Kimber’s heart stuttered in fear even as rage built. She had to diffuse this situation or Natalie would die. Kimber put out a hand. “Aodhán, please.”
“Listen to Kimberly, Aodhán. Is sacrificing this innocent human worth taking your vengeance against me?”
He let loose a soft growl but sheathed his sword. Maddalene moved to the door and opened it. “Think about my offer, Kimberly,” she said. With a glance at Natalie, she added, “And think about all you have to lose if you refuse.” She turned to leave. “Why, Duncan,” she all but purred. “I was just welcoming your guests.” The hard look she shot him, at odds with the sultry tone of her voice, left very little doubt in Kimber’s mind that Duncan was still on Maddalene’s shit list.
“I bet you were.” His tone was hard, as was the look he shot in the room.
Two vampires with him bent over their fallen comrades in the corridor. Kimber saw one shake his head, and from the somber looks on their faces she realized Maddalene had killed the two who had been guarding the room. The newcomers took up protective stances, their backs to the wall opposite Duncan’s front door.
When Duncan saw that Kimber and the others were safe, his shoulders relaxed. “What do you want?” he asked, putting his attention back on Maddalene.
“Nothing that I haven’t wanted all along.” As she walked by him she trailed a finger along his biceps. “You have a decision to make.” With that sultry comment, she turned down the hallway and disappeared from sight.
Duncan strode into the room and slammed the door behind him. He came up to Kimber and pulled her into his arms. “Are you all right?” he asked, his face buried in the curve of her neck.
“Fine. A little shaken. She always makes me as nervous as a cat in a dog kennel.” She wrapped her arms around his back and closed her eyes, letting herself feel secure in his embrace. “She threatened us.”
He drew back to look into her face. “Who’s us?” he asked.
“All of us,” Natalie said in a subdued voice as she walked into the living room. Aodhán went to her and put an arm around her waist, hugging her to his side. That she allowed it told Kimber how upset her friend was. Or maybe those two really had decided to bury the hatchet, and not in each other’s backs as she might have thought.
Kimber stared into Duncan’s eyes. “She told me she would guarantee my safety and Natalie’s. And yours.”
He rocked back on his heels. “She threatened me?”
“She knows we were intimate.” She closed her eyes briefly, trying to push back the lingering fear. “We’re not safe here, Duncan. None of us.” She reached up and cupped his jaw in one hand. “We all have to leave. You, me, Nat and Aodhán. Otherwise…”
He nodded. Grim-faced he pressed a gentle kiss on her mouth and then went back to the front door. He opened it and told one of the new guards, “Fetch Atticus.”
Kimber saw that the bodies of the two slain vampires had been removed. She hadn’t known them, but anyone who got on Maddalene’s bad side trying to protect Duncan was all right in her book. She was sorry they had died, even if they were vamps.
In just a few minutes his gladiator friend was there. As the two vampires talked, Natalie gave a sigh, her gaze fixed on Duncan’s handsome friend. Aodhán scowled and jerked her closer. She glanced at him with a frown, clearly—to Kimber, anyway—asking him without words what his problem was. “I can’t help it that he’s so gorgeous,” she whispered. “You can’t blame a girl for looking.”
“Yes, I can.” Aodhán’s scowl deepened.
Kimber saw Atticus shoot a glance at Natalie. When she realized he was looking at her, she blushed. He dropped one eyelid in a flirtatious wink and her cheeks fired even more.
After a few more minutes he and Duncan finished their low-voiced conversation, and Atticus left. Duncan closed the door and went into his bedroom. Kimber followed him in and watched while he gathered some clothing and a few personal items and stuffed them in a large duffle bag.
He zipped it closed. Staring down at it, his hands holding the straps, he murmured. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
He looked at her then, and tears came to her eyes at the self-loathing she saw in his eyes. “For being arrogant and telling you over and over that you’d be safe here. How can I keep you safe from Maddalene when I can’t even protect myself?”
