War of Hearts

by S. Young

  “Then stop.”

  Conall gave a bark of incredulous laughter. “I could sooner ask the sun to stop rising.”

  Her heart swelled in her chest, but his words only made everything that much harder. “Please don’t.”

  “What? Speak the truth? That I have to choose between you and my duty to my pack?” He gritted his teeth and looked away, the muscle in his jaw flexing. “I’d give anything for them …” He turned to her, his expression making her breathless. “But how do I sacrifice you for them? Tell me, Thea. How do I do that, when the very thought of handing you over to Ashforth, leaving you alone to this mess, makes me want to rip the fucking moon to shreds?”

  Tears filled Thea’s eyes as she turned away, blinking back the burn, refusing to let them fall. Conall allowed her time to compose herself, waiting patiently at her back. Finally, she took a deep breath and turned around to do the bravest thing she’d done in her life.

  She gave up Conall MacLennan so he wouldn’t have to choose.

  “I care about you. I do trust you. And I know you trust me and care about me. That’s a gift to me, Conall. One I truly treasure despite what I might have said this morning. And I will not repay that gift by endangering your pack. So I’m taking the choice away from you. I’m going to Ashforth because I need to end this with him, and you need Callie back.”

  He was silent a moment and then he snapped, “And then what?”

  She smiled, trying to ease the tension. “Maybe when you’re old and gray, I’ll come to Torridon and ask you to bite me so one way or another, I don’t have to live forever.” So one way or another, I don’t have to live forever without you.

  But Conall didn’t think it was funny. His words were bitter with anger. “Is this what it is to truly be the alpha, then? To live an empty fucking life so my pack can live in safety.”

  Thea stepped into him, resting a palm on his chest where his heart was beating too fast. His hands automatically closed on her hips, pulling her closer. “Your life will never be empty, Conall. One day I’ll be just a memory.”

  He bent his head, his words a snarl against her lips, “You’ll be a ghost, Thea, haunting me for the rest of my goddamn life.” He pushed her away from him. “And if you cannae see that, then you dinnae feel for me what I feel for you.” He stalked away, striding through the crowds of tourists and into the park surrounding the palace.

  Thea stayed put, wishing she could tell Conall how she truly felt, but knowing that to do so would only make things worse. And with him gone she finally let the tears she’d been holding back fall.

  He found her hours later, using that ability of his, an ability Thea now realized he’d always have. No matter where she went in the world, he could always find her. She just had to convince him to let her go. Hard to do when she didn’t want him to.

  She’d wandered aimlessly down a street heading toward the harbor when Conall pulled up in the SUV.

  “I shouldnae have left,” Conall said, his voice was flat and emotionless as she got into the car. “Not while there’s still danger.”

  There would always be danger for Thea. Even if she dealt with Ashforth, she’d never stop running.

  She merely nodded in acknowledgment of his apology, their drive back to Vik’s apartment chilly.

  The sun was just setting when they walked into the vampire’s loft. Vik flashed them a smile as he led them toward the sitting area but there was something off about the expression. It seemed nervous and false. Apparently Conall thought so too.

  “You all right, Vik?”

  A tingling sensation that was all too familiar scored down Thea’s neck. Her heart raced. The dread washed over her. “Conall … something’s wrong.”

  His head whipped toward her and then his eyes traveled over her shoulder and narrowed. Thea turned slowly and the sight that greeted her made her knees tremble.

  Crowded into the back of the loft were fifteen men and women.

  What the hell?

  The tallest man stepped forward, and the air seemed to shimmer around him as he did, as if he was stepping through an invisible barrier. Suddenly his energy blasted into Thea.

  A vampire. An extremely powerful one, if the way all the hairs on Thea’s body rose in greeting were to go by.

  He had an interesting face. Square and blunt. Not truly handsome but appealing nonetheless. His black eyes were hard to look away from. Thea felt Conall step closer to her as the vampire neared. He had broad shoulders like Conall and was almost as tall. Even dressed casual in a black sweater and dark jeans, Thea could see the money in the clothes and in the watch on his wrist.

