by Lexi Blake
“He…” I couldn’t quite say the words, but he knew what I meant.
Danny cradled my head in the palms of his hands. “You’re my wife. I don’t care what he did. I don’t care what rituals he performed or what you were forced to say yes to. You belong to me and Dev. You picked us. He can claim you all he likes, but you’re mine.”
I nodded through my happy tears. “I love you, Danny. You were the only thing that got me through. I saw you when he…did what he did.”
I felt him shaking as he squeezed me tight again. “You’ll never have to go through that again, baby. I promise. I’m going to kill him and he won’t ever hurt you again. Dev said the babies are all right, but I want to hear it from you.”
“They’re fine,” I assured him. “We’re fine.”
He brought his forehead to mine, resting our skin against one another. “I was so worried. When we found Lee’s body I wanted to die. I thought Marini was going to kill Dev. I thought he was going to kill you. I wouldn’t have survived that.”
“He didn’t.” I ran my fingers through his thick, sandy hair. “We’re both fine. I’m so sorry about Lee. I should have done something.”
“You couldn’t do anything,” Danny said, shaking me lightly. “You cannot blame yourself. I’ve spent weeks getting Zack to realize it wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t your fault either. It was Marini’s fault. We make sure he never hurts us again and Lee would be happy with that. Okay?”
I nodded. I let myself just hold him for another minute. Then it was time to get to the aforementioned, much deserved ass-kicking. I slapped at his T-shirt-covered chest. As far as I could tell, he wasn’t even carrying a weapon. “You’re such an idiot. How can you just waltz into the Council’s stronghold alone and expect to be alive at the end of it all?” I looked around suspiciously. “Did Declan lend you that invisible guard of his?”
Danny smiled at the thought and chose to toss his big body onto the sofa, pulling me down with him. “No, baby. I don’t think he lends them out. He’s been a pain in my ass ever since Dev brought him back. And his wife is a shrew, let me tell you. She’s fine when he’s not in the room but, boy, the minute he walks in the whip begins. He looks a little beaten down. I think it’s funny.” He tugged me into his lap and sighed as he nuzzled my neck. “You smell so good, baby.”
“Well, I’m glad I smell good for what will probably be my funeral,” I replied sarcastically. “Chima is not the only one who can be a shrew at times. Danny, this is serious.”
“I know,” he whispered against my neck. “This is very serious. Rose is fine. She kept the shakes away, but I need you. I crave you.”
“We don’t have time for that,” I said, squirming in his very firm grip. “The sun is down by now and Marini will be looking for me. Miria and Dev kept him occupied last night, but the minute he’s up he’ll come looking for me.”
“I know.” Danny kissed my neck, not letting me up. “Don’t worry about it. I won’t let him hurt you.”
“I’m not that worried about him hurting me right now. On the other hand, he might have a few things to say to you.”
Daniel chuckled against my neck and it made my skin tingle. “Bring him on. I have a few differences to iron out with him, too.”
I huffed because he wasn’t letting go of his prize. He put his hand low on my belly where the babies were growing and let it rest there. I sighed but wasn’t about to let the sweet action soften my resolve. I wanted my babies to have both their dads alive and well. “He might show up alone, but he won’t stay that way for long. He’ll bring down his entire army on your head. There are at least two hundred vampires here, Daniel.”
“Two hundred and five,” he corrected simply. His lips pressed sweet little kisses across the sensitive skin of my neck. “There are also roughly a hundred weres, shifters, and witches down here.”
I tried not to shake at the thought of that number. It would be Danny against everyone. How did he expect to win? Well, he wasn’t totally alone. “I’m sure Trent and Neil and I will be fine against an army of hundreds of supernatural creatures.”
“Nah,” Daniel said, unconcerned. “Chad already detoured Trent and Neil. We don’t have to worry about them.”
I felt a burst of hysterical laughter bubble up. “That’s great. That’s two more corpses they won’t have to worry about identifying. Why couldn’t you have at least brought Dev as a backup? Or better yet, Zack?”