“Duncan…”
He shook his head. “Don’t, Kimber. There’s nothing you can say to make this situation any better. While the enclave would have protected us against zombies, it would also keep us prisoners here and subject to Maddalene’s whims. We need to get out of here.”
Then he grabbed her hand and tugged her out of the bedroom. They collected Natalie and Aodhán and some flashlights in addition to the weapons they still carried with them, and the four of them left Duncan’s rooms. She expected resistance against them leaving the compound, but the way was clear.
“It’s too easy,” Natalie said, her words an eerie déjà vu of their arrival days before. But when they passed through the outer gates without trouble, Kimber relaxed a little. They still had to get to the apartment complex safely, but if their luck held, hopefully there wouldn’t be too many zombies between them and their destination.
Half an hour later her hopes were not just dashed, they were obliterated. She stood, her back to Duncan’s, Aodhán by her side with Natalie’s back to his, the four of them surrounded by a horde.
And behind the horde stood a ring of vampires.
The queen bitch had set them up.
Chapter Thirteen
I told you it was too easy,” Natalie muttered.
Kimber met her friend’s gaze. As much as she tried to stay positive, this could be it. They might die here at the hands and teeth of these things she’d unknowingly created.
“We’re gonna die.” Natalie’s voice was quiet. Fatalistic. “Even if we can fight our way through the zombies, we’ll be too tired to take on a bunch of vampires.”
“Never say quit,” Aodhán said. He held his sword straight out, pointing at the zombies in front of him, his stance preparing him to slice and hack at the enemy. “While we have breath, we have hope.”
“Right then.” Kimber drew a deep breath and looked at Duncan. “How about you take the thirty on the left and I’ll take the twenty on the right?”
His jaw was tight, his eyes brilliant silver. “I’ve failed you again. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” she said, putting her gaze back on the zombies who were shuffling ever closer. In another thirty seconds they’d be close enough to fight. “This isn’t your fault.”
No one was to blame except her. And she needed to fix it. She focused her energy inward then shot it out toward the Unseen. She’d never tried this without touching a dead person, but she had to do something. As she pushed harder, sweat broke out on her brow, trickled down the side of her face. Without anchoring herself to another human, to the spark of soul remaining in the body, she couldn’t quite latch on to anything. Then, like a strike of flint to stone, she felt it.
A swell of responding power rippled toward her. Then there was no time to think, no time to feel, only time to act. As she swung her hatchet at zombie after zombie, she was aware of the others doing the same and, in the background, always in the background, were the vampires, waiting to see if they were needed to finish what the zombies had started.
And still she reached for that supernatural energy, trying to bend it to her will. Her vision went black around the edges, and she fought to hang on to consciousness. When a zombie got too close and she had to wrap her hands around its wrists to hold it off while she tried to catch her breath, she used the connection to delve further into the Unseen. Then, like it had before, that malevolent power surged toward her, and this time, instead of fighting it, she let it wrap its dark claws into her psyche.
Getting one foot up onto the zombie’s belly, she shoved it back and sliced her hatchet into the forehead of another. Bodies p
iled up around them, and still they came. And the vampires watched.
She could hear the grunts from Aodhán and Natalie behind her, and a quick glance to her side showed that Duncan remained in excellent fighting condition. But they couldn’t last. Even a vampire and a fey warrior would eventually tire. Being immortal didn’t mean you couldn’t be killed. It just took extra effort. And she’d say a zombie horde followed by mean-ass vampires would qualify as extra effort.
As the power of the Unseen intensified, her gut cramped and her knees buckled. She went hot then cold. Only by sheer force of will and a driving desire to stay alive did she manage to keep on her feet. As more and more of the Unseen flowed into her, sweat broke out all over her body and her muscles began to tremble. With a snarl she drew upon the malignant power surging from the Unseen and threw it out at the zombies. Floating spots of light sparkled across her field of vision, those dancing lights that meant her blood pressure was dangerously high. She kept pushing the power outward.
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. Pain stabbed in her head. Still she pushed. Her heart stuttered then doggedly beat on. From a distance she heard Duncan call out her name, knew he could see the condition she was in. And still she pushed.
