by Susan Illene
“Jerk,” I muttered. I pushed my arms out in an attempt to drive him away. Nik pulled them down and moved closer. I shrunk back into Derrick’s naked chest, feeling caged between the two men.
Nik grinned and grazed his fingers across my cheek. “You bring out the best in me.”
Derrick growled. “Don’t you have something else you should be doing right now?”
Nik turned to view the gathering of sups waiting for him.
“Yes, I do.” Nik nodded at the werewolf. “Thank you for protecting her.”
Derrick dropped his intense gaze to mine.
“It wasn’t for you,” he said. I had to look away—way too much testosterone in this crowd for my liking.
“I know,” Nik replied before going back to face his reluctant foe.
Lucas had been managing Variola during the delay. It took me a moment to realize they had stopped everything to take care of me. Why had they done that? They didn’t need me anymore. My wounds could have been put off until after everything was over. I may have been bleeding out, but not enough to die in the next few minutes. I didn’t know what to think of their behavior. Sups were supposed to be my enemies, but the lines had begun to blur.
Everyone’s attention was drawn to the scene of Nik stepping up to the witch-vamp. Variola stood proud, no longer fighting the compulsion. I supposed she must have dredged up some courage from somewhere.
Nikolas paced around her. “Variola, you surely know the time-honored ritual for taking control of a region. It has always been the same. Though you chose to forgo it with me, I’ll still give you a chance to fight to keep it.”
She didn’t move. Her pride cloaked her like impenetrable armor.
Nikolas waved over one of his supporters, who stood about ten feet away. “Give her your sword. We’ll let her battle for her dubious honor.”
The younger vampire stepped forward and held out the blade, hilt first. Variola stared at it. A small tremor may have shaken her hand as she took the blade. I leaned forward in Derrick’s arms. Nikolas had raised his own weapon. I could see the anticipation written all over his face. Variola adjusted her position into a fighting stance and stuck her chin out. Yeah, she wasn’t cowed yet.
Not so much as a shuffling sound could be heard across the clearing. One moment the two vampires stood still and in the next they were on each other. I couldn’t tell who attacked first. The fight began that fast. They moved in a blur, never staying in one place for long. Neither combatant needed to stop for breath, but I was probably breathing hard enough for both of them.
Minutes passed. The clang of swords striking in rapid staccatos rang out. They didn’t limit themselves to the ground. Both were old and powerful enough to fly. They hovered at least ten feet in the air, dipping and curving as they tried for each other’s weak spots. I began to think the fight might never end, but then they suddenly dropped to the ground. Variola stood clutching her arm. Nikolas had cut through to the bone. It bled for a few moments before healing.
“Is that the best you can do, vampire?” I’d hoped to see her cowed more.
“This is merely a warm up,” Nik flicked his sword. “I wanted you to feel like you were given a chance.”
Variola gave him a condescending look. “Think you have it all figured out, don’t you?”
“All of what figured out?” he asked.
“Why I came here.”
His brows rose. “To steal my territory. That much is rather evident.”
She laughed. “You know nothing, vampire. I was sent here.”
“Oh,” he replied. His eyes glinted. “Who sent you?”
“The same one who killed your sister.”
Shock and anger hit the air so strong anyone could have felt it. Nik glanced at Lucas.
“Tell me who,” he said through gritted teeth. His fangs cut his lips, but he didn’t draw them back.
Variola smiled, giving a glimpse of her own sharp incisors. “I think not.”
Lucas stepped forward and pushed his compulsion. “Tell us who sent you.”
She shook her head. “Don’t bother. It won’t work. The one who sent me is stronger than either of you and she made sure I could never reveal her name.”
My mind spun. Only someone older and more powerful than Lucas could have placed a compulsion he couldn’t break. Nik and Lucas began a wordless conversation I couldn’t read.
Variola took advantage of the distraction and moved forward with a thrust of her sword. I wanted to cry out a warning, but everything happened too fast. Her blade aimed straight for his neck in what could only be a fatal blow. Nik pivoted at the last moment. With a raised arm, he blocked it so that it did no more than graze his skin, but it had been close. In the next moment he swung at her. He didn’t miss.
Her head flew off and landed twenty feet away next to a group of werewolves. The largest of the group stepped forward with a look of disgust and kicked it off to the side. A moment later it turned to dust, along with the body. Her torn leather garments were all that remained.
Nik gave his arm a brief glance, but it had already started healing. Not much of his blood even stained his shirt. Lucas came over and patted him on the back. They appeared to be whispering something to each other but I couldn’t make out the words.
They broke apart and turned to me.
“Did she tell the truth?” Nik asked.
I swallowed, hating to answer. “She told you what she believed to be true.”
He ran a hand through his hair and groaned in frustration.
“We’ll have to look into this,” he told Lucas.
The nephilim nodded.
I wanted to feel bad for Nik. It was his sister we were talking about, but we had more pressing matters that had to be dealt with now. A glance at my watch told me it was almost one o’clock. We were almost out of time.
Chapter Twenty-six
“I’m sorry about your sister, Nik, but we have to save Aniya right now.”
