Vampires and Sexy Romance

by Eva Sloan

  “Miles to go,” she whispered to him.

  “And a faerie queen to kill.” He raised his sword.

  Min held out the hellfire Bellini to him. Something inside her told her she wouldn’t need it, she’d be too busy to use it, but that he’d need to use as he fought beside her. He sheathed the iron sword and reached out and took the shotgun. It glinted wickedly in his hands, and his eyes flashed fiercely with green light.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Not even a little. Min closed her eyes, forced back all the fear that was clamoring around the periphery of her mind, and then cracked her neck. “As I’ll ever be. Let’s go.”

  ~*~

  At first it was just like walking through a door. There was only a slight difference in air pressure. But then the bitter, corrupting cold blew against them and stripped them of their strength. It was bone crushing, soul draining cold. Luca staggered. Min felt the life literally ripped out of her. Her head started spinning, and before she knew it she was on her knees, gasping for breath.

  Just then the silver dagger in her grasp began to not only hum, it sang. The heat of a summer day flowed out of that dagger and into her, filling her instantly with more power than she had ever felt before. The freezing winter wind felt like no more than a warm tropical breeze. Immediately she knew this power was hers to command. It didn’t matter that it was borrowed, this was the Otherealm, Faeerie, and this magic was strong here.

  Somehow Min knew, as if she’d known it forever, that this power wasn’t enough to overcome Winter—certainly not the queen of all winter, in her enter of power.

  But it was power enough that she knew she was going to charge on up to that foreboding dark mountain and blow a wrecking ball sized whole in it.

  Luca gasped, and Min jerked her attention to him. He leaned against the lee of a great boulder, his face distended in pain, a crack had formed on his cheek. He was freezing solid.

  Min rushed over and laid her bare hand against his face. As their flesh touched, she felt that endless warmth flow into him. Instantly his eyes blazed back to life, and he exhaled a heavy breath he must have been holding. Not that the vampire needed to breath, but Min felt herself relax when he did.

  He looked down to the dagger, and then back to her, the crack in his cheek had healed already. “Hell of an ace she gave you.”

  Min smiled at him and leaned in to kiss him. A short, though satisfying kiss. “We’ll see how much good it does us when we try and break into…” she shook her head as she realized she wasn’t standing before the great mountain of Winter’s Keep.

  “Where the hell are we?” Luca said.

  Where the hell indeed?

  It looked to be a wilderness of old growth and redwood staggeringly large trees. Yet they were all dead. There wasn’t a living thing insight, only the tall, brittle corpses of what was once a great forest. And even with there being no foliage on the trees, she couldn’t see out to gauge where they might be. She let her witch sense stretch out from her, to feel for anything that might help, but this place had been void of life for so long it was empty.

  Min let go of Luca’s hand. Somehow she knew that the dagger would keep him warm against the wicked cold simply because of their link. “I don’t know. I’ve never been to faerie before.” She stroked her hand absently down the blade of the dagger, in a strangely familiar gesture.

  “That,” a smoky, inhuman voice purred, “Is why she sent me to help you.”

  Min spun around, but found no one in sight besides Luca.

  Did you hear that? She thought to Luca. She didn’t want anything that they couldn’t see able to hear what she said.

  Luca nodded, his sword was drawn, and the Bellini glinted in the eerie moonlit night.

  “Do not be frightened, mortal…and vampire.” The disembodied voice drawled. It sounded closer, which made Min’s flesh crawl. “As I said before, I am here to help you.”

  “Aid usually doesn’t hide itself from those it is there to help.” Min said, thinking, It could be anywhere…but it has to be one of the fae. Iron will kill it.

  As if it had been standing there the whole time, a sooty black cat appeared directly in front of them. Of course, calling it a cat was like calling a tyrannosaurus a lizard. Its billowing form was roughly the size of a bear, and it had enough muscles to be more gorilla than cat. But monstrously large or no, it moved with a grace most certainly feline. Its eyes glowed an iridescent silvery white, like the moon, and its body, though visible against the pitch knight, seemed as insubstantial as smoke.

  “May I introduce myself, oh heralded emissary of summer.” The cat slithered rather than stalked, and it made no sound as it moved. Its maw full of sharp fangs were glacial white. “I am Graysyn, a shadow cat, and I am here to guide you undetected into Winter’s Keep.

  Chapter 27

  Min looked to Luca. What the hell? Is this some sort of lame set up?

  He kept his eyes on the shadow cat, but she knew he was listening to her thoughts. Send a bad guy disguised as an ally—solid bait for a trap. But…

  She followed his line of logic. But why would the winter queen bother? This is her power center. Why not just send a brigade of her goons to lay waste to us?

  Hear the cat out?

  Min frowned. But the dagger the Summer Queen had given her gave her a gentle surge of power, of relief. And in that instant she understood.

  “You’re a creature of Winter,” Min said to the shadow cat. “And yet in secret you serve Summer. Why?”

  Luca didn’t interrupt, but he did stiffen his hold on the sword, ready to do battle.