Nothing happened. Failure was like bitter ash in her mouth. She stopped focusing on the Unseen, letting it go even though her body held a light buzz; her skin was tingling all over. She had to turn her attention full-time to keeping the zombies from biting her.
Duncan kicked a zombie away from her while shoving his tire iron through the skull of another. Kimber swung her hatchet again and again, the muscles in her shoulders and arms burning with fatigue. Then she noticed a stutter in the shuffling movements. Without being physically touched, one by one the zombies began to drop to the ground.
Soon those zombies within fighting distance were down, unmoving.
She let her hand fall to her side, holding her hatchet in a loose grip. God, her entire body ached now, and her head felt like it was going to explode. She winced with pain and turned toward Duncan. Without thinking she went into his open arms and leaned into his strength.
“What the…” Natalie’s stunned, breathless voice brought Kimber’s attention to her.
“Are you all right?” Kimber asked, noting her own breathless state.
Natalie nodded.
“Aodhán?” From within the circle of Duncan’s arms, Kimber checked on the fey warrior.
“Good here, too.” He wasn’t as out of breath as she and Natalie were, but for once he’d had to exert himself in battle. He actually sounded invigorated.
Natalie gestured at the bodies lying around them. “Did you do this?” she asked.
“I think so.” Dizziness assailed her and her legs gave way. Duncan tightened his hold and supported her. She looked at the vampires hovering all around them. She didn’t have anything left in her to fight them off, but hopefully they couldn’t tell from where they were. “I just did something I shouldn’t have been able to,” she called out. “I tapped into the Unseen without touching anyone, and I used it to stop the zombies. Shall I see if I can do the same thing to vampires as I just did to zombies?”
Duncan’s fingers tightened around her waist. She leaned into him, trying to tell him without words that she was bluffing. Not only would she not endanger him while trying to wipe out his fellow bloodsuckers, she also didn’t think she had anything left to throw at a cute, fluffy little puppy, let alone a dozen or so vamps.
One second the vampires were there and in the next they’d faded away into the shadows of the coming dawn.
“I’ll recon ahead and be right back.” Aodhán strode away, bloody sword held at the ready. In a few minutes he came back, a scowl on his face. He kicked at the legs of one of the downed zombies. “There are at least as many between us and the apartment complex,” he said. “And none between us and Maddalene’s enclave.”
Oh, God. They’d never make it through another horde.
“I guess it’s back to Duncan’s, then,” she whispered.
Duncan’s jaw firmed. “No. Until I can guarantee your safety, we won’t return there. We’ll have to find someplace else to hole up for a while.” He turned her and began walking back the way they’d come, Natalie and Aodhán following behind. “I promise you,” Duncan said, “I will give my life to protect you all.”
But that wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t want his death. Glad of Duncan’s supporting arm around her waist, she put one foot in front of the other, growing fatigue threatening to pull her under. By the time they’d gone only a block she was ready to drop.
“In here,” Duncan said and swooped her up in his arms to carry her the rest of the way. He led them into an abandoned café and set her on a sofa in a corner seating area near the kitchen in the back of the restaurant. “I need to get more help,” he murmured. Looking at Aodhán, he said, “Stay here with them. I’ll be just a few minutes.”
Even knowing they needed reinforcements, she didn’t want him going anywhere near Maddalene. “Wait.”
“I’ll be all right, sweetheart.” He pressed a kiss to her mouth. “I’ll be right back.” Before she could say more, he was gone.
“Get some sleep if you can, mo chara,” she heard Aodhán say through the fog of her fatigue. She murmured a response and finally allowed sleep to overtake her.
* * *
Duncan kept to the shadows and waited for one of the vampires loyal to him to fetch Atticus. In just a few minutes the former gladiator came through the front gates and joined him.
“Did Maddalene really threaten your safety?” he asked, his tone frosty with disbelief.
Duncan gave an abrupt nod. “We’ve taken refuge in a café not too far from here. We can talk there.”
