by Cecy Robson
Leathery wings slapped our faces. Demon children the size of infants with hideous yellow fangs flew around us, their beady red eyes glowing in the darkness and drool dripping from their mouths. There were so many, I could barely see in front of me. “Shayna. Shayna!”
“Ceel, help me!”
With a primal scream, Emme scissored her hands out, parting the flock of winged demons with the might of her force. Shayna writhed on the floor, the demons stripping the muscle from her bones. She lifted her head, terror gripping her face. “Get up, Shayna,” I told her. “You need to get up!”
Emme lost it upon finding our sister. She let loose her rage and the extent of her power, tearing the demon children in half and crushing their skulls. Shayna squirmed, forcing her upper body up and clasping her mutilated hand tight in mine. I wrenched her to her feet, calling to Emme as I rushed Shayna out the door.
Shayna’s hands slapped against her limbs and belly, disbelief clouding her features as her body became whole. Emme followed us into the hallway, her cheeks flushed with anger and effort. “Where’s Taran?” Shayna asked.
I yanked the doorknob free and passed it to Shayna. “I don’t know. Find her.”
As Shayna ran, calling for our remaining sister, the knob elongated into a sharp deadly spear. “Taran, we’re coming. We’re coming, T!”
It wasn’t until we rounded another corner and Shayna kicked open a moldy door that I heard Taran. I’d been brave and tough, but I positively froze when I met Anara face-to-face. The Elder who’d robbed me of my baby loomed above us in his humanoid wolf form with my sister tight in his grip.
Taran dangled in the air, sobbing as Anara crushed her zombie limb between his monstrous fangs. Her skin had completely bleached, her eyes had sunk into her skull, and sickly blue veins branched out across her body. And yet that wasn’t the sole cause of her torment.
She may have been blind, but her attention was trained on the far corner of the room where Gemini and Genevieve were making love. It wasn’t just sex they were sharing. Taran could have handled that better. The way Gemini held her, and the way Genevieve met his stare, more than a physical act was taking place.
I wrenched away and forced myself in Taran’s direction, knowing I should act, knowing she needed me to help her fight Anara. But his presence impeded my movements and it was our younger sisters who reached her first.
Shayna raced forward, grunting as she punctured Anara’s chest with her spear. He roared, releasing Taran to slump on the floor. Emme sprinted forward and lifted Taran with her force, away from the swipe of his deadly claws.
Anara roared again, ripping the spear from his chest and dropping on all fours. The thing was, this wasn’t Anara. It was Tura, it was all Tura. And now that I had my sisters, I had to call for the owner of the last remaining voice.
“Aric!”
The voices haunting me were right; I wasn’t alone. I had my sisters, and now my mate arrived in a blast of white light.
Aric’s giant gray wolf form soared into Anara when Anara snapped his fangs inches from Shayna’s throat. My sisters realized what was happening and lunged forward, beating on Anara and yanking at his fur with their bare hands—even Taran, whose grisly appearance melted away with each strike.
Shah materialized in my palm when I opened my hand. He had no voice of his own, and no real way of speaking. But he had sent the voices to me so I’d know how to fight. And now he wanted to fight, too. So I ran forward, leaping into the air and bringing Shah down against Anara’s snarling face.
The entire room exploded, sending me gliding along the snow, right in the middle of the were-vampire smackdown taking place on Den grounds. They stopped their onslaught. But it wasn’t because of me, or my sisters, or Aric sprawled in all directions.
It was because Tura in his corporeal tiger form had materialized before us and he wasn’t pleased with what I’d done. With roars and hisses that shook the ground, every preternatural rushed forward and attacked. Even the witches aimed their magic at Tura. They wanted him to die.
Except for one.
Chapter 29
Delilah’s eyes morphed from their light blue shade to that murderous coal black. Her talisman shimmered as she held out her hand and called forth her power. Shah, who had fallen mere inches from my hand, scooted across the ravaged field and into Delilah’s hand.
I scrambled forward. “No!”
