by Anne Malcom
My hand went to my lips, trying to decide whether I imagined drinking from him, whether it was some final ancient trick. Because I thought drinking from him would heal all my wounds immediately, charge me up like that week-long laevisomnus I kept planning on.
But there was still a bloodied rip in my blouse revealing a slow-healing gash from a hybrid’s fangs. My bones were still heavy, weary from the exertion of fighting with so little rest.
Muted sounds of a dying battle leaked through the tunnels, along with a familiar heartbeat and an even more familiar yell.
“Isla!” Thorne’s voice seemed to rattle the very earth itself.
I gave the ash at my feet one last look before darting back the way I came.
I entered the antechamber just in time to see Thorne snapping the neck of a hybrid on his way toward the corridor I was emerging from. He had been coming for me, of course, because he would’ve sensed me. Hopefully not the strange energy running through me.
“Hey,” I said, waving weakly. My eyes went to where the wolf had Sophie yanked into his arms, whispering to her. Gross.
Rick was nowhere to be found.
Thorne’s eyes hadn’t moved from me. He was running them over my body, checking for injuries, as was his default. The hardness in them softened slightly, and he walked forward casually until I felt a presence at my back.
Then Thorne’s eyes alighted with fear and he pushed himself to a sprint, slamming into me at the same time white-hot fire brushed past me.
We both landed on the ground. I was wired, ready to fight the demon who got the jump on me, but a thick and powerful burst of energy from Sophie’s direction and the telltale thud of a dead body did the work for me.
“You couldn’t have done that before I got my outfit completely ruined?” I yelled to the witch.
“You’re welcome!” she yelled back before she was cut off by some kind of wolfy growl and I got distracted by Thorne’s eyes, his body pressing into mine.
“You saved my life,” I whispered, looking at the flaming remains of a hybrid’s corpse that could’ve been my head had Thorne not tackled me.
“Of course I saved your life,” he growled, eyes roving over me, no doubt looking for burnt flesh.
“But you’re mad at me,” I said, not bothering to try and push myself up, or Thorne off me. My outfit was already ruined. Plus, I liked Thorne on top of me any time. After a brush with death, it was great.
“Isla, I’m still going to save your life even when I’m mad at you,” he promised, hand brushing my cheek.
I sank my fangs into my lip. “Well, I’ll make a point to do the same in the future. Not that I toyed with the idea of getting you killed—or doing it myself—when I was mad at you like five minutes ago. No, my love is unconditional and all-consuming,” I said quickly, feeling bad about the time I let him get his shoulder dislocated because I was pissed at him for getting a coffee stain on my Gucci purse. In my defense, it was limited edition, and suede—you can’t get shit out of suede.
He grinned at me. “I love you too, babe. But you’re also a pain in my ass, determined to get yourself killed, or at the very least in some kind of trouble. You consistently put yourself in danger, which is gonna get me mad at you. It’s lookin’ to be my natural state. But I fell in love bein’ mad at you, so it’s only natural we continue the streak.”
Thorne laid a hot and heavy one on me, like we were on a bed of rose petals in some fancy hotel instead of on cold stone surrounded by corpses in the sewers. Then, before I could lose all coherent thought and beg him to fuck me right there, he moved his lips from mine and yanked us both up until we were on unsteady feet.
He eyed the dagger I was still gripping. I’d totally forgotten about it; it seemed almost part of my hand, humming with power.
“That’s the blade you failed to tell me about that the Sector provided you with in order to kill the origin of all vampires. Alone. While more human and vulnerable than you could ever be?” he asked, voice flat and bland.
“Wow, you got caught up quick,” I said.
I held it up, inspecting it. Then, without realizing I was doing so, I handed the knife to Thorne, knowing somehow it was dangerous for me to hold for too long. Like the blood in my very veins seemed dangerous. But not to me. At least I didn’t think.
