by Cynthia Eden
“I’m next!” A woman’s voice shouted. “And I’m not afraid of that bitch!”
You should be.
The line of vamps parted. A woman rushed forward. A small woman with long, curly, brown hair. She smirked at Iona and fire rose above the woman’s delicate palm. “See? I can do it, too.”
Ah, so this was the new witch that Latham had picked up. Being right felt so good. “I’m not drugged this time.” Iona felt she should point out that little fact.
The witch frowned.
“That’s how Latham’s first witch got the advantage. The drugs in my system slowed me down…” Iona threw her flames at the woman. The witch’s hair caught fire, and the woman screamed as she stumbled back. “I’m not slow now…and lady, I’m a hell of a lot stronger than you!”
The witch—minus a whole lot of hair—ran away, shrieking. Easy enough. Too easy. Must be slim-pickings when it came to magic power these days.
Iona lifted her hands into the air. It was time to send a message to the paranormals out there. She didn’t want to be looking over her shoulder, worried that others would come and hunt her.
They needed to be too afraid to even whisper her name.
Blood Queen. She could be her, again, in order to be free.
“Run,” she ordered the fools still around her. “Or die.” Then she called up the magic inside, letting it whip through her and form a circle of fire, a bright ring that closed around her and the two black wolves that fought a life-or-death battle. Everyone else was on the outside, and the fire snapped out at those vampires and werewolves, attacking with greedy tendrils of flame that ignited flesh and sent shrieks into the night.
Most ran. They would be the ones to spread the new story of the Blood Queen’s rebirth.
As for the ones who didn’t run? The slow? The idiots who still thought they could kill her?
They died.
And then there was only Iona…in the circle with her wolves.
She could kill them both with a thought. Send the fire ripping at them but…
Iona didn’t want Jamie to die. Which wolf?
She needed to see their eyes. Their scents were too linked then—they were too close to each other. There was too much blood. If she could just look into the wolves’ eyes, she’d know her lover.
The claws of one wolf shoved into his opponent’s stomach. A long, mournful howl filled the night. The injured beast heaved on his side and slowly, slowly began to transform.
The fur melted from his body. Familiar, golden flesh emerged once more. She knew the strong line of that jaw. Knew the heavy slash of those cheeks.
The other beast snarled into the air, a cry of fury and dominance. Then the beast turned to face Iona.
Not Jamie’s eyes. But then, she’d already known her lover was the one bleeding out on the ground.
She lifted her hands and tossed as much fire as she could at Latham. She wanted that bastard to burn.
Only, he didn’t burn. The flames just sank into his thick fur and disappeared. Tendrils of smoke drifted into the air.
The snap and crunch of his bones reached her ears. He shifted before her, a fast, brutal shift.
She couldn’t see Jamie’s body behind him. Was Jamie still alive? And why did it feel like someone had ripped out her heart?
“I’ve got so much of your blood pumping in me,” Latham snarled as he closed in on Iona and grabbed her wrists. His hold was rough, too strong, so painful it felt like he was about to break her bones. “Thanks to all that blood, your magic can’t hurt me, Iona. Nothing can anymore.”
The fire sure couldn’t. But she wasn’t about to give up yet. “Then let’s just see what my teeth can do…” And she sank her fangs into his throat.
His blood burned her, going down as hot as acid on her tongue, but she didn’t let him go. She’d drain him, if that was her only way and—
He screamed and pulled away from her.
No, he didn’t pull away. Jamie had snatched Latham back. Because her Jamie wasn’t dead. He was on his feet and he’d spun Latham around to face him…spun him around and, as she watched, Jamie shoved his claws into his brother’s chest.
“She was the distraction,” Jamie whispered as he let his brother stagger away from him. “You should have made sure I was dead.”
Latham’s head swung toward her. He shook his head even as blood pumped from his chest. “I’m…immortal.”
