by Tes Hilaire
Vampire. Monster. She should reject him.
“Kill her.” The order was given negligently, as if the life of the woman the man had ordered dead didn’t matter.
“You bastard!” Roland roared, lunging for the man before him. He made it to his knees before his master’s will slashed like a knife into his brain and sent him sprawling, again.
Karissa. Not Karissa too.
A hand touched his shoulder, forcing him onto his back.
Roland glared at the man with all of his hatred in his eyes, even as his treacherous body gave up, sinking like a pool of mercury into the floor.
“That’s right, Paladin. I own you now.”
…I own you now.
I own you.
…own you.
***
Roland woke on a defiant roar. No. It was not true. He’d broken that bond. His sister was dead, but Karissa wasn’t. Karissa was out in the kitchen having her breakfast and to prove it all he had to do was reach out with his mind and…nothing. He bolted upright in the bed. Why couldn’t he feel her? Possibly because the bond was so new?
He threw off the tangled blankets and charged for the door. Belatedly he remembered that Karissa had wanted to open the blinds. He spun around, grabbing up his pants and yanking out another T-shirt from the drawer. His cloak was out in the main roam, but he’d be all right as long as it was only a quick peek.
He moved back to the door, cracked it open. “Karissa?”
No answer. The cabin was dim despite the open blinds. The blinds weren’t the only thing open. Through the back door that was swung all the way open on its hinges he could see the morning steeped in fog.
Karissa must have gone out on the back deck. Shit. He’d told her to stay in the cabin.
With his gut clenched up in a ball, he jerked his cloak off the hook by the front door and raced out the back door. Even through the fog he could feel the singe of the morning sun, but he didn’t let that stop him from barreling down the steps into the yard.
Karissa’s signature of passage was an even brighter burn. He felt the residual path of her concerned flight toward the woods, the spark of confusion, and then, here, he crouched down to touch the dewy grass, an ugly stain of fear. The fear is where her path ended. There was nothing after that last powerful emotion. It was as if she had disappeared, or…No. He would not think like that. He’d know if she were dead. He’d feel the ripping out of their bond. She had, however, stopped here. And wherever she was now, she was unconscious.
Forcing down his panic, he stood, spinning around as he scanned the woods. What, or who, had drawn her past the safety of the cabin? As much as he wanted to kill whoever it was who’d tricked her and taken her from him, he was sincerely hoping it was that bastard Valin.
A twig snapped behind him. Roland spun back around, his slim hope vaporizing at the sight of the creature that stepped out of the woods.
***
Gabriella lay on the floor of the van, her burnt cheek pressed tight against the rubber mats on the floor and her eyes squeezed as tight as she could get them. She hurt. God, she hurt. She wasn’t powerful enough to withstand daylight, even clouded daylight, and she hadn’t been given nearly enough blood before to allow her body to regenerate with any sort of speed now.
<
She screamed, trying to drive him out. Christos thought he was so fucking funny. The moment Ganelon’s merkers had tossed her and Roland’s woman into the van, Christos had gone all parental on her: clucking his tongue, smoothing back her hair from her burnt face. And then he dragged the woman closer, sliced a shallow slit in her wrist, and raised it to Gabriella’s mouth.
“Drink. My gift to you for a job well done. You will be the first to drink of the prophesied one’s blood and break the bonds of dark and light.”
Yeah, not happening. One, Gabriella didn’t know what he was talking about with all that prophecy crap. And two, she hadn’t drunk directly from a vein yet and wasn’t about to start now. If Christos wanted her to drink from Roland’s woman, he was going to have to take the woman’s blood and pump it into her directly.
“My, my, Gabriella.” A thick finger coated in blood tapped her nose, then traced a path around the edges of her split and cracked mouth. “What splendid ideas you have.”
Gabriella groaned, trying to turn her head away from temptation. If he touched her lips…
He leaned in close, his breath rasping across her agonized skin, that finger coated in the promise of heavenly bliss circling dangerously closer. “I think we shall do just that.”