I eyed Thorne, whose hands were now at my hips, the knife in his belt. His eyes were molten quicksilver, black tee straining against his tight muscles. But he wasn’t shaking with rage. Wasn’t screaming.
No, none of the fury from that morning remained.
“You’re not going to yell at me for running off to kill all-powerful vampires without you?” I asked finally.
Thorne’s eyes burned over me, the hands at my hips tightening. “No,” he murmured, pressing his lips to my head. “Not when you’re alive and in my arms and he’s gone. It doesn’t matter right now.”
And it didn’t.
It didn’t matter then.
Or when we got back to my apartment, to a much-needed shower, and then into bed.
Where he fucked me into oblivion.
Literal oblivion.
And he watched over me like he’d promised, like I’d bristled at, for the week I was in the clutches of oblivion.
And when I awoke, he fucked me so hard I forgot to be mad about anything. Almost forgot about the whole world conspiring to fuck up my day, Jonathan in particular.
But that wasn’t going away any time soon.
There hadn’t been near enough death.
Chapter 10
One Week Later
“I’m not doing it,” I said.
The entire room frowned at me. Then again, the entire room consisted of Thorne and Rick, and those boring bastards were always frowning.
Okay, so Rick was king of all vampires—for now at least, as there had been some attacks on the kingdom since I had been napping—and Thorne was the leader of all slayers and some human vampire offspring. Plus, he was going out with me, so they weren’t exactly boring.
When compared to me, they were. But everyone was.
Apart from Sophie, of course, but I didn’t have her to back me up since she had gone ghost ever since we’d killed Ambrogio. I would’ve been a little worried that the council had snapped her up had she not sent me regular selfies of her and the witch. She was doubling down on her spell mission, and it was cutting into girl time. Sure, I got that she couldn’t come for cocktails every night, since she had an all-powerful, all-evil witch to contain, but surely she didn’t need constant supervision.
I had the sneaking suspicion that it had something to do with the wolf. Or a lot to do with the wolf, considering he’d yanked her from the sewers on the day I’d done another solid for the team and mankind in general, and we hadn’t seen her since.
I wanted to hate that.
I sure as shit wanted to hate the wolf, then kill him, but I didn’t have it in me. Because I was worried about the witch more than I let on. And the wolf seemed to be pretty determined not to let her die, or lose all her personality and spice if a weird magical being inside her took over.
That meant he had her back, that my witch had someone looking out for her. And the wolf would use his last moments on earth to keep an eye on his back and her front.
So I wasn’t going to kill him until I had enough free time to take over the job.
“You are,” Rick replied, his flat voice snatching me into the present and back to his ridiculous request. Of course, it was a request structured as an order, which pissed me right off. And the request itself was downright insane.
“You want peace, or at least an alliance with these dogs, right?” I asked. I didn’t wait for him to answer because I was using the question for dramatic effect, not as a fact-finding mission. “So sending me in as an ambassador is a huge fuckup on the part of whoever is running your think tank.” I gave him a look. “Seriously. You should sue. Or at the very least behead.”
His eye twitched and he moved his f
rown to Thorne. “Can you talk some sense into her?”
Thorne laughed, cold and cruel and full of whatever resentment the two still harbored toward each other. There weren’t going to be any family reconciliations despite what Rick had said weeks ago. “Yeah, good one. That ship sailed a long time ago, then burst into flames.”
“He knows me so well,” I said, blowing him a kiss.
Rick was not impressed. But I guessed Rick was only impressed when he measured his dick in the bathroom.
Not that I spent a lot of time thinking about the girth of Rick’s cock. Well, not anymore, at least. I was in love, and apparently it was frowned upon to think of penises that weren’t attached to your boyfriend.
And all I was doing these days was thinking about my boyfriend’s rather beautiful penis. We had a lot of making up to do since Sophie’s ring of birth control had been slipped on my finger, and we hadn’t been able to get enough of each other.
