by V. A. Dold
Under normal circumstances three minutes was nothing, but the damn Guild could do a lot of damage in that amount of time. With each beat of his heart, the fist squeezed his chest tighter. Sweat beaded on his brow, and adrenaline-laced fear tightened his gut. Her terror became his to bear.
Etienne cleared his throat and waited until he had every man’s attention. “Listen up, gentlemen. We fight this hand to hand. There will be no magic used. Vampiric speed can be utilized if you feel it is necessary. Give the Guild as little reason as possible to target the vampire race. Understood?”
Each man grunted or nodded an assent.
Oh, Jesus. I’m not going to get to her in time. “Faster, Derick. Drive faster. They’re hurting her! Here. Left, turn left,” he shouted as two wheels left the pavement and the g-force threw him against the door.
Ten minutes, or was it ten hours? After what felt like an eternity a long line of cars and vans parked along the edge of the road appeared in the headlights. “Stop! She’s here.”
Unwilling to wait for Derick to brake, Darius threw himself from the car. He tucked and hit the ground with his shoulder, rolling to absorb the impact. On a summersault, he gained his feet and sucked in a breath. There it was. Her scent.
He locked on to the call of her blood, and the notes of patchouli carried on the breeze mixed with the scent of fresh blood. That wasn’t a good sign. She was bleeding, and the iron-rich tang was growing stronger—too much so.
A red haze of fury colored his vision.
“Darius, wait for the team. We must take them as a unit, or some may escape,” Nick commanded.
“There isn’t time,” Darius shot over his shoulder and took off at a dead run.
“Go. We will catch up,” Etienne assured, knowing Darius would hear him even as he disappeared into the long forgotten cemetery.
Darius cut a line straight through the crumbled remains. He leapt over limestone headstones still standing despite the ravage of weather and time. He dodged left around a Mausoleum, and then right to avoid trees that sprang into his path. Nocturnal creatures squeaked in alarm, frozen in place, unable to pinpoint the danger he presented as he flashed past. He was no more than a gust of warm air amongst the long dead as he sped over their resting places, the entirety of his focus honed in on one thing. Carolyn.
Raised voices and cheers were an affront, and fueled his white-hot wrath. In his mind, he yelled what he couldn’t utter aloud without warning the enemy that he was near. Carolyn!
As he topped a ridge, the others joined him to rush the valley below. The cemetery was vast in size, the perfect place for the Guild to carry out their heinous crimes. No one would hear them or witness the murder of his Muierimei. His senses were no longer required to locate his woman. Even though he was still a distance away, he could see her limp form, tied atop a pyre. Her chin rested upon her bloodied, bare chest.
Oh, Christ. No! He couldn’t lose her. He couldn’t be too late.
As they drew near, the men spread out to attack from all sides. Etienne shouted the order, and each engaged the Guild member nearest their position.
Rafe caught his man off-guard and relieved him of his head. He immediately turned to meet an attack from his left. The shock that he was about to fight a woman lasted all of a heartbeat. The she-cat swiped at him with a blade, and the game was on.
Sean wasn’t as lucky. His target saw him at the last second and drew a weapon. Blades clashed and broke apart. He circled and parried with the human who apparently was a trained swordsman. With a flick of his wrist, Sean drew first blood. The human quickly repaid the compliment with a slice to Sean’s shoulder. He was done playing nice. There were other fish to fry and a woman to rescue. Using vampiric speed, he slashed the human’s neck and left him to bleed out.
Etienne wasted no time. He slashed the first human he came to from ear to ear and then spun to slice another in half. Like a bad horror movie the torso slid to the ground, and then the legs teetered before joining its upper half in the dirt. A woman rushed at him from the left. With the ease of an Olympic gymnast, he jumped into the air and did a flip to land behind her and buried his blade into her back.
Derick was more clean and efficient. He didn’t give the Guild a chance to fight back. Using his speed, he went from one to the next cutting off heads as he passed.
Nick fought like a man possessed. He mowed through the humans like a bulldozer. He paused to find another opponent and spotted Darius with his flank exposed.