No, no. Not Roland’s woman. Had she not betrayed them enough?
I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m so sorry…
And then the finger dipped into her mouth.
Chapter 21
A demon and a merker. Roland stared at the two creatures that were trying to cut him off from the cabin and shook his head.
Ganelon must be stupid. Roland had already been up against these odds and won.
Two more demons appeared out of the fading fog behind their buddies.
All right, he took a step backward, maybe not so stupid.
“Sorry, boys. Sun’s up. Not my time to play.” With that he leapt and landed with a heavy crash on the back deck. The ancient boarding gave and smashed, the jagged edges tore at his flesh as his leg fell through.
Fuck. He dragged his leg out of the splintered boards, stumbled into the cabin, and slammed the door behind him, twisting the dead bolt. It wasn’t going to stop them, but it might slow them down.
Grabbing his phone off the counter on the way to the bedroom—and his arsenal of weapons—he punched in the first speed dial on his cell. It rang. Rang again. He slammed the bedroom door shut. “Come on, Logan.” Rang once more. Finally, as he began pushing the dresser across the floor to block the door, the call was picked up, a gruff voice biting out a “What.”
A glass-shattering scream—literally—blew out every single window in the outer room. So much for the locked door.
“What the hell was that?” Logan demanded.
“Hey there, Logan. Roland here.” He yanked open a drawer, grabbed out a 9mm, and stuffed it into the back of his pants, then reached for the satchel of throwing stars. “I’ve changed my mind about needing that help.”
***
Logan lowered his phone, lifting his gaze. Alexander was watching him, his face unreadable. Roland in trouble. Karissa taken. And Logan was stuck here under guard as he awaited his sentence.
“Did you catch that?” He eyed the huge warrior. Paladin hearing was a touch above human levels, and war zones tended to be noisy anyway. War zone. Roland hadn’t had to say what he was up against. If they’d taken Karissa from him and he was calling Logan for help then his vampire friend—who could handle just about anything—was facing some serious opposition.
Alexander nodded. “The elders must be told.”
Yes. The other Paladin would race to Karissa’s aid. As was right. But not one of them would race to help Roland.
“You can tell the others. I’m going to help Roland.” He braced himself for the argument, his body flowing into a fighting stance: feet planted apart slightly greater than the width of his shoulders, arms low and at his sides, but ready to flash out and attack or defend. Too bad he’d been stripped of his weapons. Traitors, or vampire lovers, weren’t allowed weapons.
Alexander drew his knife, flipping the blade around so it lay across his forearm, hilt extended. “You’ll want a weapon.”
Hesitatingly, he reached out, his hand closing around the carved hilt. “Thanks.”
“No need for thanks. Paladin stand by one another.”
That was a far cry from the uproar of outrage that had occurred when Valin squealed and told the others that Roland, the man Logan had been ordered to kill ninety-four years ago, was alive and well…and in possession of their Paladin f
emale.
“Even when that Paladin is a vampire?”
“No matter what.”
***
Logan parked behind the blackened carcass of a van in the driveway, his gut clenching as he stepped out of the car and took in the state of the cabin beyond it. It was half burnt out too—gaping holes where the door and windows used to be, and where they never were. His eyes honed in on a ragged hole in the wall and the overturned bed that had been tossed halfway out of it.
Shit. There wasn’t an inch of the place that wasn’t being bathed in sunlight.
“Roland…” Heedless of his own danger, he ran forward into the cabin, frantically tossing aside the mess of charred furniture and blasted in logs from the wall. Not that he had hopes of distinguishing wood ash from vampire ash, but Roland was strong enough to survive a bit of indirect light—assuming he’d found cover in time.
When his search of the main part revealed nothing, he yanked the bedroom door that was already hanging on its hinges the rest of the way off, heaving it aside. A tangled lump lay sprawled out under the mattress, the top of the body crushed under a dresser.
“Roland!”
