by Lexi Blake
Her lips peeled back in a snarl and for the first time, I was afraid of her. “Then I’ll have to do the only thing I can. Don’t think this is done, Summer. Don’t think it for a second, and next time I’ll do whatever I have to. I haven’t wasted ten years to fail.”
“Fail at what?” I tried to back up, but my feet were still in the air.
“Don’t forget what you’re capable of.” She seemed to deflate and looked like Erna again. “Summer, I fear for you. Don’t let them turn you. If they succeed, you’ll kill again. Can you live with that?”
I simply stared at her, my gut in knots.
“I’ll be back for you,” she vowed.
My feet hit the ground and there was a popping sound and then something hit me from behind and I slammed into the ground.
Marcus. It was Marcus on top of me, pressing me down.
“Stop firing,” Marcus shouted, covering me with his own body. “The witch is gone.”
Marcus rolled us over and I was in his arms, cradled with every bit of tenderness compared to Erna’s brute force. “Bella, are you all right? Where did she go?”
I took a deep breath. Having him close calmed me. “She teleported. She’s probably somewhere off plane. She keeps a couple of safe houses.”
“Summer, are you all right? Let me help you up,” Dev began.
Dean knelt at my side. “Come with us. We need to get you somewhere safe.”
A low growl started in the back of Marcus’s throat.
“Uhm, we should give them some space,” my mother announced. “Marcus gets grumpy when he’s overly stimulated. They might need some privacy.”
“Definitely,” Kelsey said under her breath.
“The witch could come back.” My father’s hand was firmly in my mother’s. “Marcus, believe me, I understand the impulse.”
“I do, too, and it’s cool. I’ve got him.” Taggart took up a military stance. “We’ll set up wards around the perimeter, and apparently the tall dude can talk to plants. Maybe they can tell him if she comes back. Adam will take the north side and that pixie thing can hang out, too.”
“Arwyna seems to know when the witch is around.” Kelsey gestured to the gorgeous ruby-red pixie fluttering around us. “I think she senses the energy or something.”
“The bikes are dead and night’s about to fall,” Taggart announced. “Like it or not we’re going to have to camp here. We’ll hike out in the morning and be to Tír na nÓg by afternoon.”
“We’ll be fine.” Papa looked like he didn’t want to go but sighed and turned anyway. “I can work something out. Daniel, let’s go and make sure our wife is all right.”
They began to move away, Kelsey and Dean joining them.
“Hey, Kaja, could you patrol?” Taggart pulled something out of his pocket. “You were damn good in the field, girl. Here’s your favorite.”
Kaja’s tail wagged and she took the treat out of his hand.
Dante pointed Taggart’s way. “You better not give her belly rubs, Taggart, or we’re going to have a problem. I’ll go help unpack. Shitty fucking mission. I’m supposed to sleep in the palace tonight. Not a damn faery forest.”
Taggart gave us some space and Adam took up a guard position on the opposite side. Both men turned their backs.
“What do they mean? You need to do something?” Had Marcus been hit by some stray magic?
“I am physically fine. Are you injured?”
I really looked at him for the first time and realized that his fangs were out and his eyes were completely black. He was so beautiful. His eyes…the purest night lit his eyes. I reached up and let my hand find the silk of his hair. “She didn’t hurt me. But I do have some questions I need to ask my mother.”
I was on my back in an instant, his body pressing mine into the soft grass as he breathed me in. He ran his nose along my neck.
He needed. I didn’t need to have a connection to him to know that he’d been scared out of his mind, and now he needed to ensure I was safe. And that I was his.
Somehow being his didn’t seem so bad now.
I turned my face to the side, offering him my neck. He hadn’t physically fed since yesterday, but I got the feeling this feeding would be more about comfort than anything else. He’d had a rough couple of days, and I was sure that me disappearing right in front of his eyes had done nothing to quell his anxiety.
Besides, being with him like this would do me a world of good, too.
“Please, Marcus. Take me away for a while.”
He struck and my whole body seemed to tighten and release in the most pleasurable way. One minute everything ached from what Erna had done and then Marcus’s saving of me. The next was pure bliss as my blood flowed into him. I clutched him and nothing mattered. That was the beauty of this particular exchange. Marcus could take me so far out of myself that I forgot we were two separate beings. I was a vehicle of pleasure, a slave to the unique connection we had.
In that moment, I felt whole.
Marcus released my vein and then he rolled us over again so his back was against the grass. His midnight eyes stared into mine and he pulled back his collar, stretching it down to expose his beautifully sculpted chest.
“I need you to do something for me,” Marcus said, his voice deep and thick around those magnificent fangs. “Your body seems to be human, and that means it can be harmed. I have to hope vampire blood will work to protect you because I can’t lose you, Summer. I cannot lose you now. I release you from everything this means on my plane, but I need to know that you’re protected.”
He wanted me to take his blood? “What does it mean on your plane?”
I had some vague recollection of Dev Quinn being angry that my mother had taken my father’s blood that day so long ago, but I hadn’t understood why.