“Well,” Daniel started to explain his actions, but he seemed to get distracted by the back of my neck. “I didn’t bring Dev along because he already got alone time with you. I heard all about it in vivid detail. He got to spend last night with you and he got to spend a couple of days before that. I want equal time.”
“Yes, those days before Chad convinced me he drained Dev and I was a widow were really thrilling for the both of us.”
Daniel groaned. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know. I thought Chad would tell you what we were doing. But I did hear something about a little incident in a jail cell.”
“He doesn’t have any discretion at all, does he?”
“Not an ounce. He said it was hot. He claims to have made very creative use of the space,” Danny said and I felt his grin against my skin. “So you can see, I obviously deserve a little alone time with my gorgeous wife.”
“And how did you get here?” I asked suddenly because the question popped into my head. I was so happy/pissed off to see Daniel that the fact that he was daywalking hadn’t occurred to me. “Shouldn’t you be just waking up?”
A very interesting thought struck me. Daniel could daywalk when he fed from the sex magic Dev gave off. It was easy for Danny to feed because he was usually in bed with us when Dev started up his mojo, but I hadn’t been around for almost an entire month. Daniel should be back to sleeping in the day unless… “Have you boys been playing some games while the wife was away? There better be video or I’ll be very unhappy.”
Daniel’s whole body shook with laughter. “There’s no video, baby. Bris can do that thing where he focuses the magic and kind of pumps it straight into my body through his hands.”
“Pretty nice, huh?” I’d seen Bris do it once before. Bris’s version of supercharged magic came out as one long orgasm.
Daniel’s hands came up to fondle my breasts. He sighed. “It was pretty awesome, and it’s kept me strong for days.”
I leaned back because Danny wasn’t going to let me up so I might as well enjoy his attentions. “So no playing around at all?”
“I’m not going to lie to you,” Danny said quietly. “I was damn glad to see him and we’ve been terrified. The truth of the matter is I’m used to sleeping with the two of you. It was hard to sleep by myself so when Dev came back, we shared a room. It made it easier for us to run through all the horrible scenarios of what was happening to you here. It made it easier for us to comfort each other.”
I so wanted to watch that. “Just so you know, you’re going to need to comfort Dev again.”
Danny chuckled. “I suspect we’ll do just about anything you want us to, baby. We get out of here and we’re going to be your slaves. Anything you want, I’m going to make it happen.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” I replied, happy that they had each other. “I wasn’t alone, either. I had Neil.”
“I’ll need to hear that story soon, Z,” Daniel said, turning my head toward him. He kissed me, our lips playing softly across each other. “I was glad to hear he got away. I’m sitting Neil out of this one. Trent will join us, but Neil is going to hunker down in a room with some of our more vulnerable allies and hide until it’s all over. I don’t know how much his time on the Hell plane took out of him, and he isn’t on vamp blood. I don’t want to risk losing him.”
That was fine with me. I didn’t want to risk losing him either.
“You’re sitting out, too.” Daniel’s blue eyes were serious and his mouth turned down like he expected a fight out of me.
I had
done my part. I didn’t need to wield a sword. “Absolutely, Danny. Just tell me where I should sit and I’ll do it.”
Daniel let out a relieved breath. “Marcus will come for you when it starts. He’s going to try to get you off the battlefield, but if he can’t he’ll hand you off to Padric and a phalanx of Fae guards. You do what Padric tells you to.”
“In this instance, I will,” I promised, but I didn’t want him thinking he’d gained the upper hand. “Why am I going to be on the battlefield in the first place? Wouldn’t it be easier to just ship me back to London?”
I felt him tense and then he was on his feet, setting me lightly on the ground. “It’s going to be all right, Z. You just follow my lead and everything’s going to be okay.”
Daniel walked into the bedroom and quietly shut the door behind him. The look in his eyes as he closed the door promised he would defend me if he needed to.
