Jack asked into the quiet, sounding curious, “Lily, can I ask you a personal question?”
“Depends on how personal.” Truth.
“About being mated?”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
He turned as much as he could on the seat, gazing around Ezra, and stared at my profile. “Is it true you aren’t sexually interested in anyone else?” He shuddered, his blue eyebrows together. “I can’t imagine how that would feel. One person. Forever.”
My chuckle was soft. “Yeah. It’s true. No one does it for me but Dominic.”
His gaze was perplexed. “No one even looks good?”
I laughed outright. “I’m not blind. I know when men are hot.” A simple shrug. “But, there’s just no real interest in,” I pointed at my head, and then my chest, “here.”
“They say being mated you can’t even get turned on by someone else.” Jack blinked extremely slowly, his tone morbidly serious. “Honestly, that freaks me out.”
For a man, I imagined it would. A woman’s bodily reaction wasn’t so obvious. “I can honestly say I’ve never been turned on by anyone else since Dominic and I mated.”
“Huh.” He stared.
“What?”
His lips twitched. “Mind if I test that theory?”
Silence.
This time I was left blinking and, eventually, I sputtered, “What?” I ignored the fact it came out a little high pitched. “Jack, when I offered you a ride, I didn’t mean a ride.”
He shrugged. “I won’t have to touch-you, touch you. Ezra and I both have the power to seduce with a single touch. All higher powers do.”
I stared out the windshield.
Jack clarified, “Call it a scientific experiment if you wish. I just can’t believe what everyone else says. It’s too much.”
“It’s the mate magic,” I explained slowly. “It won’t let me be turned on by anyone else.”
“It won’t hurt then,” Jack coaxed, wiggling restlessly on the seat. “I wouldn’t be so freaked if it proved the Elders, and the Kings, had been lying,” a jerking hand wave, “about not being able to get it up with someone else.”
I choked, trying not to laugh, my cheeks puffing with it. He was a “to be” King, but he was still just a man. I bit my lip, eventually shrugging. “It won’t work.” I glanced at him, my eyes narrowing. “You won’t do anything adulterous, will you?”
He shook his head, held up his index finger. “Just touch your hand with my finger.”
I stared at his seemingly innocent finger before sliding my attention back to the dark road. “Whatever, but you won’t like the results. It’ll probably give you an even larger complex than you already have.”
“Or, it’ll cure me,” he muttered quietly. In the dimness of my truck’s cab, his eyes glowed softly and his power flared just as gently. “Here’s to hoping.” Reaching across Ezra, Jack touched the back of my hand with the tip of his index finger.
An immediate wave of warm, sensual, dizzying water stroked over me leisurely, eliciting a gasp from my parted lips; the truck jerked to the right before I righted it back onto the blacktop. The surge continued, caressing me from head to toe. Everywhere between. It was stunning.
Astonishing.
Unbelievable.
Spectacular.
But, no, it didn’t turn me on, the sensation diminishing as he withdrew his finger.
I cleared my throat hard, glancing to him. “That’s cool, but no go.”
Blue eyebrows slammed together, his brown eyes swinging to Ezra.
Ezra sighed. “I’ve known people who were mated before, and I agree with her.”
“Humor me.” Jack was glaring, but his fingers were tapping on his leg.
Ezra chuckled, and his nostrils flared. Inhaling deeply, he held the breath in, testing the air, scenting for emotions. He shook his head, exhaling. “Surprised, yes, but not stimulated.”
Jack cursed, turning on the bench seat to face the front. “God, I pray my mate’s not a spirit.” The mysterious, white-haired spirit Elementals were the rarest breed of Elementals, to the point that I hadn’t even seen one in my life.
Flexing my fingers on the steering wheel, I sucked in an immense breath of the night air rushing in through the open window as the remnants of Jack’s magic dissipated from the cab. As I watched the trees go by, I wondered if Dominic had been as troubled as Jack before mating me. He didn’t act it now — not at all — but in the few short months we had been together I had never asked him that question, never even pondered the thought before now.
Unexpectedly, an impression interrupted my musings.