“It would mean we are married by the laws of my plane, but I wouldn’t hold you to it,” he explained. “I’m not trying to trick you out of your freedom. I’m only trying to protect you. Your mother is alive right now because the king’s blood is in her system. I can’t stand the thought of not protecting you in every way I can.”
“The ceremony that binds a companion and vampire is this? We take each other’s blood and then we’re connected until I die?”
He shook his head. “Long after we’re both gone, I will love you. But for now this will only be for protection.”
I slowly nodded, emotion threatening to overwhelm me. He was offering me my freedom. Did he understand that by offering it to me, he gave me the freedom to choose him?
I wasn’t sure when his nails had become claws, but he swiped one over his chest and deep rich blood welled. I knew it should give me pause, but I wanted that blood. It was his and somehow it belonged to me, too. I let my head drift to his chest and placed my mouth over the small wound, the taste hitting my tongue for the first time.
It was beyond description. It was strength and power. I could feel it pulse through me, and I was warmer than before, more brilliant and vibrant. There was safety and security in that blood, as though he could put his will into his veins and gift it to me. It connected to something long dormant inside me and I felt a spark.
And the ground began to shake.
I knew that feeling and heard Taggart shout.
It was a convergence, and a big one. It was the last thing I wanted because I needed more of him. I didn’t want to come out of this moment. I didn’t want to deal with terror and fight for my life. I wanted a single night to be with my lover and to sit and talk to my family.
Marcus’s arms came around me as though to say he was with me.
Don’t stop, my darling. If the void comes, I will go with you.
We could be together forever in that nothingness. We would be the only things that existed there.
I heard the pop that signaled the void and I denied it.
It had no place in my world.
“What the hell happened?” Taggart asked from a distance.
“It stopped,�
�� Adam replied.
I licked the last of the blood from my lover’s chest and watched as the wound closed and his skin was perfect and smooth again.
He sat up, his back against the tree, and held his arms out for me. “Come to me. Sit with me. I need to be close to you for a while.”
“Hey, you two, did you not realize what almost…” Taggart began and then took a step back, putting a hand to his head. “Okay. Things seem to be fine. I’ll leave you to it.”
I turned to my lover, who dragged me onto his lap and buried his face in my hair. “Did you get through his technologically advanced mental shields?”
“I couldn’t get all the way through.” His arms tightened around me and he breathed me in. “I feel stronger than before. When you took my blood, something happened.”
Something powerful, and I feared that no matter what he’d offered me, I was now married to this male forever. Or rather the fact that it didn’t bother me in the least is what scared me. I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to hold him and revel in being together. This was our time, and nothing should come between us.
“Summer, let me listen to your heart.”
I straddled him and loved the way his hands found the cheeks of my backside as he settled me on him. I could feel his cock against my core, but he simply placed his head against my breast and sighed as though relieved.
This, apparently, was how one soothed an upset vampire.
I stroked his silky hair and simply let myself be for the moment.
“We’ll have to talk about it,” he murmured.
“Talk about Erna?” I didn’t want to think about her, but I knew my parents would want to have a long discussion.
“Talk about the fact that you shut down that convergence,” he whispered.
I didn’t argue with him because I feared he was right.
And I was in more trouble than I could have imagined.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kelsey
I stared at the fire Dean had started and wondered how my boys were doing back at home. I felt so far from them. My heart ached at the thought of Fen going to bed not knowing where I was. Gray and Trent had known who I was when they married me. They’d known I wasn’t safe.
Fen hadn’t really had a choice. I became his mother when he’d lost his parents and I’d saved him. This baby growing inside me didn’t have a choice.
I hadn’t even thought about the danger earlier when I’d chased after Summer and the super powerful witch who’d already nearly killed me this morning. I’d followed my instincts and worked with Dev, Kaja, and the mercenaries. We’d herded them to a place where it didn’t matter that we couldn’t see them.
I’d thrown myself in, and I didn’t know if I had the right to do that now that I was a mom.
But I would never even question Donovan going into battle. Well, when he was all superpowered up. He was unique, and without him we were all less safe.
Couldn’t the same thing be said about me?
“Are you all right?” Dean sat down beside me.
We’d spent the last half hour putting together a camp. The security vamps had come with all sorts of handy tech. We were now surrounded by high-tech warding that Taggart had promised would alert us if any creature with magical powers broke the perimeters. There were also wards that would influence creatures to stay away. I’d been promised a lesson on sonic weapons when we had the time.
“I’m good.” I gave him the easiest reply since I didn’t think Dean needed to hear about my maternal worries. “I know Taggart was freaked out that the convergence didn’t pan out, but I’m cool with it. I, for one, will be happy if I never see that void again.”
I’d reached out for Dean when I’d felt it start. I’d grabbed his hand as if I could keep him free of the void that I’d known would come. I’d come to care for Dean. He was alone in this world right now, and I’d felt the deepest need to let him know I wouldn’t allow him to be swallowed up. Even as I’d held on to him, all around us I’d gotten flashes of males and females in a palace, looking back at us and pleading for something. They’d seemed Fae to me. I couldn’t hear them, couldn’t communicate in any way.