“Not anymore you’re not,” Iona told him. Jamie had been right. Latham was still too fixated on her. Fixated enough to make a fatal mistake.
He’d turned his back on a werewolf who wanted his blood.
Latham’s teeth snapped together. “You won’t…live…without…me!” He rushed toward Iona.
And Jamie’s claws slashed over his brother’s throat even as the thunder of a gun echoed and a bullet slammed into Latham’s chest.
Sean…doing his job and avenging his parents. Overkill could be a good thing.
Iona slowly walked around Latham’s body. Jamie stood over his brother, chest heaving, and with blood dripping from his claws.
“Looks like I’m still living just fine,” Iona murmured to the dead werewolf. She was living, and Latham had finally gotten just what he deserved.
His eyes were wide open. His face twisted in horrified disbelief. He truly hadn’t thought that he’d die.
He’d been wrong.
She stared down into his eyes. She could still see the madness there. Even in death. “I went to Latham…” It seemed like another life. Maybe because it was. “Because I wanted to form a truce between the vampires and the werewolves. I didn’t want more bloodshed.”
When blood was all they had around them.
She looked away from Latham. Stared up at Jamie. “I wish you’d been in the pack when I came calling.”
“So do I.”
Her head tilted as she studied him. “What would you have done?”
“Loved you from the start.”
She blinked and shook her head. “No, you—”
“I know you don’t love me, Iona.”
They were standing over his brother’s body. It wasn’t a place to talk about love. Not the right place. Not the right time. There was too much death here. Too many memories.
And she wouldn’t lie. “I don’t know what I feel for you.” At that moment, she just felt…relieved. One less monster to face.
Finally, she was free. Latham would never hurt her again. Free.
Jamie’s gaze held her own. “Do you think,” he asked her softly, “that one day, you might?”
Her eyes wanted to sting with tears. Tears, from the Blood Queen? What had happened to her? Maybe it was the place. The echoes of pain and sadness. Get away. She couldn’t be there any longer.
Or maybe…maybe it was Jamie. He was asking for things that she wasn’t sure that she could give to him. Fifteen years…gone. She wanted to see the world again. See what had changed. Learn how she’d changed.
She couldn’t talk to him about love then. She needed her freedom.
A freedom that their bond had taken away.
Iona spun around, giving him her back. Then she began to walk away, from Latham and from Jamie. Every step that she took tore at her heart.
What was she supposed to feel for Jamie? Everything had happened too soon. Love couldn’t come this way for her.
She needed time. Time was stolen from me. Now I have to learn to live again.
Good thing that she was a vampire. Time was on her side. Always.
“Iona!” Jamie’s cry stopped her. Not because he yelled after her with fury or desperation. But because he said her name with…love. Maybe he’d been saying it that way for a while now, and she just hadn’t noticed.
He’d stopped calling me ‘baby’ and he’d been calling me ‘love.’” Her throat ached. She glanced back at him. He hadn’t moved. He wasn’t trying to stop her from leaving him. Maybe because Jamie knew that she’d have to come back to him, sooner or later.
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The blood would always bind them.
“Do you think you ever might?” Jamie said the words softly, with blood on his flesh, with his claws out, and with his eyes so fierce and bright.
She needed to give him an answer. Iona just wasn’t sure what to say. So she didn’t speak, but, almost helplessly, she found herself nodding. It was a small movement, and she wasn’t even sure he noticed it. Then she saw the hope on his face and knew that he had.
“But I can’t stay with you because we have to be together.” She’d come to hate him then, just as he’d hate her if she forced him to stay at her side. “It should be…we should be together because that’s what we want. Because anything else is unthinkable to us.” That was why she had to get away then. Latham was dead. The battle over. Now she had to figure out what the hell she wanted. What she needed.
So with her head up and her back straight, she began walking once more. She passed by the dead. Passed a silent Sean. She didn’t let her tears fall. After all, she truly was the daughter of a king, and she wouldn’t let anyone see her break. Not Sean. And not even the one man who’d managed to touch a heart she’d long thought was ice-cold.
