The Vampire's Spell_The Black Wolf
Page 18
“Never could before, boy. It wasn’t until I bonded with my mate that I even found that power. If you gotta hate me, hate me, but you owe Goldie your life.”
“The gold wolf is yours?” he scoffed and shook his head. “Of course she is. You got all the luck of the family, you know that?” Hurt and anger made his voice rough, and he flinched when I reached for him. “And vampires, Orson? You brought vampires into the pack?”
“Like I said, hate me all you want, but don’t ever question how far I would go to save you.” I snarled the words and turned away from him so he wouldn’t see the fresh tears as he denied me. My magic spent, too weak to fight, I stumbled back to Thaddeus and kicked him one last time in the ribs before raising his hand for the wolves to see.
“You fear us because of an old war, too ancient for any of you to remember,” Nicholas declared, his voice carrying to the trees without him shouting. “Know this. Your true alpha is under our protection, your false alpha will be turned over to the human authorities to deal with his murders.” I opened my mouth to argue, but the master vampire held up a hand and stopped me.
“I know you wish to kill him, and rightfully so. But the magic he has wrought has implications beyond the grave, and that should be dealt with by the hunters.”
A murmur went up from the crowd and Porter gave me a confused look. The Venatores, Orson. Let the church take him and exorcise the evil before they take his head.
Gratitude at hearing Goldie’s voice in my head again made me glance all around me, looking for her, before I voiced my agreement with Nicholas. “The vampire master is right. Let the church seal away this magic before something worse comes of it. He stinks of death and evil, and I won’t be the one to release that on my people.”
Josiah and Goldie appeared at the far edge of the people, his arm around her as they entered the clearing. Rage boiled up inside me, but I knew she’d made the best choice she could, given the choice between the wolf who got her caught, and the vampire who saved her.
Thaddeus chuckled, a grating sound that whistled through the remains of his nose. I jumped back in surprise and he coughed and rolled over, but didn’t sit up, too weak to do more than glare at us as we surrounded him. “She chose the undead over you, and you think I’m the one who puts the pack in danger?” He patted his chest and coughed. “I could’ve made you stronger than your imaginations, but you were cowards, weak, thin-blooded from a century of refusing new wolves to the pack.”
“Too bad we were blind enough to let you in, Thaddeus,” I spat. Goldie and Josiah continued their slow approach, and I noticed that she was favoring one leg, leaning on him for support. Nicholas stood over Thaddeus, baring his fangs, and both the alpha, and the wolves around us gasped and cringed in fear. I shifted to my wholly human form and raced to Goldie’s side blood filling my nostrils as I got closer.
“I, uh, I got it by one of the other alligators, and it’s not healing,” she admitted sheepishly. Guilt washed over me at having missed the injury in the first place, and Josiah didn’t stop me from picking her up and taking her to the center again, to Nicholas and Miriam.
“Gator bite, won’t heal. Help her, Miriam.” I directed her as if she were mine to command, but she held her hands up to me, covered with burn blisters, and shook her head.
“I’m so sorry, Orson. I used up everything I had to bind Thaddeus’s power out in the woods,” she confessed in a low whisper. “I couldn’t afford for you to lose. You’d just saved my son, our people. I’m sorry.”
I roared to the sky and turned to Nicholas, who glanced at the alpha and rubbed his jaw. “No need for the Venatores to know about this place, Orson. We’ll take our prisoners to New Orleans to await the judgment of the church.” He turned to Porter and my brother went to his knees, his hands covering his face. “You will accompany your brother to see the queen of the vampires. She has commanded your presence, Orson.” I nodded without speaking. I’d been expecting consequences for my actions, but feared for Porter.
“He’s done nothing wrong, Nick,” Goldie protested for me. “This is on me and Orson, let us go to her and take our punishment.”
“Orson, we will go so you can heal your woman. Maybe sometime between now and when we meet again, you will remember who it was that believe in you from the start, and who your enemies really are . . . who it is that can give your brother his wolf back.” He gave Goldie a stern look and I felt the heat from her cheek as she blushed and hid her face in my chest.
“Sorry, Nick, I should know better.”
“Yes, you should, but you don’t just feel your own emotions anymore, do you? Soul-bonding is funny like that.”
I glanced at her and then at my brother, and my eyes grew wet again. Embarrassed, I glared down at my mate and growled at her. “You should’ve told me you’re a crier.”
She giggled and cried out as shifting jolted her leg. “Make love to me and heal this place Orson, it’s your goddamned job, remember?” Nicholas cleared his throat and the air was filled with a rush of wind and the sound of wings. Blood and body parts littered the ground, and I felt nothing but fear and uncertainty from those that remained.
“I will heal you, and this place, but I can’t if you aren’t really mine.” I pushed away the rest of the pack, the clearing, the danger, the darkness that still emanated from our corrupted ritual space. “Can you be mine, Golden-wolf?”
She dragged my face down to hers and kissed me deeply, the spark of magic electrifying my tongue as I tasted her, drove it into the heat of her mouth and devoured her. I could feel the pulsing of her blood in her wound, and gripped the leg with one hand, swallowing her scream and forcing my energy into her.
We went to the ground together, and her hands fumbled with the waist of the leggings I still wore, her own clothing long gone to shifting or fighting or treatment of her wound, and I found the softest, warmest part of her with her blood still on my fingers as she opened up to me. The ground itself seemed to bloom in soft grass beneath us, willing us to heal ourselves and the earth around us with the magic that built up between us. My eyes shot up from her, searching for the wolves who had surrounded us, but thankfully, they’d disappeared into the woods and given us the privacy I hadn’t thought to demand.
I took the glow between us and sent it after them, wisps of magic to chase them and heal them, and as the wolves felt the pull of our soul-bond, I commanded them to hunt. Thaddeus was gone, to die a slow and painful death at the hands of the hunters who would destroy his dark magic, and my mate writhed beneath me, demanding all my attention, all my love, all my power. I gave it to her, reveling in the strength of her legs as she wrapped them, whole and unblemished, around my waist. The glow under her skin brightened to the shine of a small sun, and I drove myself inside her again, drinking her magic and sharing it with the pack, the earth of our circle, even the bayou beyond and the shifters who had never sworn allegiance to our pack.
Clay and Nicholas had forged a great alliance through their battles, by reaching across the divide to the other peoples of the preternatural world. Together, Goldie and I would begin a clan of our own, free from the fears and prejudices my people had been taught for too long.
As I stared down into her eyes, I knew she’d heard my deepest desires, and that somehow, my goals had transformed to share hers. I finally understood that this was the way of soulmates, not to bend her to my will, but to give up dominance to the power that was greater than us both, that would elevate our people and our love beyond demands or selfishness.
“I love you, Golden-wolf,” I murmured, the words almost lost in the white noise of the magic we were raising. “I love you from your molten amber eyes, to your determination, to your loyalty. I give you my heart, my soul, my power, until the end of my days.” She didn’t speak a word in response, but tears flooded from her eyes into the ground under her head and where they landed night-jasmine bloomed. She was connected to this place, and to me, now. The beast reared his head inside of me and his howl esca
ped my lips. This land was ours, as were the people on it, and nothing would come between us ever again.
END OF BOOK
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Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE