“I can open it.” My mate turned on her heel and walked past my sister, stopping briefly at the redhead’s side. “Stay close to me, Hannah. I’ll need to be touching you to really amplify your spell.”
The smaller woman nodded and gave Calliope a brave smile. She couldn’t be that old—maybe mid-twenties. From what I’d been told, her father and sister had both just died, leaving her only the townspeople for family. Though the town seemed to pull together more than I had expected. Everyone helped with the wounded and the children wandering the halls. I’d never seen so many pixies in one place before. Hell, I’d actually never seen so many supernaturals in one place before. I’d definitely never witnessed cooperation on this scale before.
The five of us made our way down one dimly lit stone hallway after another. Calliope led. I jogged ahead a few steps, putting my shoulder to hers for a brief moment. She made a small noise of surprise.
“Please, don’t,” she whispered.
“You’re going to tell me eventually.”
She wouldn’t look at me, and we just kept walking. The footsteps of my sister, the witch, and Jared thumped rhythmically behind us. The minutes stretched, and it seemed like hours passed before we were in the dark tunnel of a hallway again—the one I knew led to the small door.
“Jared.” Calliope spoke, and Jared replied by bursting his hands into flame.
I jumped back from the sudden flare of heat and hissed at the male walking behind me. “Watch it.”
“I wasn’t going to burn you,” Jared shot back.
“It was a bit too close for comfort,” I said, glaring at him again over my shoulder.
“Really, are you two going to argue like a couple of teenage boys?” Asa grabbed my arm and yanked me backward before pushing Jared closer to Calliope.
I smothered a snarl and turned to face my sister. “What the fuck is your problem?”
“My problem is that I need you all to focus. Manda is being held by a psychopath. We are her only hope. If this doesn’t work, that monster will kill her, and I’ll lose my baby forever.”
“If she’s supposed to be Sparky’s mate over there, you’ve already lost her.”
“At least she’ll be free. We could all be free soon if that Lamassu we rescued takes Xerxes down. The palace will be ours again. The entire race will be able to rebuild. There are so few of us left.”
I stopped, ice filling my veins. That was it. Right there. I shook my head back and forth slowly and stared at my sister’s retreating form. The real reason she’d wanted me back. I was merely a building block to recreating the strength of the Djinn race. She didn’t want to forgive me. She just wanted to use me. I’d been a fool for thinking otherwise.
“Godric, what are you doing?” Asa’s voice cut through the anger and disbelief brawling in my head.
“Fuck you, Asa.” I glanced up and started following our small group again.
She made the stupidest little gasp-y noise, but didn’t respond further. It didn’t matter to me. I was going to help save my niece then help my mate save her sisters and probably find a way to rip the throat out of her bastard of a father before finally taking Calliope off to a remote little tropical island and keeping her all to myself—forever.
Steel and wood creaked ahead of me, and I watched Calliope lift the large beam barring the door with a quick flick of her wrist. It rose in the air and softly laid itself on the floor along the wall. The door swung wide, and more darkness lay ahead of us. The Texas night sky was blue velvet and sparked with stars. The night was cloudless, and a thin crescent moon hung low in the sky, barely giving off any light.
I passed Calliope as Asa and I both exited through the door. Calliope closed it behind us and raised her hand against the door, and I heard the grate of metal on the inside. “You’re able to manipulate the bar from the outside?”
“Because I knew where it was and where I needed it to go.”
I reached out, brushing my fingertips along her arm. She tensed beneath my touch and flinched away from me. “Don’t.”
“Why are you pushing me away? Don’t do this to us.”
“I c-can’t. We can’t,” she whispered and hurried back toward Jared and the front of the group, leaving me alone. I could’ve caught her easily, but I let her go. And every step she took sliced away a piece of my heart. I needed her. As a vampire and as a man. No other would ever sate my blood lust. No other would ever soothe the monster inside me like she did. She was my mate. There would never be another. But I could be patient. We had all the time in the world after we were done rescuing everyone else.
