From somewhere he heard a howl of agony, and for an instant he thought he’d disgraced himself and cried out, but through a haze of red he realized the sound had come from elsewhere, made by a feminine voice.
Marika. Oh, sweet Jesus. Marika. And Dani.
Aware he was a gruesome sight, even as the blood flooded into his eyes and blinded him, he tried to smile, to reassure his two girls that he was okay, that even now his limbs sought to rejoin each other as his body began to swiftly heal, with shifter superspeed.
True, all of it. But that didn’t stop the hurting. As he fought against the pain, dimly he became aware of the crowd melting away, as though seared by heat from the blast. He saw the three armed Protectors, Simon and two others, struggling to fight free from the over-spraying remnants of Brigid’s strong magic.
And then he saw Dani and Marika rushing to his side, Marika’s expression full of horror and shock, Dani’s bewildered. He gave silent thanks that she was too young to understand what had happened.
Marika hovered on the edge of losing herself to blind, all-encompassing panic. He knew he had to get her to regain her focus, to draw upon her inner strength, if they’d even have a prayer against Brigid.
He opened his mouth, meaning to tell her, but his throat had collapsed, and he found speaking was impossible. Urgency drove him to try. Again he failed, so instead, he tried to communicate with his eyes, to relay a desperate message, using a connection far deeper than words.
Be strong. He sent his thoughts, as clearly as he could. Marika, you must stop Brigid. Try to help Simon. Protect Dani.
But Marika seemed oblivious. Distracted, she wouldn’t even make eye contact, futilely trying only to stop the bleeding, as though she’d forgotten how swiftly shifters healed. Any other time, he would have found this touching, proof that she still cared for him. Now though, he wanted the Huntress back.
While she tried to help him, Marika kept Dani close as though to protect her. In her panic and worry, she managed to forget utterly that Dani was no ordinary two-year-old. Dani had not only inherited her mother’s powers, but developed her own. With the right direction and help, she’d be deadly. Together, the two of them could smash Brigid like an unwanted, intrusive insect.
If they didn’t wait too long and lose the chance.
Still fluttering over him, Marika made little sounds of distress in her throat. She’d never looked more human or more beautiful, but more than anything he needed her to remember her nature. Vampire witch and, most importantly, Vampire Huntress, she was their best chance for survival.
Again he tried to wave Marika away, to do something to let her know he’d survive and convince her to take care of the other unfinished business.
He would be just fine. Mouth moving, he tried again to force words up from the shattered ruin that had been his throat.
“I’m okay” he croaked. But then he smelled smoke. Turning his head, he saw the flames licking at the edge of his vision. Fire, his sole nemesis. Fire, no doubt caused by a stray spark from the chopper. The blaze grew and spread, licking at the dry desert brush, roaring into life, a furious, hungry entity, heading right toward him.
Prey.
The first frisson of sheer terror stabbed him. This could finish him, them, and he needed to do something. He was afraid, but more for his mate and their child than for himself. If any harm came to them, he’d die a thousand deaths. And also, he didn’t want his baby girl to have to watch her daddy die.
He moved his mouth, mimicking the words he couldn’t speak. Go away. Move.
Marika didn’t even notice.
But Dani did.
Flashing Beck a half smile, his daughter pulled herself free from her mother and shook her head, glaring at Brigid.
“Bad lady,” she said loudly, her little voice harsh with a sternness far beyond her tender years. Shooting Beck another glance, she waved one chubby little hand, and his pain completely vanished.
A wiggle of her plump fingers, and his body was made whole, without even a single bruise, cut or bump.
Unreal. Like a healer of Halflings. Beck had heard of a woman in central Texas who could do such things.
Then, while everyone was still reeling from the unexpected turn of events, Dani clapped her hands. An instant later, the fire vanished, as if it had never existed. Not even a puff of smoke or charred ash remained.
A miracle. Beck didn’t waste a second more in examination. He jumped to his feet, just in time to watch his little girl twist and slip from her mother’s arms. She marched up to the fierce, ancient vampire and faced her, unafraid, with her tiny hands on her small hips.
Several of the onlookers gasped. Beck tried to make his legs move, but his feet felt glued in place, unable to take a single step.
In a flash, Marika stood. Huntress. He knew the exact instant she tapped in to her magic. She appeared to swell, though her size remained exactly the same. Grabbing her, Beck attempted to hold her back.
Gently, without looking at him, she peeled his fingers away, removed his grip. This done, she strode forward, pushing in front of her daughter, shielding the little girl with her own body.
“Prepare to fight, Brigid,” she said, the power in her voice echoing off the mountains. “You don’t touch what is mine.”
Brigid laughed, the dark sound sending chills down Beck’s spine. “You dare to challenge me, Huntress? I can destroy you with one wave of my hand.”
Pushing in front of her mother, Dani rushed forward.
“Dani, no. Stop.” Marika went for her child. The two-year-old neatly sidestepped her, focused only on their nemesis.
“Dani, come back,” Beck cried, his heart pounding. Marika glanced at him, their gazes touched, and he knew she was thinking the exact same thing. If anything happened to their baby…
Nothing would.