My eyebrows furrowed as I felt…extreme worry.
Not my own emotion, either.
Jack murmured, “Ezra, maybe you…” He was still chatting, but I didn’t listen.
Dominic? I asked privately, speculating that the little experiment had gone through to him. He probably wouldn’t be thrilled about it, but he wouldn’t be too upset, either, his emotion not entirely reasonable. Plus, he had never done that whole finger-touch-thing to me before and I was planning to ask him to. I would have to tell him how I knew in the first place. But, right now, I had to figure out what was wrong with him. What’s going on?
He didn’t respond, and I started slowing the truck. “Dominic?” I asked both mentally and physically, and Jack glanced in my direction while Ezra stiffened next to me. “Dominic?” I could feel even more worry rushing from him. I shouted mentally and physically, “ANSWER ME!”
I jerked on the brakes when his reply came.
Under attack, he responded quickly. Call the Kings.
Sucking in a harsh breath, I asked both aloud and privately, “Who’s attacking?”
Both men in my cab froze.
No reply.
I screamed as slicing agony hammered through my skull.
Love you, Dominic whispered into the pain.
Deafening silence.
Hands on my head, I sucked air as the pressure inside my skull died suddenly, but a new one began in my chest. My eyes burned, wetting instantly, my hands grabbing my shirt, my chest. “Dominic!” I screamed aloud and privately, true panic, fear, and pain consuming me, my entire body trembling. “Dominic!”
Jack and Ezra were already on their cell phones talking to the Kings, understanding the gist of my one-way conversation, even as I sucked in another breath before yelling in dread. Pure emptiness poured into my soul. I was on the brink of passing out from it but, just as suddenly as the emptiness had filled me, I bowed against the seatbelt, screaming as a rush of magic hit me.
Ezra grabbed me with his massive arm, dropping his cell to jerk the truck into park.
I could barely feel his hands while I was seared.
Cooked alive from an influx of power.
I convulsed.
Shrieked.
Chapter Four
My face soaked with searing tears, Jack and Ezra shouted at me, holding me on their laps in the cab of my truck after they had wrangled our seatbelts off. Powered magic scalded through my chest. I could scarcely keep my eyes open. I couldn’t speak and was barely able to breathe as I continued shivering, crying out through clenched teeth. Only instinct had me keeping my lips over my teeth, my bitty fangs extended.
Trying to keep me contained, Jack fumbled with his cell, yelling into the receiver, “I don’t know what’s wrong with her!”
“Headlights behind us,” Ezra rumbled over my sobs, lifting me against his chest in a bone-cracking hold, his heartbeat accelerated against my cheek.
Vaguely, I heard tires screeching, a car stopping next to us and, only a beat later, Pearl’s concerned voice through the open window. “Is everything alright?”
“No!” Jack bellowed, his voice stressed in bewilderment as I jerked against them, another whimper fleeing past my pinched lips. “We think Dominic was attacked, and something’s wrong with Lily!”
“Oh my God!” Pearl cried. A car door slamming. Heels swiftly clic
king on blacktop.
“Wait!” Ezra hollered, his body predatory still against me. “Pearl, get back in your car!”
A gunshot echoed through the night, vibrating, heavy with implication. I knew the unmistakable, forbidding sound now after taking my weapons classes. Too bad I was in too much damn agony to feel any of the shocked anxiety weighing severely in the cab. I would gladly take that over this torture.
Pearl screamed instantaneously, profoundly suffering, echoing my own heaving cries.
“Fuck,” Ezra rumbled harshly, slipping farther down on the seat, taking me with him as at least five more rounds fired sharply, my truck wobbling to the right, then the left, jerking hard. Almost instantly, more shots erupted, sounding like they hit Pearl’s car. “They took our tires.” Ezra yanked me against him completely, lifting my legs off Jack and ordering him, “Get Pearl. She took a hit to the shoulder.”
