“Laura,” I said, shaking her arm. She murmured in pain, wincing as she grabbed my hand to hold tight. I swallowed hard as I stared down at her wound, and the hunger within me rose up like a lion who had spotted his prey. My mouth salivated with the need to taste her blood, and pain clawed the insides of my stomach. My power answered my hunger, intensifying it to the point where my skull pounded against my eyes. The world tilted underneath my knees, and I had to place my hands on the ground to hold myself steady, taking deep breaths in through my open mouth.
“Help,” my best friend whispered. “Please.”
Squeezing my eyes tight, I gave a nod and forced my mind to focus on her weakened pulse rather than the smell of her intoxicating blood. I pressed my fingers tight against her wrist. The heartbeat that answered was so faint that it almost wasn’t there, and her breathing was so shallow that I struggled to hear it even when I lowered my ear to her chest.
“Shit. Laura, on a scale of one to ten, how badly does it hurt?”
But my best friend didn’t answer my question. Her eyelids had slid shut as she drifted to sleep. Or worse.
I lifted my wrist to my mouth and cut open my skin with the sharp knives my canines had transformed into when I’d changed. My blood spilled from my veins, and I quickly pressed my arm to her parted lips. The blood slid onto her tongue, filling her up with a healing power that would bring her back from the brink. The wound on her neck was deep, but as I continued to feed her my blood, it slowly began to close, the skin coming together. Finally, the wound completely closed, and her eyelids flickered back open, though only momentarily.
“Laura, are you okay?” I squeezed her hand.
Groaning, she pushed up onto her elbows and glanced around us. Her face was ashen, and her eyes were streaked with red. Even though I’d healed her, it might take her days to fully recover from this attack. And, after glancing at Anastasia, I could tell she was in pretty bad shape as well. We’d taken some massive hits, and we hadn’t even faced off against Wagner and his demons yet.
“Zoe,” Laura gasped, her eyes going wide. “Oh my goddess. How did this happen?”
“The Nosferatu are strong,” I said. “And we’re outnumbered. We’re lucky I was able to get to you before the damage was worse.”
“I’m not talking about me,” she said, her voice cracking. “Have you not seen what the demons have done?”
“What”? Dread pooled in my stomach like oily water, full of a dark and twisting stench that thickened in a sickly way.
With a deep breath, I turned toward the scene that I’d left behind in order to heal Laura’s wound. The street was littered with bodies. All around us, the humans who had moments before been enjoying a night out with friends were now only vacant puppets on broken strings.
Horror clenched my gut, and I pressed a shaking hand to cover my nose. There was no blood, but that didn’t stop the stench of death from filling my head. There were so many bodies, so many that my vision began to blur. Not only had we failed to take out Wagner, but we’d failed to save all these innocent lives, all these people who thought they were being protected by beautiful, powerful angels.
And they should have been protected. By us.
Instead, they’d never see daylight again.
Chapter 32
The Nosferatu disappeared into the darkness when the rest of our backup appeared on the scene, but it was far too late to make any difference at all. While we’d all survived ourselves, so many humans were dead that I couldn’t bear to count them all. There were dozens though. Maybe even a hundred. Now I understood what the Nosferatu had meant. They’d plan to distract me from their attack by giving Laura a serious enough wound that I’d need to tend to her instead of the demons.
It had worked like a charm. Wagner had done what he loved best—playing me like a fiddle.
“Oh my god,” one of the backup mages said, gasping when she stared at the pile of bodies. “How did this happen?”
“Wagner had it all planned out. He got the humans to see the demons as something else entirely—their saviors. And then he used the fight with us to lure them outside. The demons surrounded them, and then—”
I choked, unable to finish the sentence.
