Hakan’s owl appeared at my side. I turned enough to see that Goran was climbing on the stork. Was that why they were so huge, then? So we could ride them?
I wanted to laugh at that, but the door blasted open on a burst of parasitic air, and a dozen rotten Ljósálfar stormed in.
I swung myself up onto Hakan’s back. The stork and Goran had already taken a running leap out of the window. The closest fairy to them lifted his hand and sent out a bolt of Light after them. I blocked it with a shield of my own Light.
Sparks flew. Swords were drawn. A snarl rent the air, and it wasn’t my vampire. Owls might purr, I don’t know, but they definitely don’t snarl. A fairy leapt across the space between us and landed on Hakan’s back. I stabbed him with the Svante and then pushed him off. Another followed suit as Hakan attempted to turn us to face the window. This one managed to get a dagger into the owl’s side; it screeched. I screamed. Light blasted.
And then there was nothing but Light, theirs and mine; one bright, one streaked in red and horribly infected. They were dying, I realised; shock and desolation at the thought washed through me, leaving me feeling weak. What had they done to themselves?
And then we were running and dodging, and doing all sorts of things I didn’t think an owl could do. I was striking and stabbing and blasting, and the fairies were jumping and slashing and countering my blasts of Light. The room lit up; shadows were banished, a red haze covered my eyes, and I didn’t think it was entirely desperation or anger.
Then the owl lifted off the ground and swept up to the high ceiling in the room as the Mhachkay and Erbörü arrived.
Hakan screeched a warning. Or a threat. It was hard to tell. I didn’t speak Owl, and my handy-dandy translation ability didn’t stretch to that. I threw bolt after bolt of Light down below us. The Erbörü snarled. The Mhachkay closed their eyes and started chanting. Several of them changed into birds themselves. We swooped and banked, bolts of Light singeing Hakan’s feathers. One knocked the wind out of me, but I gripped my sword tighter and sent out a broad arc of Light.
The room exploded in tiny shards of red blood-like Light; rubies or garnets scattered across the space, twinkling in a bizarrely beautiful way even though I knew I’d somehow blasted the parasite.
It fought back.
The rubies and garnets twisted and turned and then coalesced into a red streak of Light that bombarded the nearest vampire.
He hadn’t stood a chance. I watched on in horror as the Mhachkay succumbed to the parasite. Like a disease, it ate at his body, at his magic, and then he was snarling and slavering and lashing out with all his Mhachkay might.
A bolt of magic hit me square in the chest. I felt my grip on Hakan’s back slip. The floor of Zahra’s room seemed a long, long way down, but it was getting closer even as my eyesight was dimming.
At the last moment, in a screech of defiance, Hakan’s owl swooped me up in his claws, tossing me up onto his back, and then arrowed us for the window. He was big in any form, but in his Mhachkay shapeshifting form he was bigger than a normal owl. And bigger than his cousin’s stork.
We weren’t going to make it. The window seemed so small. Bolts of Light crisscrossed the space before and behind us. Some hit. Some missed. It was getting harder to think, to breath, to stay alive.
But as the narrow opening approached, I took one last breath of air in and expelled it along with all that was left of my Light.
The wall shattered, the room started to crumble and fall. The Mhachkay, Erbörü, and Ljósálfar screamed in alarm as they all started to tumble down the side of the castle.
And then fresh air met my damp cheeks and the sound of Hakan’s oversized wings beating frantically reached my ears, and the screech of a barn owl filled the night. The answering call of a stork sounded out in the distance.
Magnificent birds of all descriptions started taking flight beneath us, some of them managing to shift forms as they tumbled down the side of the castle with the rubble I’d created. They grasped their fallen familiars in their claws. The fairies who’d attacked us weren’t so lucky. I saw broken bodies and blood splattered on the ground; the light of flames licking all around their fallen forms sent up images I would never forget into my mind.
Someone let out a roar of fury. I thought perhaps it was the Kral. Mhachkay magic surged up after us, but Hakan beat his wings harder, faster, and we just managed to stay out of reach of all that furious power. My skin tingled, a buzz filled my ears, I’d long ago shut my eyes against the sickening sensation of fading eyesight. Or maybe that was the ribbons twisting that was making me feel so dreadful.