I could still hear her crying outside my truck somewhere. Blinking my eyes open, I saw Jack’s eyes glow brown; my eyes stuck on his frightening expression. Power began swirling inside the cab, lifting my hair and taking from me the little bit of breath I could get. He threw the door open, jumping outside and, suddenly, a wall of blue water surrounded him in a tight circle from head to toe. The water moved like a waterfall, but in reverse, a constant rage of liquid rushing upward on the outside and possibly traveling downward on the inside, rotating, but I couldn’t see inside to tell; Jack was completely unseen inside the protection.
“Christ,” Ezra muttered, yanking the door closed as the circular wall of water raced around the front of my truck, a radiant, shiny aqua in my headlights. More shots fired, the noise louder than before, and Ezra smashed me on the seat, covering my body with his. He grabbed for his cell on the floor, and we both heard Pearl cry out in pain, hopefully just from Jack aiding her.
Ezra placed his cell to his ear without dialing out, King Venclaire obviously still on the line, and muttered, “We’re surrounded. Multiple gunshots coming from various locations. Pearl’s been hit, and something’s seriously wrong with Lily.” He paused, listening over Pearl’s and my cries, and the rapid gunfire, then stated quickly, “We’re about five miles out. I think we can make it if you take out the ones closest to your house.” He nodded, listening to King Venclaire as Jack opened the driver’s side door.
All I saw through my narrowed gaze was the wall of shimmering blue water, but I could hear Pearl’s groans from behind it and Jack’s soothing voice as he tried to calm her.
“We’re coming now.” Ezra pocketed his cell, telling the wall of water, “Five miles to the King’s house. We’ll have to run. Can you make it with Pearl?”
A masculine snort sounded. “I can make it, but we need to hurry. The shot was silver and it didn’t exit. Her power’s down.”
Ezra stilled with the news.
I moaned, “Dominic…I can’t…” I didn’t understand it. “I can’t feel him. Gone…and the power…” I sobbed, keeping my face against the heated flesh of Ezra’s neck. “I can’t feel him!”
Silence for a heartbeat, then another round of shots fired, reverberating harshly.
Jack murmured swiftly, “We need to move.”
“Go,” Ezra ordered. “We’ll be right behind you.”
The wall of water dashed out of sight with Pearl sobbing in pain within its depths.
“Hang on,” Ezra ordered softly. “Put your arms around my neck, and hold on tight.”
“I hurt,” I whimpered. “Too much…power.”
“I know you hurt, but my power is helping you right now. Just hang on to me,” he hushed softly, wrapping his arms around me tight and, abruptly, we were flying. At least, it felt like it. I cried out at the initial jarring, but I wrapped my arms around his neck as he blurred into the night in large, zigzagging patterns.
I squinted over his shoulder while he used his Vampire speed, which was infinitely faster than mine, allowing my eyes to glow. Men in hooded red robes were exiting out of the dark tree line on either side of the thin road, carrying shotguns and torches. It was the last thing I saw before Ezra really started running, little more than a blur, the pace dizzying.
Darkness finally took me.
Pacing the formal living room of my biological dad’s house, still in confusing, impressive pain, my jaw — fangs not relinquishing in length — was clenched so hard my teeth were grinding while the tears continued tracking down my cheeks. The place looked like, well, a King’s home. A traditional King’s home with Victorian furniture of ivories and oak, little lamps with dangling crystals, and ivory carpeting that smelled brand new. If my Core didn’t ache so acutely, I would have asked him where his real quarters were, because this sure as hell wasn’t a Vampire’s home. This was a home for political entertaining that would suit all kinds.
A yank of my shirt kept my hands busy. I was a mess of emotions and a bundle of energy. After waking on the couch with King Venclaire watching over me, I had jumped away from him and began my stalking. Going one way toward the mass of Vampire guards — all dressed in black fatigues — he had lining one wall, and then toward him, Ezra, King Fergus, and Jack, who were all covertly watching me and quietly talking together. As if I couldn’t hear them.
Keeping my head down, my wolf riding my tone, I growled, “How much longer?”
Pearl was in another room with King Nelson who was working on her injury. Honestly, I didn’t really care. She wasn’t dead, and she wasn’t going to die, from what I had heard. Right then, all I cared about was Dominic. I kept trying to call him telepathically, but I wasn’t getting a response, and I didn’t appreciate what they were whispering over there.
