Dirty Deeds: A Reverse Harem Bully Romance (Bonds of Blood Book 3)

by Cate Corvin

  I heard nothing at all.

  “Càel, what if-”

  “They’re alive, Victoria.” I felt, rather than saw him in front of me, his hands on my shoulders. “I smell no blood. Their songs are strong.”

  I took a deep breath, trying to calm down, and looked inside. The rockfall had been so loud it’d drowned out everything else, but their songs were still there, as strong as ever.

  “They’re alive,” I repeated, slowing my racing heart. “But they’re right where Thraustila will come investigate.”

  “Then we need to find a new route,” Càel said grimly. “Stay close, shíorghrá.”

  It was nice to know that no matter how much the world was falling apart around our ears, no matter how much he wanted me to become the queen he’d been defending this whole time, the pet name would never change.

  Several pale lights blinked to life. Some of the pixies had made it through with us. None of them were Lula, but I’d just pulled them out of a torturous icy Hell. Literal Hell. Maybe they’d be feeling magnanimous about that.

  “Can you light the way?” I asked. They shivered, but one by one they drifted away. Càel shifted into his strigoi form, his fur silky under my palms. I kept my hand braced on his back as we walked, following the pixies into darkness.

  We walked in silence, and a strange regret filled me, one that had nothing to do with murdering Apolline. I’d been in Hell. Although Cerberus was metaphysically far from Satan’s Kingdom, it was on the same plane of existence. The plane where the Sathanas demon who’d murdered James still lived and breathed.

  It was only a Gate away.

  But his voice grew quieter still, like he somehow knew I’d grown up a little more, or as much as I ever would. I no longer relied on his constant commentary now that I felt like my feet were planted solidly on the earth. I knew who I was and what I wanted. I wasn’t the same slayer who’d walked into Libra Academy six months ago.

  With a pang of sadness, I realized I was outgrowing my need to keep my brother alive in my head. I’d been in Hell, and not once had it occurred to me to stay and settle the score. Not when I had my own life to live and my singers to get back to.

  And I didn’t feel sorrow over it. I felt like it was time to let him go and let his memory live as it was. Càel was right. The reliquary would always be there, but there was more to life than vengeance.

  Càel bumped against me, and I realized he would sense my feelings now that we’d shared so much blood. “I’m fine,” I whispered, scrubbing my fingers into the fur at his ruff.

  We walked for a long time, up a staircase hidden beneath a welter of broken pipes, and found another route blocked by debris. The pixies were dogged, leading us through a warren that I could find myself lost in for days.

  Càel rumbled under my palm. I took a deep breath, caught a whiff of air that wasn’t thick with dank water and mold, but scented with blood and spicy incense.

  “They came this way,” I muttered, going down to a knee. A spot of blood was still wet on the floor. I tasted Will’s scent.

  The next staircase we found took us to the level of the warehouse, but in the opposite direction. I almost broke loose and dashed for the door to Bathory, but Càel blocked me, growling.

  He was right. Running would be stupid. If Will and Suraziel had been captured, Thraustila might’ve laid a trap already, lying in wait for me to stroll into it blindly.

  I forced myself to walk, even though my nerves were jangling. Their bloodsongs were strong, so they were still alive, no matter what my instincts were telling me.

  And my instincts were screaming that something wasn’t right. They would’ve waited for us.

  “He has them, Càel,” I whispered, my voice strained. The white wolf made a noise of agreement. “There was no hellfire.”

  That was the signal we’d agreed on. Thraustila must’ve taken them unaware.

  But as soon as the words were out of my mouth, another rumble echoed from overhead. The tunnel quaked again, chips of stone raining down on us.

  Càel shifted, standing up straight at my side. “There it is. The brotherhood pulled through.”

  In a former life, my palms would’ve been sweaty, my limbs trembling with the onset of an adrenaline rush and the relief flowing through me, but now the only symptom of my nerves was a pounding heart.

  I touched my necklace, reassuring myself that the tiny vial Ophiel had given me was still there. I had a silver dagger that was deadly to me, poisoned with my demon lover’s saliva.