The outer door swung open and Louis entered. He scowled at me for a moment before taking a deep breath and plunging in.
“I’m not going to apologize for last night, Zoey,” he said, folding his arms across his chest as he regarded me with dark eyes. “You can’t be surprised I was upset by your pregnancy. I don’t believe you when you say you didn’t know. I think you’ve known all along and that makes me suspicious.”
My heart was pounding. I kept expecting Marini to walk to the door and open it and proceed to call everyone in the catacombs down on Danny’s head. I tried to play it cool and reason with the vampire. “I find it hard to believe you could hold something against me that happened before I became your companion.”
“Do you realize what this means for us, Zoey? Do you understand the insane demands the prince’s relatives are making?”
No, but I was curious. I knew that after Dev had left me he’d joined his mother and Padric in the Council room where the negotiations had run all night long. Dev wanted to make sure Marini didn’t get another chance to beat the crap out of me. I wondered what kind of insane demands “Declan” had made last night. “I’m sure my brother-in-law was difficult, to say the least.”
Louis turned the prettiest shade of red. “He’s a complete imbecile. I don’t see how anyone thinks he’ll ever be fit to rule a kingdom. He wants me to promise I won’t feed off you for the next eight months. I will never agree to do such a thing.”
Wow, that had probably been some kind of argument. I was sure Dev had enjoyed watching Louis flip out at the very thought of having a companion he wasn’t allowed to feed from. The process wouldn’t hurt the babies because the normal amount of blood a vampire needs on a daily basis was very little. It was even easier with Daniel because he fed from Dev as well, but Marini was a greedy bastard. It was a valid point with him. “Do you have to meet with them again tonight?”
He ran a hand across his face and looked like a man who needed a vacation. I was hoping to give him a permanent one. “Yes, the Queen will be here soon. If I didn’t need this alliance so badly I would kick them all out and take care of this little problem myself. The thought of you…giving birth makes me ill. Don’t get attached to those brats because the minute they leave your womb I’m letting the Queen have them. You won’t be raising another man’s children in my home.”
“I won’t fight you on that point, Louis,” I shot back at him, really sick at the thought of him having any say over my children’s lives. “I would much rather Miria raised them than they had anything whatsoever to do with you.”
I heard Louis grunt and knew I’d made a mistake. His hand raised and just when I braced myself for impact, I felt a brush of wind. Daniel had moved faster than the eye could track and caught Louis’s hand before it met my cheek. Marini’s eyes widened as he realized who was standing in front of him. Slowly, but with power, Daniel crushed the hand that would have hit me.
“You don’t touch her ever again,” Daniel growled.
He shoved Marini back with one hand and the vampire hit the wall. His crushed hand was already healing, and he pulled out his little black box and quickly pushed that button that should have ended Daniel’s life. He looked confused for a moment but then tried again.
“Sorry, Marini,” Daniel said, taking my hand. “I decided the old ticker needed an upgrade. You won’t be able to kill me that way. I’ll make this easy on you. I’ll take my wife and my babies and get the hell out of your house.”
Then we were running down the hall even as Louis shouted for help.
Danny ran through the hallways with unerring accuracy. Though he hadn’t been here in the last couple of years, he still knew the place like the back of his hand. “I told you it would be okay, baby.”
“Okay?” I heard myself asking even as I started to breathe hard. I wasn’t used to running quite so fast. I struggled to keep up, but I knew why Danny wasn’t carrying me. He wanted to act as a shield in case the bullets started flying. “Are you insane? Now they know you’re here.”
“Precisely,” he said maddeningly. “Quite the plan, huh?”
He pulled me around the corner and glanced back. Sure enough, we had a tail.
I could barely breathe, I was so afraid. “I swear if we get out of this alive I’m going to kill you. This is the stupidest, most irrational, idiotic plan you’ve ever come up with.”