  Her eyes flicked behind him to his fourteen companions who all moved forward as one. The air shimmered in the same location in the loft and once they had all passed the spot, Thea felt their energy.

  They were all vampires.

  Pale and expressionless and all humming with the kind of cold dynamism that sizzled over Thea’s skin. They were old and powerful. Every one.

  Fear Thea tried to hide clawed at her and she took a step back toward Conall, trying to place her body in front of his.

  “You are wondering how you did not feel us here.” The tall vampire gestured to his companions at his back. “A little magic. To mask our energy. We knew you would feel us from outside if we did not enlist my favorite witch to cloak us.”

  Thea studied him as her whole body rang with internal warning. He spoke with an accent, every word was precise and clipped, like he’d spoken a different language once upon a time and his English was just a little too formal to be natural.

  “Vik,” Conall growled. “What the fuck did you do?”

  “Viktor has been extremely helpful,” the tall vampire answered.

  “I’m sorry, Conall.” Vik walked into view, standing near the entrance hallway. He couldn’t meet Thea’s or Conall’s eyes. “I don’t want the gates to open either.”

  Realization flashed through them, their gazes locking in guarded horror before Thea turned to the vampire. “Eirik?”

  He nodded, his dark eyes unreadable. “I was alerted to your existence, Miss Quinn, when word reached me at my home in Copenhagen that a human had enlisted the help of the strongest alpha of his generation.” His intense regard shifted to Conall. “Your reputation precedes you. Few wolves have a gift such as yours. Jasper Ashforth’s increasing desperation to find Miss Quinn, his dangerous bargain with someone as well known as you, led to my discovery of that which he coveted and attempted to hide from the world.” Eirik turned his regard back to Thea. “I hear we are not the only ones that hunt you.”

  In that moment Thea wished she had telepathic abilities because she’d tell Conall to run. Instead, she tried to edge in front of him again without drawing Eirik’s attention.

  It didn’t work. Eirik cocked his head at her movement and then frowned. He took a step toward them, which made Thea retreat into Conall and his hand came to rest on her back. Bizarrely, Eirik sniffed the air.

  Surprise filled his expression and Thea got the sense he wasn’t often taken off guard. He cut a look to Vik. “I am afraid I cannot hold up my end of the bargain, Viktor.”

  Vik swallowed hard. “You … you promised you’d spare the wolf. He’s my friend, Eirik.”

  Thea felt Conall stiffen at the same time she did.

  “And I am grateful for your loyalty, Viktor. I truly am.” Eirik sounded almost weary. “However, you are too young, your senses cannot detect what mine do.” He looked back at Thea and Conall, his black gaze moving between their faces. “Their scents have merged as one.”

  Conall’s hand tightened on Thea’s back and she heard his soft exhale of shock.

  What?

  She glanced over her shoulder at him, but he was staring at Eirik, stunned.

  “I …” She turned back to Eirik. “I don’t understand.”

  “You would not. And your wolf was probably so focused on his tracking of you, he did not notice the change in your scent. Ironic.”
/>   “Scent?” Thea snapped.

  Eirik’s eyes narrowed. “You have mated with the werewolf, Miss Quinn.”

  Thea felt a flush crest her cheekbones. How did he know that?”

  Eirik chuckled softly. “Not sex. Anyone can have sex with a werewolf. Mated. As in true mates. Although I hear the mating scent only occurs after two mates first have sex.” He looked at Vik as Thea almost staggered back into Conall at the realization. “Like Adélie fucking penguins, the fae mate for life. They passed the ludicrous bond down into our bloodlines. Thankfully—unlike my brother who wasted centuries trying to return to his mate on Faerie—in all my years, I have escaped the disease of love and a lifetime of imprisonment to another.” Again, he said the words without venom. Just jaded fact. “I cannot allow the wolf to live. I am sorry. When I kill his mate, he will try to plague me until his inevitable death. It is better to kill him now and save him the pain.”

  Mate.

  Mate?

  Mate!