  It would have to work. I had some singers to save. If they died, I was plunging right back into Hell and dragging their asses out for dying without my permission.

  “Ready for flay-time?” I asked Càel brightly. Sound was no longer a concern. All hell was breaking loose overhead from the sound of it.

  “Always,” he purred, and we followed the blood-and-incense trail of Will and Suraziel.

  It was almost eerily quiet below, but the rumble of hundreds of feet evacuating the building thumped overhead. Anyone who wasn’t part of the Clouded Court probably had the foresight to get the fuck out while they still could.

  Càel had agreed steadfastly with one part of my plan: if Thraustila knew I was coming for him, there was one place he’d be. The one place he’d defend with his life, because it was his sole motivation.

  The throne room.

  I ignored the stampede of evacuating Shadowed Worlders and charged upward. Càel cut down a vampire fleeing down the stairs, his fingertips turned into bloodied claws.

  The vial of Ophiel’s blood broke away from the Fae chain easily. I paused on the stairs, watching beads of blood like mercury slide around in the bottom of the glass.

  It was only a few drops, but it’d have to be enough. The fallen angel himself seemed confident about that.

  I uncorked it, letting the little wedge of wood drop to the stairs, and tipped the vial back over my mouth. The beads of angelic blood rolled over my tongue, coating my mouth.

  It felt like ice and fire, burning and freezing, the bitter taste of ash mixed with the bite of glacial snow. I gasped as it slid down my throat, the stinging pain darting through my veins and consuming my whole body.

  I blinked, dashing away pink tears. Who the fuck would ever want to drink something like this? It was poison, infecting my body, burning and freezing until I was nothing but a lump of charred ice-

  The pain faded, as swiftly as it’d come. I straightened up, realizing I’d been clutching my stomach, and felt the power of the tiny drops of blood.

  Ophiel’s presence had been like a shockwave in the atmosphere, disrupting the world around him just by existing. Having his blood in me… I felt it on a molecular level, rearranging the atoms of my body to fit around its glory.

  There was nothing I couldn’t do.

  “You don’t leave that room without carnage, Victoria.” Càel loomed over me, his lips brushing mine. “Paint it red.”

  “I will,” I whispered. My breath was as loud as a thunderclap in my ears.

  We went up. My body hummed painfully. It was desperate to do something to work off this burning need to move, crush, tear.

  The scarlet doors of the throne room were almost painfully bright. I blinked. Sisbert was there, holding an axe across his chest.

  I thrummed with the need to hurt something. He was there, Thraustila’s right-hand man, a guardian that would die-

  Sisbert lowered the axe and went to a knee, bowing his head over the weapon.

  I touched his skull as I passed, fingertips to skin, acknowledging his loyalty.

  In my past life, I’d loved kicking doors in. There was something so satisfying about the crunch of wood and breezing into a room through a locked door like I owned it.

  I whirled, snapped out a boot, and blew the doors right off their hinges. They blasted across the throne room, sliding to a halt at Thraustila’s feet where he stood glaring at me from the dais.

  Now that was satisfaction.

 
Twenty-One

  Tori

  I’d meant to walk in with a shit-ton of swagger, but Thraustila beat me to the punch, of course.

  “Are these yours, usurper?” He waved a hand trembling with fury, indicating the two pairs standing near the dais. The hellfire-scorched dais, I noted with satisfaction.

  I had known there was a chance Thraustila would use his clout as the Maker of dangerous warriors to turn the tide. I just hadn’t expected it so soon.

  Rhianwen held a dagger to Will’s throat, and Morgrainne’s sword was poised at Suraziel’s back.

  Both Morrígna shivered, fighting the hold of their Maker, but his control over them was powerful. Rhianwen’s lips drew back over her teeth in a feral snarl, but her hand didn’t move an inch.

  The partygoers of Club Bathory were still fleeing, but the entirety of the Clouded Court was there, guarding Thraustila. A glowing flock of pixies swarmed overhead like a frenetic cloud of rainbow colors. Braziers of consuming violet Fae flame limned his slight form.

  Iskandar stood to Thraustila’s left, two curved blades in hand. He had eyes for no one but Rhianwen.

