by Laken Cane
It was her. Rune Alexander.
And she would never give up.
Not really.
Chapter Thirty
Gunnar was giving her all the help he could by keeping the bastard vampire away from her.
She would save herself.
The men struggled on, the sounds of their battle continuing to rage through the night. Wormwood watched balefully, and she could feel Others creeping closer, like buzzards awaiting their turn at the spoils.
The blade in her heart held her paralyzed and frozen.
Llodra has staked me.
But she was not dead, likely because she wasn’t a vampire. Not only a vampire, anyway.
But Llodra had staked her.
Yes, that was the only way he could control her, could get at the magic that would free him forever from those such as Damascus and even Rune.
But…
And she let herself think it once. Just once, she let the child inside her, the needy little kid who cried and begged for someone, anyone, murmur the word…
Daddy.
Her daddy had staked her.
Then she stomped it into the ground, beat it ferociously, and left it there in the graveyard of her mind.
She was not a child. She was Rune Alexander, super monster, and she needed no one.
Gunnar was holding his own against the master vampire, somehow, but if she didn’t help him Llodra would surely destroy him.
She could no longer see them as they tumbled and streaked through the graveyard, locked in a battle they couldn’t win, should only run away from.
But neither one of them seemed willing to do that.
From the darkness something crept closer to her—she could feel its heat and hear its quiet panting. A dog, then, or a wolf.
Well, fuck.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on her hand, trying to will the frozen flesh to move. A finger might have twitched. She thought it did.
But she opened her eyes when she felt the wolf’s warm breath upon her skin. The beast licked carefully around the wound in her chest, then drew back to stare at her with glowing eyes.
She couldn’t talk, couldn’t make her mouth move to form the words. Don’t fucking eat me, you son of a bitch.
But then, she recognized it.
This wolf had once belonged to her.
Sherry’s sister. Sherry the murderer, the betrayer, the dead bald girl who had allowed COS to steal Strad’s son.
Amanda. The wolf’s name was Amanda.
Rune hadn’t checked on the wolf pack since she’d handed them over to a man better suited to lead them, a man she’d fought in the woods of Hawthorne.
A million years ago.
Amanda once more began licking, loosening up dried blood and gore around the knife blade, before finally grasping the hilt with her teeth.
Rune would have screamed if she could have, but it wasn’t Amanda’s fault. If she was going to get the stake out, there was nothing else she could do.
So the wolf took the hilt into her mouth, and began to pull.
Because she healed quickly, her flesh had begun to knit around the blade, trying to mend the damage. It held on to the knife, and with each pull, Rune screamed in silent agony.
The wolf couldn’t pull it free, not without doing damage that may have been irreparable, even for Rune.
Amanda wasn’t a big girl, but she was a big wolf. And strong. She did the only thing left to her—she sank her teeth into the back of Rune’s pants and began to drag her through Wormwood.
Rune lost consciousness after the third time her chest scraped over the ground. When she came to, she had no idea how close to the gates Amanda had managed to drag her.
But she heard something, something so sweet and familiar she knew she was going to survive the night.
Ellis singing.
He’d waited for her. For whatever reason, her crew had gone but Ellis had stayed. Stayed there to wait for her.
His voice rose into the darkness, guiding the wolf and giving Rune comfort. She didn’t need a father, she didn’t need a mother, and she didn’t need to know why they’d abandoned her
It no longer mattered.
She had Ellie and her crew, and that was more than enough.
And she had this wolf, this girl Amanda who risked herself to get Rune away from the vampire.
She couldn’t see him, but she knew the exact moment Ellis saw the wolf bringing her to him.
His song faltered, then stopped, and then he screamed.
Inside, she smiled.
He gently pulled her around when the wolf released her, his face pale in the cold lights of the graveyard. “Oh Rune, oh, Rune,” he kept repeating.
Amanda shifted. “Get her out of here. The vampire is still fighting the ghoul, but…” She shook her head. “Get her out of here.”
“Vampire,” Ellis said. “A vampire did this?”
“The mad master. Maybe for her blood. He staked her, then nearly drained her. I got a taste. It’s like…it’s like nothing else. I have to go before he comes.” And without waiting for Ellis to say another word, she shifted and fled so quickly it was almost as though she’d never been there.
Ellis tried to lift her into his arms, but he wasn’t much bigger than she was and nowhere near as strong. “I’m not going to drag you.” Then, “Hang on, Rune. Hang on, honey.” He ran to the gates, slipped outside, and punched in a number on his cell.
“Hurry,” she heard him say. “She’s been staked.” Then he sprinted back to her and gently eased his legs under her head. As they sat there, he pulled her gun from its holster. “He’s coming, Rune. It’ll just be few minutes.” His voice was thick with tears.
She wanted to reassure him, to let him know that she was going to be fine. That she was better than ever. That she no longer had the poisonous magic inside her.
That she loved him.
But she couldn’t speak and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. In the next second Llodra was there, and he was ready for dessert.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Rune,” he screamed, “I couldn’t find you.”