Everyone eyes fell on me.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, frowning.
I outlined what had happened before we came to the mine as fast as I could, not wanting to waste a minute. Derrick, whose arms continued to hold me, tightened in comfort.
“Mel, I don’t think we can get to her in time,” he said close to my ear.
I pushed his arms away and stood. The cold wind struck hard without his warm body close, but I ignored the discomfort. I ignored all the aches and pains. None of them mattered in this moment.
“There has to be a way.”
Yvonne tapped her chin. “Do you know if the deputy had a charm on him to prevent the location spell?”
I reflected back to the scene and clued in on that small detail. “No, he didn’t.”
“Then we need only obtain the materials to place the spell on him.”
I groaned. How were we supposed to do that?
She smiled. “Don’t worry, I know where he lives. If I can get there soon, it will simply be a matter of gathering what I need.”
“That will still take time,” I argued.
“Not if I take her there,” Lucas said. I glanced at him in surprise. He still looked rather bloody and I had to hope Yvonne wouldn’t mind.
“You would do that?”
“I would, but you’ll owe me a debt for it.”
Of course, he wouldn’t do me any favors for free.
“Fine, whatever, but do it fast. Niya only has five minutes left,” I said after glancing at my watch again.
He nodded and turned his attention to Yvonne. “Tell me where you need to go.”
She explained the details and I could see him working them out in his head. Did he have some kind of mystical map in there or what?
After being satisfied he had a lock on the location, he grabbed Yvonne and flashed them away. I began to pace, hoping they didn’t take long. Every minute I glanced at my watch and let out an audible groan. A couple of times someone tried walking up to me, but I put my
hand out to stop them. No one could calm me down and it wasn’t worth letting them try.
With thirty seconds left on my watch, Lucas and Yvonne appeared again. She had the supplies in her hands and set them down to get to work right away. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to how she did it, but my eyes willed her to finish as soon as possible. By the time she found the location, it was five minutes past the deadline and I was shaking with impatience and fear.
This time Lucas offered to go alone and get Aniya, saying he couldn’t take anyone with him since he would need to be able to move her back here. I hadn’t even known he could move a single person with him before tonight. After giving him my assent, he flashed off once again.
When he returned two minutes later, he held my limp friend in his arms. I gasped. She had a gaping wound in her stomach. She still breathed, but who knew for how long. She’d already lost a lot of blood if the deep red coating her faded jeans and cream sweater were anything to go by. I moved closer. Dread was closing my throat at seeing her olive skin with an ashen hue to it. Nik came to stand beside me and examine her as well.
“She has a thready pulse, Mel. Her heart is working too hard. I’m not sure she can be saved,” Nik told me with regret-filled eyes.
“What do you mean she can’t be saved?” I touched her cheek to find it cold. “Your blood healed me. It could do the same for her.”
He shook his head. “You weren’t this close to dying. She is dangerously low on blood and already in shock. If I give her my blood now, it will upset the balance.”
“The balance?” I asked in confusion.
He nodded. “I’m not sure how much you know, but to turn a human into a vampire they must be bled out to the brink of death, and then be fed our blood. She is at that point now and wounded to the degree I would have to feed her a great deal of my blood to heal the wound.”
“Okay,” I said, still not getting it.
“If she lives, Mel, she’ll turn into a vampire.”
I dropped my head, not liking the idea of having to make such a decision for my friend. What if she didn’t want it? There had to be another way.
“Wait,” I looked at Lucas. “Can’t you heal her?”
His eyes roved over Aniya still cradled in his arms and he shook his head. “No, she is too far gone for my skills.”
“But you were able to save Derrick,” I argued.
“He’s a werewolf. His body merely needed a nudge in the right direction to survive. Your friend requires far more than that.”
I turned away, frustrated. Would Aniya hate me for whichever choice I made? Was it right to not even give her the chance? Death was permanent, but if she didn’t want to be a vampire we could deal with that later.
I swung back around.
“Do it.” Resolve strengthened my voice.
“Are you sure?”
I nodded.
“You are aware that this may not work and she could still die,” he warned. “Not everyone makes the transition.”
“They don’t?” I’d known changing into a hybrid was risky, but not that it was for humans. Wanda’s teachings really left something to be desired.
“No, they don’t. The best estimate is about half survive.”
“I don’t understand. Why would that be?”
“No one is sure, but we believe some people are fated to die and their death can’t be cheated. A higher power decides, not us.”
“You mean God,” I stated.
He inclined his head. “That is what some believe.”
Lucas snorted, but said nothing. Nephilim weren’t in the best graces with heaven and didn’t appreciate mentions of “the Higher Power”.
Whatever the odds, she was going to die for sure if we didn’t do something. “I still want you to do it,” I told him. “We have to at least try to save her.”
Nik nodded and took Aniya’s body from Lucas. Her breaths were coming in too light and I felt guilty for delaying with all my questions. After he took care to lay her on the ground, he sliced his wrist for the second time tonight and eased her mouth open. His blood began dripping down between her pale lips.