Chapter Eight
“Are you sure that you’re ready for this?” The witch stood over Jamie, a silver knife gripped in his hand.
The tip of that knife burned molten.
“It’s going to hurt like a bitch,” the witch warned then the guy gave a long whistle. “I sure as hell hope the woman is worth it.”
Jamie gritted his teeth. Ray was a smart-ass, some witch that Sean had literally dug up from a hole in Mexico, but the guy knew his magic.
Well, his dark magic anyway.
And he knew how to break the bond that locked Jamie’s blood to Iona’s.
Two months. Two long fucking months had passed since she’d walked away from him in LA.
He knew where she was, of course, because it wasn’t easy to overlook a woman like her.
He’d sent his blood to her. Werewolf take-out. But he hadn’t gone to her, because he couldn’t offer her the one thing that she needed.
Choice.
He’d taken that from Iona when he gave her his blood.
I can’t stay with you because we have to be together. Her voice haunted his nights. And his days. It should be…we should be together because that’s what we want. Because anything else is unthinkable to us.
Anything else was unthinkable to him, and without her, he was going insane. Slowly, moment-by-brittle-moment insane.
He needed her. He wanted her. And, hell, yeah, he’d get his heart cut out for her. Not because you have to be with me. Once the spell was broken, she could stay because that was what she wanted to do.
“You have to sever the bond to free your vampire.” Ray looked a little too comfortable holding that knife three inches above Jamie’s chest.
Sean stood in the background muttering once more about bad ideas and wrong choices. The same song he’d been singing when they first went to wake up Iona.
“Am I gonna live through this?” Jamie asked the witch.
Ray frowned at that. “You expect to live?” He seemed surprised. “I thought it was just about her living.” He began to lower the knife. “I can’t make any guarantees for you.”
Sean lunged forward and grabbed Ray’s wrist. “Guarantee it.” Lethally soft.
Ray swallowed.
Jamie stared at the tip of the knife.
“I-I…he should survive. It will hurt, probably worse than anything he’s ever felt, but he’ll live…and his vampire will be free.”
That was what he needed to know. “Cut me,” Jamie ordered and his hands fisted, pulling against the heavy chains that held him place. Silver chains that Ray insisted were necessary.
Not a good sign. But at least he’d stopped feeling the burn from those chains now.
Jamie closed his eyes. Pictured Iona. His beautiful queen.
Then the knife stabbed into his chest, bringing the fires of hell, and he roared her name.
***
Pain exploded in her chest. Burning, white-hot, twisting and cutting and tearing into her flesh.
Iona opened her mouth to scream but found she didn’t have any breath. The smell of burning flesh filled her nose even as bile rose in her throat.
What is happening to me?
She’d been on her way to find Jamie. She’d discovered a witch who knew a way to break their bond. Only…
Another burst of pain had her nearly on her knees.
Iona screamed and realized that another cry had echoed her own.
Her head lifted as sweat soaked her clothes. She stared at the house before her, the one nestled off the main road and hiding in the shadow of thick trees.
Jamie’s house. The roar she’d heard, it had been her name. His voice.
Iona forced her body to straighten. Jamie. Fear and adrenaline rushed through her.
Another pain-filled roar shook the night, and she ran forward. Iona kicked in the house’s front door.
Two men—probably werewolves—turned and lunged at her. She knocked them back and followed the echo of that roar down a hallway. Then to the right. Another kick and the door before her flew off its hinges.
A man whirled toward her. Some guy with too-long red hair. He had a long, wickedly sharp knife in his hand. The blade was glowing red.
Jamie was on a table, chained. Smoke rose slowly from his flesh.
“What are you doing to him?” Iona leapt for him.
Someone grabbed her from behind. “Wait!” A familiar voice shouted in her ear. “He’s a witch, he’s breaking the bond and—”
And she tossed Sean into the nearest wall. Iona advanced on the witch. “You’re hurting him.” Us. She rubbed her own aching chest. “You’re dead.” She raised her hands. Let the fire burn.