  “They are mine, thanks for collecting them.” I stepped into the throne room, flanked by Càel and Sisbert. “And so is everyone else here.”

  I didn’t openly look around, but there were a good fifty vampires hugging the walls of the room.

  Thraustila crossed his thin, corded arms over his chest, sneering down at me. “Stealing my children doesn’t make you the ruler.”

  I itched to reach for the silver blade, but it was my last resort. The angel blood in my veins rippled through me. I was just as strong and fast as Thraustila now.

  “I didn’t steal your children. Càel is my bloodsinger, and the Morrígna chose me as their own. The right to rule is mine because I’m the one who killed Eluned Ravensbane.”

  The vampires- my vampires, I thought as my stomach lurched- shifted at the edges, eyes darting between me and Thraustila.

  The Visigoth teenager threw back his head and laughed. “Every member of this court will testify that I staked my daughter beneath the sun.”

  I raised a hand and pulled my war-chain from beneath my shirt. Eluned’s fangs would always hang first and foremost over my heart. I stroked them, never looking away from Thraustila. “She was still breathing when I put a blade through her heart. Her last breath was mine. I put her out of the misery you inflicted on her.”

  The shifts of power in the room were subtle, but my hyper-alert senses picked up on them. God, how did Ophiel go through every day like this? I’d die of sensory overload if I had to feel this constantly, the shift of heartbeats, the creak of bone and muscle, every scuffle as allegiances wavered.

  I felt the attention of the vampires who’d been loyal to Queen Eluned crawling over me. I knew the moment they chose their side, as heart rates steadied, claws unfurled, and the hostility shifted towards Thraustila.

  It wasn’t all of them, but it was enough.

  Thraustila was well aware of how thin the ice beneath his feet was. “All we have is your word. You thieved those fangs from her corpse.”

  “The corpse I made,” I countered, but Càel had my back.

  “I saw her,” he said. He didn’t need to raise his voice to be heard. When the White Wolf spoke, the Court listened, thank fuck, because I probably wasn’t the most convincing witness if this devolved into juvenile he said, she said games. “I witnessed the wound on my blood-sister. There was no other. Victoria is Crowned in Blood.”

  I appreciated that of all people, Càel was Team Me, but my nerves hummed. All Thraustila had to do was press his daughters, and Will and Suraziel would bleed out in front of me. I had to separate them.

  Thraustila stared at me, a muscle twitching in his jaw. Wow, he must be steaming right now. “I regret leaving your corpse whole.”

  “Aww, you remember me,” I said without thinking. Now was not the time for useless posturing, but my mouth seemed to think sarcasm was a legitimate defensive maneuver.

  “Of course. Only my son would choose a blood-bag that thinks it deserves my place.”

  It? Ouch. I opened my mouth to challenge Thraustila, a threat he wouldn’t be able to back down from, but he chose to underestimate us.

  “I tire of this. Kill them all.”

  It took half a second for the vampires loyal to Thraustila to turn on us. Càel shifted into his strigoi form, white fur flashing in the dimness as he came between me and a woman with red lips and claws. Sisbert held his massive axe like it was a feather, creating an impenetrable wall to my left.

  Thraustila’s face was frozen in a rictus of surprise and chagrin. Only half of the Clouded Court had obeyed him, but it was enough to give my group a run for their money. The vampires at the edges tore at each other, howls and shrieks filling the air as the Court turned against itself.

  Hope fluttered in my chest. More defended me than attacked.

  “I challenge you, Thraustila!” I shouted, stepping past Càel. I ended up only feet from the dais, moving much faster with angel blood flowing through me. Ophiel had given me just enough to survive Thraustila’s onslaught long enough to kill him.

  The King of Bullshit looked like he was going to laugh again, but his cool confidence was shaken, and enough of the vampires skirmishing at the edges had heard me. If he turned me down, he’d be branded a coward forever.

  Besides, no vampire has a fragile ego like the teenage boy kind.

  “When I drain you, my people will celebrate,” he snarled, hunching over in preparation to spring. “Destroy her toys, daughters!”