As though he’d lost his kid in a shopping mall.
He grabbed Ellie’s shoulder, jerked him into the air, then tossed him away.
“No,” Ellis screamed, and she could only pray he’d lost the gun. If he shot Llodra, the vampire would kill him without a second thought.
God, Ellie. Stay the fuck down. Please. Stay the fuck down.
Llodra squatted beside her and lifted her upper body off the ground. “The blade shouldn’t have stayed in so long,” he chided.
He turned suddenly at a noise and dropped her back to the ground, then left her in a blur of motion. She heard a sound like a sledge hammer hitting a melon.
Then Llodra was back with her.
Ellie.
“This is going to hurt,” Llodra said. There was nothing tentative about his pull, nothing hesitant. He simply grabbed the hilt and yanked the knife from her back.
She felt her insides sticking to and sliding out with the blade. Her heart stuttered, then began to beat uncertainly.
Each beat sent a throbbing pain through her entire body, until her body was the heartbeat.
She moaned, surprising herself.
“Oh you’re fine,” Llodra said.
“Fuck you, buddy,” she whispered.
“I had to do it.”
“Ellis.” She still couldn’t move well, but she could move. She lifted her fingers to her chest, holding her palm over the wound. Her back felt like an elephant had stomped on it.
“First things first.” He lifted his wrist to his mouth and opened a vein. “Drink before you make liars of all those who believe you immortal.”
She turned her face away. “Get away from me.”
He grabbed her chin and jerked her face toward him, then pressed his bleeding wrist to her lips. When she refused to open he squeezed harder, and then harder. She heard her jaw crack and too weak
to fight him, opened her mouth.
At the first taste, she slapped her shame into the shadows and drank eagerly. No matter what, she had to have blood. Even if it was fucking Llodra’s. It slid into her system, into her very soul.
But he didn’t let her feed long. Just long enough to ensure that she’d be able to get her ass off the ground.
“You’ll be addicted and I’ll get the witch’s power,” she said, half believing it.
“Don’t be ridiculous. The dead cannot be addicted and the magic of Damascus is secure.” He tapped his chest. “In here.”
“Ellis,” she said. She really didn’t care if Llodra did or did not become addicted. She didn’t even care if some magic seeped back into her body. “Where is Ellis?”
The master stood, a pale monster covered with blood and gore. “I must say goodbye. The sun comes.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I do not know if your friend lives, but if he does I will keep my word. As long as you keep yours.”
Then he was gone.
Terrified, she struggled to sit up. “Ellis,” she called, but no one would have heard her croaky voice. “Ellie!”
She dragged herself to her feet, stood with her hand over her heart, and began searching. She found him in seconds—not by sight but by scent. Ellis smelled of vanilla and warmth and when she concentrated, her nose led her to him.
He lay sprawled against a tree. The entire left side of his face was swollen and bloody, extending over his temple. Using every single bit of her growing strength, she lifted him into her arms.
Strad’s truck roared up to the gates just as she stepped through. He was at her side in seconds, his face grim.
“Take him,” Rune said, perhaps reminding them both of a time not long before when she’d carried his son out of the burning COS church.
He gently gathered Ellis to him, holding him with one arm, guiding Rune to his truck with the other. “Ellis called me. I thought you…”
“Llodra staked me. He and Gunnar…Oh fuck me. Gunnar!”
He held on to her. “No, Rune. Whatever happened has happened. You’re not going back in there. Come on,” he urged, when she resisted. “We have to take care of Ellis.”
She could barely move. Her body groaned in agony with each step. Llodra had taken the blade out, but her back didn’t seem to know that.
But she was healing. Healing from a staking.
She stood by the truck as Strad put Ellis into the seat and buckled him in. Ellis moaned and stirred, and the berserker backed away so Rune could reach her injured friend.
His eyes were glassy and unfocused when he opened them.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for not leaving me.” But really, there were no words.
He threw up suddenly, and she backed away to look at Strad. “Get him to the hospital.”
“Rune. No.”
She moved into his arms and flinched when her wound pressed against him. “You know I have to go back, Berserker.”
“Llodra—”
“Is gone.
“You take Ellis, I’ll find the ghoul.”
She drew away. “Go. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She didn’t wait for him to argue further—Ellis needed the hospital and Gunnar needed her.
Jogging back into the graveyard, she forced her moans to stay inside where they belonged. But fuck, she hurt.
She realized she hadn’t asked Strad where he and the crew had gone. The world didn’t stop just because she had personal demons to fight, and likely they’d been called to fight the city’s monsters.
When she was inside Wormwood and safely out of Strad’s sight, she slowed to a walk and pushed her palm against her chest.
“Gunnar,” she called.
There was no answer. No skinny ghoul appeared suddenly from the shadows to bow and say, “Your Highness.”
If he lived, she was going to fetch him an entire case of Baby Ruth candy bars.
She couldn’t bear another death. She really couldn’t.
Z’s death left a gaping wound in her chest, much like the one she bore from Llodra’s staking. Only the one left by Z would not heal.