  The great cat’s Moonlit eyes narrowed. “My queen shares too much.” He growled in annoyance. “But as is our way, not enough for your human curiosity.” It stood still for a moment, staring at Min.

  “Very well. I am technically one of the wilde fae. I could have stayed unattached to either court. But long ago I swore allegiance to Winter and its queen. But she has grown unstable in her long, long reign. And now she seeks power enough to not just tip the balance of power, but to obliterate it for all time.”

  “What’s the difference?” Min said, suspiciously.

  The cat hissed. “The difference is eternity. It is one thing to cast the world into a winter a few centuries long. That has happened before. It destroys everything in the mortal world, frees up all that power, and lets it resettle. Sooner or later the powers balance out again.

  “But the queen of winter is searching for power from outside this world, and power enough that the balance of power could never again be made.” The shadow cat’s shape shimmered, as if it were shivering. “Things would never change…again. And that would be more terrible than any death. For change is a part of nature, and the fae are part of nature, especially we wilde fae. It would sooner or later wear us down, until we withered and were no more.”

  The timbre of the cat’s voice was not just desperate, it was filled with sadness.

  “So you’ve gone double agent, to help keep the status quo?”

  Graysyn nodded, and his eyes flashed fiercely.

  “Then how can we trust him?” Luca spat. “He’s already betrayed his own queen.”

  “You can’t.” Graysyn answered. The great cat’s fangs showed in what could only be described as a wicked sneer. “But I’m all you’ve got. I’m the only one there is to show you how to get to the mount of Winter’s Keep, not just as a guide, but undetected as well.”

  ~*~

  The Vampire was silent. Min stood in that silence and stared at the cat. Luca was letting her choose whether or not to trust the cat…and how far. She knew from what the dagger was telling her that the Summer Queen vouched for the thing…but was that enough? No fae was trustworthy, especially since they were the reason Andy was in this fix in the first place.

  Min didn’t entirely understand how her baby sister, who had never showed much aptitude for magic, could be a threat to any of the fae, not to mention the Queen of Winter. But there they were,
up to their knees in the hellish snow and ice of the Winter Court of the Fae, and they were going to find her sister. She still had a hard time reconciling that she wasn’t going to be able to save her—that was what she did, what she was there for. That she was just there to show Andy that she would try…

  How ridiculous!

  But she would. She would try until her last breath to get to Andy…and hope the rest would work itself out like the Summer Queen thought it would. But if not, she’d die fighting.

  “Fine,” Min said, and gripped tighter to the Summer Queen’s silver dagger. A surge of primal power flowed from it into her, and she smiled viciously at the cat. “But betray me, and I promise you you’ll burn first.”

  The words had been all her, but her voice had rung with a subtle power, something wholly inhuman that was not. Graysyn cringed, his ears folding flat against his head, as if her voice hurt them.

  “I understand.” He whispered.

  “Good.” Suddenly Min found herself standing beside the shadow cat. She reached down and stroked an idle hand down the creature’s back, making it shudder in what looked both like pain and pleasure. “That’s my good cat.”

  Min wasn’t in control, and she knew that she had to get it back immediately. She pushed the thoughts of the Summer Queen from her mind and walked over to Luca and touched him gently on the shoulder. Immediately she felt less like a part of a Faerie Queen, and more like herself.

  Thank god. She shuddered in relief. At least she knew how to keep the faerie at bay.

  But she heard a voice laughing in the distance, somewhere in her mind.

  I was just making a point to the cat. Only I can truly touch him. Did you not feel his essence, and not just a handful of smoke?

  Min pushed harder, and the Faerie Queen’s laughing voice faded to nothing.

  Stay out of my head…I’m here to save Andy, not to serve you or to be your puppet!

  There was a reluctant surge of humming power from the dagger in her grasp. No words, but Min knew the queen understood.

  Bitch… She turned and scowled at the shadow cat.

  “Okay, take us to Winter’s Keep.”

  ~*~

  They followed the shadow cat through the vast forest of frozen trees. The terrain was rough, not only strewn with rocks the size of skulls, but also full of jutting tree roots, some broken from other traveler’s gates, but all ready to reach up and trip you. At some point Min realized they were not traveling on flat ground any longer. They were trekking across a downward slanting slope. Which didn’t make much sense: they were headed toward a mountain.

  “Cat,” Min said, but the rest of her question went unsaid, for just then the forest of dead and frozen trees thinned and she saw exactly where they were. And all she could think was…

  Ohgodohgodohgodohgod…

  They stood on the edge of a cliff that looked over a huge valley that must have dipped a thousand feet or more—probably more—into a twisted shadowy nothingness. The wind howled and threatened to knock Min from her feet. And there, right across from them, but what was surely miles away, was the great black mountain Luca had told her about. Winter’s Keep. It was as stark and evil looking as anything she’d ever imagined.

  She gulped, her mouth had turned dry, and her body, though still warmed by the power of Summer the dagger afforded her, shook with fear.

  Min was afraid of heights. It was the only fear from childhood she had never been able to conquer. And when a fear has lasted that long, it was ingrained on one’s soul.