Atticus grunted his response and they set off, using their vampire speed to eat up the distance in little time. They entered the café and moved to the seating area where Kimber still slept on the sofa.
“Maddalene’s out of control.” Atticus dropped into one of the chairs at the table where Aodhán and Natalie sat. His silver gaze flicked over them then back to Duncan, who remained standing. He wanted to get to Kimber in an instant if need be. Leaning forward, Atticus braced his elbows on his knees. “It’s time, and you know it. Past time, actually.”
“Past time for what?” Natalie asked.
Duncan didn’t respond, and neither did Atticus. Duncan knew his friend waited for him to acknowledge that Maddalene was no longer deserving of his unswerving loyalty. But to stage a coup… He’d never thought this day would come. Perhaps he’d been naive, or maybe just in denial. Either way, his friend was right. “Yes, it’s time.”
“Time. For. What?” Natalie shot a glare at him. He noticed when she looked Atticus’s way her expression lightened.
Pretty boy.
“Time to remove Maddalene from power.” Duncan finally sat in a chair facing Atticus and just as quickly got back to his feet. “We need those loyal to us here. We must strike now.”
“Give me half an hour. We’ll reconvene here once I have things in place.” Atticus left the café.
A low moan sounded from the seating area.
“Keep watch,” he said to Aodhán and Natalie. He headed over to Kimber.
Kimber moaned again. Her legs thrashed and her head twisted to one side then the other.
Duncan sat on the edge of the sofa. “Kimber, wake up. You’re dreaming.” When another groan left her, he leaned over and took her shoulders in a firm grip. “Kimber. Wake. Up.”
Her eyes shot open on a gasp. For a few seconds she seemed unaware of her surroundings, then her gaze flickered over his face. “Oh God, Duncan.” Tears filled her eyes. She sat up and threw her arms around him, burying her face against his chest. “Something’s…different. I feel different.”
He pressed a kiss to her temple. “What do you mean? How do you feel different?”
“I feel like I normally do after tapping into the Unseen, but there’s something more.
” She heaved a sigh. “I’m not sure I can explain it. God, I can’t even tell if this is a good more or a really, really bad more.”
He tightened his arms. He felt powerless to help her, much like he’d been when she’d tried to help Bishop. “How did you stop the zombies?”
“You know how I told you the Unseen reached for me that night with Whitcomb? And then again with Bishop? But it was dark? Evil.”
He nodded, but realized with her face pressed to his chest she couldn’t see his head. “Yes, I remember.”
“It was the same tonight. And I thought, maybe I shouldn’t fight it, that I should let it grab me.” She drew back slightly and looked up into his face. Her hazel eyes sparkled with tears. “So I did, and when I pushed that negative energy out at the zombies, it undid their reanimation. But now I feel different.”
He kissed her lips. “I’m sure it’s just fatigue, sweetheart.” God, he hoped that was all it was. Whatever had happened, they’d deal with it together. “You get more rest, and when you wake up you’ll feel better.”
She lay back down without complaint. With a sniff she stared up at him. “Duncan, I’m scared.”
He leaned over and wiped her tears away with his thumbs. His little warrior, always so indomitable. Her fear ate at his calm. “We’ll handle this together, Kimber.” He kissed her again, moving his mouth over hers in a soft, gentle caress. “Sleep now. Worry later, all right?”
She gave a nod and her eyes fluttered closed. In another minute her breathing evened out.
He stared down at her. Tonight all their lives could end. Or it could be the beginning of a new era.
One thing he was certain of: he loved Kimberly Treat and would do everything in his power to keep her safe and make her as happy as possible in this crazy apocalyptic world.
Right now, though, he had a queen to overthrow.
Chapter Fourteen
An hour later, Duncan and Atticus stood side by side and looked over the vampires gathered in Duncan’s large living room. He’d left Aodhán and Natalie with a still-sleeping Kimber at the café and had sent several vampires loyal to him to help guard her and his friends. Duncan and Atticus had put the final touches on their plan while hunkered down in the restaurant and had returned to Maddalene’s compound mere minutes ago.
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