“Left,” I managed to rasp, but Hakan heard me. He swooped left, and we missed the bolt of Light.
The Mhachkay, when I looked back and forced my eyes open, had Ljósálfar riding their feathered backs. The Erbörü now chased us on foot answering their masters’ calls.
“Down,” I ordered, as the ribbons instructed.
Hakan swooped us down in a terrifying dive, worse than any rollercoaster I’d ever been on.
“Up, up, up!” I shouted. He obeyed. Light streaked past below us; too close. I could feel its blaze of power, hear the sizzle as it petered out in the distance.
“Over there,” I said, risking raising an arm and pointing at storm clouds on the horizon. I had no idea where Zahra and Goran had gone, but the ribbons insisted the clouds were the best cover we were going to get.
We could have landed. We were some distance from the Mhachkay castle now, but the Mhachkay would have hunted us down from the air, and the Ljósálfar would have lit up the ground to make us easy targets for the Erbörü as they stalked us.
We had to keep flying. We had to stay ahead. Our only chance was to reach those clouds before them and maybe lose them in there.
“Right,” I said, my teeth chattering.
Use our connection, Hakan said inside my head.
I could feel his agony when he opened his mind up to me like that, but speaking inside my head was easier than actually parting my lips and sucking in the super-chilled air. I lowered my cheek to the back of the owl and fisted several of his feathers in my hands, and then sent out directions in my mind.
I didn’t bother to look back at the hunters behind us. I could feel them. I could hear their wings beat. Sense their parasitic Light. And the ribbons told me everything I needed to know anyway.
Right. Down. Left. Right. Duck. Dive. Climb.
The directions went on and on until I thought neither Hakan nor I could keep going.
And then we were surrounded by wet, cloying clouds, our vision blocked, sounds distorted, icicles forming on my eyelashes, inside my mouth, inside my chest.
And my body finally went blissfully numb.
Lights out. The end.
10
You Have Got To Be Kidding Me
I woke to scorching heat down my side and the press of a mattress to my back. A fire crackled nearby. The smell of wood burning met my nose; mixed in with Hakan’s complex and delicious signature scent.
There were other scents here also; we were not alone.
I sat up, my hand fisting my Svante sword, my eyes blinking rapidly to focus, my Light thrumming inside; weakly, not at full blasting capacity. But enough I thought to singe whoever had caught us and was stupid enough to still be in the room where we’d been left.
Be at ease, hayatim, Hakan said in my mind. He sounded tired. It was strange to hear such exhaustion in only thoughts.
The room came into focus. It was large and clearly vintage in style; perhaps an old inn or hotel. I could hear noise below us, so we were on a second storey at the very least. The clinking of glasses, music, laughter. A pub.
And this was an inn. We were still in Turkey.
My sword was up before me; rigid, steady. I could hold it like this all day. My brain finally cooperated, and I took in those in the room with us. Hakan lay reclined on the bed at my side. Goran sat in a stiff-backed chair at a worn wooden table in the corner,
cleaning his Fey swords.
The witch, Zahra, Hakan’s cousin, stood beside the fire. She looked fierce and wary, but also not depleted or injured in any way or fashion.
She was our greatest threat.
I slowly lowered the sword to my side; still within reaching distance but for now allowing that show of acquiescing. It was daylight out. None of us was getting out of here. Well, none of us of the vampire variety.
And I was not leaving Hakan with that Mhachkay.
Can she be trusted? I asked Hakan silently.
She is free of the Kral.
That’s not an answer.
He sighed. His silver and ice-blue eyes blinked open, and he stared up at me.
I hope she can, but I am unsure, he finally admitted.
That hurt, I thought. She was his cousin. The last Mhachkay family member he thought he could trust. And he wasn’t even sure if he was right.
I looked across the room at the woman. She was watching us and not being polite about it. Her dark eyes met mine. They weren’t blue like Hakan’s. In the shuttered light of the room, they appeared almost black. But that couldn’t be right.
