by Lexi Blake
Marini laughed, the sound echoing through the large space. “Yes, Prince Declan, I can see how you’re going to be such a help to Daniel. I’m surprised you’re here, but then I’m sure he promised you something amazing that he’ll never be able to deliver. You should have made your alliance with me. We’ll see what you can do for Daniel. You can, perhaps, shield him for the two or three seconds it takes for us to rip your body in two.”
Dev was dressed for his war. The Order had given him a full uniform of fatigues and combat boots. He made it look damn sexy. There was a P90 slung along his back and god only knew how many weapons hidden on his person. “I have no intention of getting ripped in two, Louis. You had your chance to kill me the night you beat the shit out of me. I won’t give you a second opportunity.”
Now the head of the Council’s dark eyes went wide. “No. I don’t believe it.”
Dev handed Excalibur to Daniel and took his place at my side. He leaned down and brushed my lips with his.
“Well, you should,” another familiar voice said and Declan Quinn leapt over the railing on the opposite side from where Dev had come. He was in his traditional tunic and soft suede pants. His bow was in his hand and his quiver on his back. I knew his arrows would be tipped with silver, each one a flying stake. “He is obviously not me. I am much more attractive.”
“News of the Prince’s death might have been exaggerated, old friend,” Marcus said with a smile as he joined Declan. “Perhaps if you stand down now, Donovan will be merciful.”
“No, he won’t,” Dev proclaimed with a huge smile.
“Now, Devinshea,” Daniel started, “I’ll allow anyone who wishes to not fight to leave the arena now, and as long as they follow the new government’s laws, there will be no repercussions. But that doesn’t apply to you, Marini.”
“We’re going to kill you,” Dev promised. “You hurt her and you’ll pay for it. No mercy for you.”
Marini bared his sharp teeth. “I’ll be sure to remember that when I have you beneath my fangs, Prince Devinshea. Know this, both of you, I will have my companion and I will dispense of her after we’ve gotten rid of you. No silver coffin for you, Marcus. This time you get the death you’ve always longed for. I’ll pit my army against the five of you any day.”
The five of us stood together, facing down over two hundred vampires and another hundred weres, shifters, and witches. It was a daunting prospect, and I sincerely hoped that the Order was going to charge in any moment.
“Do you know what this is, Louis?” Daniel asked, his voice a calm presence. He held Excalibur reverently in his hands.
“I know what you want me to think it is,” the other vampire replied. He’d pulled the stone out and had it in his hands.
Daniel smiled. “Oh, it’s the real thing. This is Excalibur, wielded last by King Arthur. I am the King of the Sword because I carry it. I am the King of all Vampire by right of my birth. Do you think I don’t have an army?”
Louis plunged on recklessly. “If this is your army, I think the sword should find a new owner.”
“You should pay more attention to your wolves, Louis.” Marcus gestured to the wolves who were close to the door. They had been kept at the back of the vampires. They were twitching and looking at a place behind us. “They know what you don’t.”
“And what is that, Marcus?” Marini spat the question.
“That we are not alone,” Daniel replied. “Mr. Thomas, you may release the illusion.”
There was a great shout as the back side of the arena was suddenly filled with hundreds of people, all chanting and raising the roof now that they could come out of hiding.
Daniel was right. We weren’t alone. Not even close.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The minute Chad released his hold on the illusion, two wolves ran forward, one brown and one gray. Zack took his place beside Daniel and the big gray wolf leapt in front of me.
Dev looked down at the gray wolf and smiled. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he said to Trent, who thumped his tail and got damn serious about growling at Marini.
Marini started to take a step back, but I watched as he forced himself to hold his ground. If he ran, his whole army would devolve into chaos. They would break ranks and run for the streets. Marini stood tall. “Impressive, but my vampires still outnumber yours and mine are older, stronger.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. I looked back at the army now marching to Daniel’s back. I recognized Henri Jacobs and Hugo Wells, but there were many others I’d met when Daniel held his meetings explaining his positions. These vampires had chosen to follow Daniel. Many were younger, like Michael House, and they followed Daniel because they held a more democratic world view. I saw the vampires Daniel had turned. There were five of them and they stood behind Chad. Justin, in particular, seemed eager to finally get to the fight he’d been preparing for his entire vampiric life.
