by Michele Hauf
Chapter 17
Six unarmed vampires? No challenge to him. They’d been going at it for a bit. One vampire would charge, and Severo would strike at his shoulder or deliver a roundhouse and thrust him off him.
He was rolling on the ground now with a snarling beast of a longtooth, its long fangs bared. A bite from a vampire would piss Severo off, but it couldn’t change him.
On the other hand, he’d never experienced a vampire bite. It would leave a permanent mark. And that was the last thing Severo wanted on his body. A vamp bite was a stigma he’d never bear.
The longtooth twisted Severo’s arm around behind his back and yanked sharply, tearing the muscles. Severo could endure it. He needed a moment to flip and…yes. On his back, he struck his opponent in the chest with his heels and sent him flying.
Darkness had fallen, and the trees were silhouetted against the gray sky. Now two vamps charged him.
“Have at me,” Severo muttered.
He could take them. For now. But the werewolf was beginning to rage. Then the stupid bastards had better run.
Surprisingly, none had tried to bite him yet. Odd. It was the vampires’ best defense, weakening their opponent through blood loss.
What kind of idiots had Elvira sent after him?
And only six? Perhaps she wanted to toy with him. Give him a preview of the war yet to come.
Or maybe she needed to wear him down. The obvious reason was she wanted him alive for something.
He caught a charging vamp about the neck with a vertebra-crunching swing of his own. The vamp yowled, but his partner knocked Severo off balance by kicking his ankles. He hit the ground with a growl. Spitting blood from his mouth, he rolled to all fours and decided the werewolf had been kept at bay long enough.
* * *
Three more vampires had been destroyed in the arsenal. Bella couldn’t think clearly about how she’d done it. But she now knew that holy water to the eyes was no way to go. The vamp’s face had peeled away.
Kicking off her high heels, she ran out as fast as she could, though she had no idea what to do, where to go. Adrenaline sharpened her senses. In the garage, the odor of gasoline seemed to hang in the air. In the house, the smell of the wax Heloise used on the floor rose in invisible waves. And her perfume seemed far too strong.
As she checked the front door, her hands shook and she dropped the stakes twice. It was locked, completely secure. She stepped back and scanned the three-story foyer. The huge skylight windows lining the upper story were unbroken.
Where had the vampires gotten in? If not through the front door or the garage…
“Heloise.” Bella hadn’t heard the housekeeper, and surely the commotion would have alerted her. Heloise insisted on using the servants’ entrance near the laundry room, much as Severo wished she’d come through the front door. “Heloise!”
She ran for the laundry room, praying the housekeeper had had the sense to hightail it to safety at the first sniff of vampire. Or at least hide.
Bella had no idea if faeries could defeat a vampire, but if they possessed any skill against the threat, she doubted that squat and kind Heloise had the ability to keep back anything larger than a dragonfly.
Hugging the pistol, which was loaded with three wooden bullets, to her chest, she skidded up to the laundry room doorway. And fell to her knees in horror.
A clear, thick substance pooled about Heloise’s head. Her throat had been torn out, and it leaked more clear liquid. An unfolded bedsheet, still clenched in her hand, soaked up the stuff.
Reaching out and squelching the need to scream, Bella bent over and gripped her gut. “Don’t do this. Be strong.”
She examined the brownie’s neck. The clear liquid must be faerie blood, because it sparkled. Had to be. “Those bastards. She was an innocent.”
Standing, her back skidding across the wall, she hugged the pistol to her chest and checked both ways down the hallway. It was clear.
“I have to get to Severo.”
Nodding, because nothing else made sense at the moment, Bella ran upstairs to the living room.
Where three vampires waited.
“She’s mine,” growled the tallest, sporting a black Mohawk. A fang glinted brightly at the corner of his mouth. “Secure her!”
Bella fired, but the wooden bullet went astray, missing the vampires and ricocheting against the wall. The picture of Severo and Aby cracked and dropped to the floor.
