Mihnea bowed. “Yes, Sultan.”
I struggled to my feet and then, with all the mock obeisance I could muster, bowed my head. “Your Grace?”
Vlad, on the edge of leaving the room, turned, his face aglow. “Ah, see. She is learning. Well done, Miss Kline.”
“Thank you, Sultan,” I continued, my eyes kept low. “You won, I’m yours. But please, let me say goodbye to my mother. It’s the last time I’m ever going to see her.”
He weighed the request, his eyes tipping from side to side, before ceding. “Very well, but quickly.”
Playing up an inability to move, the restraints on my arms and hands stretched with my efforts. “Can I hug her?”
“My, my, aren’t we suddenly sentimental?” With a jerk of Vlad’s chin, Mihnea followed unspoken orders.
Brünhild Kline felt light in my arms. A spirit, a shell, a hollowed heart that beat despite its owner wishing to die, all hidden behind a brick wall. I wouldn’t question it; I was barely holding on myself. But grief was a luxury I could not afford.
I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her drifting form into my hold. “Please, mom. Please.”
No response, not even a sigh. My chin on her shoulder, I looked to the silver in her hands. The dagger my grandmother had left to me, my dagger. Would it be enough?
“Mom,” I sighed. “I’m going to be okay. We’re going to be okay. You have to relinquish your love for me, just like you did before. Do you understand?” I squeezed her even tighter. “Relinquish it the same exact way.”
God willing, Vlad thought nothing of the tiny gasp my mother made, nor understood its significance. No wonder there were no other hoods who could command silver flame. It wasn’t a hood power. It was a unique skill commanded by a rare individual. My mother’s silver flame must be some kind of solarium, and that was the craft of slayers.
“I know it seems impossible with what’s happened, but is it something you think you can bring yourself to do?” I pulled back to find her red eyes as wide as saucers.
She nodded, looking as astounded and shell-shocked as any widow should. Was it subterfuge, or sincere? Could it be both? “I know you’ll persevere,” she said. “You are strong. Stronger than I ever dreamed. But your... mate?”
I nodded, my confidence drawn merely from earnest hopes and solemn prayers. “He’s strong...” I leaned in the tiniest amount. “...like me, remember? And tonight I realized, in the ways that really matter, I’m just like you.”
Her eyes went to the comatose wolf on the floor, then back to me. She opened her arms, inviting me, even as Vlad huffed in the background.
“My daughter, my child.”
A raw energy crawled over my skin, leaving gooseflesh in its wake. Then, suddenly, heat. Warm, hot, burning, blistering... My mother’s power electrified the air, making the hair on my arms stand on end. The last time she’d hit me, the shot had robbed me of my abilities for months. Then, I’d only been a nascent. Now, I was so much more. Hood, wolf, mate. Mother.
If I lived.
She kissed my cheek and—
“I relinquish you.”
—silver flame lit the room.
TWENTY-NINE
Flames licked my limbs, then bore deeper. Down, down, down into the very marrow.
“Gerwalta!”
My mother’s voice was so close, and yet, distant, mottled.
“Gerwalta, run!”
A hard smack brought my attention to the pain, reared my instincts to defend. Focus summoned me back to the present, to a place where I was under attack. Run? From what? Oh, yes. From Vlad.
From Vlad.
With a gasp, I plunged back into reality, falling to the floor where Tobias lay, awake but confused. As was I; he was no longer in his wolf.
“Geri?” Sluggish, he pulled himself onto his elbow. “Geri, what are you doing here?”
I pulled him to his feet. “No time. Run.”
All around us were howls of pain, cries of anguish. One particular wail stole my attention, and when I looked, I couldn’t explain what I saw. It was a vampire, one of the Ravens. Only, where there had been flesh and bone, all that remained was sinew and blood. The image of charts hung in my Human Biology lab back in college resurfaced in my body, and I knew what I was seeing: the human form, ripped from all flesh.