Tura’s giant paw crashed down on my chest when I tried to lurch to my feet. He held me down until Aric’s beast form snapped his bone at the joint. I shoved the limp paw away and bolted down the mountain to where Delilah had disappeared.
The sweeping branches of pines smacked against my face. Delilah glided around the trees with her power, circling the pines and trying to muddle her scent.
She was fast, but so was I, and my tigress demanded blood for her betrayal.
The ground rumbled beneath my feet when I’d almost reached her. Roots as thick as arms broke through the frozen ground, reaching for me. I cut left and right, trying to avoid the tangle of roots while Delilah thickened the barricade to slow me down. I knew what she was doing; she was buying time to build her magic and lock her claim on Shah.
The wall of threading roots grew taller and denser. But if she didn’t think a tigress could climb, she was dead wrong.
My front claws protruded; so did the ones at my feet. They punctured my shearling boots, shredding the leather and helping me scale the wall. I flattened against it as Delilah spat a curse, followed by another.
One sliced into my shoulder, releasing a stream of warm blood. It burned as it cut down to the bone, but the pain I felt only fueled my rage. I reached the top of the wall where she was levitating and pounced, bringing her down to the ground with my weight. I shifted before we hit the frozen earth and surfaced in time to watch her speed away and back toward the clearing.
I sprinted after her. In the distance I heard Tura’s agonized roars. The good guys were tearing him apart. But if Delilah was returning there, instead of fleeing, it was for a reason. And the reason surely wasn’t good.
“Aric!” I called. “Delilah’s headed right toward you!”
Stakes speared out of the ground, puncturing my foot. I screamed, but managed to keep my wits and fall to the side, avoiding the field of stakes blocking my path. With a grunt and an even louder swear, I yanked the stake imbedded in my foot and backed away, racing along the rows of stakes with my bleeding foot until I found a section narrow enough to shift through.
I surfaced in front of the last of the stakes. Lightning struck as I hobbled in the direction of where the fight had begun. The sound that followed was unearthly. A screech, like hell’s fury itself, cut through the forest, forcing the sweeping firs to bend away from its rage.
My attention shot upward to where Delilah floated over the treetops screaming an incantation in Spanish. Particles of gray mass shaped like the silhouette of a tiger soared upward, despite the leaping weres in beast form snapping their jaws at it and trying to bring it down.
The fangs failed to connect, likely because what remained of Tura was quickly dissolving into the air. But what remained was important enough for Delilah to seek. In other words we were screwed if it reached her.
I broke through trees and into the clearing, stopping short between Aric’s wolf form and Misha. Both were injured and bloody, but that didn’t compare to the rage cloaking their auras. “She’s offering herself as a vessel for Tura,” Misha hissed.
“Why?”
“To absorb what remains of him, combining her power, Shah’s, and that of hell itself.”
Of course, because we weren’t screwed enough.
Genevieve wasn’t having it, and neither was her coven. The women circled Genevieve, who raised her staff and aimed their collective magic at Delilah. “Muori!” she yelled, throwing the ultimate death curse.
A thin current of gold light as bright as the sun shot through Tura’s dissipating shape and right at Delilah. She blocked
it, using Shah to absorb the curse and rebound it. Everyone scattered, but not everyone survived. A were and several witches fell dead while two of Misha’s vampires exploded into ash.
Aric and I edged around the cluster of boulders he’d dragged me behind. “Goddamnit,” he yelled, his now human form pulling me to him.
Tura had just reached Delilah when Genevieve screamed another spell. “Separa!” She was trying to keep them from joining. Her hold didn’t last, but it didn’t have to. It was long enough for what remained of Tura to dissolve into the breeze.
Delilah screamed and raised Shah over her head, calling his power and hers. She was crazed with fury, and determined to make us all pay.
She thought Shah now belonged to her. I wasn’t so sure and I sprinted out into the open to find out. I ignored the pain from my injured foot as I ran and dodged the death curses Delilah flung like beads. When I reached the clearing’s center I stretched out my open palm. “Shah!” I screamed.
