Ash (Fire & Blood Book 2)

by Alexa B. James

  His pleasure tipped me over the edge, and I barely noticed when Death pulled out his fangs, taking the pain with them. His mouth slid up my neck, and then he bit me again. The agony of the second bite barely registered, when he was sucking on my neck, and my vision went dark as pleasure pulsed up through my whole being.

  “What are you doing?” Ravage snapped as he pulled out of me, his cock limp and spent. “What have you done?”

  The room exploded in blue Ignis fire. One moment I was strapped, dangling in a harness, and the next, the leather was dissolving around me, and I fell, my front colliding with Death's chest. The world tasted of ashes and burnt leather, and all I could see was a solid wall of flame. I gasped in fire, knowing that I needed to somehow protect Death. Ignis fire incinerated vampires, but when I touched his chest, he wasn’t burning.

  He drank my blood, and my blood must have given him immunity to Ignis fire. Both of these vampires were immune.

  Death's arms wrapped around me, and he held me to his chest before he sprung into motion. There was a loud smacking sound of flesh meeting flesh, but I couldn't see anything through the fire. I wrapped my arms and legs around Death and held on as he ran. Death threw open a door, and fresh air surged in before fire exploded into the hallway.

  The curtains around us ignited one by one as Death barreled down the stone floor. I couldn't do much more than hang on as Death ran. When I peered over his shoulder, Ravage followed at an almost leisurely pace. Behind him, warriors poured into the hallway.

  “Was that Brendan or Genevieve back there?” I yelled as we turned the nearest corner.

  “Brendan! He found me and came up with all of this right before we met with Ravage. Ruin and Ash are getting him out,” Death didn't even sound winded as he responded, though our pace only increased. His bare feet slapped the stone, echoing around us as we tore out of the front of the palace.

  Of course, it was my brother Brendan who came up with this ridiculous plan. Who else would have dredged up some antiquated law so we could all run out naked in a blaze of fire. The fact that I had to participate in a public threesome between Ravage and Death probably didn't even factor into my brother's logical thinking. It was the most expedient way to break me out—except for the fact that a city full of vampire warriors still stood in our way.

  Death took the stairs in long bounds. There was a loud cracking sound behind us, and then Ravage floated past us and landed at the bottom of the stairway, blocking our escape.

  Chapter Eight

  Kori

  Ravage stood naked at the bottom of the staircase, looking almost bored. His arms crossed over his chest while a draft ruffled his dark blond hair. He quirked a blond brow. “Come here, Kori, or I’ll reverse gravity and kill everyone here.”

  A quick glance told me that everyone included several warriors who had followed us out onto the long staircase, though most of them were retreating now. The town behind Ravage stood empty.

  “Sacrificing your most eager soldiers needlessly is bad for morale, Ravage,” I yelled down.

  Death set me down and moved in front of me, blocking my view.

  “Kori…” Ravage called. “How long have you known about my powers?”

  “Eleven months,” I admitted as I wrapped my arms around Death’s waist and leaned so I could see past him. When my eyes met Ravage’s green ones, I called down, “I knew that as long as you wanted to hide the fact you’re the Sorcerer, I was safe from seeing you that way.”

  I had been so careful to hide the fact that I knew about Ravage’s powers, knowing that the charade was one of the only things keeping him in check. The games were over now.

  “Well done,” Ravage said as he took the first stair. “Consider carefully, Kori. In a couple more hours, you’ll be free of any obligation to me. I will not hold you responsible for this botched attempt at a rescue. If you come to me, we can forget this ever happened.”

  “She’s free of any obligation to you now,” Death growled. Under my fingers, his body shook. “Kori is my mate. You can’t stop us from leaving together.”

  Ravage took the next step. “Kori, you know how this is going to end. You have good reason to be angry with me. I was wrong to involve your former lovers. You’re right. I’m too jealous and possessive. But no one here needs to die. They can leave. We both know the only choice you’re making is whether or not your lovers die before I bring you back here.”

  “Kori, he’ll kill me the moment you go to him,” Death called back. “Get on my back, and I’ll try to find a way out of here.”

