by Ann Gimpel
Almost as if her thoughts about closing the gate had been an invitation, it creaked, beginning the trajectory that would seal her—and maybe Elliott—inside.
Can’t let that happen. Can’t.
Fear narrowed her airway until her head spun, and her grip on her magic almost slipped its bonds. The prisoners were so tightly packed together, no one would notice if she jostled them. They’d think it was the man or woman standing next to them.
Tairin pushed, prodded, dropped to her knees and crawled. But she made it. The gate brushed against her as she slithered through sideways just before it clanged shut. She wanted to screech her victory, but a dozen SS milled around the courtyard, guns raised and trained on the gate, ready to kill anyone trying to escape.
Tairin rose from her crouch, sidling away from the guards with their weapons.
Where was Elliott? She didn’t see him. Did that mean he was well on his way back to Flame? She offered a prayer to the goddess that he was safe and pushed more power into her invisibility casting. Goddammit! She was shocked by how close she’d come to running herself down to bedrock. Once that happened, she’d no longer be invisible.
And the gig would be up. The SS would rape her before they killed her…
“Not on my watch,” her wolf piped up. “Head for the end of the street. If Elliott isn’t there, we—”
“Tairin. Dead ahead. Take the first right.”
Relief and joy vied for ascendency at the sound of Elliott’s voice, and she understood how worried she’d been he hadn’t made it out.
“We did good tonight,” she told her wolf.
A low, growly purr filled her mind. “Proud of us,” the wolf said.
Tairin was proud of them too, but before she could tell her wolf, it added, “When are you going to tell him about me?”
Tairin didn’t have to ask who him referred to. She knew well enough. “The Rom don’t like us very well,” she reminded the wolf.
“Yes, but he likes you.”
She bit back a bevy of questions, including how the wolf could possibly know that, and wheeled right. She hadn’t gotten half a block when Elliott looped an arm around her and dragged her between two buildings.
He clasped her so tightly against him, his heart hammered against her ear. Breath rasped from his throat. “Thank all the gods you’re safe. When you weren’t right behind me, I tried to go back for you, but I couldn’t get through.”
“It was tight—even for me, and I’m smaller than you.” Her voice was muffled against his chest, and she wrapped her arms around him, splaying her hands across his back.
She tried not to think about how good he felt crushed against her. Tried to focus on the distance that remained between them and Flame.
Elliott let go of her. “We have to hurry. Once we get to Flame, we’ll figure out what to do next.”
“Hey!” She closed her fingers around his arm before he could leave. “We did it.”
A crooked smile lit his even features. “We sure did.”
“Me,” the wolf crowed. “Tell him about me.”
Elliott whipped his head around. “What was that? I could’ve sworn I heard a voice.”
“I didn’t.” She clapped him on the back. “Let’s get moving.”
“Coward,” her wolf observed, but it sounded disappointed.
“Soon,” she said. “I promise.”
“Like you promised me time to run?”
Her bondmate’s sarcasm pricked deep, but Tairin didn’t react. She deserved the rebuke and vowed to do better. On all fronts.
Chapter 4
Elliott set a quick pace for where they’d left his horse. The easy part had been casting the spell to turn the food deadly. Getting out of the prison camp had proven far more intricate than he’d anticipated. They almost hadn’t made it. From now on, he’d make certain Tairin was ahead of him. Once he realized she wasn’t with him—and he’d sensed her still within the walled compound—he’d gone insane with worry. He’d tried to shove his way back inside, and almost got clubbed in the process. One of the prisoners had taken a beating in his stead, and he felt rotten about it.
He rebuked himself for tonight. He’d been flying by the seat of his pants, and the whole mission hadn’t been well thought out. He and Tairin needed to practice working together. A deadly undertaking wasn’t the best of proving grounds.
Yeah. My arrogance almost got her killed.
He winced at truth in his words—and at a savage protectiveness that flared within him. He’d do damn near anything to keep the woman next to him safe. But how could he do that if he dragged her into dicey situations?
