf seemed to have an inexplicable calming effect on his Alpha, saving Nathanial from being forced to use a heavy-handed approach to keep Ryan in line.
Losing his son had been hard enough. And then with Cora’s death, the bond between them had been broken and left him as such. Whenever a mating bond as strong as what the two of them had shared was broken, it left a hole in the surviving mate. An unbearable emptiness. Ryan had convinced Luca to lift his magic over Jada’s room so he could go to her. And Nathanial had not stopped him. He allowed it because Ryan needed it. He needed to feel something. Unfortunately, his grief over Cora’s death was unwittingly weakening the connection between him and Jada. He had heard enough of their fights to know that much.
After several minutes, Ryan climbed to his feet and pulled out a flask from his leather jacket pocket. He took several large gulps and then stowed it away before releasing a heavy sigh and walking off down the corridor to make his way back to the human realm.
Nathanial shook his head sadly and then turned away.
2
Luca sat by her bed, stroking her silky, black hair.
He missed the sight of her beautiful, blue eyes. They were closed. They had been for the last three weeks. There hadn’t been any change in her condition. All he could do was wait. He wouldn’t accept defeat. He wouldn’t give up hope. Not like Ryan had. His brother wouldn’t even come to the vampire mansion to see her. It was that whole age-old vampire versus werewolf rivalry. Ryan couldn’t bear to think of her in that way. Sure, he was close with the ultimate vampire, the Vampire King. But when it came to the woman he loved, it was different for him.
It had been Ryan’s call, though! He’d given him the go ahead to do it!
All Luca had been able to think about since the events of that awful day was the way he’d made love to her in his bed just hours earlier. It hadn’t been just fucking. She’d been there with him. As much as she’d tried to deny it, he’d seen it for himself. He’d felt it. He wanted n
othing more than to take her again, to give her the love that she deserved.
“Luca,” Michael greeted, walking into the room. “Any change?”
“Not yet.”
“According to Nathanial, this is the first time a vampire has ever turned a non-human. The normal two or three days doesn’t apply. It’ll happen,” Michael told him.
“Can you feel the energy emanating from her?”
“Yes. White magic. It’s confounding. It shouldn’t be possible.”
“I know,” Luca murmured. He planted a soft kiss on her forehead. “She’s special.”
“When she wakes up, he might want her back, Luca.”
Luca scoffed. “He hasn’t come to see her once in the last three weeks.”
“He’s not vampire. He just sees her current state as death. But when she wakes, his perspective might change.”
“Their bond is already broken.”
“Perhaps.”
Luca’s gaze snapped to his. “You don’t think so?”
“The way he grieves for her would suggest that it is not broken on his end, only on hers.”
“I am her Sire!”
Michael folded his arms across his chest and scrutinized him. “You wish to use that to influence her choices?”
Luca breathed a heavy sigh. “No. It won’t be real if I do that. Same as compulsion.” He climbed off the bed and approached Michael. “Anyway, you didn’t just come here to ask me about her. What do you need?”
“Nathanial wishes you to go to your brother tonight. Ryan has a lead on his son’s whereabouts and Nathanial would like you to use your compulsion on the contact to help him get the answers he seeks.”
“Why didn’t he contact me himself?”
“Because you are blocking his ability to communicate with you so you can spend all of your time here with her.”
“Where is Josh? I thought he was keeping an eye on him while he’s in the human realm?”