But we didn’t just have vampires and unlike Louis’s army, the werewolves, led by John McKenzie, weren’t relegated to the back. We had a hundred wolves, the strongest of the American packs. They were all in wolf form and when they howled, it shook the rafters. Fighting beside the wolves were shifters of all kinds. Daniel and Dev had made sure they knew everyone was welcome at the table. Marini had been systematically assassinating the strong leaders of the shifters, and the ones left were ready for revenge.
King Angus stood beside Padric and Herne the Hunter, who’d brought Shuck and Barghest to the party. The hell hounds’ tails were thumping with impatience to get to the fight. The Seelie and the Unseelie stood together now, and if Marini had known what a miracle that was he might have turned tail and ran.
There was a distant boom, and I noticed the satisfied look on Dev’s face.
“Do you know what that is, Marini?” Dev asked.
Marini swallowed once but didn’t answer.
“That’s the Order of Galahad,” Daniel explained. “My knights just breeched your perimeter. If you run now, they will have taken up defensive positions. They’ll kill anyone who attempts to flee the catacombs. I gave you your chance.”
“Then let me give you yours, Daniel.” Marini held up his little fake stone and, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t muster a lick of sympathy for him. “This makes me a king. I might lose this war but I will take you down with me, Daniel. I’ll kill you and your partner and before I am done, I’ll take my companion with me. You forget I have a secret weapon.”
Daniel laughed but there was a bit of sympathy in it. “Oh, Louis. She isn’t your companion. She never was. She’s my wife and you forgot something, too. My wife is a hell of a thief.” Daniel smiled over at me. “You got it, baby?”
I pulled the real Blood Stone out of my pocket and I held it up, letting Marini get a good look. I gave him my best “gotcha” grin. “Thanks for giving me so much access to the safe. It was a pleasure to steal from you, but as for the rest of it…I was faking.”
Dev snorted beside me and I tossed the stone to Daniel even as Louis shoved the fake into his palm, trying desperately to get it to work. When it wouldn’t, he tossed it aside and pulled a gun. “I will end you, Donovan, if it’s the last thing I do.”
“She’s yours, Marcus,” Daniel said quickly and I felt myself being shoved toward the vampire.
Daniel raised his sword and I felt the army at our backs twitch as they waited for that sword to lead them. Dev’s gun was suddenly off his back and in his hands. Daniel’s face was tense as he brought the sword forward, and with a roar, the battle began.
Marcus pulled me back as the world became one huge, noisy battlefield. I stumbled a little as we started for the exit. “Why does Danny have to go in first? Shouldn’t the king be behind everyone? Shouldn’t he be directing the action?”
I heard Marcus chuckle against my ear. “Daniel is a warrior king, Zoey. He leads his army, not the other way around.”
“I can’t see him anymore.” I tried to get a single glimpse of him amid the throng of people
fighting now. Both sides had met in the middle and they were fighting with a ferocity that stunned me.
The heavy doors closed. They slammed shut and it didn’t seem like a natural occurrence.
“Is that a good thing?” I asked, following Marcus closely.
“We weren’t going out that way, Zoey.” Marcus raised his voice so I could hear him over the sounds of metal against metal and the reports of gunfire. Those sounds I could handle. It was the wet sounds that were making me sick. A body makes some horrible sounds when it’s torn apart or someone shoves a claw through the soft portions of it. The groans and moans of pain and death made me wish I could be anywhere but here. “Zoey, get your head down.”
I ducked as something, a knife, I think, flew past my head. “Which way are we going?”
Marcus seemed slightly annoyed with my questions, or maybe it was the arrow that almost took his patrician nose off. “Damn Fae. Why can’t they join the modern age?” He pointed to a small door on the other side of the arena. “It leads to a series of tunnels. We can get back into the residential section from there.”