“Maybe tonight wasn’t such a good idea—” he began, not quite sure what to say next.
Tairin saved him from his dilemma. She skidded to a halt before he could get any more words out and grabbed his arm, forcing him to stop too. “I know where you’re going with this,” she hissed, “and I don’t like it. I did my job—and I did it well. You didn’t have the magic to make sure the kitchen staff didn’t die right along with the SS. I did.”
“Ssht.” He pried her hand off his arm. “Come on. We’ll talk once we’re well on our way out of Dachau.”
She clacked her teeth together, clearly far from done with whatever was percolating in her brain.
Flame nickered softly once Elliott broke the spell keeping the stallion shrouded in shadows. Without waiting for assistance, Tairin vaulted onto the horse. Elliott took his place behind her, considering what to say next. He’d expected her to be disappointed. What he hadn’t anticipated was her righteous anger.
Guess I don’t know her as well as I thought.
He muffled a rueful snort. Since she’d totally hidden what she was from him—and everybody else—he clearly didn’t know Tairin Jabari at all.
Light from a gray day surrounded them. Daytime was a mixed bag. The evening curfew that forbade them from being out and about wasn’t active, but their options for hiding themselves lessened too.
Should they chance the ten miles between them and Munich? Or would they do better covering half that distance until they reached the relative cover of forested hills? He could borrow from the trees’ energy to conceal himself, and Tairin could take whatever her animal form was. It would be a far better disguise than he could cook up.
He kneed the stallion into an easy lope, and they passed the vestiges of Dachau’s medieval walled enclosure. The town dated back to the ninth century, and its castle, situated on a hill high above town, stared down at them almost as if the old building knew what they’d done.
“If you’re planning to come up with some lame excuse to jettison me from more operations like tonight, spit it out and get it over with.” Tairin’s words jolted him out of the place his thoughts had sidetracked. She’d been sitting stick straight astride Flame, careful not to let her back touch his front.
Elliott sucked in a tight breath. “What we did tonight turned dangerous far more quickly than I anticipated. I’m a seer, not a soldier. I assumed being invisible would make slipping in and out of the camp easy—”
“It made it possible,” she broke in. “I never figured it would be easy, and I was plenty scared. That didn’t mean I couldn’t do my part.” She stared dead ahead, not turning to look back at him. “I did as well as any man would have. Better than many. Why’d you say tonight was a bad idea?”
Because I don’t want you getting killed on my watch.
He took a chance and wrapped one arm around her. “I care about you, Tairin. I don’t want anything to happen to you. And if that anything happened because of a scheme I’d cooked up, it would be damned hard to live with.”
“Look.” She did turn around then and shot him a look full of hurt and reproach. “You’re not my husband. Or even my boyfriend. I make my own choices. No man chooses for me. We’re Rom from the same caravan. What that means is we look out for each other and work together for the common good. What we did tonight was important. More important than whether
you or I lived through it.”
Her words stung, and he choked on a mouthful of excuses justifying his feelings. He was acting like a heavy-handed husband. She’d nailed him on behavior he had no right to display. “Even if I were your husband,” he ground out, “it wouldn’t give me a right to tell you what you could and couldn’t do.”
“Not all men feel that way.” She spoke carefully, her words devoid of inflection.
“True enough, but that doesn’t make it right.”
“I’d rather talk about how we follow up on tonight’s victory than trade philosophy—” She quieted abruptly and swung her head from side to side as she raked the newly risen day with her gaze.
“What do you hear?” Elliott switched to mind speech. His magic needed to recharge, but he had enough left for that.
“Trucks. Lots of them. We need to get off the roadway fast.”
Elliott glanced about. Farms to support Dachau with food were tucked into nooks and crannies in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. Most of the trees in this area had been cut down for fuel or building materials long since, and miles remained to reach the area he’d hoped would conceal them. He spied an overgrown track off to their right and guided the horse along it. Flame didn’t care for the choice and tossed his head repeatedly.