Two vampires charged, and before she could again squeeze the trigger, the pistol was pulled from her hand. Her shoulders stretched painfully as, one to each side of her, they wrenched her arms behind her back.
“Nice,” the Mohawked leader said as he approached. “And brave.”
Bella spat at the vampire. In punishment she took a knee to her spine. Pain shot through her skeleton and she yowled.
“Gentle, boys,” said the leader. The dark vampire’s eyes were pale blue, and the pupils large.
Bella thought, for an odd moment, that his eyes appealed to her. She stopped struggling as he reached out and stroked her hair.
“Severo’s mate,” he drawled. “She smells like dog, doesn’t she?”
The two vampires grunted.
“Let me go, and I won’t sic my dog on you,” she warned.
“I’m not at all frightened, green eyes,” replied the leader.
The vampire loomed over her, his face close to hers, as if to sniff her, as Severo often did. And yet he maintained the stare that Bella could not look away from. Something in his eyes…provocative. Sensual.
“That’s right. Look all you like. What do you see in my eyes? Freedom? Pleasure?”
Her mouth dropping open, Bella felt her eyelids flicker. Part of her wanted to kick the vampire in the nuts. He was in the right position. But a bigger part of her wanted to melt, to succumb.
“No, no, don’t look away. It’s only going to get better, pretty one.”
Brilliant white fangs descended over the vampire’s lower lip. So pretty. And long. They would sink deeply into her flesh.
And she wanted it.
* * *
As he began to shift, and his shoulder bones stretched and his flesh thickened and grew, the whip’s icy lash of cold steel wrapped about Severo’s biceps. The rigid yet flexible steel locked tightly, scraping the leather jacket. A jerk of the whip brought him to his knees, stopping the shift to werewolf before his human features began to fade.
He gripped the steel lash. It burned, eating through his palm. With a hiss, Severo dropped it. Not steel, but silver. In a flexible whip?
He struggled, but the silver drained his energy. Heaving himself forward, he was thankful for the leather jacket. It kept the silver from touching his flesh, but the whip was sharply edged, so he knew soon it would cut through the jacket.
If he didn’t struggle, he could survive this.
The air darkened. Vampires crowded about him. He could not see who held the whip, holding him captive. There were more than a dozen now. All men. Their scents made him want to retch, and he was fast losing strength. Longtooths wielded daggers and pistols, but they weren’t pointed at him.
Bella’s gorgeous smile flickered in his thoughts. He jerked a look toward the house. More lights were on. She was home? He must hold back these vampires and keep them from her.
Unless they had already gotten to her?
“Severo.” The gang of vamps parted and Evie strode through the grass. A feat, surely, considering the open-toed spike heels peeking out at the bottom of her black gown. “We meet again.”
“You think this will hold me back?” he growled.
“Appears to be doing the trick. Ian Grim stole it from the Highwayman for me. Nice, isn’t it?”
The Highwayman? Christ, that was Aby’s husband. Had they harmed him? What of Aby?
He fought against the powerful silver. The bladed edge of the whip cut leather. He’d once trusted Ian Grim. Until he’d learned the man was a nasty witch who should be label
ed a warlock for his crimes against the faith he claimed.
“Careful, dear. Wouldn’t want to bring on your death as you kneel, humbled, before a crew of vampires,” the vampiress hissed.
A few longtooth assholes chuckled.
Humbled, yes. But never defeated.
“I thank you for the show,” she said. Ruby blood glinted at Elvira’s throat, a thick droplet that seemed suspended there without a chain. “I could have watched my boys go at you all night. You can’t be put back, can you?”
“So you came to watch me perform, is that it? A carnival freak show for the biggest freak of them all? Bring out your weapons. I’ll match them all.”
“Oh, so brave and proud, my bruised little puppy dog.”
He snarled and snapped at her. A seam of his jacket tore but the silver did not touch his skin.
With the silver containing him, he could not complete the transformation. Instead, he was suspended in midshift. His shoulders and neck had thickened, as had his legs and torso, but the bones had not yet changed. Nor had he the weaponlike talons, which could cut the whip as if it were made of ribbon.
