The Vampire's Spell: The Vampire's Soul (Book 7)

by Lucy Lyons

  “The witch is married to the alpha?” Ashlynn nodded.

  “Oh, yes. Alphas are always stronger when they have magic to draw from on that personal level. Gregor wasn’t all that bad when he became alpha, you know. It’s his creepy-ass wife that made him sketchy.” She took her hand back, and I sighed as my cheek cooled after her touch.

  “Is that why you’ve been putting this off for so long? Afraid you’d mate with someone bad and it would hurt you and the pack?”

  She laughed and shook out her long hair, letting it fall free from its braid down to her waist.

  “No. I put it off because I was waiting for you. I just didn’t know it at the time.” I cleared my throat and tried to think of something clever to say.

  “Oh. Well that’s, uh, that’s good to know,” I said lamely, and started to back toward the door. “Are you sure I can beat Gregor tomorrow?” I asked, mostly to change the subject.

  “You’d better,” she replied. “If you don’t, I’m dead and the pack is screwed because I won’t go down without a fight.” She turned her back on me, and I watched her walk out to the small patio outside the room. Her hair caught the sunset and turned into living flame as she moved, waving and glittering like blood where the light and shadows played across it.

  I did my best to ignore my aching desire to pull her back inside and have my way with her. I’d been dismissed, and until I laid claim to her and forced her into submission, if I touched her, she could kill me. I rejoined the pack and shared their confusion as they tried to sort out their joy and their grief. Our packmates were still gone, the funeral pyre about to be lit. But we were wolves, a people of unbridled joy and passion and thirst for the kill. It was almost too difficult to stay somber with the knowledge that the lunar feast was almost upon us, and even the weakest among us would have the power to join the hunt.

  I found Bernie and accepted the drink he handed me. Then we listened together as Ashlynn spoke of our losses and ended with the announcement that we would be hosting the Beaver Lake pack for the lunar feast to help us mourn and to show solidarity with the other wolves of the Pacific Northwest.

  There were cheers, though they were subdued and muted by the grieving, and we filed outside to sing for our dead as they lit the pyre. Our pack was at a crossroads, whether we all understood that or not. By the next full moon, there could be no Rainier pack, no feasts in the shadow of the mountain, no wolves to train at the Red Dagger as I’d promised Maria. Tonight was the last night that things would be as they were, one way or another. As Bernie and Henny lit the pyre from opposite sides of the square and handed their torches to Roger and me to do the same on the other two, I prayed and hoped the embers carried my prayer higher than my faith could.

  Let my people live free beyond tomorrow, and if it must be that someone dies, take me instead.

  Chapter Twelve

  The moon crested the horizon and instantly I felt its pull on my skin as though it was separate from my body and might float away. Goldie joined me at the base of the pyre and began to howl. A few other wolves joined her, then more, until I seemed to be the only holdout. I refused the call even when the wolves around me started to shift and wolf musk filled the air. I held onto the moon and the fire in front of me until when I looked around me there were no humans left.

  I glanced up at the window where Ashlynn had led the funeral ceremony and she gazed back down at me, her long hair a curtain around her body. I lifted my chin and bayed to her and raced to the door, my only thought to reach her and share in her strength.

  I will not change tonight, I commanded myself as I raced up the staircase at the end of the common room. I threw open the door and found her, panting, sweating, naked in the middle of the room.

  “We will not be shifting tonight,” I told her and pushed my power out until it connected us like a tether. Trembling, she did the same, and a twin line of power joined us. If I didn’t look right at it, I could almost see fine blue filaments of energy that linked us.

  She wavered on her feet, and I sprang to her side, catching her before she could fall. I carried her to the bed near the balcony and laid her down. Even though sweat beaded up on her face and torso, she was cool to the touch, and I knew something was pushing at her with more power than she could deflect.

  “You made everyone change?” I asked, and she nodded weakly, her teeth chattering together.

  “I had to put the power somewhere, so I sent it…out.”

  “Where’s Henny? She can help.” I started to slide off the bed and she grabbed my wrist and clung to me.

  “The power wants to hurt Henny. I think it’s Petra. Stay with me, help me resist the call and keep Henny away from me.”

  “How could Petra send this much power over such a great distance? Maybe it’s just the moon, Ash. Maybe the coming eclipse is just messing with you. I’ve been feeling the pull for days.”

  “You don’t know, Clay. You don’t know what it was like in that pack, the power they have over you, to hold you down and make you do…make you do horrible things, until one day, you want to, even though you know it’s sick and twisted and evil.”

  I had no answer for her. It hadn’t occurred to me that she knew the wolf who had changed her, and all the females in Gregor’s pack were underage. Ashlynn had been an adult when she was attacked. I stumbled over my words before I was able to speak again.

  “I didn’t realize you’d been in his pack.”

  “I wasn’t. I was an unwilling visitor for a bit before I broke away. I tried to take some with me, but they chose to stay. They betrayed me to Petra rather than escape. That was when I found my power.”

  And your fear, I thought but wisely kept to myself.

  She shivered, and I tucked the covers around her and under her arms and hips to pin her to the bed with her own weight. The trembling slowed, and I brushed her hair off her forehead.