“Is that where Neil is?”
“Yes, cara,” Marcus replied, picking up the pace. “He’s waiting for you. I found him surprisingly willing to stay out of the fight.”
Marcus maneuvered me to the side of the arena. We clung to the walls, and suddenly he pushed me down into a crouch. I shrank against the cold stone as Marcus took a couple of shots at a vampire coming our way. I looked out over Marcus’s broad shoulders and saw that it was David. He was bigger than Marcus and a warrior to boot. Marcus shot him four times and the big vamp just kept coming. His fangs were huge and his claws out. There was blood pouring from his burly chest, but that wouldn’t matter if he managed to get his hands on me. My blood would heal him quite nicely, and I could see by the look in his eyes that he had certainly thought of that.
Marcus cursed and pushed me back, covering my body with his. He tossed the gun aside and pulled a silver knife. He would try to impale the vampire on it but I didn’t think it was such a great idea to let that vampire get close. One small piece of silver seemed like very little defense against the super-strong warrior.
Just as David’s claws came forward, there was a long howl and David’s big body was knocked aside as a huge gray wolf leapt on him. His teeth were embedded in the vampire’s neck before David had a chance to react. Blood coated the wolf’s fur as Trent refused to give up his hold. He was savage and he used his sharp teeth to work on the vampire’s flesh. David struggled but he’d lost a lot of blood to Marcus’s bullets and his limbs moved limply as Trent applied all the pressure of his strong jaws to his prey. There was a loud crack as Trent finally broke the vampire’s neck and proceeded to chew his way through to the other side. I’d never seen a wolf behead a vampire using only his teeth, but Trent seemed to think of it as old hat. I wondered what kind of training sessions John McKenzie conducted.
David turned to ash in front of me. All that was left was his bloody clothes, a wicked-looking semiautomatic pistol, and a silver dagger with the hilt wrapped in leather so he could hold it. I wondered why he hadn’t used the weapons, but then I had seen the blood lust in his eyes. Sometimes when the blood was thick in the air, vampires went a little crazy. David’s only thought had been to get to me. It gave me the chills. Trent used his nose to shove the weapons toward us. Marcus leaned down to pick up the pistol but Trent growled a warning.
“I think he wants me armed,” I said to Marcus and I picked up the gun. I flicked the safety off and palmed the knife, too.
Trent growled at Marcus again and then gave me the same treatment.
“I know, I know,” I said. “We’ll stay out of trouble.” He gave me another light growl and then a bark. I used my pointy finger on him because we needed to settle who was boss here and now. “Don’t you use that tone with me. I speak wolf. We’ll be fine. Go. Kill something else.”
Trent barked and it sounded like he was amused. Then he was off, his gray coat lost in the fray. Marcus slipped his hand into mine and started walking, clinging to the sidelines. I let my eyes roam as my feet followed Marcus. I tried to see where Daniel and Dev fought. I caught the briefest glimpse of Devinshea. He was plowing through a group of shifters with his P90. I watched as his brother covered him and he pulled a grenade out of the pockets on his flak jacket. He dislodged the pin and lobbed it deep into enemy territory. There was an enormous explosion and my faery prince looked thrilled with the destruction.
Daniel was in the thick of everything. I could barely see him for the throng of people fighting around him. I saw Excalibur moving, but Daniel was a bit of a blur. I noted that the sand around him was already soaked in blood. Daniel would be wading through it soon.
I felt a little sick at the death all around me. Everywhere I looked a fresh horror was being played out. War, no matter the righteousness of it, was simply a terrible thing to be caught in. I averted my eyes from a group of Unseelie goblins who were pulling apart a vampire. I thought it might be Niles. As much as I had hated that Brit, I wouldn’t have wished quite so awful a fate on him.
“Are you all right?” Marcus asked.
I was pretty sure I’d gone pale at the thought of the people I loved being in that mess of chaos and death. My hand went to my stomach. I really didn’t want my babies stuck out here. I suddenly thought of something I hadn’t before.