King Venclaire murmured in a soft, soothing voice, “King Kincaid should be here shortly. We’ll know then. You should sit down.” He had tried his power on me, too, but it hadn’t helped the throbbing inside my Core; his mien had altered to neutrality at that fact.
I shook my head, my hair flying about my flushed face. “Just let me go check.” I glanced to the door, my wolf snarling at the guards moving to block it. “I need to find out what’s wrong with Dominic.” I rubbed at my chest. My Core was bursting with power, so much so that it branded, but there was an empty place too. The spot where Dominic resided.
It terrified me.
“Lily, please sit down,” King Fergus murmured just as gently as King Venclaire, and I couldn’t help the growl my wolf shot in his direction. “You’re going to exhaust yourself more than you already are.” He said this with dried blood splattered all over him.
King Venclaire was also covered in blood, as was Ezra and Jack. Jack had carried Pearl while she was bleeding, so that explained his appearance, but I was betting there were a few less men in red robes out there tonight judging from the others’ stained clothes.
I shook my head again, feeling very much the wolf inside me. “No,” I growled low. “I’ve got,” a yank of my shirt, rubbing my chest, “too much.” A deep breath, a few jumps in place, a shake of my limbs. “There’s too much in me. I need out.”
Both Kings went mute, staring, their countenances the same now: a quiet detachment.
My wolf rumbled a soft growl, my chin tucked down and my eyes glowed. I understood they weren’t going to allow me to leave, so I pivoted, stalking once more.
King Fergus whispered, “That’s not a good sign.”
“What’s not?” Ezra probed, not bothering to keep his voice down, knowing I could hear him and not seeming to care.
“A mate, a wolf,” my biological dad murmured quietly, smoothly.
I turned in my prowl to see King Fergus nodding.
“Quit talking about me as if I’m not here!” My wolf’s growl that exploded from my chest was low, rumbling pure menace, as fear and irritation grabbed hold. A pulse of power shot out from me in my panic, straight at their group. They visibly jerked, and I snapped my glowing gaze to the men at the door. Caged in. “Let. Me. Out!” Another shot of power pulsed from my Core, my magic giving me what I needed
to escape, and the men at the door stumbled, falling to their knees.
The two Kings were swiftly in front of me, while Ezra and Jack crept up behind me.
I gradually crouched, plenty Shifter, a smidge Vampire, as they surrounded me.
King Venclaire held up his hands as I rested on the balls of my feet, one of my hands on the ground in front of me, the other ready to grab someone, my eyes glowing bright. His tone softly hypnotic, he whispered, “Lily, you need to calm down. King Kincaid will be in here in a matter of moments. I can hear his car pulling up the driveway now.” He lifted a thumb over his shoulder where his men were picking themselves up. “I don’t want any of my men hurt so, please, calm yourself.”
I took a delicate breath, managing to sanely spell out, “I don’t like being caged in.” Another deep breath. “Back away.”
As one, all four took a fluid step back.
Gradually rising, I cocked my head and listened. My biological dad hadn’t lied. I could hear King Kincaid’s car on the driveway, but I didn’t say so because it was possibly my Vampire hearing helping me there. I resumed pacing, brushing between Jack and Ezra. They didn’t try to stop me, but they were watching me even more closely now. Whatever. I just wanted Dominic to get his butt in here and hold me tight so I could do the same to him.
Hearing the front door open, I stalled, ready to pounce on Dominic as soon as I saw him. He was seriously going to get an earful. No mate should ever leave the other hanging like this.
I flexed my fingers, shuffling on my feet, eyes glued to the doorway.
King Kincaid and Fi came in to view.
They stopped under the archway of the door.
All oxygen left me.
My feet went flat and I started backing up, shaking my head rapidly.
My heart beat a chaotic rhythm, dread filling me soul-deep. Chest constricting, I gasped for air that didn’t come. I grabbed my throat and my chest, staring at their tear-stained faces.
Appearing as if they had aged a hundred Com years, their bloodshot eyes found mine.
King Hall Page 5