Marika made another attempt to grab the little girl. And once again, Dani evaded her. She marched right up to Brigid, her small face red with fury.
“You hurt my daddy.”
Marika froze.
Hearing the rage in Dani’s high-pitched voice, Brigid laughed, clearly amused. One elegantly shaped brow rose as she looked down her nose at the toddler. “Maybe I did,” she allowed, her voice condescending. “So what?”
“I don’t like that.”
She crouched down, until she was nose to nose with Dani. “Since there’s nothing you can do about it, why don’t you come with me and save your father from any more pain?”
“She’s staying with me, Brigid,” Marika said before Dani could reply, her voice fierce and determined as she rushed forward and grabbed her baby’s arm. “Leave her the hell alone.”
She might as well not have spoken. Both Brigid and Dani ignored her.
Still glaring fiercely up at the vampire, Dani shook off her mother’s hand and wrinkled her small, freckled nose, as though she smelled something awful. She blinked, whispered something and waved her hand. Brigid went flying backward, slamming into the side of the chopper and narrowly missing getting sliced in two by the still-rotating blades.
Everyone—vampires, shifters and the odd assorted humans—froze, gawking at where Brigid sprawled motion less on the ground.
Everyone except the children. They swarmed around Dani and Marika, exclaiming over the sight of Dani’s mother, since they’d heard so much about her. They crowded close, reaching out with small hands to touch her hair, her skin, and clamoring for her attention.
Keeping an eye on Brigid to make sure she didn’t move, Marika allowed this with a slight smile, though she also watched Dani, who viewed her friends and her mother with a slightly amused, indulgent smile. Beck noticed Marika was balanced on the balls of her feet, in case Brigid got up ready for another round and her Huntress side was needed.
His girls. Beck thought his chest would explode from pride. Slowly, testing joints that should have felt pain, he cautiously took one step, then another. Nothing. He had been completely healed.
Relieved to le
arn his legs already worked, he moved over to stand with his mate, motioning their daughter to join them.
Meanwhile, an enraged Brigid scrambled to her feet, murder in her eyes, and started forward, only to be grabbed by Simon and another Protector. They held her, one on each side, with the third Protector keeping his weapon aimed at her head.
Blowing her brains out then ripping her apart would certainly kill her.
Motionless, even Brigid appeared to recognize that.
“I did not give you permission to touch me. Release me immediately,” she ordered, baring her fangs as she gathered her strength. Gun or no gun, apparently she made ready to cast a spell that would blow them into oblivion. “Or I’ll—”
With a curse, Marika straightened. Beck could see her gathering her magic in preparation for another battle.
“No,” little Dani said, stamping her feet. Her high-pitched, childish voice rang with adult firmness. “Leave everyone alone, mean lady. Go away.”
Brigid opened her mouth to speak, perhaps to protest, maybe to cast her spell, but before she could, Dani waved three chubby fingers and poof! Brigid simply vanished, leaving the Protectors holding nothing but air.
The crowd, obviously stunned by the rapid progression of events, stared and began murmuring among themselves.
“What did you do to her?” Renee asked, expression both troubled and awed.
Dani lifted her chin, once more looking like a normal, mischievous two-year-old again. “I sent her bye-bye.”
“Where?” Renee wanted to know. Beck figured that was so she could determine how long before the Vampire Priestess returned.
“To the place with the lions and tigers. And snakes. She can bother them now.” She giggled in obvious delight. “If she’s mean, they’ll eat her.”
Spoken with the logic of a toddler. Beck and Marika exchanged a look. Had Brigid been sent to Africa or only to a zoo in some big city like El Paso, Dallas or Houston?
He started to ask, then thought better of it. They’d worry about that later. For now, they still had the assembled crowd of Brigid supporters to deal with.
Though, as he eyed the still-shocked group, none of them looked even mildly threatening. Indeed, some of them began to wander off on their own, dazed and wanting only to leave the volatile scene behind them.
Eli trotted over, beaming so brightly his freckles glowed, and hugged Dani. Releasing her, he then turned to face the remainder of Brigid’s immediate entourage, keeping one slender hand still on Dani’s tiny shoulder.
“Anyone else?” he asked quietly. “We need to know now. If you have something to say to us, better say it now.”
Though several shifted from foot to foot uneasily, no one answered. Marika visibly relaxed, apparently banishing her Huntress side and allowing herself to just be a mother again. A mother, Beck thought, loving her so much it hurt, the mother of his precious daughter and, perhaps more importantly, his mate.
“Good.” Eli scrutinized them one more time. “Please, we’re just little kids.” He gave them all a gap-toothed grin.
“What do you want?” Marika asked softly, her expression gentle.
“We want our moms and dads and our sisters and brothers.” His smile wavered. “We’re all sick and tired of running and hiding and grown-ups trying to control us. We want our families.”
The words resonating in him, Beck stared, the old familiar ache starting. Families. Something he’d never had. He’d been taken by the Society of the Protectors when he was four, and shortly thereafter, his parents had been killed in a car crash. From then on, unlike most of the other boys in the Protector Training school, he never left. Not for holidays or breaks or vacations. He’d had nothing else.