“Oh, shit,” the man muttered as his eyes doubled in size.
“No!” Jamie’s snarl.
Her head snapped toward him. Surely he wasn’t protecting his attacker?
“It’s…almost…finished…” Sweat soaked his body. The brightness of his eyes had dimmed. “One more slice, and you’re free.”
She pushed the man—now she knew he was a witch—away and rushed to Jamie’s side. When she saw his chest, she had to bite her lip to hold back her own scream of fury. It looked like the skin had been branded, a dark, fierce red. But she knew the knife was enchanted and the branding wasn’t just on the surface.
The brand would go all the way around his heart.
No, not all the way, not yet. Jamie had said that he needed one more slice.
The floor creaked behind her.
Iona spun around and grabbed the knife from the witch’s hands.
“Do it,” Jamie urged her. “Finish it. Be free…then you can come back to me.”
“The witch was cutting out your heart!” She’d found her own witch, a woman who told her this could be done, that this was the way to sever the tie between them.
Take out the heart and the bond is broken.
“No.” Jamie shook his head and jerked on the chains. Silver chains. The fool werewolf had let himself be locked down with silver chains. “I’ll still live,” Jamie told her. “Ray’s not actually taking my heart—”
Yes, yes, she knew how the magic worked. The enchanted blade both cut and healed at the same time. The witch would cut a circle around the heart, severing its connection to the body. Then, in the next instant, the blade would burn and heal—reconnecting the heart with magic. The severing and healing would continue until a full circle had been cast around the heart.
Brutal. Hellish. Iona knew that the agony she’d felt was just a psychic echo of the pain that he’d experienced. Her witch had warned her of that, too.
When one is sacrificed, the other will feel the whisper of the pain. Just a whisper. The real agony is a hundred times stronger than that whisper.
“A spell.” She glared at the knife.
“The knife cuts
through the magic that binds you, but he still lives.” Did the witch think those words would make her feel better?
She knew their hearts were linked. The blood pumping from her heart linked to the blood pumping from his. To cut their ties, a heart had to be severed.
And Jamie, he was willing to face the agony, for her?
She licked her lips. Felt tears on her cheeks. Not about breaking. About living. “You’re not like Latham.”
He stared up at her. His face was too pale. Her wolf looked too weak. “Told…you…”
She snapped the knife and let the pieces fall from her fingers. The witch gasped and got the hell back.
Sean had picked himself off the floor. He stood back, too. Smart guy.
She grabbed the chain around Jamie’s right wrist. Shattered the heavy silver. Did the same with the links that bound his left hand.
“I can feel you…” Iona told him, and brought his hand to rest over her heart, “in here.” Even when they were apart, she felt him. Like a caress in her soul, she could feel him touching her.
His gaze searched hers.
“You let him come at you with that knife…” Well, the witch wouldn’t be comingagain since she’d destroyed his knife. “He would have cut me out of your heart.” And taken you from mine.
Jamie rose. The back of his hand slid down her cheek, and she turned her face to better feel his touch.
“Nothing will ever take you from my heart,” he told her. The words sounded like a promise.
He’d been willing to suffer so much…for her.
Jamie sucked in a deep breath. “I can…I can still send you the blood. I can do whatever you want…”
“Kiss me.”
He frowned, then shook his head.
She put her hands on his shoulders. Those shoulders of his seemed even bigger than before.
I missed him. “I want you to kiss me, Jamie.”
His mouth took hers. Ravenous and wild with its hunger. The same hunger that she felt.
Tears pricked at her eyes. She’d lived so long and had never expected to find a man who looked at the Blood Queen and…loved.
He loves me.
So she kissed him back. Hot, eager, their mouths met. She didn’t care about the others in the room. They didn’t matter. Nothing, no one mattered to her except him.