Vampire Undone

by Shannon Curtis

  She trembled, frozen. This wasn’t like the bunker in Mount Solitude. Despite the pain, the lycans there had been ghostly. Painful but not invulnerable. This—this was the real deal. She flinched as the lycan snarled, its lips curling back to reveal the saliva dripping from its teeth. Just like when it had stood over her all those years ago. It actually enjoyed the fear it created in her.

  She couldn’t move, not with this horror slide show on repeat in her mind. Almost as though she’d stepped outside of her body, and everything slowed down, she watched as the lycan hunkered down, muscles bunching, eyes eerily golden in the darkness. It launched at her and her muscles stiffened. She couldn’t move, couldn’t even scream as the werewolf attacked.

  Chapter 16

  Lucien vaulted over the car, incisors lengthening and a harsh growl erupting from his throat. He clenched his hand into a fist and swung at the lycan as he landed in front of Natalie. He connected with the werewolf’s shoulder, heard the satisfying crunch of bone breaking, felt it give beneath his fist as the werewolf stumbled off course.

  The lycan whirled on him, teeth bared, lips curled back. Lucien stood, feet planted shoulder-width apart, fists up and ready. He flashed his eyes, anger coursing through him. This damn mutt had tried to hurt Natalie.

  The werewolf sprang toward him and Lucien felt a claw rip his arm as he twisted out of the way.

  He grasped a hank of fur in both hands and threw the lycan. The lycan’s body thunked against the car then rolled off the hood to land on all paws. The werewolf was large by any standard, and Lucien could see the shoulder he’d broken was already mending, the caved-in section smoothing out. Lucien frowned. The wolf had accelerated healing powers. Well, that just made things a trifle more challenging.

  Lucien raised his fists in a boxer’s stance, shifting from one foot to the other. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Natalie shift along the side of the car, her face pale, eyes wide, but he didn’t shift his focus from the lycan.

  The werewolf hunkered down, his fur rising along the back of his neck, and Lucien showed him his fangs. The lycan might be big, ugly and harder to kill than most because every injury knitted before the next blow could be landed, but he had no intention of losing, of putting Natalie in danger.

  The wolf sprang at him and Lucien ducked, landing a blow in the werewolf’s soft underbelly as he sailed over him. He heard the light whimper as the wolf landed, but didn’t give the lycan time to recover. He launched himself at the werewolf, tackling him, latching on to the beast with his teeth, and he heard the wolf howl as the metallic taste of warm blood filled his mouth.

  He kept landing blows, dodging out of the way as the wolf twisted, his teeth snapping. Lucien gritted his teeth as a claw slashed across chest and had to dodge another paw that came close to unmanning him. He shoved at the snout that was dangerously close to him, exposing the lycan’s neck. He raised his head to bite, but the werewolf anticipated the move and sprang off him, racing toward Natalie.

  “No!” Lucien bellowed, white-hot rage flooding him. He rolled to his feet and bolted after him. Natalie clutched at the door handle, fumbling with the latch with shaking hands. Lucien leaped just as the werewolf reached her and all three crashed to the ground in a twisted heap of lashing limbs and snapping teeth. Natalie’s scream was cut short and Lucien smelled fresh blood. The realization Natalie was hurt gave his anger strength.

  The wolf had Natalie pinned beneath him, jaw widening, and Lucien thrust himself between them, roaring as the lycan’s teeth clamped down on his shoulder. He pushed back and both he and the werewolf tumbled backward. The lycan snapped at him again, teeth tearing into his right biceps. The pain, the immediate comprehension of the consequences, sent Lucien into a frenzy. He bit down, his jaw tightening, a warm wetness splattering his chest as he bit through the werewolf’s jugular.

  Slowly the agonizing clamp on his arm loosened and the wolf collapsed on him as he bled out. Lucien grasped his neck and twisted, then wrenched with all his might, grimacing as he felt bones pop, muscles tear and the head separate from the body.

  He shoved the bloodied, torn mess of a corpse off of him. “Heal that, you bastard,” he rasped. He sat up, wincing at the pain in his left shoulder and right biceps. The muscles felt like they were on fire. Damn it. He’d been bit.

