Claimed

by Rebecca Zanetti

  Realization dawned across Cara’s face and she straightened, her lips turning white. “This will turn me human much faster.”

  “Yes.”

  “A human can’t hold a vampire baby.” Dead certainty colored each word.

  “We don’t know that for sure.” Emma shifted toward the computer and tapped in keys with impatient fingers.

  “You and Kane can counter the catalyst, right?” Tears flowed freely down Cara’s face and her hands trembled in her lap.

  “Kind of. But we think some sort of spell is needed to make it work.” Relief filled Emma when Moira’s face came into focus on the big screen.

  “Hello.” The witch stood in combat gear, a large sword at her side. “They called me in from the training field. Isn’t it night there?”

  “Yes.” Emma straightened. “We need your help. Cara was infected with the catalyst, and we’re worried about the baby.”

  Emerald green eyes flashed in concern. “Baby? Oh.”

  That one word said it all. The baby wouldn’t be able to survive in a human body. “Have you figured out a spell?”

  Moira shrugged out of her protective vest. “Kind of. It’s not ready though.” She whipped off a baseball cap and fiery curls rioted down. “You knowing this level of magic breaks several laws.”

  “I don’t give a crap about laws.” Cara swung her feet over the edge of the bed. “The spell has to be ready. I can feel this baby slipping away. We need to do this now.”

  “I’ll deal with the legalities later.” Moira’s eyes widened and she gulped. “Do you have the supplies I told Kane to buy?”

  Emma glanced around frantically and spotted a large box under the desk. She yanked it out and ripped open the top. “Yes.”

  Moira nodded. “Do you have the compound you and Kane have been working on for her to ingest?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Cara, lay back down. Emma, take out the three white candles and put one toward her head, the other two at her feet.” Moira rifled through a stack of papers. “You’ll have to do the spell since I’m not there.”

  Did she even believe in magic? Emma grabbed the candles and rushed forward to place one on the shelf by Cara’s head and two on the table by her feet. A search in the drawers found matches, which she quickly used to light the candles. Soft vanilla wafted through the room.

  “Do you have a bowl?” Moira squinted through the screen.

  Emma grabbed a test beaker, steeling herself against Cara’s low moan of pain. “How about this?”

  Moira shrugged. “Close enough. Now cut a piece of Cara’s hair to place in the bowl.”

  Her hair? Seriously? Emma located scissors and clipped off a curl. She brushed a kiss on Cara’s forehead. “It’ll be okay, Car. I promise.” She put the hair in the glass beaker. “What now?”

  “Find the lavender incense and crumple pieces into the pot and then add the golden rod seeds.” Moira yanked her curls up into a band and out of her now pale face.

  Emma read several labels on plastic bags until finding long rows of incense. She crumpled them up and ripped open the bag of seeds to toss in the beaker. “Okay.”

  “Now add the myrrh and dried boneset to the mixture.”

  The dried herbs joined the rest and Emma mixed the concoction with a spoon. “What now?”

  Moira stepped to the side and the sound of keys tapping came across the line. “I just e-mailed you the spell. You’ll have to say the words when everything is ready.”

  Emma’s computer beeped and she opened the e-mail and pushed print. She said a quick prayer Moira knew what she was doing.

  Moira sighed. “Okay. Do you have the dosage of your compound ready?”

  “Just a minute.” Emma shoved her way past the tables and desk to a small refrigerator, doubt filling her. They hadn’t tested this on anyone yet. She grabbed a small vial and shut the door, turning back toward Cara.

  Cara gave a shaky smile. “I want to do this, Em.”

  “But we haven’t tested this. We don’t know—”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Cara placed her hand over the baby. “He’ll die if we don’t do something.”

  Emma nodded and trudged to the screen. “I have it.” God. This had to work.

  Moira glanced at the vial and then back to Emma’s face. “Light the contents of the beaker on fire, then prick Cara’s finger with a needle. You’ll have to put three drops of her blood into the mixture.”

  Blood? What in the hell was she doing? “So this spell only works one at a time with specific blood?”