“Isla, you’re the only one they’re agreeing to let onto their land,” Rick said with a tight jaw, unaware of the fact that Thorne and I sensed each other’s desire and were now thinking of the dirty things we were going to do to each other once we threw the king out, along with his stupid orders. “Along with Sophie and Conall, of course. But you’re the only vampire.”
“Well, they’re idiots, aren’t they?” I said, voice husky. Thorne’s eyes were burning on my body. I forced myself to look at Rick, not trusting my body if I made contact with Thorne’s gray irises. “I mean I couldn’t think of a worse person to let onto their land.” I paused. “Wait, is this because they think I’ve gone soft? That I’m—” I gasped. “—nice?” I held my hand over my beating heart. “I’d rather be dead than nice.”
Thorne glared at that, because I apparently wasn’t allowed to talk about my death in jest.
“Stop,” I hissed at him before he could launch into some tirade, a version of which we’d all heard before. “It’s the truth. I’d be insufferable if people thought I was nice. You’d hand me the copper dagger yourself.”
“Insufferable then, lassie?” a Scottish boom asked as a large vampire sauntered through my front door and helped himself to my newly stocked bar. “What are you now, then?”
I glared at the hulking Scotsman. “A fucking delight is what I am.”
He grinned. “If you say so.” He swigged his whisky.
I looked back to Rick, grinning and getting a great idea. “I’ll go if Duncan can come. Who knows? I might get lucky and he’ll get himself killed, and then I won’t have to do the dirty work.”
He flipped me the bird as he gulped down more whisky.
“Isla, this is a peace talk,” Rick said tightly. “No one’s getting killed.”
I snorted. “Obviously you haven’t been to many peace talks. Or at least any fun ones.”
He narrowed his eyes. “This is not a joke. You can’t be starting violence because Instagram is down,” he snapped, blandness gone from his voice. That was becoming more regular now, his loss of control of his temper, amped up since we hadn’t found the human in the sewers. I could tell it irritated him to no end, which was one of the many reasons why I loved it.
I widened my own eyes. “How do you know what Instagram is?”
He raised his brow, sipping at his own drink—which, like Duncan, he’d helped himself to. “Because you started a small fire in the throne room last week, and the remains of your victims told me it was ‘stupid fucking new algorithms’ that had you ripping off limbs,” he said dryly.
I pursed my lips. “They also served me chilled red wine. You employ savages. I was merely treating them the way they deserved.”
Rick stared, unsmiling. “Peace, Isla. No violence.”
I smiled. “Of course. No violence. Scout’s honor.”
It was his fault for believing me, really. Me? Honor?
What a fucking idiot.
I wasn’t technically involved in the fight that erupted within moments of entering werewolf soil. I had completely instigated it, but I wasn’t immediately involved, so it didn’t count as being my fault.
Duncan was dueling with a half-changed she-wolf, and Scott was wrestling with a fully changed teenager. Both of whom were pretty good fighters, which was probably why they’d been posted at the entrance to the compound.
Thorne was beside me, radiating tension. What else was new? Before my Awakening, tension was his default. Now that he knew about what that meant, and about Jonathan’s overarching presence, he was ready to snap at any moment.
Sophie and I had money on whether it would be Rick or Duncan who would bear the brunt of this fury.
“Isla,” Thorne warned, his voice a low growl.
I gave him a disinterested glance. His arms were crossed over his chest, jaw tight, gaze on the clashing of bodies in front of us.
“Thorne?” I replied sweetly.
His eyes flickered to me in annoyance. “Do something,” he ground out.
The order itself rubbed me the wrong way. On principle.
“I am. I’m checking my email.” I held up my phone, showing the message from a Nigerian prince telling me I was a millionaire.
His jaw moved with the grinding of his teeth, which he only did when he was really annoyed. Then his eyes went back to the battle, concern flickering in them, his hands clenched at his sides.
I knew he had become rather fond of Scott, the irritating little twat somehow managing to make it so people actually cared if he died. He was working his half-blood ass off for us. He gave us intel from the Sector, trained with Duncan and the slayers in every spare second, and also delivered my Starbucks when I didn’t feel like walking across the street.
