by Lucy Lyons
I felt Dom release the breath she’d been holding and she took my hand and Nick’s in hers.
“Thank you for doing this for us,” she whispered, and in her tear-filled eyes, I saw the real Dominique, afraid and lonely, so tired of seeing me have what she wanted, but trying so hard to be the person I expected her to be.
I placed Nick’s hand palm down on the bare earth in the center of the stone ring, and my circle of protection flared up in a flash of heat and light that rocked the others back on their heels. I had less than three seconds to worry about the fireworks before the malevolent wind returned, pounding on the circle of power.
There was a shriek of rage and Eos stood outside the circle, pacing like a tiger on the edge of the circle, hissing when her long dress touched the blood and sent up sparks. Our people were across the circle from her, and everyone covered everyone else, but I couldn’t see Germain or Michael.
“Focus Caroline, the sooner we’re done, the sooner we can protect your people,” Dom assured me, and I bit down on my lip to prevent a myriad of sarcastic responses I wanted to fire at her.
I placed my hand over Nick’s and focused like I had with the water in the reflecting pool. The braid of power I had so carefully tied still bound us, and I pushed that into the power the Night Mother fed back to us.
Dominique began to chant in a language I didn’t know, and the screaming on the far side of the circle increased in volume and rage, making my heart stop up my throat.
I felt the Night Mother move for the first time, and I jumped back with a girly squeal, then settled back on my knees.
“Sorry,” I panted, then focused on only the power that flowed between us, in a pale braid of lights, like a pastel rainbow that calmed me, embracing the three of us and making us one, exactly as I’d always wanted us to be.
In that moment, I realized that Dominique had, in her own way, wanted the same, and her gratitude for finding her mistress was overwhelming, blooming in the chain of energy as the power slammed into the earth and engulfed the queen.
Behind us, there was a sizzle and a pop the size of a sonic boom, and Eos was on top of us, her hands covered in angry red burns and her dress singed.
“I can’t let you release her,” she panted, and with a gesture, she and I were alone in the middle of a dust storm.
“My master is strong. There’s nowhere you can hide me from him.”
“Then I’ll kill you, the way I killed your men,” she hissed, and one raw, blistered hand clutched my throat.
“You might be strong enough to kill me, but Nicholas will kill you,” I managed to choke out, before the edges of my sight grew dark. I couldn’t get free without severing the power needed to free the Night Mother, but I couldn’t do so without completely depleting the energy and leaving her stranded, too weak to move, but awake and fully aware.
“You’re dying,” she whispered in my ear, and I stopped struggling.
“Yes,” I croaked, “but the queen will be freed, and my family will be safe. The clouded edges of my vision became a dark gauze that blinded me, and I felt my body separating from my conscious. I struggled for one last breath, and instead my lungs filled, as the talons at my throat disappeared.
Eyes closed, I sank to my knees and put my hand to my throat, cringing at the amount of blood that coated my fingers. I opened my eyes slowly, and saw a figure in the dark mist that still dimmed my vision. I chased it, determined not to let Eos touch anymore of my people and fell out of the cloud onto my knees a few feet from where she’d grabbed me.
Eos was trading blows with Nick, while Dominique cut open her wrist and pressed it to the dry, mummified lips of what had to be the Night Mother. Eos was more solitary than even I had assumed, and had no vampires with her, but our people were still trapped on the other side of the barrier, and not strong enough to take the damage Eos had to force her way across.
“They will raze the earth to dust if you set her free,” Eos begged, slashing out at Nick with a blade of her own. “I’ve kept her safe from them for millennia, and now you’re going to set them free on each other. The world can’t survive the war between them.
“Sorry, Eos,” I called out as I broke the circle and let our people in. “I understand your reasons, but tonight, you have to die for your greed.”
Clay jerked Eos back by the hair and sliced at her hauberk trying to find a space to slide his claws between. Nick took up feeding the queen, and Dom fell to side, panting in the fetal position, too drained of blood to move.
Eos and Clay grappled as I tried to get Eos off him, and with a yelp, he fell back, leaving me room to finally take a shot. I aimed my Glock at her head and fired, but my iffy eyes failed me and the bullet only grazed her. With a howl of pain she lunged at me, and I felt the heat of a blade skip across my ribs as a blur dragged her off me. I cast all around me and found Ashlynn squeezing blood into the mummy’s mouth a couple of drops at a time.
I touched where Eos had sliced me, grateful for the lining that had kept the blade from piercing my side. My throat was still wet from the claws that had gripped me so tight my trachea should have been crushed. If Eos was telling the truth, Michael and Germain were dead. Nick was crouched on the ground where Eos had thrown him, and Jeremy was lying motionless on the ground.