  He looked over to Natalie and saw her still form on the dirt road. He rolled to his feet, staggering over to her. His blood trailed down his arms and as he lurched in front of the car the headlights picked up the black fluid trailing down his skin. He swallowed. That didn’t look good. His blood wasn’t black. He closed his eyes briefly. The lycan toxin. It was already distorting his blood.

  He blinked as the road dipped and curved around him. He squinted beyond the twin beams of light. The windshield was like a snowflake, all pretty fractures. So pretty. He staggered around to Natalie and fell to his knees beside her. Blood stained a rock near her head, her face pale and still. He reached out and rested his trembling hand against her chest. His shoulders sagged as he felt the slow, regular thud of her heart. Unconscious, not dead. Thank God.

  He patted her gently on the cheek, wincing as his torn muscles protested the movement. “Hey, Nat.” He tapped her lightly again, but it was hard to keep his balance, the desert was beginning to dip and roll around him. “Come on, minx. Wake—”

  The road rolled up and hit him in the face, embracing him in darkness.

  * * *

  Natalie’s eyes flickered open. Her head throbbed in time to the pulse in her aching neck and a heavy weight lay across her, making it difficult for her to breathe. She winced, blinking. Where the hell was she?

  She tried to shift at the weight on top of her. It was warm and bulky. Solid. Her eyes widened as she twisted her head, grimacing at the pain the movement caused her. She gasped when she saw Lucien’s unconscious face. He was slumped across her, arms out, as though trying to protect her, even in his senseless state.

  She pushed him off her and sat up. He didn’t stir. He was still alive, though. She winced as she carefully examined him. His one shoulder was torn and his other arm was looking pretty nasty, too. She frowned. They looked like bite marks, but the blood vessels radiating from those bites were turning black. His veins down one arm were turning dark gray under his skin.

  She glanced around then flinched when she saw the werewolf—or rather, what was left of him. Oh, God. She looked at Lucien’s wounds again. He’d been bitten by a werewolf and it was the lycanthrope toxin spreading through his system.

  Natalie ripped at his shirt, tearing the fabric into strips. She bound his wounds firmly and he groaned softly but didn’t come to. She ripped at her own sleeves, using them to wrap tightly around his arm in an effort to slow his circulation and hopefully slow the toxin.

  She’d never personally seen the effects of a vampire suffering from a werewolf bite, but she’d read plenty of case studies. The toxin caused fever and hallucinations. Violent hallucinations. The victim was racked with excruciating pain as sepsis set in and was then tormented both physically and mentally before muscles contracted, causing agonizing spasms that resulted in broken bones and eventually liquefied organs and death. It was a horrific way to die.

  And now Lucien would suffer horribly then die. Her fingers shook at the realization and she glanced around. The sky was lightening, going from dark gray to light. The sun would rise soon and both she and Lucien were out in the open. If she didn’t get him under cover, they wouldn’t have to worry about the lycan toxin, the sun would turn him to ash.

  The car. Tempered glass. He’d be safe inside it. She opened the door and realized Courtney cowered in the corner, eyes wide with fright.

  “It’s going to be fine, Courtney, but I have to move you, sorry.” She grabbed her tote and raced to the trunk, dumping it inside next to the flat tire and tire jack Lucien had thrown in earlier. She closed th
e trunk then hurried over to Lucien. She rolled him onto his back and his eyes fluttered open.

  “Oh, hey, minx.” His voice was weak, but still warm and tender.

  “Hey, yourself,” she said back to him and gave him a reassuring smile. “I have to move you, Luc. Sun’s up soon, so need to get you someplace dark, okay?”

  He nodded. “’Kay,” he murmured then groaned as she grabbed him by his arms and raised him effortlessly over her shoulder in a fireman’s lift.

  She carried him to the car, gently laying him on the backseat. She pushed his long legs in and closed the door, then raced around to the driver’s seat. It wasn’t until she was inside and starting the ignition that she realized the windshield was cracked and a chunk of glass lay on the passenger seat.