He smiled down at me and then swept me into his arms. “I learned from the best, Z. I think they’re all behind us now and they’re herding us.”
From behind, I could hear various languages being shouted about, and over it all I heard Marini’s yell.
“Get that bastard into the arena,” Marini ordered.
“That doesn’t sound good.” I intertwined my hands around Daniel’s neck.
“When did you become such a pessimist?” He turned sharply down another corridor and I heard the first shots firing from behind us. “Aren’t you the girl who jumped off the top of a building once on the off chance that I could fly?”
It had been years before, right after I’d met Dev, right before Danny and I got back together. I had nowhere to go. Stewart had been chasing us and I had one crazy idea, one last attempt to save the man I loved. I’d jumped off the building and Danny had come after me.
Sometimes I think that single leap was the real beginning of my life.
We were in a long, narrow corridor, and I could hear the slap of feet against the floors like a herd of predators chasing after us. There was nowhere to go but through the huge, ornate ceiling-to-floor doors at the end of the hallway.
“You could fly so I was right to jump.” I wondered if those doors might be the last things either of us saw.
Daniel’s eyes were sheened with tears as he stared down at me. “I only flew a couple of times before that day. It seemed wrong, like it was the final proof that I was a complete freak. Then it saved your life and it seemed like a wonderful thing to do. I fly for you, baby.” He kissed me and started toward those doors. “They’re coming. This is it. You stay close and when all hell breaks loose, go with Marcus. He’ll take you to Neil and the three of you just hunker down and survive. I’ll come for you when it’s finished.”
“Marcus is in there?”
Daniel grinned. “He will be.”
With one foot, Daniel made the enormous wooden doors swing open, and I found myself on the sandy floor of the arena. Daniel walked straight to the center of the large space. It looked like the set of a gladiator film, but then it was probably more accurate than a Hollywood film because some of these men remembered the time.
Daniel set me on my feet and I immediately sank a little. The floor was covered in sand. The whole place appeared ancient, with the only concession to modern times being the lighting. It was brightly lit so no one would miss a moment of the death and pain this place was known for. This was the place where vampires fought duels to the death, usually over companions. It was the setting for the Council’s formal executions and their entertainments. It was a training space for young vampires.
It was also the place Daniel h
ad first proven himself to be a king.
“There is no place to go, Donovan,” Marini’s voice said behind us.
He stalked into the arena, followed by his men. Niles and Elof took their places next to the head of the Council and the other vampires filed in behind them. They blocked what seemed to be the only exit from the arena.
Daniel turned and faced down his enemy. He squeezed my hand and I got very close to his side. There were so many of them. They poured into the arena, all of Marini’s vampires, claws out and fangs long. They were ready to tear apart Daniel and they would do it with sheer numbers.
“I find it ironic that this should be the location of your final stand, Mr. Donovan,” Louis said and I saw him reach into his pocket. He was playing with the stone, making sure it was there and ready for him to use. “How many vampires did you kill here before we finally stopped you?”
He referred to an act of torture inflicted on newly-turned vampires. As part of their training, they were tossed into the arena and forced to fight older, stronger vampires. In the end, the baby vamp was beaten to within an inch of his life and told to be grateful he’d been spared. It hadn’t worked that way for Daniel.
“Twelve,” Danny said with confidence. I knew he remembered that day well. It haunted his nightmares. “And you didn’t stop me, Marini. You simply stopped sending them in for me to kill.”
“Well, I think this time your experience will be different,” Marini said, and he stared at me with possessive rage. I knew in that moment that if he could get his hands on me he would choke the life out of me. I had the feeling that if he couldn’t have me, he didn’t want anyone to. “There are more than twelve of us this time, though you are alone again.”
“No, he isn’t,” a strong voice came from the stands. All eyes moved to the stone seats that rose high into the air, giving any audience an excellent view of the carnage. My breath caught as Dev gracefully leapt over the railing. He had a sword in his hand and he carried it toward us.