  “Goldie was the first to change. Did you do that?” I asked, still reeling from her admission.

  “I don’t—don’t know. Not on purpose.” She sighed and turned her head away from me. The moon had risen enough to be framed in the window, and as Ashlynn stared at it, the trembling slowed, then stopped.

  “Ash?” I asked quietly, afraid when she turned back to me, she’d be wearing a canine muzzle instead of a human face.

  “I’m OK, Clay. I’m OK. You’re wrong, though. That was most definitely not the moon. Goldie probably shifted first because she’s used to obeying that power.” I stroked her hair away from her cheek and nodded.

  “Should I shift and go watch out over our pack?” I meant to say people, and the slip brought embarrassed color to my face. Ashlynn’s eyebrows went up into high arches, but she didn’t correct me.

  “If you don’t need to shift, I’d like you to stay. I could use the company right now.” All thought of sex fled my mind at the tired, pained sound of her voice. I stripped down to my boxers and climbed under the covers with her, sliding my arm under her head as a pillow. She curled up into my side and wound her fingers through my chest hair, her other hand curled up under her chin.

  “Is this better?” I asked, and she wriggled closer to me.

  “You’re the best at this,” she admitted. “If for no other reason, I think I would hope you win because you know when to be the alpha male and when to be a good friend.” I chuckled and wrapped my free arm around her.

  “That comes from having a girl as your best friend your entire life. We’ve been through every stage of friendship over the years. I think I even fell in love with her sometime between fourteen and seventeen. You learn how to be a better friend, when your partner in crime—and in justice, and in broken hearts, and adolescent trauma—is a girl.”

  “I’ll thank her later,” she quipped and sighed contentedly. “I’m not cold anymore.”

  “Good. I need you at the top of your fighting game tomorrow since you’ve decided to invite the devil to our playground.”

  “I stand by my decision,” she yawn
ed, and I felt her relax in my arms. Her breathing deepened, her body went heavy and still, and I moved her closer to the middle so she wouldn’t fall out of bed once I left. Due to the sensitivity of our sense of smell, none of us were big on cologne. But under Ashlynn’s natural musk, her pheromones were as sweet as honeysuckle on a warm day.

  I laid with her and watched the moon fill the window then rise above it as it traveled across the night sky. I still felt the need to release the wolf and hunt under the pale orb that stared down at us. But the pull of Ashlynn’s body was stronger, and no matter how I tried to convince myself that the pack needed me to find them and stay with them, I couldn’t make my body move from her side.

  Finally, my body gave up on me and I fell asleep with the remnant of moonlight cooling my face and Ashlynn’s skin warming my body. I repeated the prayer I’d sent heavenward as my eyelids turned to cement and refused to open again. I sank into sleep with my arms and nose full of Ashlynn, and my mind on the empty ring at the edge of the forest.

  In my dreams I was running, chasing something, someone, through the pine trees. A flash of cinnamon tail, and she was off again, and my heart thrilled at the scent that she left behind. I ran tirelessly reveling in the surge of power through my legs as I chased, the wind and all the scents it carried into my nostrils and across my tongue. I tasted honeysuckle and kicked harder, flying across the fields and almost not touching the ground. The moon was high in the sky, but when I glanced up, there was only darkness. The stars and the moon were gone, and above me was only a cloudless ceiling of darkness.

  Still, I ran on, chasing the scent of my prey and ahead of me, always just out of reach, was the cinnamon wolf. She stopped and looked at me, the way she had during the wild hunt, her tongue lolling from a toothy grin, then raced off so I could give chase again. No matter how hard I ran, Ashlynn was always just out of reach, waiting for me to catch up to her. Mine, the dream beast me declared, staring at the grinning wolf that taunted me before leaping into the air and racing off again. Mine forever.

  When I awoke, I was still on my side, my arms wrapped around a sleeping Ashlynn, my back warm from the morning sun that shone in the eastern balcony My right arm was prickly and burning, asleep from being under her for so long, but I hated to move her in case it woke her up.

  Finally, the tingling in my arm passed discomfort and settled squarely in pain, and I slid it out from under her as gently as I could. The moment I wasn’t touching her, her eyes opened and she gazed at me, her lips turning down in a pout.

  “I dreamed of you,” she told me, her voice husky with sleep. “You never caught me.” I grinned and traced a finger down between her breasts to the muscular flat plain of her stomach.

  “That’s because I was enjoying the chase. When I’m ready to catch you, you’ll know.” She pretended to punch me in the arm, and I rolled over onto her, pinning her to the bed with my body and kissing her lips for the first time. My dream, our dream, clicked into place and she went still in my arms. I hadn’t expected it to be so simple, but I knew that my beast had chosen her, and my human half had finally grasped the reality of our entwined fates in my dream. I’d never felt the way I did with her, but love, lust, or just destiny, I was the one who was caught.

  “See?” I asked, and she wriggled a little, pretending to struggle against me.

  “Yup, I’m well and truly caught. Don’t know how I didn’t see it coming.” She wriggled harder, and I rolled off her, laughing.

  “You keep doing that, and I won’t be able to control my animal urges.”