  She hit the steering wheel in frustration. She could barely see out front, but worse, it would provide no protection to Lucien when the sun rose. They had to find someplace dark, and quick. She eyed the horizon. It was already turning light shades of orange and pink.

  A cave. That’s what she needed. She remembered seeing the mouth of one a couple of miles back and hoped to hell there weren’t any lycans or shifters hiding there. She twisted, raising her leg to kick out the glass panel so that she could see beyond the dashboard. The glass splintered as it fell to the ground, the tinkling absurdly musical in the predawn air. She pressed her lips together as she put the car into gear and spun the wheel, creating a cloud of dust as she drove back along the road.

  It took another twenty minutes before she found what she was looking for and she turned the car in that direction. The vehicle bounced and dipped as she drove off-road, aiming directly for the cave entrance. Lucien groaned in the backseat and she winced. She couldn’t begin to imagine what his injuries felt like, the pain he was experiencing.

  She swerved to avoid a boulder, coughing on the dust and dirt that flew in through the windshield frame. She wiped at her eyes as she pulled into the dark opening. The headlights cut through the darkness. She slammed her foot on the brake as a low outcropping leered toward her and the vehicle came to a shuddering halt, millimeters away from the rock taking off the roof of the car.

  Natalie glanced around. The light was brightening at the crest of the distant hills and she gauged the distance from lip of the cave. They weren’t in far enough. She got out of the car and jogged to the rear door. In moments she had Lucien over her shoulder and was running further into the cave. The shadows darkened toward the back and she made a beeline for it, puffing as she jumped over rocks and boulders. She dived around a natural curve in the rock wall as the sun’s rays peeked over the hills, lancing through the cave behind her with a determined reach.

  Lucien groaned as he hit the ground, but Natalie sagged with relief as their little pocket of the cave remained in a cool, dark, nondestructive shadow. She leaned back against the wall and gazed around. No lurking lycans or creepy little cougars. Great. She swallowed then leaned over Lucien, shifting him into a more comfortable position. His forehead was beaded with sweat and she peeled back his collar, wincing. The lycan toxin was spreading from his shoulder, worming its way through the veins of his neck. She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead. He was burning up.

  For the first time she could appreciate Lucien’s panic. She could understand his determination to find a cure for his sister, the worry and the dread that went with it, as she was experiencing it, too. Lucien had been bitten by a werewolf—while protecting her, damn it. He was dying.

  His eyelids fluttered and he gave her a shaky smile. “Hey, minx.”

  “Hey, Luc.” She cupped his cheek, returning his smile with a shaky one of her own.

  He swallowed. “Do you know how long I’ve hoped you’d call me that again?” he whispered hoarsely.

  “Shh, don’t talk. Rest,” she said. She made an effort to move away but he caught her hand, halting her.

  “We both know this isn’t something I can recover from,” he said hoarsely. His blue eyes bore a sadness and regret that was devastating.

  She shook her head, tears filling her eyes. “I refuse to give up, Lucien.”

  “Stop, Natalie.” He chuckled, his voice a soft rasp. “It’s ironic, that in trying to find the cure for my sister, I fall prey to the same condition.”

  “No. This is my fault,” she whispered fiercely.

  Lucien frowned. “How do you figure that?” His tone was incredulous.

  “You were trying to protect me, Lucien.”

  He made a noise that sounded like a snort. “Natalie, if I hadn’t dragged you across the desert, forced you to stay at roost surrounded by vampires, exposed you to pathologically enraged ghosts and then driven you into that desert, you wouldn’t have needed the protection.” He shook his head weakly. “No, this is all on me.” His mouth turned down at the corners as his gaze swept over his face. “I just wish I had more time with you.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t talk like that, Luc. We’ll fix this.”

  Lucien laughed then winced at the pain. “Natalie, there is no fixing this.” He coughed, then groaned.

  She pulled away from him and darted back to the car. She riffled through the contents of the cooler. There was another blood bag, another bottle of water in here somewhere—there. She removed the contents and jogged over to him.

  “Here, have some of this.” She ripped off the lid on the tubing and held the injection port to the blood bag up to his lips. He dipped his head forward and took a sip, then sagged back against the rock wall.