“You are Enchanted,” she said in accented English.
“And you’re a Mhachkay,” I offered.
She smiled. It was in no way friendly.
“Zahra Bahar,” Hakan said, “meet my Entwined. Éliane Durand, daughter of the Champion and the Prophesied.”
Her nostrils flared, and the black in her eyes became a swirling mass of smoke and something I couldn’t decipher. Power rippled off her in ever increasing waves. A tsunami of it that threatened to engulf me. I pulled on my Light, what little I had left of it, and chose the easier and perhaps more diplomatic option of using it as a shield instead of blasting her curvaceous arse with it.
A shield I could hold longer than a sustained blast of Light. But it hurt.
Goran stepped up to the witch and poked her in the side with one of his swords. It was a warning poke. Almost a playful one. But Hyrða weren’t known for their sense of humour; he was following my example.
“Cease and you shall live,” he told her.
Zahra met Hakan’s eyes. He was still lying beside me. For all intents and purposes, he looked relaxed, amused even, as if he was about to watch an interesting TV show and he was mildly interested to see how it would end.
But his thoughts were anything but intrigued right then.
He didn’t speak them to me, but I heard them all the same. A new quirk of our connection when his emotions were heightened?
In any case, he was not happy.
“Éliane is my Entwined,” he repeated in a steady voice. “My Hanımefendi. My wife.” He’d chosen the consort title and not the queen one. I thought perhaps he was keeping his intentions toward the Mhachkay throne a secret for now.
I wholeheartedly agreed.
I didn’t trust this woman. And I expected her to save my brother?
I let out a long sigh.
“Zahra Bahar,” I said. “I am honoured to make your acquaintance. You are welcome in my home and at my hearth. I willingly share my Light.”
It was an old Nosferatin greeting. An acknowledgement of trust she had not earned. But we didn’t have time to draw this out. We needed her cooperation, and one thing my father had taught me growing up was a vampire would do anything to survive at all costs.
Offering this newly awoken and suddenly independent Mhachkay protection and safety would be more than a vampire could discard.
The witch turned dark and smokey eyes on Hakan.
“The Iunctio,” she growled, ignoring absolutely everything I’d said and homing in on Hakan’s reference to my father. Figures. “You have allied with the Iunctio.”
I didn’t need to hear her thoughts to know she was not happy.
“You think they are the same Iunctio of before?” Hakan asked, finally moving to sit upright, but not shifting from the bed yet. He leaned back against the pillows as if he was still relaxed. But he was in a better position now to fight her off if needed.
And that just made me antsy. My fingers itched to reach for my sword. My stakes were still in my hip holsters and much closer, but if I so much as moved a finger toward them, I’d escalate this confrontation into violent territory.
I sat still. I barely breathed. This was between Hakan and his cousin.
Zahra took a step forward. I worked on not making my pulse react.
“They imprisoned us, cousin,” she snarled. The smoke in her eyes seemed so fucking threatening right then. “They put us to sleep and left us to rot in our beds. They cannot be trusted.”
“I do not trust them,” Hakan admitted. “But I trust my Entwined.”
Zahra spared me a derisive glance. “The daughter of the Champion? And how did the Champion beget a child?”
“Nut,” I said.
Zahra didn’t like my interruption, she shot me a look, and I felt it. Even though I still held a Light shield around my body, I felt that look. I felt it deep inside. It was harder to breathe all of a sudden. As if smoke filled my lungs. As if a forest burned and I could feel the raging inferno all around me.
I ramped up my Light, and the heat and smoke retreated.
It left me shaking. I was so weak. I needed to replenish, and that would take time and something that made me happy. A little alone time with my Entwined should do it, but looking at the way Zahra appeared now, I didn’t think she’d be overjoyed to leave us alone for some Light-making nookie.
“The Champion was not the sort to nurture if I remember rightly,” she snapped. “You cannot convince me the vampyre I know parented a child.”