The Protectors called themselves brothers, but Beck knew he was different. Unlike all the other guys, he’d never had a real family.
Until now. Marika and Dani. His family. And, if they’d let him into their inner circle, from this point on, he meant to make them his entire life.
And there was one more person. Someone who meant the world to him. But, though he searched the crowd, he didn’t see her face.
“Where is Addie?” he demanded. “Does anyone know anything about Addie?”
“She’s probably still in the hospital,” Eli said. “She was very sick.”
Marika hastened to reassure him. “I’m sure she’ll call us when she can.”
If she can, he thought, though he kept the correction to himself. He had to find Addie, to make sure she was okay. When this was all over, he’d search for her. Until then, he could only hope that his longtime friend wasn’t dead or dying.
“We want our families,” Eli repeated.
Several of the children murmured their agreement with Eli’s words.
“We’ll do everything we can to locate your parents,” Simon said. “We’ll need to talk to each of you individually.” He pointed to the other two men. “Each of us will take four of you. I’ll take the fifth.”
Watching as the children lined up, Eli made no move to join them. He looked alternatively proud and scared. A moment later, Beck learned why.
“Eli, you don’t have a family.” Renee’s voice, sounding uncertain for the first time since he’d met her. She moved closer, stopping a few feet away from him. Her normal haughty expression looked vulnerable.
“Nope.” He made an attempt to smile. “I’ve got no one to be returned to, so there’s no point in me getting in line.”
Renee stared, her eyes glowing. Swallowing audibly, she took a deep breath before she spoke. “Since you don’t, I was wondering if, that is, I mean, maybe you’d like to live with me? We could be each other’s family.”
A shifter raised by a vamp? Beck saw several others of his kind about to protest and glared them down. Marika did the same with the vampires. Maybe the time had come for them all to adjust their perceptions of other species.
“Live with you?” Eli stared up at her, looking both frightened and exhilarated, all at once. “Are you sure?”
Renee nodded fiercely, her eyes suspiciously bright. “I promise I’ll make sure you’re schooled in the ways of the Pack.”
At those words, several of the shifters relaxed, smiling and nodding. The vampires, though they didn’t look happy, resumed their normal, blasé expressions.
Renee was the exception. She didn’t move. Face hopeful, she intently watched the boy, waiting for him to decide with a combination of anticipation and fear.
They stared at each other, and then, with a glad cry, Eli ran to her, wrapping his arms around her legs and holding on tight.
Smoothing his hair, Renee gave Beck a brilliant smile. “I took the risk,” she said. “And got what I most wanted. Now it’s your turn.”
His turn? Blind panic flashed through him as everyone turned to eye him, including Marika. The question in her beautiful eyes made him want to kiss her, hard and fast and deep, but from the corner of his eye he saw Simon motioning him over, one hand on a tall, thin boy’s shoulder.
“Later,” he mouthed, before going to assist his friend.
Dazed at the rapid turn of events, Marika held her precious child close and struggled to hang on to her shredded self-control.
Huntress she might be, but right now in this moment in time, she was a mother first. And her baby girl was all that mattered.
Her baby girl…and Beck. The father of her child and her mate.
Renee had told him it was his turn to take a risk. She wondered what that had been all about.
Holding Dani tight, she watched him with Simon and the children. Though she searched his beloved face for an answer, she found nothing.
Later, after the children had been loaded into the chopper to go to El Paso, Beck rejoined Marika. Dani had fallen asleep in her mother’s arms. Marika had wrapped her in a blanket and was letting her doze.
For a moment Beck gazed down at his sleeping daughter, his expression hidden. When he turned his head to look at Marika, the bleakness in his eyes made her
ache.
“Simon found Addie,” he told her, sounding remote. “She was transferred to a hospital in El Paso in severe respiratory distress.”
Small talk, small talk. She could do that. “What’s wrong with her?”
“She had pneumonia. But she’s all better now. I talked to her and Addie’s made a complete recovery. Simon’s having her flown home tomorrow.”
He should have sounded happy, relieved, or something. Anything would have been preferable to this detached, robotic man.
Peering up at him, she wondered if he’d gone into shock. She thought of Renee’s words and decided to repeat them back to him.
“It’s your turn to take a risk.”
His eyes flashed. Pain or sorrow, or some other deep emotion. What, she couldn’t say.
“How do you know that?” His face still looked the same, almost vampirelike in its complete and utter lack of expression.
Though she felt a flash of recognition—how well she knew that form of retreating—she refused to back down.
This was too important. Every Vampire Huntress knew once the hunt had been started, it had to continue.
To do any less was more than foolish. It was death.
Something of her thoughts must have shown in her face. Beck smiled. “I’ve never been a coward,” he said. “But this, I want this so badly. I honestly don’t know how I’ll feel if—” He stopped, bowing his head to gaze at their daughter.
“If?” she prodded gently, ninety-nine percent sure she knew what he was about to say. So many times she’d told him she didn’t want him around, and never once realized she was lying to herself and to him. He had the right to know—and love—their daughter.
Now would be the time to rectify her mistake. “It’s okay, Beck. I’d really like you to be a part of Dani’s life.”
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