She leaned forward, coming face-to-face with him. The foul scent of her tweaked at Severo’s senses. And yet he’d once remembered her scent as the perfume of his savior when he’d been held captive by her parents.
“I could remove you from this earth right now.” She glanced aside to one of the vampires who’d eagerly stepped forward. “Back, all of you. He’s mine.”
“He’s mine.” Severo chuckled lowly and shook his head. “It’s been so long since I’ve heard that from you, Evie.”
“Yes.” She stroked his brow, and he nudged her away, but she persisted, placing her fingers to his cheek. The edges of her nails were as sharp as a blade. His flesh opened and blood trickled down to his beard. “You know I was the only reason you were never bitten while my family owned you.”
Yes, he knew that. Evie had been the one to plead with her father to save the young werewolf for her. She had wanted him. And her father had given him that lecherous sneer and had bent to his daughter’s whim.
“So will you finally have that bite you’ve been dying for?” he asked.
For a werewolf, the stigma of a vampire bite was great. For while the bite would not turn the werewolf into some sort of vamp/wolf hybrid, it would increase the werewolf’s blood hunger immeasurably. He would crave blood, which usually resulted in hunting humans to satisfy the need for a fix. Other werewolves could smell the taint on the inflicted wolf and would sooner kill the bastard than suffer his pitiful disgrace.
“Go ahead,” Severo said in defiance. “I will wear your bite with pride, knowing I have made your family pay for the travesties visited upon my own.”
She crossed her arms under her breasts and sighed. Taking in the surroundings, she twisted her head about and then said, “I understand what you did was just.”
“Do you? Then why this war now?”
“Because you know revenge never ends.” Splaying her fingers before her, Evie observed the blood on her nails. “One man takes revenge for the sins against his family, which then breeds new revenge, to be enacted upon his own. It continues on endlessly, Severo.” With the tip of her tongue, she licked the blood from her nails. She had a discerning look on her face. Obviously it wasn’t enough blood to serve any need. “You’re not so foolish that you believe this can ever be finished?”
“It will end when one of us dies,” he said briskly.
“Just so. You want to kill me now?”
He swallowed and jutted his chin. Were the silver whip not about him, he could swipe her with a taloned paw and take her head from her body. But it didn’t feel right.
Truly, revenge only spawned further violence.
“Do it, then,” he said, tilting his head aside to expose his neck. “Mark me, and take leave knowing you have the satisfaction of this gauntlet.”
“Brave werewolf.”
She leaned into his neck. The warmth of her nose slid down his tense muscles. The pass of her finger along the jugular tickled. Would she murder him?
“Over the years you’ve walked a wide path around me when you could have easily slain me,” she whispered, so others would not hear. “I offer you the same regard.”
Her eyes glinted with unnatural light, a silvery shard of hunger. “I wish you no harm physically. My mark would mean little for one so proud and one who walks alone. Were you in a pack, it would be different. I’d drink you until you moaned for me to satisfy you.”
She spoke truths. A vampire mark would mean little to him now—unless he ever wished to start a new pack. Should she bite him, he would feel it as a human would. As an intense orgasmic draw at the core of his being, one that commanded he submit.
The idea of succumbing to this bitch’s persuasion brought bile to his throat.
“Besides—” Elvira tilted up his chin “—there’s another who’ll wish to take a bite out of you soon enough.”
She propped her hands at her hips. The pale globes of her breasts were the only discernible shape on her black-cloaked figure. “Come on, boys. Our work here is finished.”
Turning, she marched off, her sycophants in tow.
The whip dragged across his shoulders, slicing his jacket and jerking him forward to the ground. He landed, digging his fingers into the pummeled grass and clutching dirt.
Severo could only repeat the words she’d said over and over until he understood them.
…another who’ll wish to take a bite out of you…
“Bella!”