  Thea turned to Conall, and he stared down at her, not in shock or horror, but with such realization, such feeling, she felt like her heart might explode.

  Mate.

  The breath whooshed out of her.

  “I am sorry it has to be that way. You are one of a kind, Conall MacLennan.” Eirik’s voice cut through Thea’s moment of overwhelming emotion. “I do hate to snuff out those who are particularly special.”

  The threat was made with such casualness, it was almost like he was talking about what he would have for his dinner that evening.

  The threat to Conall stirred a rage inside Thea, and she watched his eyes light with fierce pride as the air around her grew static.

  “Now, now, Miss Quinn, we cannot have that.”

  She whipped around to Eirik, knowing her eyes were gold, that all the supernaturals in the room could feel the energy buzzing through her, looking for somewhere to unleash it. “Touch him and die.”

  Eirik flicked a casual finger behind his shoulder. “Now.”

  The vampires flew at them. A blur of black figures, shooting at them in overwhelming speed. These were no ordinary vampires. Six were on Conall while eight fought Thea. She ducked and spun, a punch sending a vampire soaring clear across the loft. Fists and legs glanced off her body, barely hurting, barely making an impact. But she broke necks, snapped wrists, punctured ribs through lungs until—

  “Thea,” Eirik’s voice cut through the chaos and he didn’t even have to raise it. There was something about the taunt that made her stop. The four vampires still left standing peeled back to reveal Conall on his knees. They had plunged a silver knife into his gut while five of the vampires who had attacked him held his arms spread wide so he couldn’t remove it. The sixth was dust on the ground.

  And Vik was no longer anywhere to be seen.

  The traitorous bastard.

  Thea squashed the panic that wanted to rise from her chest at seeing Conall captive and in pain.

  She watched Eirik as he crossed the room to tower over her. His eyes swept down her body and back up again. “You are almost as lovely as the fae.”

  His wording confused her. “I thought I was fae.”

  “You are. However”—he studied her carefully—“it is almost like you are a fae trapped in a human body. Does that make sense? Viktor told me of your capabilities, and they are nowhere near the power of a fae.”

  “If you let Conall go, I won’t fight you.”

  “No,” Conall growled, low and deep. Fierce even while in agony.

  “Unfortunately, that is not an option.”

  Thea narrowed her eyes, feeling the energy inside her shift. It felt different now that she knew what she was. Almost like that part of her, that energy, that magic, never fit until she was given the knowledge of its origin. Like a misplaced key finally slotting into place and opening a door to unimaginable power.

  And it was there, in the depths of her.

  A golden, sweet, heady, beautiful, terrifying eternity of power.

  Suddenly, Thea wasn’t afraid. “If you kill Conall, I’ll end you.”

  Eirik smirked, the first real expression she’d seen on his face. “I am two and half thousand years old, Miss Quinn. I have killed my brother to stop the gate opening between realms and I have hunted many children whom I believed to be bearers of the fae queen’s spell. In the last twenty-five years, I have snuffed out three of the lives of your fae siblings.

  “And now I finally have you in my grasp. The fourth. I will not stop until all seven of you are dead. Now, you can make your death easy or difficult.”

  Thea’s heart bled at the news three others had died already. Three beings like her, like the woman in Prague, killed by this bastard just because they’d been born. The rage churned in her gut. “I’ll make it easy if Conall lives.”

  “Thea, no!” Conall roared in fury.

  She couldn’t look at him.

  Eirik cocked his head. “I have heard it is an awful thing to force a man to live with the death of his mate. So, no. What I will do is spare him having to watch you die.” He turned toward the vampires holding Conall, and Thea felt that door inside her blaze wide open.

  “Kill him.”

  Her eyes widened in horror as a vampire, a blur of movement, ripped the silver knife out of Conall’s gut and plunged it into his neck.

  The agony was momentary.

  Conall stared across the room at Thea as the knife plunged into him, the pain so intense, he almost blacked out.

  However, the sound of Thea’s scream was so unearthly, so forceful, it blew like a gale into him with such an impact it kept him with her. The physical manifestation of her grief was the last thing he felt before his body went numb.