“Doesn’t feel right to me, either,” Tairin said, keeping her voice low.
The farther they went, the worse it felt to him, but even he could hear the rumble of trucks now. He rounded a bend and walked the stallion in a tight circle until they faced back the way they’d come. “We’ll wait out the trucks here,” Elliott said. “We’re far enough from the road, it’s unlikely anyone would be looking this way.”
“I want to get off.”
Elliott considered arguing she was safer on the stallion. Instead, he asked, “Why?”
“So I can figure out what feels so rotten. Maybe it’s something we can fix.”
He jumped down lightly. “You’re not going alone. Neither one of us has much magic left.”
Tairin tossed a leg over the horse and slid to the ground. When she turned to face him, her features were drawn into a mask of such grim determination he almost didn’t recognize her. “Don’t ask me to explain, because I won’t, but my senses are sharper than yours. I smell death, but there’s a wrongness to it. Like whatever it is isn’t dead the way you and I understand it.”
She lowered her voice and spoke right next to his ear. “Men armed to the teeth are here too. Not so far from us. They may have something to do with the not-dead stench. If that’s true, I want to know what’s going on.”
Elliott scattered his depleted power as widely as he could—and didn’t care much for what he found because he couldn’t interpret it. Familiar, yet not. Dark magic soured his stomach and made his fingertips burn unpleasantly. What the hell were they walking into?
The day that couple had sought out his mother reared up and slapped him. Whatever those people had been held the same feel as what was unfolding a few hundred feet from them. He gripped Tairin’s arm to keep her from leaving without him and catalogued what he sensed to make certain he wasn’t mistaken.
“What?” She narrowed her eyes.
“I don’t fully understand how it could be, but the power we’re sensing has the same signature as whatever murdered my parents.”
“Do you think it will recognize your blood?” She spoke into his mind, and to her credit she didn’t sound rattled.
Elliott hadn’t even considered that possibility. “I have no idea. It’s been years.” He thought fast, trying out theories and discarding them when they didn’t fit. “My first guess is whatever fell force killed my parents wasn’t the only manifestation of it. For all I know, it’s some sort of Black Magick cult with a following we can only guess at.”
“Could be,” she murmured, retreating to whispered speech. “If it offers power, it would appeal to the Nazis.”
“Certainly would. No matter what the cost,” Elliott growled. “Let me go first. I’m going to work an invisibility spell, but I have no idea if I have enough power left to pull it off.”
A jolt of something electric started in his toes, moving upward. He stared at Tairin. “You’re offering me magic?”
“What else?” She grinned roguishly. “I have more than you—and we’re a team. At least until you lose your mind and dump me.”
He wanted to say a lot of things, including that he’d been a fool. Instead, he nodded sharply. “Thanks. I’m going to approach whatever’s there nice and slow, and I’ll circle round so they can’t catch our scent—or our magic—on the wind.”
“Smart.” She gestured with one arm. “Lead out.”
Elliott borrowed lavishly from the power she’d given him and swathed himself in spells, muting his presence as much as he could. That done, he set an oblique path for the slimy wrongness that set his teeth on edge and raised fine hairs on the back of his neck.
He sensed Tairin behind him. Sensed her determination, and her solid presence. The caravan hadn’t fully appreciated her. They’d seen her as one more woman with marginal magic.
Because she didn’t want any of us to discover what she is… And she was strong enough and canny enough to shield herself.
The wrongness escalated with each step. It jabbed against his warding, seeking a way inside. Elliott curled his hands into fists and tried not to breathe too deeply. Rot, charnel pit decay, burned his nostrils and dragged his stomach into a sour knot. What the hell was wrong with the nearby farmers? It didn’t take magic to smell the evil tainting their bucolic environment.
Maybe he was wrong, and it did.
He cast a net, hunting for animals that might tell them something, and didn’t find so much as an insect within range. “No animals or birds nearby.” He glanced back at Tairin.