“Darius, behind you!” Nick yelled as two Guild members rushed him.
He was one step away from reaching the pyre and rescuing Carolyn when a Guild member came out of the shadows. With the agility of a cat, Darius twisted right at the warning. He bared his fangs and attacked the fanatic with a warriors cry. Merciless, hellish retribution would be Carolyn’s, and he was her sword. He sliced his blade across the man’s chest. The razor-sharp edge of his weapon cut clear to the bone.
The puny human screamed like a little girl.
“This is for my woman.” With the precision of a surgeon, he carved a symbol on the man’s face identical to one of the symbols that had been cut into his Muierimei.
The man gave an unearthly shriek and fell at his feet. Darius raised his sword and thrust the blade into the member’s chest, piercing the heart.
Before he could turn back to the pyre, two more men were upon him. Even as he squared off with his attackers, he was aware of the war raging around him. Nick tossed a limp body aside. Its throat ripped out, carotid spewing a shower of red across the sacred ground. Derick had tired of lopping off heads and pinned a member to a tree with his sword. Etienne was poetry in motion, his sword ever in motion, movements as flowing as a ballet dancer, with nary a drop of blood to mar his tailored suit. But it was the Guild’s president that caused him to pause, a mistake he paid for with blood.
Darius turned his back on his attackers, trusting his team to dispatch them. He had to stop the president. Two things took place simultaneously, the president lit the pyre, and searing pain dropped Darius to his knees. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other man raise his weapon again. Darius rolled right, flipped to his feet and seized the enemy’s jaw. With a flick of his wrist, bones cracked and tendons severed. The Guild member screamed, his unhinged jaw hanging slack. On an upward thrust, Darius buried his sword under the man’s rib cage piercing both lungs. Without slowing, he withdrew the blade and shoved the corpse aside.
He pivoted left, swung his sword in an arc, and slashed the second man from pelvis to throat. Agonized screams filled the night as smoke clouded his vision.
“Carolyn!”
*****
Carolyn came to and blinked. What? Where? She was no longer laid out like a sacrificial lamb on an altar. Her foot slipped sideways and rolled off of something roundish. She glanced down and frowned. Why was she up so high and were those logs under her feet?
Her exhale stopped midway from her lungs to her lips. Her vision flashed before her eyes. Hyperventilation started in earnest. Hysteria threatened to climb up her throat, choke off her air, and send her back to unconsciousness.
“Darius!” she screamed at the top of her lungs for the only man who could save her.
Carolyn tugged at the ropes that bound her, twisted her ankles left and right. She was trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey and about to be the recipient of the same fate. She shook her head rejecting what she couldn’t deny. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be. It was impossible. She never saw her own future. Never. But then she had, hadn’t she? She’d had a vision of her and Darius with children after the blood exchange. How could she die now and still have a future? The blood exchange must have messed with her gift and made it wonky. She shook her head again to clear her mind. She didn’t have time to waste on her gift.
Satan came toward her, the movement catching her eye. Carolyn’s heart stuttered. He had a torch. A lit torch! Oh. God! He’s going to burn me alive.
“So glad you
could rejoin us,” he said in a voice that was all gravel and malice. “It’s much more satisfying when the witch screams.”
“No, please. You don’t want to do this. I’m not a witch. You have the wrong person.”
Satan laughed and turned to address the crowd that had gathered at the base of the pyre, “Do you hear that? We have the wrong person.”
Laughter trickled through the onlookers.
“Next she will tell us she’s a …”
Satan’s diatribe trailed off as men with swords entered the clearing.
The swordsmen split up, each engaging the enemy. That was when she recognized Darius and the other vampires. She sagged or would have if there were any give in the ropes. Thank God, they would get her out of here before the rest of her vision came to fruition.
Darius held her full attention. The way he moved took her breath away. Graceful as a jungle cat, he closed the distance between them, not a hint of mercy in the hard lines of his face. His eye’s blazed amber, and narrowed with unswerving intent.