My sister gave me an eyeroll and grabbed my hand before I could speak. She teleported and space folded around us in a silent whoosh. I straightened for the landing and held my tongue lashing in favor of absorbing my new surroundings. She held a finger to her lips, and I gritted my teeth. Bitch. I could still sense Calliope, but it was faint. She was so many hundreds of miles away. Neither side of my psyche was pleased that Asa had yanked me along without so much as a heads up.
She pointed through the trees, and I swallowed. The building was huge. Bigger than the castle in Sanctuary by at least four or five times. I had been expecting an army, but there were only a few guards that I could see or sense standing at the main entrance.
“Is there another way inside?” I whispered the question, crouching lower to the ground.
She nodded and wrapped her fingers around my wrist again, teleporting us to another location. When we rematerialized, I could tell by the position of the moon that we had jumped to the opposite side of the building. There was another entrance on this side and only one guard.
“Where is the army? Why isn’t this place more fortified?” I asked, keeping my voice at a whisper in case the guard was a Lycan. I couldn’t tell from this far away, and the wind was still.
“They are marching for Sanctuary,” Asa said, her voice low. “He attacks them at dawn.”
I narrowed my eyes and frowned, holding back an angry snarl. “You don’t think that’s something you should’ve shared before…now?” I grabbed her arm and teleported us back to the street behind the castle.
Jared and Calliope, along with Hannah, stood quietly in the shadow of a smaller building across the street. The three moved toward us, silent and purposeful, except for Hannah. I felt sympathy for her. She’d didn’t deserve to be pulled into this, but my sister wouldn’t take no for an answer. Hannah’s magick was needed. Calliope’s magick was needed. Jared was…I wasn’t sure...but he was here to fight, so I guess that was enough for Asa. She’d deal with his claim on her daughter later. I had no doubt in my mind.
“Well?” Jared prodded first, breaking the silence of the evening. Calliope was close enough to hear, and Hannah stood just behind my Siren—gods, it seemed strange to think of her passively, but she was mine. And I’d be dead thrice over before I let anything come between us…even her fear that our being together would result in my death. It wouldn’t. Victoria had left me after turning me, because she feared what she couldn’t understand. I’d hunted her and torn out her throat, fulfilling the fear and satisfying the need to punish her for stealing my life and family out from under me. I returned the artifacts she’d taken from the palace, from my sister and her husband—our king. But it hadn’t mattered. They’d refused to hear me, taken the returned valuables, and had guards chase me from the front steps.
“A side door. One guard on the outside,” my sister replied.
“How do we even know she’s inside?” Calliope asked, stepping closer, crowding my sister. Asa shifted from sole to sole uncomfortably, but stuck out her chin a second later.
“Xerxes puts everything of value to him in this building. She is there.”
“We’re going into this blind. I don’t like it.” Calliope straightened, folding her arms across her chest.
“This was the deal, Calliope. We help them. They helped us,” Jared said, holding out a hand to Asa. “Let’s do this. Get to blinking, woman.”<
br />
Asa’s mouth parted, but she didn’t respond verbally to the casually given order. I couldn’t help the grin that tugged at the corners of my mouth. The queen of the Djinn reduced to begging and bartering for help from supernaturals she considered beneath her—myself included.
She took his hand, and they disappeared into a vortex. I stepped toward Calliope and Hannah, but nearly collided with Asa when she popped back a second later. She grabbed Hannah’s arm and disappeared with the redhead next, throwing me an annoyed frown, probably because I had yet to take hold of Calliope, much less teleport with her.
“Ready?”
“Once we have Manda, I—”
I nodded. “The second she’s free. I give you my word, Calliope.” My mate’s shoulders relaxed just a hair, just enough to fill my chest with assurance that she believed me. Trusted me. That was the greatest gift I could’ve asked for.
Chapter 28
CALLIOPE
“That means nothing,” snapped his sister. She was standing next to us, tapping her foot on the concrete road. “Words from him are of little consequence.”