“They can all see me, can’t they?” I asked as we crouched down to avoid another volley of gunfire. Marcus covered my head with his torso.
“Yes, cara,” he said. “I’m afraid you still glow for all of the vampires. I don’t think any of us quite considered the implications when we began.”
The implications were huge. These were vampires caught up in blood lust. Many of them had lost a large portion of their blood volume. They were dying and I was a bright bag of sweet, sweet healing just walking around for the taking. Daniel loved me dearly, but when he was close to death I feared his beast because the instinct was to live and I was a vampire’s best shot. My bright glow made me stand out. It was a big neon sign saying “get it here.”
Marcus’s dark eyes searched the crowd and I knew he was terrified that those vampires would be coming for me. “I need to get you out of here. There are a couple of places where we might be able to slip away.”
A pair of fighting vampires landed on the ground next to us. They were locked in mortal combat, their claws at each other’s throats. I recognized Henri Jacobs. He was married to a friend of mine and had helped Marcus save Dev’s life a while back. He was losing his fight. He was beneath a big vampire I knew from my time in the catacombs, one of Louis’s thugs. His fangs were out and his claws were making a mottled mess of Henri’s throat. The smaller vampire tried to kick his opponent off, but he couldn’t get a really good position. Henri Jacobs was seconds away from leaving his wife a widow. I really couldn’t stand the thought of that.
I moved from behind Marcus and put the muzzle of my gun against the bigger vampire’s head and, with no remorse at all, I pulled the trigger. The bullet was silver and the vampire’s brain couldn’t handle it. At such close range, I had blown away a large enough portion of his brain that it worked as a decapitation. The vampire seemed to swell briefly and then he turned to dust and covered Henri’s body.
Marcus growled and pulled me back, cursing in Italian.
“Thanks,” Henri said, jumping up and dusting off his former opponent from his clothes. He stared at me for a moment, his fangs long in his mouth. He turned away from me. “Marcus, you have to get her out of here. I heard Marini telling his men to get her and bring her to him. He’s being a coward. He won’t stop and face the king. He keeps moving just out of range, killing weaker fighters but not letting Daniel get near him. He thinks he can get out of this if he can lay his hands on the queen.”
“I am trying,” Marcus replied.
“Well, try harder,” Henri said. “I don’t think Marini will let her live.”
/> “Why aren’t they fleeing into the catacombs?” I asked as Henri leapt back into the fray and Marcus continued his careful maneuvering toward his destination somewhere at the back of the arena. At least we were behind our own lines now. “Doesn’t it make sense for them to get those doors open and move this fight into the residential parts?”
They could employ more of a guerilla mentality.
Marcus pointed toward the top of the arena. “They’ve tried to get the doors open but I’m afraid Daniel’s witch is very strong.”
She was hidden behind a group of Fae warriors, but I could see Sarah Day standing far away from the battle. She didn’t have to be close to be effective. She held her hands out and was concentrating on the door. She was dressed for protection, her torso covered in Kevlar and a helmet on her head. Her husband, Felix, stood at her side, watching the battle with a worried look on his face. I was sure he thought about the baby Sarah was carrying. She was five months pregnant and the bulge in her belly was barely visible under the protective Kevlar. Beside her stood my father’s girlfriend, Christine. Her mouth was moving and I knew she was chanting quietly, lending strength to Sarah’s spells. Christine might not be the greatest witch in the world, but she was good at adding power to a spell.
“Daniel couldn’t keep her away,” Marcus said. “She showed up in London with your father and Felix. She promised to stay out of the line of fire and to follow the orders of Declan’s guards.
“Is that my dad?” Tears filled my eyes. My dad was here.
“Yes, cara, he wouldn’t stay away either.”
My father was watching the action. His eyes were following Danny and Dev, watching to make sure they were all right. He stood behind his Fae guards and I knew it was killing him that I was down here.
“I need to take you to Neil,” Marcus said. “The vampires won’t care about your father and they probably don’t even realize what Sarah is doing, but they will notice you.”