Her face blanched, and the mages who gathered behind her looked as ashen as a steel and cloud-filled sky. I could read their fear and their pain. Their expressions reflected the horror that had happened here tonight. My rallying speech from earlier had been forgotten, replaced by the reality of what we faced. We were outnumbered, and Wagner had outsmarted us time after time. And the next fight would be even worse. I knew that in the deepest part of my soul. Tonight, we’d lost dozens. Tomorrow, we’d lose hundreds.
And weeks from now? Thousands and thousands would fall.
“Go home,” I said, raising my voice so that all the mages who had gathered could hear me. “The fight is over, and we’ve lost. It’s time to go home.”
After the mages had dispersed, I slipped into the shadows and stole away to the cemetery, hoping that Dorian and the others wouldn’t try to follow. There was only one soul who I could talk to right now, and it was the fae who had started me down this path in the first place. All this time, I’d suspected his motivations and his intentions. And secretly, I’d trusted that he knew far more than I did. If he’d led me to getting my mark when I did, and if he’d led me to meeting the rebels, surely he had reasons beyond my comprehension, as if he could somehow see into the future, to know how the cards might fall.
But now I was starting to wonder if he’d been just as blind as I was all this time.
“Belzus,” I called out as I strode toward the crypt, the place where he’d led me that night he’d asked me to banish a demon from his graveyard. “I need to talk to you!”
I stomped down the pathway, feeling the fury rising up within me. My shadows and my newfound vampirism intensified my anger, filling me up with anguish and grief. The events of the past few months began to crash down around me, hitting my shoulders and making me feel as though my feet were sinking into the ground. It was too much. We’d lost so many, and I couldn’t see how it was anything but impossible for us to ever get ahead.
The war had only begun, but we’d already lost.
“You rang, Unbound Shadow,” a lyrical voice called out as Belzus stepped out from the depths of the crypt. His dark hood covered his glowing skin, his pointed ears, and it plunged his expression into deep shadows.
“So, you heard the news,” I said, clipping each word. “I’m not only your fucking shadow creation, but I’m also a vampire who craves her own friend’s blood.”
“It was inevitable,” he said, far too calmly and quietly for my tastes. I needed him to show emotion. I needed him to get as angry and scared as I was. It was his fault this had happened. And he needed to realize exactly how much he’d ruined my life.
I scoffed. “Right. Me turning into an Unbound was fate. That might just be the most infuriating thing you’ve ever said, and that’s saying something. Because you’ve been annoying as hell from day one.”
“I know why you’re here, Zoe,” he said, ignoring my comments. “As much as this part wasn’t planned, I’ve been expecting it. I’ve learned quite a lot about who you are deep down inside, and there was never a question that you’d eventually demand some answers from me. I’d hoped it wouldn’t happen too soon—there would be only so much I could share early in the process. It’s time now. Anything you need to know, I’ll do my best to explain.”
I blinked at the fae, taken aback by his words. “What the hell are you talking about? You mean to tell me that this entire thing has been some kind of process? Is it some kind of game to you? Messing with humanity and the veil between the demon realm and this one?”
“Not a game, and I certainly wouldn’t use the phrase ‘messing with’ to describe what I’ve been attempting to do.” With a sigh, he gave a nod. “But it has been a process of sorts. A plan. A blueprint to save this realm from being ravaged by
demons.”
“Explain,” I said as I crossed my arms over my chest. “No more treating me like some kind of puppet. Tell me what’s going on. I need to know why you did this to me.”
“I didn’t do this to you, Zoe. You would have always become a shadow mage. I merely encouraged you to come into your powers sooner rather than later.”
“But why?” I asked. “You had a reason. I need to know what it is. I need to know if you have some bigger insight into the future, that we truly haven’t lost this fight, that there’s a reason to go on.”
“Unfortunately, Zoe. I cannot give you that. Only you can convince yourself to keep moving forward.” He gave me a tight smile. “I have inklings of what will happen, but I’m not what humans would call a psychic. I have no way of knowing whether your war with the demons will end in a loss or a win. I can only tell you that I felt this fight coming, and I knew, somehow, that the mortal realm would be destroyed unless a shadow mage joined the right side of good.”