Godric turned away from me and snarled at his sister; vampire fangs, red eyes, blood lust, and anger threatened her throat, but I had to give her credit. She didn’t so much as flinch.
My family was screwed up. My father had abused my mother until she’d taken her own life. Then he’d abused me and my sisters, but since we didn’t know how to take our final death, we continued to suffer—lifetime after lifetime. But from what I’d seen so far, Godric was honorable. So honorable that he refused to abandon his sister and niece, even though Asa was despicable toward him. Going to get Manda was a fools’ errand. We would be lucky to get out in one piece—any of us.
Every touch from Godric was genuine. Every glance. Every assurance that even though I pushed him away over and over, he wasn’t going to leave me. He called me his. And I knew he wanted me sexually; every man on the planet wanted a Siren. It was built into our genome to be lusted after, but with Godric, it went further than physical attraction. It delved into the realm of magick and souls and promises that I could never fulfill. It broke my heart to look at him and know I would never be able to have him…not completely. But I certainly didn’t have to stand by and watch his self-righteous, hateful sister beat him into the dirt for a choice he’d made thousands of years ago.
“Godric’s words are sincere. He is genuine. You need to shut up and be grateful he’s helping you at all. Bribe or not, he’s on this mission because he cares.” I reached out and grabbed his hand, savoring the small squeeze before the world folded in around us and we left Asa standing alone in the middle of the dark road. We rematerialized next to Jared and Hannah, who were peering around some shrubs at a massive building.
“Guard still there?” Godric asked, dropping my hand and moving slowly toward the other two. I squelched the momentary pain of loss. I couldn’t stay with him. Pining over how much I wanted to touch him and be near him was irrelevant. I needed to focus on the goals ahead. Ignore my attraction. Ignore my desire.
Save the damned Djinn princess and then get to my sisters before my father did. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened them again, Godric was staring straight at me.
“What’s wrong, Calliope jan?”
Heat crept up my cheeks at his endearment. I hadn’t spoken ancient Persian in centuries, maybe longer, but I knew exactly what he meant by jan—dear. I soldiered through the emotions threatening to gush out of me in the form of tears again. I couldn’t do that, not now. Focus.
“I feel your pain through the blood bond. I’ve hurt you in some way.”
I shook my head. So many things were on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to tell him I missed his touch. That I wanted him to take me away and strip me down and claim me over and over until I couldn’t walk. I wanted to tell him that I didn’t know how a Siren claimed a mate. That my dead mother had failed in that department. And that my father had killed all the other Sirens, leaving no one for us to ask. But mostly, I just wanted to apologize for what I would do once he took me to my sisters. I could only hope that my death would not turn Godric inward, toward the darkness I knew he carried.
“We need to do this now, before someone smells or hears us,” I said, redirecting his attention to the guard. I needed him to not be focused on me. Not right now.
We weren’t mate bonded…at least not that I could tell. I didn’t know what it would feel like, not really. Neither of us had any marks. I didn’t feel him like so many of the others in Sanctuary had described after their mating experience. We hadn’t had sex—well, intercourse. We’d had more than enough sexual interaction, but no consummation. In many species, intercourse was the trigger that started the mate bond. I had no idea what would spark mine.
I inherently knew Godric was my mate. He’d proclaimed it out loud several times over. Everything inside me wept at the path that lay ahead of me. My specialty was giving people what they needed, and Godric needed me. I could see it in every breath, every look, but he also needed to stay alive. And so I would sacrifice myself again, not only to save my younger sisters, but to keep him safe as well. From my father and from my curse.
“I’ll get him. You kill him,” Asa hissed at her brother before disappearing.
“Asa—” Godric lunged, but she was already gone. And back. She had the guard in a chokehold, but he was quickly going to overpower her. Godric snarled and lunged forward again, snapping the man’s neck with a powerful twist of his hands.
I grimaced as the Lycan’s limp form settled on the ground at our feet. No blood. No sound. But there was nowhere to hide him, either. We would have to hope that—
Asa knelt down, took the Lycan’s wrist, and blinked again. She was back a few seconds later.