  Death was right. There was no way that Ravage would let Death leave here alive today. I jumped and wrapped my arms and legs around him, clutching onto his shoulders. “Use me as a shield. The warriors won’t attack you while you’re holding me. Ravage knows that my body is too breakable, and he’s done all of this to get my power.”

  Death’s warm hand wrapped around my ankle. “I’ve got an idea to get us out of here, Kori. Can you trust me?”

  I squeezed Death tighter and said into the side of his neck. “I trust you.”

  Ravage started up the staircase toward us, and Death didn’t move. He just stood there as the King of Nightendale closed the distance.

  Halfway to us, Ravage stopped, his eyes went distant in a way that I recognized immediately. My brother Timothy had done this for most of his life. Ravage was having a prophecy.

  “Go!” Death bellowed, and a figure in a dark jacket and hood lunged through a fissure in the rock wall directly behind Ravage, and the newcomer did something that made Ravage stagger a step. Ravage wheeled back and hit the person in the jacket, and the man went flying into the air and smacked into the ground.

  The figure’s hood slipped, and the face I saw there stopped my mind. The whole world seemed to slow, as I stared at Timothy, prone and motionless. Then, time sped again

  Death charged down the hill, leaping into the air. We hurdled over Ravage, landing with Death on all fours on the stone.

  Ravage bellowed, just as three more figures slipped out of the crack, two of them noticeably bigger than the first. I recognized Ash and Ruin with my older brother Brendan immediately. Brendan threw back his hood and ran for Timothy, as Ash and Ruin took up a protective stance around Death and me.

  “Run for the drawbridge, Kori,” Ash called back. “We’ll be right behind you.”

  I didn’t want to leave them, but I also knew staying would be putting everyone in more danger. Slipping off Death’s back, I rushed over to where Brendan was struggling to lift Timothy in a fireman’s hold.

  “Come on,” Brendan said as a ball of Ignis fire ignited on his free palm.

  I glanced over my shoulder, and Ravage’s gaze met mine, staring deeply into my eyes. He said something, and though I couldn’t hear his words, I thought his mouth formed the words, “You’ll forgive me . . . and you’ll forget.” Ravage bared his fangs and shouted, “Kill all of them.”

  Chapter Nine

  Kori

  Ravage wanted me dead.

  It felt like an impossibility, but warriors streamed in from all around us.

  Brendan flung out an arm, unfurling a stream of pure Ignis fire. The fire streaked through the air, striking three of his attackers across the face, but there were more.

  They formed a circle around us, towering over us. Brendan threw fire, but there were too many warriors. A warrior’s hands wrapped around my neck, his fingers like steel bands. Air fled my lungs, and my mouth and eyes burned. White-hot panic surged through me, and I screamed but I couldn’t make a sound.

  The vampire bared his fangs as his fingers tightened. His expression was hard, unyielding, and so was his grip. The heat in me surged hotter and hotter. My ears seared. And I heard a hiss of burning fabric and smelled the noxious stink of burning leather.

  My hand, which batted against the warrior’s chest, burnt most of all.

  The man’s face contorted in pain and rage as smoke rose from between my fingers. With a roar, he pus
hed me away from him and batted at his chest where a long stretch of skin sizzled and smoked.

  I raked in air as the world spun around me.

  The warriors gaped at their fallen comrade, fangs bared. They glanced between Brendan and me, clearly unsure if they should attack or not.

  “Go!” Brendan yelled as he tossed a ball of Ignis fire before grabbing my arm.

  We didn’t look back as we rushed down the road leading away from the palace and veered into a small tunnel, my brother falling behind as he bore Timothy’s weight. Plants drew away from our fire, curling into the delicate wood-framing overhead. The bridge emptied out into the central marketplace overflowing with vampire warriors. One fireball shot into the air sent the majority of them scurrying toward the open storefronts.

  Then it lay before us, a bridge leading into the caves beyond Nightendale. It arched hundreds of feet into the open air over the crevasse, and the drawbridge was rising toward us.