My lungs deflated and tears threatened to spill down my face. All this planning, all this messing with my life, and Belzus didn’t really know much more than I did. He had no greater insight. Instead, he’d merely been operating on some kind of misplaced hunch. Because even though a shadow mage had gotten involved in the fight, we’d lost.
“How could you do all of this without knowing what the outcome would be?” I asked, throwing my hands in the air. “I mean, did you ever consider that all your meddling has only made the entire thing worse? I mean, look at how this has ended! So many humans are dead, Wagner’s demons are bigger and more dangerous than ever, and now he can wield the power of all four covens. The world is ending, Belzus. And I’m pretty sure things might have gone better if you hadn’t gotten me involved.”
“Hush. I will not listen to this pessimism. If I wanted to hear doom and gloom, I would return to my Court. For one, the human realm would have been lost many months ago if you weren’t involved.” He took a step back, disappearing into the shadows. “And two, this war isn’t over yet. You think you’ve given up, but you haven’t. That’s why you’ve come here. If it was truly over, you wouldn’t have bothered. My only word of advice is this: think of all you’ve accomplished in the time since you discovered your powers, and remember who was there. All along the way, you’ve encountered so many who want to save this realm. It’s all happened for a greater purpose. Figure it out. And you’ll win.”
Chapter 33
When I pushed through the front doors of headquarters, Dorian, Laura, and the rest of the mages were waiting for me. I stopped short, surprised. After my disappearance from the fight and what I’d told the bone mages, I’d expected this place to be as quiet and as still as a graveyard. Instead, there were at least fifty witches and warlocks gathered here.
“What are you all doing here?” I asked, raising my eyebrows as I shut the door behind me. “Don’t tell me that something else has happened? Another attack? Are more humans dead?”
“We’re here because we made a commitment to you,” Michelle said, shifting through the crowd to stand before me. “We knew going into this that we would suffer heavy losses. Not every fight is one we’re going to win, and while it’s terrible that so many lives were lost tonight, we can’t let that stop us from getting the Witch’s Blade back and ending this once and for all. Because if we just go home and shut our curtains, then more and more humans will die. And, eventually, us.”
“You’re right,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “More will die. Hell, all of them will die.”
Dorian gave me a smile while Laura cocked her head. “Why the sudden change of heart?”
“Less a change of heart and more a realization of exactly what we need to do in order to win this war,” I said.
A few murmurs went through the crowd, and Dorian strode from the back to stand beside me, draping his arm across my shoulder and pulling me close to his chest with a squeeze. “Welcome back. We’re all ears, Magister.”
A warmth flooded my chest as I turned to flash him a grateful smile. The way he’d stood beside me through all my ups and downs…well, I hoped that someday I could give him as much as he’d given me. I hoped that I could make him feel the way he made me feel—the warmth and the comfort he brought, even though the vampirism had driven all the heat from my bones. I’d never be empty, cold, or raw. Not with Dorian in my life. A word that started with “l” flickered in my mind, but I pulled it close into myself, not quite ready to let him feel that emotion coming from me. Not yet.
But when all this was over, I would open up my heart fully to him, let him know exactly how much he’d changed my life.
“Last time we went to war, three years ago, it was more than just us,” I said, gesturing around at the Bone Coven headquarters. “We had allies, remember? Bigger numbers. Different tactics and immortal lives. For example, Anastasia took a big hit tonight, but she’s already recovered. Why? Because she is immortal. She’s fine, and she can join the next fight. Now that Wagner has some Nosferatu in his army? We need fighters who can match them while we mages focus our efforts on the demons.”
“What are you suggesting?” Chris asked from Michelle’s side. “Cursing us all so that we’re Unbound like you? ‘Cause I refuse to become a vampire. No offense.”
“I would never suggest something like that,” I said quickly. “Creating a vampire army? Probably not a great idea. But having the Daywalkers join us again? Now, that could really help us out.”