She brushed her hands back and forth, meeting my gaze with a half-smile. “You didn’t want anyone to see him, did you?”
“Where did you put him?”
“Top of a mountain. He’ll be an icicle in a few moments. Now it’s your turn.”
“She’s talking about the ward right inside the doorway,” Hannah said, her voice soft but confidant. “It’s a not only a teleportation barrier. It’s an alert wall. We need to take it down completely to keep it from sending out a warning.”
“Wait. Won’t they still know we’re here if we take it down?” I glanced up at the looming gray building and felt the desire to growl. There were fucking five of us, and we couldn’t see a damn thing inside. We didn’t even know where Manda would be. “This is the stupidest pl—”
“They will know someone took it down, but they won’t know from where,” Hannah answered. “We have to get in quickly after this. I’m going to astral project inside and see if I can locate Manda. I’ll need extra mojo from you, Calliope.” She glanced at Asa and Godric. “I need one of you to piggy-back on the ride so we can jump straight to her when I do find her.” She held out her hand, waiting.
“I’ll keep watch. You follow the witch, Asa,” Godric said, taking a step backward. “I don’t let other people do shit with my brain.”
I swallowed a half-laugh. Weren’t we the pair? Both capable of various kinds of mind control, and neither of us able to use it on the other. Quite sure that joke wasn’t lost on Fate, either. She was having a fine old time at our expense.
Hannah traced a circle in the dirt and sat in the center. “I need you both inside the circle with me.” She gestured to Asa and then to me. “This should only take a minute, maybe two. Time warps inside this spell. We’ll be able to cover more ground than humanly possible in a very short amount of time.”
I stepped over the line and sat on her right. Asa mirrored my movements, taking a seat on Hannah’s left. Jared and Godric took up positions on either side of the circle.
“Faster the better, Hannah,” Jared said, rolling his neck with a growl. His eyes flared with the orange of his phoenix’s flame, but he didn’t shift.
Hannah nodded, closed her eyes,
and raised her hands to the dark sky. A murmuring of words fell from her lips. Old Latin. Most of it, I understood, but some of it was spoken too fast for me to comprehend. Then suddenly I felt the pull of the spell. The need for more. Hannah’s magick reached out for mine, and I released it, giving the witch everything I could.
The sensation of being weightless enveloped me, and I closed my eyes as she syphoned away my magick. I didn’t know how much time passed before the spell broke and I gasped for air, falling backward to the ground.
“W-what happened?” I moaned, rolling to my side. I struggled to open my eyes, fighting through one of the worst hangovers ever. Head splitting. Muscles aching. Were we still outside? Had the spell worked?
“We’re going now. Manda doesn’t have time.” Asa’s voice rang through the pulsing in my head. I watched the Djinn female bend toward Hannah, but before I could even think about grabbing the witch’s other arm to prevent the jump, they were gone.
Godric snarled a curse at his sister, and Jared yelled at Godric. “Follow her! Just take me now.”
“I’m not leaving Calliope out here,” Godric said, his voice getting closer to me. I blinked my eyes again, trying to get them to focus on the blurry shapes of the two men now standing over me. I could smell them more than I could see them. Godric with his ocean scented skin and Jared who always smelled a little like smoke and ash.
“You fucking take me first!” Jared yelled, reaching a hand out over my body. Godric clasped Jared’s arm…and both men disappeared from my side. The darkness around me seemed much darker after that. Empty. Quiet.
I stared up at the sky as my vision cleared. Once the stars stopped spinning, I rolled to my side and sat up, using both hands to push myself from the grass.
A small hand touched my shoulder. Then space folded around me as I was sucked into a Djinn vortex. We landed in a dimly lit gray room. A table and a few chairs sat at one end and a couch at the other. But what really turned my stomach was the scent of blood, semen, and complete and utter despair.
My Vampire Knight (Sanctuary, Texas Book 6) Page 14