  How did the cry of alarm get all the way to the front of the city so fast? If the bridge raised, we were all doomed.

  Large metal chains clanked and clattered as they brought the stone and metal bridge up from either side. There was no possible way that we could make it across in time, it was already at too much of an angle. We were going to be executed.

  “I can do it! I think I can do it!” Brendan wrapped his fingers around the thick chain, and his palm glowed with Ignis fire. The fire licked over the thick metal links. They glowed red, but the bridge continued to rise.

  Brendan bellowed a terrible guttural sound, and the column of Ignis fire heated the chain to white, and then the palest blue.

  The chain snapped and slipped through its winch. With an earsplitting boom, the bridge slammed down. Dust filled the air. The only thing I could see was white clouds billowing before my eyes.

  “Stop.” A female voice roared from directly behind me. A hand grabbed my arm, and I reached back feeling the same strike of heat.

  A scream rose up, and the fingers fell away just as we surfaced from the dust cloud.

  The faint illumination of the electric lights fell on my brothers as Brendan struggled to keep running. Sheer rock walls rose up on either side of us and the passage narrowed. Timothy began to slide, and I lunged and held a hand against his side.

  “Kori!” Ravage called from some distance behind us. I knew I shouldn’t look back. But I did.

  Emerald green eyes found mine through the settling dust. Even though we were great distances away, I swear he said, “You’ll be my creature by morning, Kori.”

  The vampire king turned away, and I realized for the first time that he was not alone. Eight vampires stood beside him, watching me with their fangs bared. The light of the city bleached their fine features, shadows obscuring their eyes.

  Turning, I shoved my hand against Timothy’s side and ran. An icy chill blasted against our backs, so powerful it literally pushed us along.

  “What about Death and Ruin and Ash?” I yelled.

  “I told them about the different routes we planned to use in the irrigation tunnels. All of the grates are open,” Brendan huffed. “It will be one hell of a tight squeeze, but they’ll just have to make it through.”

  It had taken me months of slow barefoot walks through Nightendale to map out the irrigation system that fed the glowing plants throughout Nightendale. Most of the tunnels were too small for Brendan to slip through, let alone a large vampire.

  Brendan nodded into the cave. “We have to get to the train. Ash’s warrior friends are there, ready to help us.”

  “No. We have to change the plan, Brendan. Ravage fell back for a reason,” I said. “There are tunnels leading out of Nightendale. Ravage probably already has his army surrounding the train.”

  “All right. New plan. We get ourselves absolutely lost.” Brendan wheeled in the opposite direction as the train, plunging into the nearest cave. We twisted and turned through the cave systems. We kept coming out along a sheer cliff on one side, and then we twisted back into the earth.

  I tried to help with Timothy’s weight by holding one hand at his side. The ball of Ignis fire in Brendan’s palm dimmed as we ran, losing its strength as my older brother’s motions became progressively more sluggish.

  Ravage and his elite warriors were the most nefarious and notorious warriors in the vampire kingdoms. We couldn’t slow, not for a moment, even though Brendan looked like he was about to collapse, and I didn’t even know if Timothy was breathing. If Brendan’s strength failed, there was no way that I could drag his weight, let alone both of their bulk. As the adrenaline waned from my system, the damp chill seeped into my bare feet and skin, making even my bones ache with cold, but the frozen state of my body couldn’t compare to the terror that was keeping me running.

  Even if we evaded the trap by changing our plans, our escape felt anything but final. Just last night, Ravage had stretched out beside me and whispered that he loved me. Today, he’d ordered his warriors to kill me.

  It was a full hour before Brendan had to stop. The flame in his hand was as bright as a lit match, and he half leaned, half-collapsed into the stone wall. He slowed and set Timothy on the floor. Our younger brother groaned, rolled over, and vomited.

  “Oh, thank all that’s holy. You’re alive.”

  “Of course, he is.” Brendan pushed his sweaty black hair out of his face before extracting a rolled cigarette out of his jeans, lighting it on the flame on his hand. Holding his breath in, he said, “Do you think I would have carried his corpse all this way.”