“The vampyre you know met the final death,” I said, realising she thought the Champion would be the same one who was in charge of the Iunctio five hundred years ago.
My father had been Champion of the modern-day Iunctio for about twenty-five years. The world this vampyre thought she knew was long gone.
She flicked a startled glance at Hakan.
“Who is the Champion? Do I know them?”
Hakan’s face didn’t change in appearance, but I felt the sigh he let out right down to my bones.
“Neagoe’s orphaned child,” he said. What?
My father was not an orphan. Although, his family had been killed when he’d been Turned. He’d lost them all. Including his children from that time. Perhaps that was why Hakan called him an orphan.
But then, he had also killed his sire. A masterless newly Turned vampire could be thought of as orphaned, I guessed. And Neagoe Basarb had definitely adopted him in a way.
Papa called Basarb a friend. He still mourned his death. As far as I knew, he’d spent close to sixty years at the Craiovesti Court; learning to live again. He is the man he is today because of Neagoe Basarab.
And the Mhachkay killed his vampyre father. The parent he had chosen for himself after losing everything.
I closed my eyes and dropped my head. So much made sense now. So much of my father’s history. Of who he is. Of the strained relationship he had with Hakan. Of the rage he felt towards the Mhachkay and their prince.
And yet, he had let me go to Hakan; leave with him. For Luc. For us, I realised. Maybe it wasn’t just the Ambrosia who knew we needed to be Entwined. Maybe Papa had known, and he had tried to keep it quiet. If the older councillors on the Iunctio had known what it would take to keep Luc’s and my blood enchanted powers contained, would they have let us live?
My father had been protecting us. Through everything. Through it all. He had been protecting us.
I let out a little sound from the bottom of my heart and blinked open tear-filled eyes.
“What is wrong with her?” Zahra asked.
“My Hanımefendi has just had an epiphany of sorts,” Hakan murmured.
My father loved me. He loved us so much; he’d let us go. He’d let us go to his mortal enemy.
I wanted at that moment to see him. To hold him. To Visit with him in a Dream. He’d lowered
his guard in those. He’d let us see who he really was, who Neagoe Basarab had made him. Outside of his Dream Visits, he’d machinated. He’d schemed and planned, and did everything he could to make us appear strong and stable; an asset to the Iunctio, not a bomb waiting to go off.
I let out a breath of air, allowing this new reality to settle about my shoulders.
My eyes met Zahra’s.
“My father is Michel Durand. He is kindred to the Sanguis Vitam Cupitor. The most Light-filled Nosferatin in the world. Her Light is his Light. His Light is her Light. The Iunctio of old is gone. You have awoken in a new age, vampyre. It might be broken, but it is not all Dark.”
“You are the daughter of the Prophesied,” she said.
She took three abrupt steps back and sank into a chair.
I guessed she’d missed that part earlier when Hakan had listed my heritage.
“I am,” I said. “My mother is the Sanguis Vitam Cupitor, the Prohibitum Bibere, and the Lux Lucis Tribuo. The Prophesied.”
“I remember,” she said softly. “I remember the prophecy.”
“Well,” I said, “it was realised.”
“We have missed so much,” she muttered.
“And the Kral does not care,” Hakan added.
“Tell me,” she said, lifting dark eyes to his. Smoke no longer swirled within them. Power was still there but banked. Like a fire at night, left to warm the house but not destroy it.
“Five hundred years, cousin,” Hakan said. “Wars have been won and lost. The Dökkálfa are free, their Light brethren chained. Although they too have escaped their captivity. A new King sits upon the Dark Fairy throne. He is my Entwined’s godfather.”
I snorted. Three sets of intrigued eyes flicked toward me.
“He thinks he is,” I said. “My parents humour him about it. My godparents are vampires.”
“My Lord King is your godfather,” Goran announced. “It has been decreed.”
“In Faerie,” I said.
“Yes. All know this.”
I shook my head. A fairy godfather.
“OK,” I said, not wanting to encourage the Fey any further.
Blood Enthralled (Blood Enchanted, Book Three): A Vampire Hunter Paranormal Romance Series Page 9