  Moira shook her head. “I’m not sure it works at all, Emma.”

  “I’m sure it does.” If she believed in spells, that is. Emma slid a match along the match cover and the fire flared to life. She lowered the flame to the mixture which began to smolder. Emma grabbed a pin and pricked Cara’s finger to hold over the smoking beaker. One, two, three drops of blood joined the flame. Smoke billowed an odd purple color into the room.

  “Okay, Emma. Now listen to me. The actual words of a spell don’t matter. What matters is that you believe. That you can visualize the energy swirling and changing the actual matter of the catalyst. It’s all science. Choose quantum physics. Or string theory. Or chaos theory. Whichever theory you believe in—apply it. Use your innate ability to alter energy to do so.”

  Emma sucked in air, her mind spinning with what little she remembered about quantum physics. “Okay.”

  “Good. Now hold the vial over the beaker and say the spell.” Moira’s eyes darkened until green melded black. “I’ll say the words in my head with you and send all the power I can your way.”

  Emma nodded and placed the beaker next to Cara on the table, grabbing the vial in one hand and the spell in the other. She focused on Cara. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” Cara’s eyes filled with fear and hope in equal measure.

  Emma took a deep breath and began to read.

  With fire, herbs, and blood,

  I seek to unbind an unnatural bond,

  To use the candles as energy,

  To set this affected virus free.

  The candles flickered and an impossible breeze began to stir through the quiet lab. Emma shivered, the hair on her arms standing up. She pictured a bolt of energy ripping through the test tube, scattering atoms and molecules. Her hair curled and an electric current began to run just under her skin, while her heart settled into an ancient rhythm that felt like home. She dropped the paper and lifted her head, her eyes wide open as power slid through her bones. She felt the words to her very soul, and they came from her.

  Reason, science, and chaos,

  Separate the strings of the catalyst

  Allow the virus to be free

  As my will, so mote it be.

  The air crackled and electrical flashes flew around the room. The liquid in the vial bubbled up, churning blue and green with white sparks. The candles swooshed out and the fire fell silent. Emma shifted wide eyes to Cara.

  Cara sat up. “Give me the vial.”

  A fog had settled around Emma’s brain and she struggled to surface. She handed the vial to Cara, who quickly tipped back her head and drank the midnight colored liquid. A red flush started at her hairline and swept down her face and neck.

  “Cara?” Emma’s feet remained rooted to the floor.

  “Yum.” Cara’s eyes rolled back and she collapsed on the bed, out cold.

  “She said, yum?” Moira asked, placing a shaky hand against her forehead.

  “Yeah.” Emma glanced in concern at her sister. “With the candles and seeds and everything, it smells like ...” Panic swept through her blood to replace the power. “Oh God.”

  “Emma?” Moira stepped closer to the camera. “What does the room smell like?”

  Emma shifted her gaze to Moira. “Tulips.”

  She sent Dage a shrieking call for help. With a soft cry, she leaped toward her unconscious sister.

  Chapter 25

  Dage studied the
prophet across the aisle of the Black Hawk as the chopper blasted through the air. Jesus. The Kurjans had worked the man over and well. Deep purple and red bruises covered Guiles’s face and his right arm sat in a sling with the vampire lacking the strength to repair the broken bone. For now. Unease whipped into Dage from his side and he glanced at Talen. “What?”

  Talen shrugged, his golden eyes mutating to a pissed green. “The virus messes with my ability to reach Cara. I don’t like it.”

  Dage nodded, sympathy tightening his throat. He kept his shields up for now, the residue of the battle still echoing through his brain. He’d killed hard and fast. His mate didn’t need to see the blood in her dreams. “These soldiers were more advanced, more prepared for us.” He nodded to where Conn concentrated to heal several knife wounds in his upper chest.

  “Yes.” Talen peered outside as the military helicopter touched down on the cement near the airplane hangars followed by three other choppers. He ripped open the door and jumped out, turning to assist with the wounded.