  “Sorry. I really did need you to get off. I have to use the ladies’ room.” She slipped out of the bed and padded across the faded woven rug she’d brought with her from the old camp as I watched.

  Hearing her in the bathroom made me realize that my body was fully awake, and I tried to patiently wait my turn. When she came out she was in a robe, which made the nakedness underneath even sexier. I took my turn in the bathroom before I could say something I shouldn’t or try to touch.

  It was the day of the lunar feast, and the lunar eclipse. We were hemmed in by our enemies, and I wasn’t sure if we’d even identified the most dangerous of them, let alone all of them. Below us, I heard the first of the hunters rousing from their sleep, talking in hushed tones as they moved around their still sleeping companions.

  I leaned over the rail and looked down into the large common room below. Some were still in wolf form, but mostly it was a tangle of fleshy human limbs in various shades of nude, from marble white to chocolate. Our wolves had run well and fed well too, if the blood smeared all over the naked bodies and the brand-new plank flooring was any indication.

  Once, the scene below would’ve turned my stomach. The thought of the werewolf diet had almost caused me to starve in the first few weeks. But my stomach and better sense had reminded me that my prejudices were pointless and ridiculous, considering the adaptation most of the pack made to accommodate their own human view of the world. So in human form, I got to eat the ultimate “man” diet of high-end steaks and burgers and pretty much every grilled meat known to humankind. In wolf form, I hunted and killed with the pack, and my beast didn’t worry about whether the meat was cooked, only that it was won by the power of my claws and fangs.

  It had been impossible to resist the draw of the pack. I’d stepped out of the car and as soon as the soles of my feet touched the cool earth, I’d felt the power of the people around me and had a sense of belonging. Later, I’d been told that it isn’t always that way, that some wolves travel to multiple packs before finding their home and some never did. Looking down on my sleeping friends, I felt sorry for the lone wolves, who would never know the instant affection and loyalty of meeting your pack for the very first time.

  Tonight, I’d fight their war with them, for them, if I could. If I won, I would claim the prize of title, throne, and Ashlynn as my mate. If not, at least I’d know they’d been as one, put their differences behind them and hunted as a pack should, one last time.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I watched Roger and Bernie horse around in front of the fire, two middle-aged, naked men acting like kids, and my stomach churned. Either Bernie had it the worst of us all or he was the image of the knife in the back I’d sent to Maria. I could smell a freshly washed Ashlynn coming up behind me, and I chided myself for thinking that a large communal space was a good idea for our next home.

  Goldie was nowhere to be seen, and Henny and the professor had their own cabin, away from the appetites of the gigantic fanged and furry. I passed Ashlynn in the hall and retrieved my clothing. I’d grab a shower when I got to Pulse, where I knew the water would be hot and stay that way as long as I needed fed by multiple commercial hot water tanks and city water instead of a well. Then I could check in with Nicholas and maybe find someone who could patch me through a mirror to Dominique, since that kind of spell wasn’t in Henny’s repertoire.

  “Tell Ashlynn I’m going out, but I’ll be back for the party, OK?” I asked Bernie when I couldn’t see her anywhere.

  He shook his head and chuckled, telling me that she’d just said the same thing before leaving a few minutes before. I grabbed an apple and smiled back at him as I strode out the door.

  “Oh, just so we’re clear,” I added after swallowing a big bite of the tart Granny Smith in my hand. “I am never doing that sealant stuff again, so I’d be getting someone else on it stat, ‘cause we’ve got company coming, and it wouldn’t do to have them sitting around trying to get comfortable in the middle of a renovation.”

  “Yeah, after that stuff kicked your pansy ass yesterday, we already decided to give the job to a man who can get it done.” Bernie winked at me, and I stifled a laugh.

  “Funny man. Just wait until I get back. I’m sure I’ll have a comeback by then.” I heard his raucous laughter all the way to the car. I was still grinning when I saw Roger emerge from the trees near the gate. He waved, and I returned it, but my good mood was ruined. So, when I saw
Goldie peer out from a tree next to him, one eye swollen shut, fresh blood dripping from her nose and mouth, it wasn’t such a big drop from wishing him good morning to planning his death.

  I stopped at Maria’s dojo first to thank her for hearing me and to tell her that we’d survived and I wouldn’t be trying to blow my head up sending her messages anymore. She wasn’t in the office when I went searching for her, but there was a note with my name on it and a Starbuck’s gift card. When I unfolded the note, it read:

  “Congratulations! Now go fix what’s probably the world’s worst hangover headache.”

  Good mood partially restored, I tucked the gift card into my pocket and went to the club. Pete was in his usual spot behind the counter, yelling at the bar backs to hurry up and stock the cut fruit for the cocktails. He winked and nodded as I passed and went right back to berating his helpers, without missing a beat.

  There were no dancers practicing on stage, but it wasn’t until the elevator doors slid open at the bottom of the ride, and I exited to a madhouse. Every vampire in the clan and at least half the rats were scurrying somewhere, and every one of them was armed to the teeth. Or rather, they were armed from their very pointed teeth to their steel-booted toes.

  “Did somebody start a war without telling me?” I asked Fin as he rushed past me.