The vampire surveyed himself in disbelief, trying to come to terms with what had happened. He was a walking anatomy model, a cross-sected corpse that nonetheless was still living. Another monstrous body stumbled into view, its front side scorched as well as peeled, and they took to confirming their worst beliefs.
My mother tugged on my clothes. Clothes? How did I still have clothes when we’d just managed to peel the flesh off of four of the world’s most powerful vampires in a single blast?
Explanations would come later, when we weren’t dead or prisoners.
I scanned the room as my mother helped me get the werewolf to his feet. “There’s only four.”
“Vlad smoked away a moment before the blast.” She shook her head, pulling Tobias’s arm over her shoulders. “I don’t know if it hit him or he got away. Hurry!”
“Silver flame, mother... It’s—”
“Later!” she yelled as we raced down the stone stairs, emerging at a terrible scene.
Igor and my father, both tied to a tree. The vampire, staked through both shoulders and at the hip, blood still smocked across his chin. My father, his head lulling to the side, half of his throat missing.
“You!”
Tobias stumbled as my mother dashed away, crossing to the vampire with terrible, ferocious speed. She drew the stake from Igor’s stomach. The vampire cursed, calling out for a long dead saint.
“Please, do it!” he wept. “Kill me. I deserve death. I deserve much worse.”
“Mother! Mother, we don’t have time.” Even as I said it, I was shuffling as best I could with Tobias in tow. “We have to run.”
Shrieks erupted in the house behind us, hideous bemoaning wails that soon took on depth and breadth.
“The vampires,” my mom said, snapping her gaze. When she looked back at Igor, and at the stake in her hand, poised over his heart, it was as though she were discovering both fresh. “Redeem yourself!”
Igor swallowed his cries as best he could. “How?”
“You’re going to die tonight, Igor Kharmarov. Either by me stabbing you now, or by you attacking your brood. Which will it be?”
He whimpered his response. “I can... only kill... one. Then... I die.”
Without asking him to say more, Brünhild dropped the stake in her hand, took the other two stuck through Igor’s shoulders by the heel of her hand, and yanked them out of him. Igor fell to the ground.
“One life then for the one you took from me. Survive, Igor, and I will hunt you to the ends of the earth and destroy you slowly.”
No words from the broken man I’d once respected as a mentor, just a silent nod of acknowledgment. Her eyes fell then on my father. Brünhild lifted his head with the palm of her hand, pushing a kiss against his white lips. “Siempre, mi amor. Siempre.”
“Mr. Somfield!” And like that, she was all business again, all emotion gone from her face. “You’d best take your fur.”
“Do you think I’d be in skin if I could bloody take my fur?” he snapped. “Something happened. I can’t pull myself through.”
Another bellow in a tongue my ear did not know, this one closer to the front door. They were coming. The walking corpses were on their way.
“Mother, the Ravens!”
Brünhild pointed to the trees in the distance. “Take him and go. Do not wait for me.”
“What?” Was she serious? “But the Ravens will...”
“There is another pit around the back of the house where they threw Markus and the yellows assigned to help us out. Yan went there to rescue them. I will rendezvous and we will make for the cars together.”
“What? How do you know that?”
She he
ld up her hand pulling down her sleeve to show me some kind of electronic device strapped on her wrist. “The Ravens didn’t even think to look. He was listening the whole time. Until we used the silver flame anyway. We had codes for different contingencies worked out in advance.”
More rambunctious curses from voices dipped in pain, and their forms appeared in the doorway. “The bitch matron dies last and slowest. Kill the rest. Kill them all!”
My mother’s eyes went wide as she pushed us in the right direction. “Go!”
They started for her before she even turned, their advance slowed by their condition. They didn’t notice Igor’s presence until he was on them, the snarling, yipping fight happening at a speed my eyes couldn’t comprehend.
Tobias assumed his own feet and wrapped his hand in mine. Moments later, we were running as fast as we could. Weighed down with sorrow and the effects of silver flame, we drove forward, pushing beyond our limits, until Tobias doubled over, his hands on his knees.