  Dage exited last, stretching his neck as the moon split the night. The calm before dawn. His favorite time. He began to jog alongside Talen across the tarmac, musing he hadn’t made love to Emma during dawn yet. He’d have to rectify that situation in about an hour.

  A piercing scream in his head stopped him cold, shifting his gaze to the lab perched in the distance. Fear, Emma’s view from inside the lab, and the strong scent of tulips flashed through him. Then two missiles shot from the sky and the building exploded.

  He froze. His heart thumped hard. Opening his senses, he felt nothing. A coldness slithered under his skin. All warmth gone.

  Emma.

  Fire billowed into the air.

  Pain shrieked through his bones. The king slammed to his knees. Rage and an unfathomable agony ripped into him. He lifted his head, howling to the universe. From his power, the earth rumbled. Clouds shot across the sky to bind the moon. Lightning attacked and thunder rose to an unholy pitch that pierced eardrums.

  Several military helicopters dropped Kurjan soldiers to the ground.

  Dage leapt to his feet, a feral growl erupting from his chest.

  They’d all die.

  He reached the enemy first and ripped off its head with one hand. His brothers flanked him but he was beyond caring. He roared his mate’s name and set forth to destroy.

  More Kurjans dropped and dark blurs of motion leaped out of the forest. A blaring alarm pierced the night. They were under attack.

  Jordan and his enforcers ran full bore toward the tree line, shifting into cougars once far enough away not to impact the vampires. Shrill howls rent the air when the deadly cats met the werewolves.

  Dage yanked his knife out of his vest and slashed into the nearest Kurjan, snarling when the bastard stabbed him in the knee. He welcomed the pain. “More.” He sliced through the soldier’s throat, running full out for his next target.

  “Jesus, Dage, watch behind you,” Jase shouted.

  Dage ignored his brother, fighting like the minions of hell lived in his skin. Nothing mattered but getting to the lab. He vaguely heard Talen issue an order through the comm line for the secondary team to evacuate the women and prophets to the mountainous headquarters.

  He reached the crackling pile of rubble, tossing glowing cement blocks out of the way, scalding his hands. Jase and Conn covered his back, grunting with the effort to fight back soldier after soldier who wanted the king dead.

  If he didn’t find her, they could have him.

  She had to be there. Somewhere safe in the rubble.

  A thick hand banded around his arm and jerked him around. He struggled in Jase’s grasp.

  “No. There’s no life here, Dage.” Jase’s copper eyes swirled with a deep maroon Dage had never seen in them. “I can sense life. There’s none here.”

  “No!” Dage roared, shoving his brother back three steps. He opened his mind, his heart again to find her.

  He remained empty.

  Emma was dead.

  So was he.

  But for now, he’d kill.

  He glanced at the tarmac. Bodies were scattered across the cement, some moving to the side to repair themselves. Vampire guards. His men.

  A knife slashed across his cheekbone and he pivoted, hissing at the Kurjan. “This is going to hurt.”

  The enemy’s purple eyes widened and he lifted his arm again only to have Dage cut if off with a quick slice of his wrist. The soldier howled in pain. Dage waited until he closed cracked lips over those yellow fangs before stabbing him in the throat and twisting. The Kurjan’s head beat the body to the ground, blood seeping into the cement.

  The king in Dage was gone. The soldier in him craved more death. Slashing and gouging through enemy after enemy appeased his pain for a moment.

  His fangs flashed, needing blood. Even his own. The sharp points pierced his lips and the taste of his blood, scented now with spiced peaches, threw him into a maelstrom of fire he’d never escape.

  This one last taste of her was his undoing.

  He growled low. Time stopped. Sound disappeared. An empty hole remained where his heart had beat; a gaping darkness swam where his soul had been. He regressed past human, past animal.

  To death.

  Maybe beyond.

  The destruction he wreaked would be whispered about in fearful voices for centuries. He didn’t care. Her image filled his head. An agonizing picture of her gentleness with Janie. A kindness his own sons would never know.

  He slashed and diced and killed, spewing anger in an ancient tongue—in pure notes of pain. More than one Kurjan lost his head with a twist of the king’s wrist. Desperate vengeance. Raw death. Undeniable power.