  “Brendan, give me your sweatshirt,” I said through a shiver as I patted Timothy’s back. “I’ve never been so cold in my life, and you’re sweating.”

  Brendan didn’t complain as he shouldered it off and tossed it over. As soon as I wrapped myself in the warm, thick sweatshirt, he wandered back over to the wall and propped up against it.

  “We’re probably halfway to the Deep by now,” he said.

  “Not even a tenth of the way there,” Timothy said between heaving, though nothing was coming out at this point. Righting himself, he wiped his mouth with the backside of his hand. “I guess the plan worked.”

  “Yes. Great plan, Timmy,” Brendan deadpanned as he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. “I wish I thought of running out of our perfect vantage point—exposing our position and kicking the Sorcerer in the shin. The deviation from what you told us we were doing was a little surprising, though, as we were all there following your exact instructions.” Brendan had a particular talent with sarcasm, and he applied all of his skills to his statement.

  “Speaking of plans gone bad, Brendan, did I really have to have a public threesome with Death and Ravage to make the escape plan work?” I sniffed, and immediately regretted it because the cave reeked of sickly, sweet vomit.

  “I’m willing to feel guilty about a lot of things in my life, Kori, but giving you the opportunity to be the cheese in that sandwich is not one of them…” he breathed out a cloud of smoke and ashed his cigarette. “And, I might have been doing everything in my power not to look, but I couldn’t miss that you very loudly said yes when given the opportunity to bow out.”

  “It was a good thing you didn’t bow out,” Timothy muttered. “We might have made it out alive, but Death, Ash, and Ruin wouldn’t have.”

  I patted Timothy’s back. “Do we know if they made it out?”

  “We’ve moved past any of my predictions. Ravage was going to let us get as far as the trains before his warriors killed everyone in there—courtesans, warriors, the kings, us. Ravage started to have a new prediction, one that would have probably changed his plan, and I interrupted it. Obviously, he didn’t change his plans and we escaped.”

  I rubbed my face with my hand feeling so tired that my stomach churned. “What does that mean for us?”

  “Now we choose our route at random and get as lost as possible. Hopefully Death is a better tracker than King Ravage is. Death was a werewolf, once, right?” The
question was clearly rhetorical because we all knew that Death was once a werewolf alpha that the Queen of Seattle changed and enslaved for her own ambitions. Timothy stumbled to his feet and slipped off his shirt and boots. He tossed over the sweaty, smelly socks and shirt, before shoving on his boots and covering up with his coat again, zipping it up.

  I gratefully put it all on before replacing my sweatshirt. The shirt covered me down to my knees, but I was still shivering as we trudged further into the caves. The cold of the ground seeped through the socks as we trudged further into the caves in silence. We got to a fork in the tunnels, and Timothy grabbed a rock and handed it to me. “We have to choose our path with true randomness. Chance games and coin tosses aren’t random enough.”

  Brendan pressed his back against the cave wall, slid down to the floor, and passed out.

  “Maybe we should stop…” I mumbled through numb lips. I leaned against the wall, and the world faded away, until Timothy’s hand shook my shoulder, and I came to with a start.

  “Kori, we can’t stop. We stop, and Ravage finds us. He’s hunting us.”

  “We don’t know that…” My stomach churned, and acid burned up my throat. I leaned over and spit.

  When I looked up into Timothy’s cat eyes, there was confusion in his expression. “I can’t tell you how I know, Kori. It’s not from a premonition, but I know he’s hunting us or will be soon. If we don’t stay ahead of his premonitions, he’ll find us.”

  I lifted up the rock in my hands. “How is this going to make our path truly random?”

  “I’m going to close my eyes and turn in place. You walk around me slowly with your eyes closed. Then, I’ll grab your shoulders and turn you in place a random amount of times, and then you just toss the rock gently. Whichever cave the rock drops closest to is the one we take.”

  The exercise left me dizzy as well as tired, and it barely seemed to satisfy Timothy’s need for randomness. My little brother seemed inexhaustible, but Brendan and I took turns taking five-minute naps every time we reached a fork in the path.