“What’s happening to me?” he said through gapping pants. “Why can’t I take my fur?”
“Silver flame.”
His wide eyes looked up. “The stuff your mum hit you with when she relinquished you?”
I nodded.
“I don’t understand what that means.”
“I don’t either.”
In the distance, wolves howled out. Under the light of the full moon, a pack was only as tame as the alpha demanded. An alpha could be reasoned with, as I’d experienced earlier, but if any other wolf encountered us, they’d be just as likely to attack us as not.
Taking to Tobias’s side, I tried to pull him along faster. “We have to keep moving.”
He jerked up when a second howl came. “We should ask them for help.”
His feet trudged. One step. Two steps. Three...
“They won’t help. I tried.”
The moon above became playful, skipping its way across the night sky in and out of patchy clouds, making the forest a patchwork of blues and grays, blues and black, over and over again. Perhaps that is why I didn’t see the cloud of smoke rushing toward us.
“Tobias!”
It came upon us like a swarm of wasps, encircling us, blinding us to direction. We swatted the air, trying to push away the assault, but every movement only made the blanket around us tighter.
“Geri!” Tobias shouted out. “Take my hand.”
I reached but found only air. A moment later, the man I love called out for me, his voice trailing on the breeze, growing distant.
“Tobias!”
No answer came, even as I grew dizzy, turning in all directions, arms out, desperate. The taste of ash on my tongue, I coughed, until finally, everything rushed to a stop. I opened my eyes. My hands were empty, but on the ground a few feet away, hideous charred lips drew back in a sinister grin.
“Now, you are ours.”
The monstrosity of bone and sinew bared his fangs. Nicolai? Mihnea? The others? I didn’t know which Raven it was that seized me, and it didn’t matter. They were all equally deadly.
“You did this to us!” he hissed. “Give me your blood, and undo it!”
“No, wait, I—"
Cries broke the air as fangs sunk deep into my neck. My cries, I realized, though the beating of my pulse in my ears dampened the sound. My hands planted on the monster’s chest, trying to push him away, but I could feel my strength draining away, pouring into him, healing his temporary wounds. The thrum of my heart drowned out all other sounds, and soon, echoed in the vampire’s chest.
He was killing me. Or at least, he’d bring me as close to death as he could. I knew the vampire wouldn’t really let me die, he’d only make me wish I could.
Only when he’d had his fill did he pull back, grinning. Even as my eyesight blurred, I could see it: the transformation. Fresh flesh spun in webs over him, stitching together a plane of perfection silver flame had singed. His hair, mussed and scorched, became fine and flaxen. Those smiling lips rejuvenated, taking on a rosen glow even a vampire couldn’t hope to achieve.
Almost like he wasn’t a vampire at all.
If not for his hold on me, I may have fallen to the ground. The very next moment, I did. Not because the monster had let me go, but because he pushed me down.
One fang curled over his bottom lip as he paced my direction, even as I made a feeble attempt to back away, my elbow pushing me up.
His hand went to the button of his slacks. “You need to be taught your place, girl. You are ours now, and we will have you in any way and every way we desire.”
“No.” Jesus, no.
Any normative calm was gone. The vampire growled his words. “Anything and everything, you insolent, mortal cur.”
No fucking way. I refused. I REFUSED. But what could I do? Even as my mind raced, routing a dozen solutions, finding ways to escape, nothing would work without a weapon or at the very least, my strength.
In a moment, he was on me, pulling at my clothing, robbing me of my security. The world began to fade. Trees, sky, ground... all narrowed into a pinprick of light. This was it. I’d failed. Not just Tobias, but everyone. Mina, Amy, Caleb and the slayers... even my mother.
Cold wind and icy snow pushed into my naked flesh as his renewing body covered mine, pushing my shoulders into the ground and pinning me at the hip with his weight. I closed my eyes, helpless, telling myself that I’d do no one any good as a martyr. This was not death. I would survive this, and in time, the vampire would pay. They all would.