Then it had been gone and Taggart had come back complaining about his mental shields and how they needed an upgrade.
He’d then set down a cube and it had made tents with everything we could want inside. His little cubes were fully programmable, something from seemingly nothing miracles.
And we were afraid of the witch?
“I think they’re wondering why it stopped.” Dean looked young and fragile in the dying light. Twilight was upon us and the shadows from the forest suddenly seemed longer, far more menacing than they’d been in the day. “It’s followed a set pattern up until this afternoon. Do you think she’s all right?”
The first thing Taggart had done was set up the fire pit and materialized a bunch of comfy chairs. He’d set his wife in one and wrapped her in a blanket, securing sunglasses around her eyes before he’d dropped a kiss on her forehead and told me to watch her while he finished setting up camp.
It was a little like Weekend at Bernie’s wife edition.
I shrugged. “He seems to think so. She’s supposed to wake up sometime soon. How much do you trust the Dellacourts?”
Because I’d dealt with that fucker’s human twin, and I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. Although I could throw him pretty far. I didn’t trust him as far as my hand could punch through his chest and come back with his beating heart clenched in it. That was better.
He’d worked with Gray’s father to force Gray’s transition to dark prophet. He’d nearly killed my husband, and I meant to pay him back for that someday. The only reason I hadn’t killed him that night had been the fact that he’d also been the only reason we’d been able to escape.
“They’re friends of my dad’s.” Dean sat back and crossed one leg over the other. “He’s definitely not lying when he says he knows the Seelie kings. They’re his cousins. And they aren’t known for being vicious. They’re known for being good kings.”
But sometimes good kings had to do bad things to try to save their people. I should know that. I genuinely cared about Donovan, but he hadn’t exactly cared about my rights in the beginning. “You okay with us going to meet with them?”
Dean stared at the fire for a moment. “If that’s what Summer wants. I don’t know. I have no idea what I’m doing anymore. I have to wonder about everything now. Erna was the one who told Summer I was important. It’s obvious now that Erna lies.”
He was bitter, but beyond that I thought he was scared. He’d lost the two people he’d relied on—one to her own betrayal and the other to Marcus. I knew Summer wasn’t trying to leave Dean behind, but it would feel that way to him. He’d gone from being Summer’s first priority to feeling like an afterthought in the face of her blooming relationship.
I had to remind him of all the reasons he was here.
“The lies she told you have no effect on who you are and what you’re meant to do. Erna didn’t send a witch out to the fair,” I pointed out. “She didn’t set up a prophecy about you.”
“We don’t know that prophecy is there,” he countered. “I never got a chance to look at it. I didn’t see it with my own eyes. It locked down when I touched it. I think she wanted that book for another reason, and telling Summer it had to do with me was a handy excuse.”
“I don’t think so. I did get a look at that book and I know it wants to come with me.” I hadn’t had a chance yet to grill Summer on what Erna had said because she was still calming Marcus down, probably in a nasty, glorious way. Danger revs that vampire’s engine, if you know what I mean. “And I know a thing or two about prophecy. You are absolutely the one talked about in the Earth prophecy. You’re important. I believe that deep in my bones. I know today feels like a setback.”
“I feel angrier than I was, and it’s not just about the betrayal. There was a reason I left the Vampir
e plane. I didn’t fit in there. My dad’s money and power couldn’t make me one of them, and I didn’t handle it well. I got into a lot of fights. Even my mom knew something had to change. I was always on the edge. I felt like my skin was too tight all the time.”
Did I ever know how that felt? “Because you haven’t become who you’re supposed to be yet. You felt the need to get away because somewhere deep down you couldn’t be who you’re supposed to be if you stayed there. You’re in the middle of it, and that is a shitty place to be. I’ve been there. I thought I was a regular old human for most of my life. I was difficult and angry and self-destructive until I accepted that I was different, and some people weren’t going to like that. Once I got cool with the power inside me, it wasn’t so hard to ignore the assholes. You’ve got a destiny. Has believing that centered you?”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
“Finding out one of the women who helped you get to that place betrayed you is going to shake your cool. It’s inevitable. Questioning everyone around you isn’t a dumb thing to do. I want you to ask questions. But you also have to learn to trust your gut. Are you worried Summer was in on it?”
He shook his head. “No. I’m sure about her. She let me inside her head. I saw her. She’s wracked with guilt, but there’s no deception in Summer.”
Oh, I wasn’t sure about that. People with a whole lot of guilt often deceived themselves. I knew all about that, too. “As for being angry, you’re young and you have power you don’t know how to handle yet. Of course you’re angry. I can help you channel that anger. And you know what? You’re going to be pissed at me a lot. And that’s okay, too. I can handle it. I don’t need you to be easy to get along with. I need you to be good. I need you to be the powerful wizard you can be.”
He’d sat up and his shoulders had straightened. “You really think I can do it? You think I can save the Earth plane?”
I was counting on it. “I’ll do everything in my power to make you ready for this fight. And when the time comes, I’ll back you up. I won’t let you go into this alone, Dean. If you come back with me, you’ll be part of my family, and we won’t ever let you down.”