She swore she heard him say her name but couldn’t be sure as she was no longer looking at him. Satan was back with death gleaming in his eyes. To her horror, he smiled at her, then touched his torch to the pile of wood she was staked atop.
Greedy flames raced toward her. The ragged hem of her dress caught fire. She twisted to evade the flames but found no escape. The agony of burned flesh tore a scream from her throat. The foul odor of cooked flesh and burnt hair filled her nose. A moment later, her feet and legs were engulfed in flames. Blessed relief of unconsciousness swept her away from the pain to sweet, sweet oblivion.
CHAPTER NINE
Darius’s boots slipped and sloshed through the blood soaked earth. He scrambled past the dead bodies littering the ground, making short work of the distance to the pyre and the terrible silence emanating from Carolyn. The dry snaps and crackles of burning wood filled his ears. Terror churned in his heart until it was nuclear, but he refused to let the thought that he had lost his soulmate take root. The heat and flames were no more than a spark in comparison to the crazed panic in his body. He breached the blaze but stepped back when logs gave way and threatened to topple Carolyn into the heart of the inferno.
Hope was vanishing with the smoke on the wind when he heard the voice of Quin Le Beau. Arms stretched wide, the wolf shifter called to the heavens. “Goddess Luperca, the mother of all wolf shifters, heed my request. Send the rain to tame these flames.”
Lightning forked across an angry sky. Thunder crashed in glorious answer to Quin’s call. Then blessed rain fell in torrential sheets. “Thank you, Goddess,” Darius whispered as he paced at the base of the pyre, impatient to cut Carolyn free.
“No!” Darius yelled as the compromised half-burned logs collapsed in upon themselves and Carolyn disappeared under the weight of the pyre. He grabbed the nearest smoldering hunk and tossed it aside. It sailed across the bloody battlefield, instantly forgotten.
Shoulder to shoulder, the vampires and shifters disassembled the pile. The mangled mess had to be taken apart with care. One wrong log and it would crash again like a bad game of Jenga. Until they reached Carolyn, they played it as if she still lived. Regardless, her body would be retrieved and laid to rest with reverence and love.
Not a single man was willing to voice their doubt, though their worried glances at one another didn’t go unnoticed.
“She isn’t dead!” Darius growled at them, grabbed another log, and tossed it aside.
“Of course she is not,” Etienne assured as he pulled one that was still aflame.
“Here! She’s over here,” Nick yelled from the opposite side of the heap.
Darius flashed to Nick’s side. Of Carolyn, only her fingers could be seen. In rapid succession, logs crashed against tree trunks and headstones. “Quickly!”
Tears created tracks through the soot on Darius’s face. “Carolyn,” he croaked, his voice that of a broken man. He extended a trembling hand toward her motionless form, so still that Darius’s heart froze in terror as his eyes took in her tortured, burned body.
Etienne gripped his shoulder and whispered, “Allow me. I will take the utmost care with your Muierimei.”
Darius gave a jerky nod. Everything in him rebelled at the thought of another man touching Carolyn. But he knew if he tried to move her, his unsteady hands would damage her further.
He watched closely as Etienne lifted a chunk of charred hair from her neck, carefully peeling it from her skin without damage to the underlying tissue, then both felt and listened for a pulse. Shock and a sliver of hope jolted his heart when Etienne’s eyes flashed to his.
“She lives but barely. Darius, sit on that stump. The rest of you will help me clear the area around her so we can extract her with as little damage as possible,” Etienne barked orders like a drill sergeant.
Darius’s bones rattled like a maraca as he watched Etienne and the others rushed to clear the area around his Muierimei. He had to steady himself if he was to pull Carolyn from the brink of death. He sucked in a breath, a jangled series of stuttered starts and stops that did little to fill his lungs. Damn it. Determined to get control of his body, he closed his eyes and visualized Carolyn alive and well. Then he took another breath. A steady even flow of air, in and out. He could do this.
His eyes popped open at the sound of Etienne’s next order. “Nick, help me lift her from this mess. Take care. Her flesh is fragile.”