  Until he came face to face with a werewolf.

  Fangs glittered with blood as eyes the yellow of hell focused on him, the stench of death billowing out on its breath. The beast rose to at least a foot taller than Dage, coarse gray hair standing up and sharp claws extending.

  The king settled into a fighting stance, more animalistic than the creature about to die, an image of Emma, eyes darkened, faced flushed with pleasure ripping through his thoughts. A sight he’d never see again.

  The werewolf stretched and bunched thick back legs, leaping forward and taking Dage to the ground. He smashed into the cement, bones protesting as he flipped the animal over his head and rolled to his feet. Blood dripped down the back of his neck. Spiced peaches.

  He grunted and took the putrid beast down with a tackle. They rolled end over end until he could lever his knife into its neck. It howled, trying to escape. Dage leaned on top of the hairy abomination and twisted the blade. The words he spewed while killing were even too ancient for him to recognize. The hellish eyes slowly closed. The warmth from Emma’s last kiss against Dage’s cheek faded away in unison.

  A voice in his earpiece gave Dage pause. “Janie was loaded into the first helicopter. But the Kayrs women aren’t here.”

  The words had a meaning he failed to grasp. Reason had fled. He fell off the dead werewolf to settle on his knees, blood soaking his clothes, pain ripping his skin. Conn and Jase stood above him, flanking their brother. Their king. If he’d had any energy left, he’d tell them it was too late.

  Talen barked something through the line and someone answered that Cara had been with Emma. In the lab.

  Her name was a needle sharp sword in his gut. Dage lifted his head as shock slammed across Talen’s hard features. “No.”

  Leaping over smoldering wood, Talen landed in the middle of the fire and began tossing cement and debris out of his way. Kane stood guard, a desperate anger on his strong face. He and Jase shared a look the king couldn’t decipher.

  Jase raised his hands to the sky, muttered something under his breath and the skies opened to pour rain over the battlefield. The fire sputtered out. Black smoke billowed into the air.

  Dage lowered his chin to his chest, unable to watch Talen dig. Nobody lived below the debris. His body hurt. Power
and energy no longer pumped through his veins. Emma.

  The clouds began to part and pinks and golds scattered across the sky to torture him with a new day. The remaining Kurjan soldiers ran for their helicopters, which quickly rose into the sky.

  “Now,” Conn ordered through the earpieces.

  Missiles fired from the earth and blew all five Kurjan helicopters into sharp fiery pieces that pummeled to land with loud crashes against the ground. Metal rained down almost in slow motion, as if even time had given up.

  Dage turned his head to survey the battlefield. Blood ran thick into the greedy earth; dead bodies littered the cement.

  Vampire, Kurjan, and animal.

  They’d all lost.

  Chapter 26

  Emma slowly opened one eye, pain radiating out of her ears. What the hell? Moist earth tickled her nose, and she rolled to her back on the wet ground to survey a clear blue sky. Trees surrounded her and birds chirped a happy tune. Where in the world was she?

  Clarity came with a snap and she sat up, dizziness instantly swimming through her head. Oh yeah. She scrambled toward where Cara lay half in a prickle bush.

  Emma pulled Cara away from the sharp points and propped her against the trunk of a pine tree. “Cara? Cara. Wake up.” She gave her sister a little shake.

  Cara groaned and slowly opened her eyes. She shook her head. “Emma?”

  “Yeah.” Emma glanced around the forest. It seemed familiar somehow.

  “Um.” Cara blinked several times, her gaze on her bare feet. She frowned. “What the hell happened?”

  Emma fought a hysterical giggle. “I transported. I mean, we transported.” Wow. She had Dage’s powers now.

  “Why?” Cara brushed pine needles off her legs.

  “Why? Because the lab blew up.” How in the heck would they get home?

  “There was a bomb?”

  Emma froze. “Um, er no. No bomb.” This wasn’t going to go well.

  Blue eyes sparked with intelligence as Cara sat silent for moments. “No bomb? Then how did the lab blow up?” Her lips set in a white line.