  She laid the bag on his chest, within close reach of his lips. “I’m going to find that damned Lupinus plant. I’m going to make you a tea and then we’re going to take that cure back to your sister, okay?”

  He gave her a resigned look. “Give it up, Natalie. I’m dying.”

  She clasped his face with both hands, leaning down to glare at him. “I’m not ready to lose you yet,” she told him, realizing belatedly the sincerity of the statement. “Not again.”

  He closed his eyes. When he opened them, the crystal-blue irises were darkened with devastation. “I’m sorry, Natalie,” he whispered. “I’m sorry for not being there for you.”

  She smiled as a tear ran down her cheek and she had to face the truth at last. “Don’t. I was looking for someone to blame, and you were the easy target,” she told him. “I couldn’t accept that bad things happened. It was easier to carry around my rage for you than to face the truth.” She shrugged, tears streaming down her face. “I couldn’t make those responsible pay for what they did to me, to Mom and Dad. That made me so angry, I had to direct it somewhere.”

  Lucien shook his head, opening his mouth to argue, but she held a finger to his lips. “No, hear me out. If I blamed you, then I couldn’t blame me. If it was your fault for not being there, then it wasn’t my fault for dragging them out of the house in the first place. But, really, those two monsters, they’d been killing together for some time. If they targeted my family, I don’t think there is anything anyone could have done to prevent what happened to us, short of killing them.” She sniffed then brushed at the tears on her cheeks. “So, really, Luc, you need to rest, while I go track down those blasted plants. We will fix this.” She tried to infuse as much confidence as possible, for his sake, and for hers.

  She retreated from him and he shook his head urgently. “Natalie, no.”

  She shook her head. “Let me do this, Lucien.”

  He subsided against the rock wall, his blue eyes glittering in the darkness as he gazed around the cavern. He considered her words and then his lips lifted in a sad smile. “Thank you.”

  She returned his smile and turned, jogging into the larger cave toward the car. She hesitated at one point, thinking he’d uttered something. Had he just said goodbye? She refused to return the farewell, shying away from the permanence of the phrase.

 
In moments she’d reversed out of the cave, heart pounding as she squinted against the daylight. She needed to find those damn plants. She prayed to God they worked.

  Chapter 17

  Lucien cracked his eyelids open. The cave was wavering around him and he felt like he was slowly burning from the inside out. His head rolled back against the rock wall. A shadowy figure stepped forward and he blinked.

  “Vivianne?”

  His sister knelt by his side, giving him an angry look. “What have you gone and done now, Luc?”

  A lump grew in his throat as he stared at his once-beautiful sister. Now, though, her skin was gray, her blood vessels black, her eyes black. “I’m sorry,” he choked out. “I tried—”

  Her expression hardened. “Well, you didn’t try hard enough, did you? Papa was right. You don’t deserve to bear the Marchetta name. You’re a pathetic excuse for a brother, you know? Leaving me to die in extreme agony while you go gallivanting off with your sickly little slut.”

  He shook his head, dismayed at her reaction. “Please, I’m sorry, Vivianne. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.”

  “Well, sorry doesn’t really help, does it? Not when we both die. It should have been you in that ballroom fire, you know? Mother died because of you.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. “Stop it!”

  “Why, because the truth hurts? Mom died because of you, Lucien. You’ve killed Mom and now you’ve killed me. The best you could do is put the rest of us out of our misery and die.”

  “No!” he bellowed, eyes flashing as he glared into the darkness. He blinked, panting. Where was she? He squinted into the darkness. Shadows, light, but no Vivianne. He collapsed against the rock wall behind him, exhausted. Oh, God. He swallowed. She wasn’t there. Hadn’t been there. He’d imagined it. He was beginning to hallucinate. He moved his arm, groaning as fire, hot and painful, lanced through his shoulder and down his arm. He held up his hand. The veins stood out, nearly black. He clasped the blood bag and raised it to his lips. He hoped Natalie didn’t come back. Not until he was gone. He didn’t want her to see him like this. Didn’t want to hurt her. Maybe he should hide? Crawl somewhere else to avoid her?