  A physical jerk from her nervous system pushed her back and she fell in her haste to scramble back up the slope and grabbed for the first frozen tree she could find. The brittle wood whined at her ardent embrace, but thankfully held. All rational thought had left her, and she was sure she was screaming like a banshee.

  I’m going to die…

  ~*~

  Luca stared at the mountain of pitch black stone they stood across the lethal drop from and wondered what trick the shadow cat had in mind. He hardened his grip around the hilt of the broad sword and prepared to decapitate the faerie creature if he dared move a muscle. But then he felt it, Min’s fear. It boiled up and spiked, and he turned to see her clamber up the grade of the mountain they were on, and fasten herself to the nearest tree.

  Her fear was overwhelming, a psychic scream that made every muscle in his body tense. It tasted of stomach acid and bile, and made his legs shake for a moment. He felt her fear completely. Not a surprise, but that such a powerful and fearless warrior as she could hold such a menacing thing inside her was horrific.

  He saw a flash of her memory, the first time she’d been touched by this fear…

  She had been young and the world looked so large to her. On a dare from another child one day she’d climbed a large cypress tree, and about twenty feet up her feet slipped. For a moment all that held her from falling and certain death was her frantic grip on a smaller, weaker branch. It held just long enough for her to grab for the larger branch again before the weaker cracked off in her hand. Somehow she managed to wrap herself around that branch and closed her eyes.

  Something inside her had turned off that day. Her mother had had to come and get her. Somehow she’d pried Min’s limbs from the branch and gotten her down from the tree, but Min had never remembered any of it. All she remembered was holding onto that branch, and then much later holding onto her mother with the same helpless terror.

  If she’d known then what she learned later, that fears left unchecked could choke the life from a person, she would have forced herself to face that one maddening fear. That a phobia like this could fester, even though you couldn’t feel it, into something insurmountable. Something that could get you killed.

  The memory and Min’s inner thoughts simply stopped, and Luca felt her fear of falling cease. She was frozen, inside and out, by that fear. It had literally switched her off.

  He approached her slowly, taking his time to talk to her, ignoring the impatient shadow cat and placing all his attention on the woman he loved. He had to do something to lessen the fear that held her, but what?

  His instincts told him to touch her, so he did: first tentatively on the shoulder, and then another hand, this one on the nape of her neck, making skin on skin contact. She was warm, but that sense of connection, of a living electrical pulse was missing. He swallowed and ignored the doubts that flickered in his head. This was Min. The fiercest mortal he had ever met, the woman he loved. She would not lie down and die, she would fight.

  And he would help her. It was what he was there for. To love and help her in every way he could.

  Min? His thoughts echoed back to him, as if she were empty. But he knew she was still in there, somewhere. Can you hear me? Still nothing.

  I know this is a lot to ask, but you have to push your fear away from you. You have no other choice. He tried to press some of his strength into her, as he had done before when she was injured after the Winter Queen had attacked her. But it wasn’t her body that needed repairing. He hissed in aggravation. But his touch had helped balance her not long ago, hadn’t it? His touch had helped her overcome so much already.

  But that was just magic. This was something real, something that had been with her, every day since it had happened, and it was a tangible, immutable thing.

  Then he thought of something else that was as much a part of her as anything else, if even more so.

  “Andy needs you.” Over and over, as gently as he could, he repeated those words.

  Slowly her blank, staring eyes closed, and she licked her lips. When her eyes opened again, tears streamed down her face and she shook violently.

  “I can’t…” She held all the harder to the frozen tree she had attached herself to. “I c-can’t do this.”

  Luca closed the distance between them until his lips were practically touching hers, her breath mingled with his. He looked deep into her big, brown eyes.

  “Yeah…but we can.”

  Chapter
28

  Min blinked at her vampire. Luca’s eyes shined not only with the warm green of Summer’s magic, but with love. It made the cold, tight stranglehold of her fear loosen. He really loved her. He was so in love with her he was at her side as they marched most certainly to their deaths.

  And he believed in her. She felt that from their connection. His belief and love for her throbbed and flowed into her from where his hand clasped the back of her neck. For what seemed like forever she’d held desperately tight to the frozen tree, and she’d been all alone. She hadn’t felt him, and hadn’t even been able to think of anything but how high up they were, as it had felt all those years ago to have almost fallen to her death from that blasted tree.

  Why hadn’t she faced this fear before today? Was she growing feeble, or had her fear been so great that it was powerful enough to hide in plain sight?

  Oh god, she was giving an emotion nefarious characteristics and sentient intelligence.

  “I’ll be holding onto you the whole time,” Luca whispered. “I won’t let you fall.”

  She believed him. But the roiling emotions of her fear seized her again, even through the warmth and power of their connection. It made her arms jerk and her stranglehold on the frozen tree intensified. Her eyes snapped shut.

  Luca laughed. Not a kind chuckle. No, this was a mean, mocking little laugh. This laugh made her blood boil.

  “Fine, fine…” he chortled in a mollifying tone. “I could carry you across. It’s not the first time I’ve had to rescue a damsel in distress.”