He was pushing through the debris of the room when the body shifted, jerking in an inhuman motion. An arm pushed out from under the remains of a shattered drawer. Burned.
“Took you long enough.”
Logan jerked his head around. The voice hadn’t come from the body, but past the body, beyond the overturned dresser, and behind a paneled door.
He started shifting things away. First the mattress. The merker was missing a leg too, though it was trying to regenerate. “Shit, Roland. I hope to hell that you have the heart and head.”
“My present to you, buddy. A thanks for coming to visit.”
Logan tossed off the dresser that was barring the bathroom door from opening. The merker tried to stagger up but Logan pulled the knife Alexander had given him and hamstrung its other leg before pinning its arm to the floor.
The bathroom door cracked open. A large, lumpy bundle was shoved out. Logan took the towel, noting the blisters on his friend’s arm. “That arm doesn’t look so good.”
“You should see my face.”
“What can I get for you?”
“There is, or least was, a cooler in the kitchen. Inside are a dozen pints of blood. Two should do. Oh, and a blanket or something. My cloak got singed during the fireball volley.”
“Fireballs?”
“That merker is a pyro.”
“Not for much longer. Hold on. I’ll take care of this and see if we can’t find you some breakfast.”
“Thanks,” Roland said, pulling the door closed.
Taking a quick pause, he channeled his gift into the merker’s heart and brain until the pulpy flesh charred and condensed into ash. Satisfied, Logan grabbed up his knife from the merker’s now dead body and made his way into the main part of the cabin. He had to toss a few things aside—a couple burnt-through cushions and the charred countertop that had been dislodged from the cabinets, but he found the cooler, which was singed but amazingly whole. He opened it and grabbed out a bag. The blood was warm but hopefully would still do.
He moved back into the bedroom, rapped on the bathroom door, and passed the pint through when it cracked open. A moment later there was the distinctive sound of swallowing. Funny how he’d watched it enough now that it didn’t bother him a bit.
“What happened?” He didn’t need to clarify. Roland would understand what he was asking.
“I was sleeping. Having a fucking nightmare actually. I think Christos must have been near. He can’t control me, but in a sleep state he must have been able to invade my thoughts. The dream…” there was a pause, an audible gulp, “it was Karissa instead of my sister.”
“Can you, um, track her?”
“I feel a directional pull, but I can’t reach her.”
“Good enough. I’ll put the middle seat down. You can ride in the trunk and with the blanket you should be protected enough to give me directions.”
It took some maneuvering, but Logan got Roland in the car without singeing him further. They’d been driving for a short while before Roland spoke, his voice cracked and warbled as if it too had been burned by the sun. “It’s been over an hour. They’ve had her for over an hour.”
“We’re going to get her back. Alexander told the others. Every single Paladin is out searching for her.”
“And I thank every one of them for their help. But they won’t be taking her home with them when this is over.”
Logan thought there were a few who would honor the bond between Roland and Karissa, but not everyone. The Paladin were fighting a losing battle. More often than not they found themselves running rather than fighting. With every new generation of Paladin, and the dilution of their gene pool, they’d have to run more and more. There wasn’t a Paladin alive, even Logan, who wasn’t frustrated by that fact. He took a quick glimpse in the rearview mirror but saw nothing in the dark space between the two raised seats. “I’m assuming you marked her given that you can sense her now.”
“I didn’t bite her, if that is what you’re asking.”
“I didn’t figure you would. I only wanted to know how complete the bonding process was.”
“Why do you care? Wondering if you can break it so you can mark her instead?”
“I can’t mark her.” He glanced back in rearview mirror. This time there were two points of glowing red embers glaring out at him from the recesses of the dark trunk. “She’s my sister.”
Those eyes blinked. “Your sister.”
“Half sister. Guess Dad was lonely enough to take up with a human.”
“A human with a trace of Paladin blood though.”
Logan glanced in the mirror again.