“I already figured that out. We left Flame at the perimeter of the dead zone.”
Elliott worked his way cautiously through squelching mud. He would have given anything for trees to shield them, but maybe they couldn’t have withstood the evil, either. He topped a small rise and halted abruptly.
A scene that defied credibility spread before them. Tairin dropped to a crouch by his side, and he mirrored her posture. When he gripped her hand, her fingers were cold. The reeking miasma that tipped him off in the first place grew to a choking cloud. Breathing shallowly didn’t cut the stench, so he cupped his free hand over his nose and mouth.
A series of shallow trenches held open caskets. Radiating unearthly beauty, a dozen vampires—mostly male, but two were female—had paired up with SS officers and were drinking from them, but sharing blood in return. Elliott focused on one of the bizarre couples with shielded magic and felt power transfer from vampire to human.
Had the humans who killed his parents traded blood for unnatural power? Given the feel of the SS officers, it was likely but he’d never know for certain. He hadn’t run into any vampires before, so his only knowledge came from the lore books. He focused more intently on the vampire half of the couple he’d targeted with his magic. The creature, a male, had long, shimmering, red-gold hair that hung to its waist. Black robes sashed with deep blue covered its body. Midnight eyes with swirling golden centers were focused on the SS officer in its arms. Unable to look away, Elliott watched as the vampire lifted its mouth from the officer’s neck. Blood dripped from extended fangs, and the abomination spread its lips in a satisfied smile and arched against the human in its arms.
It looked as if it was in the throes of coital bliss. Though robes covered its body, the front was tented like it would be if the thing had an erection. Elliott swallowed back disgust. Christ! Could vampires have sex? What would the impact of that be on their victims? Or did they only fuck other vampires?
Elliott shoved discomfort and horror to a distant part of his mind. He felt well beyond his depth. The lore books said very little about vampires, and their sexual appetites hadn’t been part of any book he’d studied.
Now that Ellio
tt had focused on it, the creature’s hunger—for sex and blood—was palpable even from where he crouched. He sensed how difficult it was for the vampire to not simply drain the human, toss his corpse aside, and move on. Elliott told himself to get moving. He’d seen enough. No way could he and Tairin take on an entire vampire nest.
Despite strict exhortations to leave this hideous place, he remained frozen, mesmerized by the scene unfolding before him. Even though the vampire had no idea he was watching, it exerted such a strong pull, Elliott couldn’t force himself away from the tableau. Man and vampire looked like an unholy pair of lovers, and Elliott wanted to know what would happen next. Would the creature tug the sash holding its robes open and do something perverse to the human?
More perverse than drinking his blood?
Ach Christ! I have to get Tairin out of here.
But Elliott couldn’t move. He couldn’t even turn his head to look at Tairin. The vampire’s power drew him like a lodestone, and that more than anything scared the crap out of him.
The vampire tore its wrist open and held it to the man’s mouth. After a few moments when the inert SS officer didn’t react, he fastened his mouth to the vampire’s streaming wrist and slurped, making little grunting noises as he fed. His face that had grown ashen, turned a warm shade of rose.
The vampire pulled his wrist away. “It is enough.”
A wicked smile started in the SS officer’s eyes, not quite making it to his mouth. “Of blood, perhaps.” He reached down, snatching the front of the vampire’s robes and reaching beneath them. Groaning, the vampire angled his head and crushed his bloodstained mouth over the man’s lips. The pair crumpled to the ground grappling with one another, hips pumping as they ground their cocks together.
Fascination vied with disgust. Maybe it was the combination, but Elliott finally found the strength to look away. Was this why so many Nazis seemed invincible? Drinking from vampires would make humans fast, deadly, and much harder to kill. Who the hell knew what traits fucking them would confer? He glanced around at the other couples. All of them were locked in heated clinches. Breath hissed from between Elliott’s teeth before he cut off the sound, so it didn’t give them away.