Shah materialized in my hand. I clutched him to me as Aric tackled me and rolled us away from a massive death curse that caved in the ground where I’d stood. He wrenched me behind a stand of trees in time to see Taran charge forward and launch a funnel of blue and white fire from her zombie limb. Delilah fell shrieking when Taran’s blaze struck her core. She slammed to the ground, the protective shield she’d gathered around herself the only device that spared her bones from breaking and saved her from sudden death.
What remained of the coven pounced on her and subdued her with their power. I didn’t move right away, too stunned that we were alive and shocked that Shah had actually come to me. I supposed I was right; the little guy was done being used. “Thank you, Shah,” I told him quietly.
Someone tossed Aric a pair of sweatpants. He yanked them on, his stare trained on Delilah as he then led me forward. Two witches held her by her wrists with their magic, allowing Genevieve to glide to her and easily yank the talisman from her neck. Genevieve whispered something over the stone, crumbling it to dust, then dropped the simple metal chain to the ground.
We watched Genevieve step back and point her staff at Delilah. “Rivela,” Genevieve commanded. Reveal.
My sisters gathered around me, their anger escalating as Delilah’s deep wrinkles faded, her plump form thinned, and her hair darkened as black as her stare, falling in waves to her shoulders. She couldn’t have been older than me. But that wasn’t the only problem, and my sisters saw it, too. The witch before us was an exact twin of the one we killed during a bloodlust epidemic raging through Tahoe.
Everything seemed to slow. “What the hell?” I rasped. I looked back at Taran, who initially met my face with shock. But then something changed in her expression, almost at the same moment it changed in mine.
It was then my world as I knew it unraveled.
And I realized exactly why.
Taran stumbled forward, her eyes shimmering with rage and clarity that caused a fear I’d never seen in her. She locked her stare onto the witch’s murderous eyes—their color so dark, they appeared absent of irises. “Are those similar to the eyes from your vision?” I asked, my voice shaking.
Tears streaked Taran’s face, and she nodded. She knew I understood. But the revelation, and the weight of its significance, did nothing to spare us. It lashed out like a whip and caused me to break down. Aric wrapped his arm around me. He didn’t realize why I wept. No one did except for my sisters. “You’re the daughter of the aunt who cursed us? Aren’t you?” I asked the witch.
Koda relinquished his hold on Shayna and stormed forward, wrenching the witch up by the throat before she could speak. “Answer her,” he growled before flinging her to the ground.
The witch clutched her throat, spitting up blood. The other witches didn’t care; at Genevieve’s order, they hauled her back to her feet. Magic streamed from Genevieve’s staff. “I believe you owe the Wird sisters an explanation.”
If Genevieve’s magic didn’t force her to speak, Aric’s protective hold over me made it clear he’d get her to confess by any means necessary. “I am Rosaliana, daughter of Griselda,” she said, raising her chin. “And sister of Perladina, whom you robbed me of.”
“We could say the same,” Taran snapped. “After all, your fucking mother had our parents killed!”
Taran was in hysterics when she turned to us. “Those were Griselda’s eyes haunting my dreams.” She swallowed hard. “Do you know what this means?” she asked me, although she already knew the answer.
I nodded, fighting to hold back my tears so I could speak. “Griselda was the one who sent those men to kill us. But they found Mom and Dad first.” I released a breath. “That’s why you could see Mom and Dad’s murder in their reflection. Griselda was the one behind it all along.”
Taran lost what remained of her composure. Gemini hauled her to him. She didn’t fight him, clinging to him as she broke down. Koda gathered both Shayna and Emme, his hulking body trembling from the strength it was taking to hold back his wolf. Bren and even Danny had to be subdued by the Elders. “Let her finish speaking first,” Martin whispered tightly.
“You weren’t supposed to live!” Rosaliana accused, her voice quivering as her focus traveled to my sisters and me. “All of you were supposed to die. The evil is coming, and he must be allowed to come!”
“No,” Genevieve said quietly. “Celia and Aric’s children will be strong enough to stop him, just as Destiny herself has proclaimed.”