“Except they withdrew from our truce,” Michelle argued. “Isn’t that the entire reason they aren’t fighting on our side already? We pissed them off, and they decided they didn’t want anything to do with us anymore.”
“Not that you can blame them,” Anastasia said with a cluck of her tongue.
“It might be a long-shot, that’s true,” I said, glancing at Anastasia. “But the warlocks who offended the Dogaru Clan are no longer an issue. I’ve negotiated with Christian before. He might be willing to listen to me. Plus, we already have a Dogaru on our team. When he realizes the severity of the situation…” I trailed off and lifted a shoulder. “I think there’s a good chance he’ll join us. Along with a werewolf pack near the coast, the Sun Coven, the rebels, and some of the fae. All together, we’d pack a serious punch.”
Dorian let out a low whistle and smiled. “Wagner wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“I know what you’re going to say,” I muttered to Anastasia as we stood outside the Dogaru mansion. “And it’s something along the lines of ‘let me do all the talking’ but I’m going to stop you before you get there. I’m the one who needs to convince Christian. Okay?”
“So, you’re just using me to get inside,” she said.
“Pretty much.” I shot her a smile, and she rolled her eyes, though it was a half-hearted expression instead of true irritation. She knew I was right. If we were going to get the Daywalkers to join us, the Magister of the Bone Coven needed to be the one to win them over, to bring back the truce that the previous Magister had so easily torn to shreds. And somehow, that person was me.
“Fine. Just try not to piss him off this time,” she said. “He gives me a hard enough time for being involved with you guys. Please don’t make it worse. I’d prefer to still have a house to go home to after this.”
It was weird to think that Anastasia had spent the past few months joining us during waking hours and then going home to her Clan at the end of the day, even though we were two sides of a feuding coin. When Dogaru had first found out that she had joined us in our excursion with the rebels, he’d of course blamed us for getting her involved. Since then, they’d made up. Somehow. And now, we were going to go poke the bear again. In any other circumstance, I would have avoided this moment for as long as possible.
But the truth was, we needed the Daywalkers. And they needed us, even if they didn’t realize it yet.
My hand got halfway to the door when it swung open before me. I expected some kind of butler to blink o
ut from the darkness, but there was no one there. Glancing at Anastasia, I frowned, but she didn’t look the slightest bit concerned. Instead, she motioned me into the house and closed the door behind us. A moment later, Christian Dogaru appeared in the foyer, his glittering eyes sizing me up with an intensity I’d only ever seen from him. It was like he could see inside my soul. Hell, maybe he could.
“How interesting,” he said, lifting a perfectly-manicured eyebrow. “We’ve got another Unbound on our hands, only this time you’re a shadow mage as well. Must make for a dangerous combination.”
“Dangerous? Yes,” I said. “But there’s only one of me. So, not dangerous enough.”
“Well, that’s certainly an intriguing way to begin this conversation,” he said. “That is, I’m assuming my daughter brought you here because you have something on your mind. Not, I suppose, joining my Clan? It’s a little out of the ordinary, our taking in Unbounds, but I suppose I might consider it if you walked away from your coven. Something I’m guessing you will never do now that you have been named Magister.”
I cast a sharp glance at Anastasia. She merely shrugged in response.
“My daughter did not inform me, no. Though I wished she had,” Christian said with a tight smile. “I have little birds. They’ve been keeping an eye on you.”
“That’s suitably creepy,” I said.
“Do you blame me?” he asked. “After everything your coven has done to my Clan, you should be glad we haven’t done worse than spy on you.”
“Yeah, about that…” I trailed off, glancing at Anastasia. “We’re here because we thought it was about time we discuss what happened to your Clan. By our past Magisters. I think it’s important for you to know that I’m not like them. Hell, I haven’t even been named Magister. I’ve just ended up in the position because—”
Witch's Fury (The Bone Coven Chronicles Book 4) Page 14