Rage and grief and desperation drove me to my knees, and when my palms hit the dirt, I felt death magic at my fingertips. Glancing up, I realized that it came from the Night Mother herself. Begging her forgiveness, I reached for the dark space inside me and felt the cool glow of my necromancy instantly respond. I gathered all that power, and the power that our people had shared, and balled it up against my chest.
I offered the power to the queen without forcing it on her, and laid the rainbow of colors on her like a blanket. Behind me, Eos screamed the high, wild shriek of the banshee, and dragged me away by the hair. I kicked and fought to keep my feet under me. She swung me and released, and I flew through the air, wind milling my arms as I tried to find the ground before I cracked my skull open, but the ground never found me.
I was carried on a wind that smelled of night blooming jasmine and wild creatures, then softly set down on the tall grass, far from the stones. I waited a few heartbeats to catch my breath before standing. The stars were the only light in the sky as the clouds swept by, some lingering to hide the moon. It was a hike back to my people, fraught with the perils of gopher holes and marshy spots, just to make the hike a little exciting.
After stumbling the third time, I stopped and opened myself to the night, reaching for the part of me that was connected to Nick, but I couldn’t find him, suddenly, my heart dropped into the pit of my stomach. I screamed his name, racing in the direction of the stones with no concern for the unevenness of the ground or the animals in the waist-high grass.
The stones stood, untouched by the battle, and I fell to my knees at the sight of the bodies lying prone in the center of the ring. I whispered their names, afraid to move any closer and see the damage done to them, tears burning my eyes before making wet trails down the sides of my face.
Nicholas? I reached out almost without hope. One of the prone bodies sat up, and I watched Nick rest his head on his knees.
“Nick!” I screamed, and crawling, clambering to my feet, I made it to his side.
“You flew,” he croaked, and I nodded.
“Yeah, I really did.”
I looked all around the stone ring, and saw Anya, Clay and Ashlynn all beginning to stir. Fin was sitting up and blinking rapidly, and Jeremy was lying very still in the same spot I’d seen him last. I crawled over Nick and Fin and pressed my fingers to his throat.
“He’s breathing, but his heartbeat is so hard to feel, and he’s cold,” I told Fin, who staggered up to his feet and lifted his king to his shoulders, waving as he tried to stand steady.
“I’ll help him into the change. We’ll be back soon.” I gestured to Anya, and she followed Fin into the darkness.
“Ashlynn, Clay, you sh
ould go too. We’ll go back to the hotel and deal with our wounds there.” The wolves left, Clay looking over his shoulder until they were out of sight. Rachel and Colette had found our two men, and brought them into the circle with us. Eos had killed them both, drained their blood into the ground when she slit their throats, nearly beheading them.
“How do we get them home?” I asked, but Nick shook his head.
“We don’t. We leave them for the sun, and carry their memories with us.” Colette helped Nick to his feet and Rachel took my arm.
“How long should I wait before I ask where Dom and the Night Mother went?” I quipped, but tears started to fall again.
“Don’t ask, Dominique isn’t your problem anymore. But you did it. I have no energy to shield, but I don’t feel you in my head at all.” He leaned toward me and kissed my forehead.
“I thought you had died when I regained consciousness. I may never forgive her bloody majesty for putting me through that.”
“Well, when she left, she took Eos with her, so there’s a silver lining,” Rachel suggested, but I couldn’t see it.
“Did we unleash revenge on the world?” I whispered, and this time Colette chuckled.
“Maybe the council, but not the world, no. She saved every single one of us, even Jeremy, before she whisked Dominque and Eos away.”
“I don’t think we can have a wedding here now. Not after losing Michael and Germain.” Nick rubbed my shoulder and kissed me again.
“There will always be something, my love. That’s just how a life like ours works. I will marry you tomorrow, quietly, on the summer solstice, and we will go home and mourn those we lost.”
I’d never lost men before. The reality of what had happened left a hollow, empty feeling in my stomach that I thought would stay with me forever. I had brought us here expecting to take everyone home. Giddy and excited to drag everyone across the planet to feed my curiosity and desire for more power. Lesson learned, but at too high a cost to let me sleep for a long time to come.
Chapter 14
The hotel was all lit up, welcoming and cheery as we crested the small hill that it nestled against. We dragged our battered, broken bodies in the door, and found the place completely deserted, probably do to the fireworks from our fight.
Nick undressed me and curled me into his body where I passed out and didn’t move for the rest of the night, sleeping fitfully, but always grateful when I felt his chest against my cheek.
The hotel employees had returned the next morning, and nothing was said about the black eyes, busted lips, and bruises we sported at breakfast. The wererats and werewolves trickled in before lunch and helped pack everything and move Germain and Michael’s things into our room.
In the late afternoon, Colette knocked on my door and entered before I could give her permission and laid a creamy white dress and a wreath of flowers across the foot of the king-sized bed.