I wouldn’t admit that I was getting kind of fond of the little fuck too.
There were too many people in this little Scooby Gang who I was getting concerned about. It was dangerous. It made me weak.
And Jonathan knew it.
“He needs to learn,” I said, glancing down at the email, wondering if I really needed another million dollars. It was cool that I was somehow related to a prince, though.
“He could fuckin’ die,” Thorne hissed, demanding my attention.
I deleted the email. “So?”
He gave me a horrified glance. “So… he could fuckin’ die,” he repeated on another low growl.
“Keep talking in that tone and I’ll have to check you for werewolf bites,” I told him blandly.
There was a growl from beside me. Sophie’s little pet had come as our chaperone.
“For a peace talk, it isn’t going horribly,” Sophie interjected, tilting her head and watching the scene with vague interest.
I narrowed my eyes at the hand she had on the dog’s forearm, as if she was holding him back. Calming him down.
She’d come because she was always down for a party, and she was probably getting cabin fever babysitting the witch and dodging the council who was attempting to snatch her up.
I made a mental note to hire someone to throw a Molotov cocktail at their headquarters in case I didn’t have time to do it myself.
“Maybe we should stop Scott, though,” Sophie continued, her hand still on the mutt’s arm.
“You’ve gotten soft in your old age,” I muttered.
She grinned at me. “No, I’m just used to having Scott do all the things I don’t like doing, and if he dies, we’ll have to find someone else to break demons’ legs for stealing our tables at bars.”
I pouted, knowing she was kind of right. “Fine.” I waved in the direction of the fight. “Do your thing.”
She raised her brow. “You’re not taking your chance to ‘accidentally' break something on the wolf while breaking up the fight? Now who’s gotten soft in their old age?”
I scowled. “No, I’m not soft, I just don’t want to ruin my manicure,” I lied. I had to be careful about touching people I wasn’t going to kill. Especially supernatural people.
She gave me a disbelieving look—not catching my drift,
for once—and I was worried she’d take it further, but then the unmistakable taste of magic saturated the air and both parties involved in the fight froze. As did the muscled men running up the lane to presumably come to their fellow puppy’s aid. I didn’t think they were under the spell, but they were just stupid and unused to seeing magic.
Werewolves didn’t exactly mingle.
Thankfully.
“I’ve gone almost five centuries without having to hang out with werewolves, and I’m ending my streak here,” I moaned, wandering forward to snatch the back of Scott’s shirt and yank him backward. I let him go before my skin could make contact with his and he could mistake the touch for affection, throwing him onto the dirt to drive the point home. “You know who should’ve ended that, Scotty?” I asked as he blinked away the magic that had only just unfrozen him. “You. Sophie is sick of coming to your aid—”
“No I’m not,” the bitch interjected.
I flipped her the bird. “You want to keep hanging out with the cool kids—and by kids, I mean me—then you’ve got to start winning fights.”
I shook my head and straightened, ignoring the way the werewolf across from me was whining about some broken bone or another. I focused on the men who were glaring at me with murder in their eyes.
“We’re here to talk about peace.” I grinned. “Any chance of a beer?”
It was safe to say the wolves were tense as they escorted us to the main property on the compound that housed the biggest kennel of werewolves in the country.
They didn’t appreciate me calling it a kennel. In fact, I’m pretty sure one of them almost tried to break my nose when I’d said it—I had a feeling Sophie stopped him, based on the taste of magic and fury mingling after I’d spoken—so obviously I had been trying to say it as often as I could in the minutes following the almost-battle.
It was impressive, the large estate, though I would never say that out loud. Much more impressive than that idiotic slayer compound we’d gone to in order to deal with the head of all slayers back in fucking Oklahoma. Not that theirs existed anymore; they were currently residing without killing me at Thorne’s little compound.