  Rhianwen’s hand moved, and the sweet scent of Will’s blood filled the air. He kicked, catching Rhianwen in the knee, and she allowed herself to go down hard.

  Morgrainne didn’t get a chance to stab Suraziel before he vanished out of reality and reappeared behind her a heartbeat later, snatching her sword from her hand.

  Will was kicking the shit out of Rhianwen, who kept herself open and defenseless, using Thraustila’s orders against him, and Morgainne deliberately fumbled every weapon.

  That was their designated part in the original plan: keep the Morrígna busy. My sisters would allow themselves to be brought down so they couldn’t be turned against me. Càel was the only true wild card left, but Thraustila wouldn’t be able to concentrate on controlling him if I was on his ass like white on rice.

  My silver dagger was in my hand before I realized what I was doing. I had to act now, before the angel blood was consumed by my body and left me powerless against him.

  Thraustila leapt, covering fifteen feet in a single bound. He smashed into my chest like a meteor, sending us both crashing across the throne room. A solid crunch filled the air as my ribs snapped.

  He fought like a wildcat. Even hopped up on angel blood, I’d underestimated him. Bones cracked in my face as he punched, driving knuckles deep into my flesh. His massive rings cut and split my skin.

  I drove my knee into his gut and launched him off me, but he came back in the same mindless frenzy, the stench of old blood and demonic essence wafting from him.

  I landed several shots and moved to drive the dagger into his chest, but he caught my wrist and bent it, forcing me to drop the blade. It skittered across the stone floor.

  “Fuck you,” he whispered in my ear. “My cunt of a daughter never should’ve Made you. You’ll wish you’d stayed dead.”

  “I killed Apolline,” I gasped, ice freezing through my arm as I jerked myself free. I deflected several bone-crushing blows, following the instincts Ophiel’s blood gave me. “I let your singer die alone in the cold.”

  Thraustila screamed in my face, a wild animal sound that froze my blood.

  Something cold raked down my back, and Càel’s howl blasted through the room, making my head ring. The vampire who’d tried to stake me from behind went down hard, his throat ripped out.

  I needed the dagger. Ophiel’s gift wouldn’t last long, not at the rate I was burning through it j
ust to stay alive.

  I lashed out and felt flesh and bone give under my fingers. My hand punched through Thraustila’s chest.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t the side with his heart. I’d gone in under the clavicle on his right side. I ripped my hand back out and tried again, but the elder vampire laughed as the hole began to grow over with new skin.

  He wasn’t going down for good until he was fully dismembered and burned.

  The hard part was the actual dismemberment. Even his pieces would fight me.

  One of the vampires fighting on my behalf went down under a howling enemy, and the dagger slid away. I ducked under Thraustila’s arm, reaching for it desperately, and he ran into my back with the force of a train.

  My shoulder met stone so hard the bone shattered. It began to knit together. My strength was fading with every hit I took.

  “Morrígna, rip her apart!” Thraustila roared.

  Rhianwen lurched towards me, her cheeks wet with bloody tears, and Will charged into her, sending them both flying into a knot of slavering vampires. Morgrainne was letting Suraziel pummel her like a rag doll, even as she tried to get to her feet, sword in hand. This was the result they’d feared.

  Morgrainne made it to me before my incubus could stop her. Her fist found my stomach, sending me flying backwards into the wall. Suraziel and Càel were on her in a second, pulling her back from her unwilling fury. My knight couldn’t come near me, not without being a danger to me himself.

  Thraustila was on me within a second, pummeling more blows into my face. Ophiel’s blood wasn’t enough. My skull was cracking apart, the world hazed red from the blood dripping in my eyes.

  I coughed as he dropped a knee into my caved-in chest.

  Everything went black.

  I blinked. There were people in the darkness with me. “James?”

  My brother leaned over my side, giving me the wide smirk I’d known so well. It was just like mine. Amber eyes flashed bright. “Hey, sister mine.”

  Oh, fucking Christ, I’m dead. He killed me. It’s over.

  I exhaled, feeling the phantom ache of a mutilated body that couldn’t do any more.