Genevieve didn’t know I couldn’t bear children. But I wouldn’t admit that now, especially if it meant granting Rosaliana even a shred of peace.
“She needs to die, Genevieve!” Rosaliana screamed at her. “They all do. The darkest one has promised unimaginable power to anyone who stops them.”
Genevieve’s perfect face remained impassive yet deadly. Aric was all ire. He released me and prowled toward Rosaliana.
Genevieve intercepted him, placing her staff firmly on the ground in front of him. The base of the staff stirred with pulses of magic and ripples of gold smoke swept along the dirt. Her eyes sparkled, not with their typical wisdom and beauty, but with something darker, deadlier. In a way it seemed wrong for someone so lovely to look so dangerous.
Her voice remained calm, but her magic screamed for vengeance. “No, Aric. Rosaliana is my responsibility. She dies by my hands.”
Rosaliana’s head dropped as she shrieked with rage.
Aric ignored her and shoved his face into Genevieve’s. It may have seemed odd for Genevieve to appear so deadly, but it wasn’t for Aric. My wolf did lethal well. A hideous growl built from Aric’s core and rumbled like the angered Greek gods of ancient myth. “She orchestrated the torture and attempted murder of my mate and her sisters. It’s my damn right to kill her. I will kill her, and if you get in my way—”
I tore Rosaliana’s arm off her body, just like I would a leg from a well-done turkey. The bone snapped cleanly from her shoulder and the muscles and ligaments ripped like wet paper. She screamed. Loudly. The witches who were holding her stepped away, fast.
Blood splattered like a sprinkler as I literally beat her with her own goddamn arm. With each blow I thought of how she caused me to relive my abuse and experience Aric’s death. Her gurgled screams annoyed me. The pain I inflicted couldn’t possibly compare to Shayna’s blade piercing through my sternum.
Why was she yelling? Had she smelled her mate’s skin burn at the hands of her sister’s magic? Had she witnessed her sisters’ torment? Had she experience their nightmares?
No. I had. I’d suffered. And so had those I most loved.
How dare she try to crawl away when I couldn’t escape Emme’s telekinetic grip around my throat or the countless attacks from those I trusted. Because of her, I was almost raped by the man I loved. Because of her, I feared my lover. Because of her so many had perished.
After a few more blows, my weapon became useless. There’s only so much you can do with a severed limb once all the bones have been shattered. Besides
, I’d tired of her screeching. I tossed the arm aside and punctured her sternum with my claws.
My methodical actions surprised me. It was as if I was performing a simple task like dusting. But instead of spray, wipe, spray, wipe, I separated her rib cage with my hands and ripped out her heart without bothering to glance at her face. It beat one time in my hand before I tossed it over my shoulder.
Rosaliana’s heart landed with a wet thud by Genevieve’s feet. Genevieve stiffened. To her credit she didn’t so much as cringe, although I could tell she very much wanted to.
I wiped my hands as if they’d been merely coated with dust. “There. That settles that.”
Genevieve’s mouth dropped open. Aric crossed his arms. He watched me closely but said nothing. My freak-out disturbed them both. Not that I could blame them; that was a bit mental even for me.
I stormed away then, away from the clearing and toward the forest, stomping along the snow with more noise than my feet had ever made. I continued walking through the dense trees until I came upon a tiny brook. I fell into it on my hands and knees, weakened, exhausted, and disturbed by my actions.
The water was ice cold, yet surprisingly refreshing. It felt good to feel something other than pure, unadulterated hate. As much as my life had sucked, I never truly hated anyone until Anara forced his way into my life. Since his death, I’d absolutely convinced myself I could never hate so deeply again…then Rosaliana and Tura came along.
Who else would come?
I washed my hands and face and stared at my reflection in the water until the tiny fragments of Rosaliana’s tissue and bits of clotted blood polluted the clear brook. When I finished, I sat on the edge and hugged my knees. My jeans were soaked with water, blood, and God only knew what else. Yet I ignored the chill of the approaching night.
It was a long while until I actually allowed myself to think. I had survived. Again. But although my inner beast was a cat, I didn’t believe I had nine lives to live.