I bit my lip and tried to think of anything else but this place and this moment. If I had stayed present, I may have heard it: the rustle of leaves, the approaching of a foe. My eyes shot open when the vampire’s weight flew off me, and the sound of conflict filled the air.
A few feet away, my attacker, mounted by Igor Kharmarov, stared up at the wooden stake poised for his heart. Igor closed his eyes, his weapon arcing through the air, and plunged it into the vampire’s chest.
The Raven didn’t last another breath, his limbs going numb within a moment. Igor, chest pumping, looked down at the body in amazement before turning to me.
“Did he... Did he...”
I shook my head. No, he hadn’t. I’d escaped. Barely. I was, however, injured. Broken ribs, dislocated shoulder, a neck still dripping blood. But it could have been worse. Far worse.
Igor staggered to his feet, and it was then that I saw it: his true age coming over him. He’d held the youthful face of a man in his late 30s for hundreds of years. Whatever magic that bound him to the survival of his progeny, however, began to take back what fate had given him. Igor himself realized it too, holding up his hand, watching the wrinkles appear before his eyes.
“I’m dying,” he said. “As I should. My debt has gone unpaid for too long, and I killed your father.”
He had, and I should have hated him for that. I should’ve killed him myself. I couldn’t, though. I wouldn’t.
“You couldn’t help it,” I gasped. “They starved you.”
“I gave in to the monster.” His black hair lost its shine, then its color. Sixty had come and gone, and his body drove onward, the vitality of his face fading, bags forming beneath his eyes. “Geri, you must kill them, all of them, or they will hunt you to the ends of the earth. They will hunt Tobias. They will... They w...”
A curdling noise cut off his words as the brown of his eyes turned black. Igor’s feet gave out from under him. His ripped and tattered clothing coughed the dust he became as he hit the ground.
I didn’t know how long I lay there, bleeding, naked, scared, alone. When movement caught in the corner of my eyes, all I knew was that it was him.
My wolf.
I knew he spoke, because I could see his lips move, but only a dull palate of sound pressed against my ear. Tobias’s arms pushed under my frame, lifting me into his hold, carrying me through the forest.
“Igor...”
He stopped, looked down at me, mouthed “what?”
&nbs
p; “Igor saved me. He’s dead.”
A swish of red, and suddenly I began to warm. A cloak. A hood’s cloak. I turned my head, only vaguely aware of the pain in my neck, and saw Markus. I could feel Tobias’s voice vibrate his chest. No, not his voice. He was growling. Growling because Markus was trying to pull me away.
“No!” I shook my head. “I stay with him. I’ll always stay with him.”
Markus mumbled something I couldn’t make out. A cloth pressed into my neck. From where? I didn’t know. It staunched the flow of blood, but even I could feel my lightheadedness. Perhaps the loss was already too much. Could I be dying? Could my world be fading from my sight? It didn’t matter. I’d saved Tobias, and that’s what I’d come to do.
“Geri?”
His hands pinched my chin, turning my face to his as my eyes fluttered closed.
“My hearing must be coming back.” I smiled. “I heard you say my name. Say it again.”
“Geri...”
Geri...
Geri...
THIRTY
AMY
Three quick taps on the door before Caleb’s head peeked in.
“What’s the point of knocking if you’re not going to wait for me to say if you can come in or not? We might want to add etiquette lessons to the slayer training program.”
Tall, dark, and presumptive smirked. “If I were here to see you, I’d have waited, but I’m here to see her.” He pointed to the bundled baby in my arms.
As if Mina understood she had a gentleman caller, her tiny little blue eyes opened, scanning the room, finding the arrival. I swear, that child was already smitten with her Uncle Caleb. He was going to spoil her rotten.
“You seem to have taken to being an auntie pretty well.” He settled down on the bed beside me, reaching up to stroke the billowy puff of red hair on the baby’s head. “I thought you said you wanted nothing to do with babies.”
“I don’t. But Mina isn’t a baby. She’s... like a little kitten.”
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