* * *
Rage twisted Severo as he made a quick shift. Within moments, the werewolf howled out its anger. Vampires had hurt it. Yet though it could sense that they were close, it did not seek to track them.
A stronger scent drew it into a loping race across the field, toward the house.
The patio door was smashed in. The granite coffee table lay on the patio flagstones, on top of the shattered glass.
The werewolf charged across the debris. Glass shards pierced its paws, yet it did not slow down. Barking at the fierce cuts to its flesh, it trotted into the living room.
A thin streak of crimson ran across one couch cushion. The werewolf knew that scent. It was tainted with cloves. The scent briefly calmed it. Her. Its mate. Where was she? Was she harmed?
Calm turned to rage.
Rushing through the kitchen, it followed a trail of broken dishes and a crack in the wall where a force must have punched through.
Moving quickly, it took the steps downstairs, scenting blood so strongly, it growled and punched the walls as it made it to the laundry room.
Not a wolf or vampire, but not a human, either.
Not your mate.
It loped upstairs. Closing its eyes, it twisted its neck, scenting the air. Longtooths. Three of them dead. Others, no longer in the house, had left a scent trail that led toward the front door, which hung on one hinge.
Another scent grabbed at it. Mate.
Down the hall.
Inside the room with a bed the werewolf found her. The limp, bloodied body of its mate lay across the tousled white sheets.
A howl birthed from its core and vibrated through its entire being.
* * *
Severo shook off the sharp tingles of the shift and became instantly alert on the floor before the bed.
He clutched his foot and gripped the glass shard that had penetrated all the way through the top of his foot. Growling as he pulled it out, he tossed it aside. Blood spilled from his foot, but he gave it no mind.
He spied a body on the bed—and let out a cry.
Clenching a fist, he wondered if Elvira’s minions had finally done what they’d set out to do that night of the chase. Please, they must not have raped her. He would tear those vampires limb from limb, and then… But no, she’d been placed on the bed. Perhaps she had not been violated, after all.
She moaned, and he lunged to the bed and leaned over her. “Bella
, I’m here.”
“I did it. Killed…vampires.” Her voice cracked and her head fell back as he lifted her by the shoulders.
A pile of ash on the other side of the bed startled him.
“Good girl. You got them. I’m sorry. I don’t know how they made it through the wards. I was outside. There were so many of them. Bella, you’re bleeding.”
He reached to flick on the lamp. Just leaning over her, filling his senses with her blood, sickened him. He should have been inside to protect her. What hell had she gone through while he was out batting around vampires?
What he’d thought a head injury was quickly revealed to be neck wounds when the light gleamed across her side. Thick, viscous blood glittered. It had begun to coagulate, but there was so much, he couldn’t tell if she’d been slashed or stabbed.
His heart knew it hadn’t been a weapon of steel that had harmed her.
Fingers shaking, Severo touched the blood. He winced when the nature of the two wounds was revealed. Teeth marks.
Gathering her into his arms, he rushed into the bathroom and deposited her in the tub. As water filled the tub, he tore her clothing from her and tossed it behind him. He tugged down a towel from the bar and plunged it into the water.
Scrubbing the towel over the wounds on her neck, he wasn’t sure what he could accomplish. He only knew he had to wash away the blood.
Chapter 18
Emerging from a groggy dream of ash-filled air and snarling fangs, Bella blinked and groaned. Was she underwater? Her skin was wet, yet the pressure of the water did not pull her down. The steamy scent of lemons made her wonder if she was in the bathroom.
Opening her eyes, she saw her lover sitting there, his shoulders bowed, his hands hanging between his bent knees. There was such intensity in his eyes. They were what had held her since day one. A promise of truth, trust and honor lived there in Severo’s eyes.
Beyond him, she saw a strange disaster. The doorway had a big bite out of it. A force had punched the wall and taken out part of the door frame and Sheetrock. Bloody footprints led from the bedroom to the bathroom tiles.
Every part of her ached and her muscles had been stretched beyond their capacity. But of course, after battling a houseful of crazed vampires, what did one expect?