With his other hand, he massaged her throat, forcing her to swallow. Within a minute, the cut on his wrist closed and he sliced it open again. This occurred several times as he worked to save her. The wound on Aniya’s stomach didn’t change at first, but after agonizing minutes of waiting the skin finally started to knit back together. I let out a sigh of relief.
Nik had paled considerably by the time he thought she’d had enough. One of the werewolves stepped forward and offered him his arm. He bit right into it.
“Will she live?” I asked Lucas.
He shrugged. “There is no way to know at this point. She took his blood well enough and continues to breathe, but the turning process is not easy. Your friend could die at any time in the next three days before she becomes a full vampire. All you can do is wait and see what happens.”
“Thanks for sugarcoating it,” I grumbled.
He lifted his brows. “Would you rather I lie?”
He had a point, even if I didn’t have to like it. Time to change the subject. “What did you do with the deputy?”
A smile twitched at his lips. “He had an unfortunate accident with his gun.”
I gazed at him in suspicion. “What do you mean…accident?’
He gave a light shrug. “His gun went off after I arrived. It happened to be aimed directly at his head when it fired, which was unfortunate.”
Trust Lucas to create an “accident”. The deputy had been under compulsion, and might have been innocent, but that wouldn’t have mattered to the nephilim. He didn’t see things the way I did.
“So what do we do now?”
Nik walked up and answered before Lucas could. “We take back control of my house.”
Sounded like a plan to me.
Chapter Twenty-seven
“Well, this looks interesting.” The familiar voice pulled me out of a comfortable sleep. I cracked an eye open to see Lucas standing over me next to the bed. His arms were crossed, but his lips were quirked in amusement.
“What are you doing in my room, Lucas?” I glared at him.
“Perhaps you should be asking yourself what he is doing in your room, sensor.” He nodded toward the left side of my bed.
I slowly turned my head, not wanting to know what he meant—even if my senses were already telling me. One glance had me leaping from the bed, shouting as I went.
“Nikolas!”
The naked vampire lay there, not far from where I’d been sleeping, with his arms folded behind his head. I could see his pale, muscular chest and a light trail of hair leading lower before the sheet covered him up. His abs were the kind you could bounce a quarter off of and the rest of him looked every bit as hard…and rigid. He grinned at me, not even trying to hide his extended fangs.
I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the visual image he produced. How could a twelve hundred year old vampire have crawled into my bed and I not notice? It was clear I had fallen off my game if this could happen.
“Nik, get the hell out of my bed.” I swept my hand out in a shooing manner. “Now!”
He yawned and gave me an amused smile. “We need to talk.”
I glanced at my watch. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. Since the battle with Variola a few days ago, my sleep schedule had gotten off track. I crossed my arms to glare at him.
“You couldn’t wait until I woke up?”
His eyes dropped to fixate on my chest. My hand shot up to cover the small bit of cleavage I possessed that wasn’t hidden by my tank top, but it only made him grin more. A groan escaped me—it wasn’t like my curves were that impressive. Working out regularly kept me on the smaller side.
I stomped across the room to my overnight bag, grabbed a t-shirt from the top, and yanked it over my head. My glare didn’t faze him. He skimmed his gaze down to my legs, bared up to my thighs thanks to the skimpy length of
my shorts. He wagged his brows.
I huffed in indignation. “Nikolas, eyes on mine. If you must ogle a woman, go do it in Fairbanks.”
He shook his head. “It’s still daylight. For now, you’re the most appealing female around.”
“Go find Kariann, or the other five women staying here right now. I’m not the only one.”
He frowned. “They shooed me away. You’re the last one left.”
I wasn’t sure whether to be offended by being the last one or not.
Lucas cleared his throat. “You want to get to the point of this conversation?”
The vampire and nephilim’s friendship had resumed in the past few days. I hadn’t seen them work things out, but their getting along so well now worried me.
“Oh, right,” Nik jumped up to stand next to Lucas.
I averted my gaze from his naked form to find a pair of my black lacy underwear resting on the floor. I worked at trying to shove it under the bed with my foot. Then I saw the matching bra a few feet away and didn’t think they’d miss me getting rid of that.
“Wait.” I held my hand up. “Give me a chance to shower. Whatever this is about, it can wait until after I’m dressed and had some coffee.”
The two men exchanged looks in another one of their wordless conversations they liked to have. Nik had a glint of amusement in his eyes when he drew his gaze back to me.
“By all means, get yourself fixed up,” he eyed me up and down. “We’ll be out in the living room when you’re ready.”
I nodded and made a shooing motion. “Good, then go. And please, Nik, get dressed.”
Lucas left without a word, but the vampire gave me one more heated glance before strutting away. His back looked as good as his front, I noted with annoyance. He left the door open, forcing me to close it myself.
Since the night of the battle, Emily and I had been staying at Nik’s house. It would have felt like a betrayal to leave my friend to a group of sups she didn’t even know. They had to keep her in the basement where she could be contained until her bloodlust subsided, but I couldn’t bring myself to go back to the cabin. Emily had insisted on staying at the house as well. She’d explained Nik’s friends weren’t anything like Variola’s and that she liked it here. I was too tired to argue or find someplace else for her to go.