Both Etienne and Nick reached for Carolyn’s horribly burned and broken form but hesitated. Neither could find a place to take hold that would leave her undamaged. They tried again and pulled back.
“Nick, this is not going to work without magic, please step back.”
“I agree.” He retreated to Darius’s side and watched as his maker carefully levitated her body. The process required intense concentration to hold her entire body level while avoiding contact with the logs around her. Slowly, she rose from the ashes. Her flesh burned beyond recognition. Her hair and clothing—gone.
“My God, how is she alive?” Derick whispered to no one in particular.
Darius stiffened, and his heart struggled to beat at Derick’s words. He was right. How was she holding on? He was thankful when Nick shot his brother a reprimanding glare. He had to believe she would make it through this and live.
Etienne floated her across the eight or so feet to where Darius waited. “Keep your arms at your sides. I will hold her steady. Do not touch her other than to pierce her flesh and take her blood for the third exchange. Then score your wrist and drip your blood into her mouth.”
Darius clenched his fists. It was killing him to see her so destroyed and unable to cradle her to his chest. But he could sense his blood in her body, hear her thin pulse echoing weakly in his veins. Faint though the connection was, it gave him the strength he needed to do what he must.
He leaned forward with his fangs extended a breath away from her neck and hesitated. Though she had agreed to be his, could he impose the final exchange on her without her conscious knowledge? This felt so wrong. For a vampire to force a blood exchange was tantamount to sexual assault. If he didn’t convert her completely, she wouldn’t have the healing ability of a vampire. He would have to watch her die, helpless to save her.
Unacceptable, he couldn’t exist if she was gone. He had two choices. Do the exchange and deal with his actions later or follow her in death.
“Damn it, Carolyn. I’m sorry. I can’t let you die. Please, forgive me.” He closed that sliver of a gap and sank his fangs as gently as possible. Only a few sips, that was all it would take. Moments later, he licked the bite wound closed. Then brought his wrist to his mouth and tore it open, no gentleness required. In his mind, he had earned the pain. Blood ran in rivulets to pool on the ground. He mumbled an urgent prayer to Artemis and positioned his wrist over Carolyn’s lips. “Goddess, please help her to swallow and heal.”
Carolyn knew she was dying. She had wondered many times how the end would c
ome. She considered a car crash or old age, but death by pyre? That hadn’t even been on her radar. Locked in her mind, she screamed in agony, floating on a never-ending sea of pain. The escape into the next world beckoned, promising relief from her suffering. She reached for the sweet release of death, but something pulled her back from the light.
A soothing liquid slipped down her throat. A flavor she vaguely remembered but couldn’t place. Her mind refused to release the knowledge of what she knew she should recognize. She swallowed again, the comfort of the drink enveloped her, as if Darius’s strong arms protected her, and held her above the waves of pain that stole her ability to think. Before she could form a coherent thought, she sank into blessed oblivion where misery didn’t exist.
Sometime later, minutes, hours, days? Carolyn didn’t know. Time didn’t exist in oblivion. She floated to the surface of consciousness but didn’t breach the barrier completely. Muffled voices that were pitched low and concerned in tone filled her ears. She didn’t recognize the voices, but one thing was certain, Darius was with her. She sensed him, somehow pinpointed his location. He was below her. No, that wasn’t right. He held her. That wasn’t right either. He was carrying her.
She was too drained to care where he was taking her, content to drift away in the protection of his arms. Darius would never let anything hurt her again.
“Etienne, would you please open the back door for me?” Darius asked.
The vampire king nodded and opened it wide. “It might be best to hand her off to me while you get in.”
Darius stared at the interior and waffled. He didn’t want Carolyn in anyone’s arms but his own. Etienne was right, as always, there was no way to get both he and Carolyn into the car. He would have to get settled and have her handed in. “All right, but hold her gently.”
“I would do no other.” He accepted Carolyn’s broken but healing body with an air of reverence.
Darius settled himself and spread his arms to receive her. He was careful not to jostle her when he took her into his arms again. “Ah, Goddess. She’s in terrible pain.”