Rachel dressed me, just as she had when I first arrived in Nick’s mansion in California. She pulled back my hair, clucking at the length, and brushed it out until it hung in a long chestnut curtain down my back.
The dress was gauzy and light, several sheer layers layered and looped like an ancient Grecian gown, and the wreath sat on my head lightly, the roses and daises pinned in place like a crown.
I looked in the mirror, my haunted, shadowed eyes staring back at me. I didn’t feel beautiful, even though the dress was the loveliest garment I’d ever had next to my skin.
Rachel played with my hair and rubbed my shoulders, and before I knew it, her infectious calm had creeped into my system.
“Nick told you to do that, didn’t he?” I asked, and Rachel smiled.
“Sometimes, I take care of my friends even without being ordered to.” I stuck out my tongue at her then sighed.
“You are good at taking care of people.” I looked at her reflection in the mirror. “I’m going to be Nicholas’ wife.” She giggled and squeezed my shoulders.
“That’s what I was hoping to see. We have our whole lives to be sad or guilty or angry, Caroline.” She pursed her lips. “We should never voluntarily give up our moments of happiness.” She walked to the door and crooked her elbow. “Coming?”
I joined her at the door and took her arm. Butterflies filling the emptiness in my stomach. As fleeting as they were, they were also welcome. I felt Nick waiting at the bottom of the stairs and paused, doubt creeping into my respite.
Stonehenge would forever belong to Michael and Germain. I couldn’t let him take me back there. I felt a push at my mind and let Nick in.
Don’t you think I know you better than that, Caroline? Come to me. Be my forever wife and my forever love.
I cleared my throat and descended to the first landing. At the bottom of the stairs were Clay and Ashlynn, and Jeremy, Anya, and Fin. I fingered the light scarf that hid the bruising on my throat. The shifters all looked in perfect health, and I fought back tears of gratitude. I turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs, and almost fell back from the sheer power contained in the great room below.
Every vampire, from Colette to our new members from Glory’s former clan, filled the space. The wolf pack sat to one side, with Henny and Bill Eldritch front and center of the pack.
Most of Jeremy’s people were there as well, squeezed into the corners and taking up very little space, as the wererats always did. I mouthed a thank you to them, and made a promise to myself that this would be the last time the rats were pressed into the back of anything we did.
We’d lost two of our own, but we were together, and my heart couldn’t hold my awe. I felt my power beginning to leak all over the room, and several people laughed at me throughout the room.
“Typical woman, lets her feelings out all over everybody,” Fin sniffed in a husky voice, and I pretended to scowl at him.
“I knew you weren’t happy being married away from everyone, so I made sure as many as could make it, did,” Nick whispered to me, and I sniffed back more tears.
“Thank you,” I croaked, my throat still froggy from damage, worsened by my emotions.
I heard a door open behind me and felt a familiar power brush against mine. I looked over my shoulder, and Dominique put her hands on my shoulders and kissed my cheek.
“Don’t you look fresh and lovely… and not at all anemic,” I said, holding her at arms’ length. “How’s your new arrangement?”
“Better than in my dreams, thank you very much. I hope you weren’t planning on trying to start a new life without your officiator,” she drawled, waving the black leather book in her hand.
“Wouldn’t dream of it Dominique, but I’m anxious to have this girl to myself, so if you could… move it along, I’d be obliged,” Nick interrupted, and Domonique hugged me and walked with Nick and I to the altar.
I barely heard the speech Dom gave as I clung to Nick’s hands to keep from floating away. My tongue was wooden when I tried to repeat the vows, and my hands shook when I finally placed the woven ceramic band on Nick’s finger. But when we kissed, the earth shifted, and I knew that God, or the powers that be, had heard our vows and recorded them.
Our promises were pure, and they had changed the course of history. And when he held me in his arms for the first time as man and wife, anything we dreamed would be possible. I would never lose him to the ravages of time, and when one of us ceased to exist, the other would follow close behind.
As far as fairytales went, it had the dark and twisted and the evil that existed in people’s hearts. But it had the beauty of his perfect face, right down to the scar that I loved and missed when we were apart. It had the first time we’d moved the earth making love, and the blood and scars of the battles we had fought together, and the ones we would fight side by side in the future.
Because it was our fairytale, the tale of the vampire lord and the sorceress, both creatures of fey magic, returned to the birthplace of all Celtic magic to be blessed for all time by someone who loved us both, witnessed by everyone we
loved.
Because there was no better end to a fairytale than vanquishing one’s enemy, releasing the sleeping queen, and marrying the prince that dreams were made of. I looked up into Nick’s pale, handsome face and nearly drowned in the onyx and jade of his eyes. His lips found mine, and I opened to him, my mouth crushed against his as cheers rose from our people, our bodies so close that clothes were a sin. It was our first kiss in the new life we would build together, and anywhere he went, I would be home.
The end
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