“Her grandfather was clairvoyant, remember? That’s normally a good sign that there is Paladin blood in the gene pool. And given how much power Karissa holds…”
“Right.” Logan’s hands tightened around the wheel. Power. The double-edged blade for their females. It made them so desirable that idiot brothers lost their heads. “Regardless. My point is that I’m asking because she is my sister, not because I wish to mark her.” Nope, his hopes of ever finding a mate were slimmer than no-way-in-hell. His feelings were torn on whether Karissa and Roland should be together. He wanted them to be happy, he truly did, but with no chance of offspring between them? It was just another nail in the coffin of the Paladin order.
“It’s a full bond.”
He lifted his gaze from the road. “Body, heart, and soul?”
The red orbs extinguished. Whether Roland had turned his head away, closed his eyes, or whether the question had snuffed the fire out, Logan didn’t know. He’d say he didn’t care, but he did. In the same way he cared when he’d stood before the twisted monster who’d once been his best friend, with orders to kill, and had hesitated.
“For me there is no other. If Karissa were to choose to leave, I would let her. I would ask, however, that you ensure that I will not have to be here if she were to decide to bond with another.”
And that’s why Logan hesitated all those years ago. Monster or not, Roland had more heart, more honor, than any other man Logan knew.
He shook his head, meeting Roland’s gaze in the mirror. “I won’t kill you.”
“If she leaves, I’ll already be dead.”
The conviction behind Roland’s words were enough to convince Logan. Somehow, someway, their bond was real. And if the bond was real, then Logan would do everything in his power to protect them both. “I won’t kill you.”
“Logan.”
“I won’t have to. I’ve seen the way my sister looks at you. Karissa would never leave you.” Not by choice.
***
“How go the proceedings?”
Christos’s skin itched under the seeming innocuous question. Look who finally decided to show up. Three hours late. Not that he expected less from Mr. High and Mighty himself. Wh
ere Ganelon was concerned, it was the peons of the world who did all the dirty work. And in Ganelon’s eyes, everyone but perhaps himself and the lord of the underworld, Lucifer, were peons. Including Christos. Find the girl, Christos. Bring her to us, Christos. Use your men to distract the Paladin, Christos. Do this, do that, give, give, give.
Christos was getting damn sick of giving without receiving something in return.
“It goes slowly,” he replied, sliding the needle out from under bruised skin. Another vein blown. They were taking too much, too fast. The yield was going to be nowhere near what they wanted it to be. Instead of performing a futile search for an uncollapsed vein, he set the needle down, turning to face the man who was supposed to be his partner. Christos realized that he totally deluded himself on that front. As evidenced by the fiasco in the van earlier.
His blood practically burned at the memory. Guinea pig. He’d been reduced to nothing less than a guinea pig. Testing the girl’s blood on Gabriella should have been enough, but no, Ganelon had wanted to be sure that the blood would work on a vampire who did not possess some of the goody-two-shoes Paladin genes.
The skin under his left eye began to twitch, remembering the stunning prick of the needle in the back of his neck. Too bad Ganelon hadn’t done it. Paranoid bastard that he was, he hadn’t even been there, ordering one of his merkers to do the deed. Not that he shouldn’t have been leery of double-crossing Christos. The merker who’d been following his liege’s orders was still, at this moment, trying to regenerate all the pieces that Christos had cut off of him. It hadn’t nearly been enough to sooth his anger.
But Ganelon was here now. And without his escort.
“Really, Christos? Do you truly believe you have a chance against me?”
“You’re not all powerful. And you can die.”
“Not all powerful, no.” Ganelon’s mouth curled up, his eyes drifting past Christos’s shoulder. “But he is.”
Christos spun around and fell to his knees. Lucifer. He was the perfect example of what a god should look like, if evil had rotted him from the inside out, which it had. Oily skin slid over herculean muscles, ink-stained eyes acted as windows into a twisted soul. He towered on the other side of table where the girl lay, his slanted eyes bearing down on Christos as if he was looking upon scum.