  He seemed to float, weightless, except for the crushing pain of watching Thea’s grief-stricken face. The heartbreaking horror in her expression made him feel desperate and powerless.

  He’d never said he loved her.

  Conall tried to feel his lips, to make the words come out, but before he could, blackness spilled into the edges of his vision as Eirik grasped Thea by the throat. Her eyes blazed bright gold.

  There was a jeweled-handled knife of silver-gray metal in Eirik’s hand. Pure iron.

  Conall wanted to lunge forward, to save her, the howl of his wolf trapped and screaming inside.

  But as Eirik moved to plunge the knife into Thea’s heart, she swiped a hand over the incoming blade and it turned to liquid, splattering in thick mercury to the floor, the jewels from the handle rattling across the floorboards like marbles. Eirik snarled in outrage and tightened his grip on Thea’s throat but …

  Conall blinked in amazement, forcing the darkness back, as Thea began to shimmer. Eirik hissed, baring his fangs, as he dropped Thea and stared at his palm.

  His burnt raw palm.

  Thea’s gaze moved back to Conall and tears slipped down her cheeks. He tried to say how he felt with his eyes and perhaps the message read loud and clear because Thea abruptly threw back her head and let out a piercing scream.

  Light exploded out of her body, and Eirik and the vampires at his back screeched in agony as it tore through them.

  Then they were gone.

  Every one of them.

  Piles of ash remained, dust dancing in the rays of pure sunlight beaming from every part of Thea’s body.

  Relief soothed Conall’s pain.

  She was safe.

  His mate was safe.

  And so he let the darkness come for him.

  22

  Shuddering through the fiery heat unlike anything Thea had ever experienced, she gasped for breath as the blinding white light disappeared, and she could see again.

  Her clothes stuck to her skin, soaked with sweat as she took in the piles of ash where Eirik and his vampires had once stood.

  She’d killed them.

  All of them.

  Her eyes flew to Conall, collapsed, surrounded by six piles of ash.

  He was covered in blood.
/>   So much blood.

  Terror flooded Thea.

  “Conall.” She flew across the room and reached for his chest. Relief almost suffocated her when she felt the tiniest flutter from his heart. But there wasn’t much time left, and Thea couldn’t bring someone back from the dead.

  Scoring a fingernail deep across her wrist, she forced open Conall’s mouth and pressed her bleeding wrist into it. “Come on, come on, drink.”

  He didn’t move and her wound sealed, instantly healing.

  “Fuck!” Think, Thea, think.

  She glanced around in panic and then it hit her. Her eyes flew to the back corner where the iron dagger was on display. Thea was a streak of energy crossing the room, yanking the dagger from the wall, ignoring the blazing agony ripping up her arm from her hand. Her reflexes wanted to drop the knife, but she forced her grip around it, pushing through the pain.

  Weakening from the dagger, she fell to her knees at Conall’s side. Fresh sweat glistened along her brow, and she bit her teeth against the scream that tore up from her throat as she dug the blade into her wrist.

  It was pure fire.

  Tears streamed down her face as she dropped the dagger and pressed her sliced wrist to his mouth. Her blood dripped, the iron-made wound taking longer to heal.

  Conall didn’t move.

  “No, no, no, no,” Thea panted. “Conall, you have to drink. You can’t leave me.” She bent over him, pressing desperate kisses down his scarred cheek, her tears splashing onto his skin. She rested her cheek against his, her body shuddering with panic. A sob burst out of her. “P-p-please … p-please don’t leave me.”

  A grunt, a choking sound, drew her head up.

  He was choking on her blood.

  Alive.

  Healing.

  Thea made a garbled sound of pure happiness and cradled his head so he could drink without choking. His eyes didn’t open but he raised a hand to clasp her wrist to his mouth. “Sorry,” she whispered, kissing his temple. “I’m so sorry.”

  Then she watched as the wound on his neck healed.

  His grip on her wrist eased and when Thea pulled back, his eyes were open.