“Gunnar,” she screamed, trying to drown out thoughts of Z. “Gunnar!”
He appeared then, a pale, slight form, and shambled toward her.
She closed her eyes in a long, slow blink of relief. Not everything always went wrong. “Hi sexy.”
But the ghoul was not happy. He fell to his knees in front of her, his face hidden behind his long, black hair.
She knelt with him, crossing her arms over her chest as though the pressure might ease the pain. “Gunnar, you saved my life.”
“He would have torn me to pieces, in the end.” He wouldn’t look at her. “I fled to where he could not follow.”
“Fuck that. You saved my fucking life. You have nothing to apologize for. Now help me up. I have to drive to the hospital and also see what’s happening outside the world of Wormwood.”
He peeked at her, opened his mouth, and let out a small squeak. “I…”
“You,” she said. “You are my hero.”
He snorted, but his eyes were flinching and swimming in bloody tears. “You should go home and heal.”
“I will. After I visit Ellie, I’ll just go…decompress.”
“And I will just go…decompose.”
Then, wearing tiny smiles, they leaned on each other as Rune made her way back out into the world.
A chapter had ended with a sigh.
But something fluttered inside her, something unsettled and vague. Outside Wormwood was trouble. She felt it when she left the gates.
Something was happening, and it wasn’t anything good.
Part Three
TRANSITION
Chapter Thirty-Two
On her way to the hospital she called Strad. “How is he?”
“He’ll be fine.” His rough voice rumbled in her ear. “I hate fucking leaving you like that.”
“I’m a monster, Strad,” she replied. “They can’t keep me down.”
“I don’t want my woman hurt. No matter how tough she is.”
She shivered suddenly and her body tightened. “I’ll be there in a few.” She clicked off. Fucking caveman.
The emergency department parking lot was packed with cars, and it took her so long to find a parking place that she very nearly abandoned her car in the center of the lot. But finally, she found one.
The first fingers of daylight pointed across the sky. She needed coffee. Hot, black, and strong. But later. After she checked on Ellis.
She jogged into the waiting area. Two women sat behind the long partition at the back of the room, and a nurse spoke quietly into a phone. They all looked up at her arrival.
“Oh my goodness,” one of the women said, as they gaped at her.
Rune frowned. She and her crew were used to looking banged up and bloody. They sometimes forgot regular people might be shocked. “I’m fine. I need to see a man who was brought in a little while ago. Ellis—”
“Rune?”
She glanced up, right into the irate eyes of Ellis’s mother. “Dr. Abbot.” Her stomach muscles tightened and she fought not to avoid the doctor’s stare. It was no shock that Ellie’s mom wasn’t thrilled about the relationship he had with Rune, especially since she kept getting him hurt.
And the stern, unsmiling woman had always had a way of making Rune feel about six years old.
“Come with me,” the doctor said. “I need to speak with you before you see him.”
Lovely. “How’s he doing?”
“He has a concussion. He’ll be okay. This time.”
“Look, I know this is my fault. I’ll be more careful with him from now on. I should have told the crew to make him go home.” She shook her head. “Honestly, I never thought he’d wait for me.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t know the specifics of what happened to Ellis, only that it involved you, as it usually does when he is hurt.” She h
eld up a hand when Rune started to speak, never once slowing her rapid stride down the hallway. “And I don’t want to know. His father and I believe you understand the danger you’re putting our son in by associating with him.” Finally she stopped walking, leaned against the wall, and stared at Rune. “I’d like you to stop.”
Rune frowned. “I said I’d be more careful.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Rune put her hands on her hips, feeling the first stirrings of anger. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I want you to stay away from him.”
Rune smiled and raised an eyebrow. “Ellis isn’t a kid, Dr. Abbot. I’ll take more care to keep him out of trouble. I’m not cutting him out of my life.”
“Not even to save his?”
“You’re exaggerating.” But she wasn’t.
“I know you and my son have a special bond, Rune. I know he’s done things for you that…” She shook her head. “That I really don’t want to know about. But quite simply, you’re going to get him killed.”
Rune tried swallowing past the dryness in her throat. She half succeeded. “I’ll watch over him.”
“Just think about it. Ellis doesn’t belong in your world.” She raked Rune from head to toe with a sharp glance. “Look at you. You’re…how are you even alive? Look at you.” Then, almost imperceptibly, she softened. “Let me take care of that wound.” She nodded at Rune’s chest.
Rune stared down at the gaping hole in her shirt. Her top was covered with blood. She put a hand to her chest, trying to cover the damage. It didn’t work. “I’ll be okay.”
“You probably will,” the doctor agreed. “But Ellis will not. Don’t be selfish about this. You can’t play with his life.” Then she straightened and pointed her chin at a room down the hall. “He’s being admitted, so we’ll move him in a little while. Don’t stay too long.” Then, with another look at Rune’s bloodied and battered body, she walked away.
Rune stared after her, too tired to even sigh. When she turned back toward Ellis’s room, Strad was standing in the doorway watching her.
“Berserker,” she murmured, and started toward him.