by Deanna Chase
A flash of light filtered through my haze, and then I was lying on the grass, staring up into the face of the vampire—no, fae—I’d met a few days earlier. Hunter.
“Willow?” he asked, concern in his voice. “Are you all right?”
I blinked and glanced to the side, finding Asher gaunt and unconscious. “We have to end him,” I croaked out.
“We will.” Phoebe came into view. They must have just arrived together. “We needed to get you and Link out of the way.”
“Do it. Now!” I cried in a panic, not lifting my head or moving any other part of my body. It was too painful. It felt as if fire ants where crawling beneath my skin. I was trembling and so hot I was certain I’d combust right there. They had to end Asher before he woke up and touched me and stole his energy back. Because I couldn’t contain it much longer. It was out of my control.
Phoebe nodded to Hunter and the pair of them disappeared from my field of vision. I turned my head, eyeing the source of all my angst for the past year. And deep in my soul, I knew I wanted to see his undead life end. Needed it on a purely base level in order to feel safe again.
And then my best friend and the fae who’d spent years as a vampire tracking Asher down did what no one else had been able to do. They raised their arms and together they cast a blinding red bolt of fire magic at Asher. His body bowed as the magical flames engulfed every inch of his skin. It crackled and popped like sap in a pinewood log. And then all at once, the fire magic exploded.
All that was left was ash.
I felt the hot streaks of tears on my temples. He was gone. Finally. Beau Jr. was safe. For now.
“Wil?” Phoebe dropped to her knees beside me. “You’re shaking. What do you want me to do?”
I stared up at her, not knowing what to say.
“Willow?”
I opened my mouth to tell her I need to unleash Asher’s energy, but it was eating me from the inside out and I couldn’t speak.
“Talisen!” Phoebe cried, glancing back at the house. “Hurry!”
I felt his footsteps in the yard before I saw him. His worried expression when he crouched down next to me only made the tears come faster.
I’m okay, I tried to say, but still the words wouldn’t come out.
“She needs to release the vampire energy,” he said as he scooped me up into his arms and bounded into the house.
I curled into myself, barely able to stay conscious from the agony claiming my flesh. Each jostle, each footstep, each brush of skin on skin was pure hell. Even Tal’s normally cooling touch didn’t help. It only made things worse.
Finally he stopped and ever so gently laid me down on a bed. I was too far gone to even open my eyes. A hand covered mine, irritating the fire ants that were burrowing away beneath my skin.
“No!” I got out as I tried to steal my hand back. But the grip on it tightened.
“Here,” Tal said softly and pressed my hand to a cold, hard stone. “Release Asher’s energy. Do it now.”
The ants fled through my body, pooling in my palm. Heat and ice mixed at the connection of my hand to the stone. I could taste the release, but I wasn’t strong enough. The energy wouldn’t budge.
“Take a tiny bit of her energy into yourself, Wil,” Talisen said.
Her? Had he assigned gender to his stones? It didn’t matter. I was beyond caring. All I wanted was the energy gone. Pulling the will from deep in my gut, I connected to the stone and pulled.
White-hot streaks of life seared through me. I gasped, sucking in a startled breath. Tal’s stones never felt like that. It was then I realized I wasn’t taking energy from a stone. It was a vampire. A female one.
I turned my head, squinting to focus on the blond beauty beside me. Pandora. Oh, Goddess. She wasn’t moving. Someone had killed her.
The sight of Allcot’s consort and Nicola’s sister made me want to cry. She was one who’d always been nice to me. I didn’t want to see her dead. I forced myself to roll over and placed both my hands directly over her heart. Then I squeezed my eyes shut and willed the energy back into her. This time there wasn’t any barrier. Her energy, along with all of Asher’s, rushed into her so fast it made my head spin.
Pandora sat straight up, knocking me to the side, and let out a loud gasp of her own. “What happened?”
“Pandora!” I heard Nicola cry, but it was Allcot who was beside her instantly, his arms cradling her against his chest.
His deep gray eyes met mine, his expression a combination of wonder and relief as he clutched his partner. His expression turned soft and vulnerable when Pandora’s arms went around him. “Thank the gods you’re okay,” he whispered into her ear, never taking his eyes off me.
I gave him a tiny smile, pleased to see he really did have a heart underneath all the power and arrogance.
He returned my smile with a grateful one of his own and mouthed, Thank you.
Chapter 32
The injuries and destruction were great. By the time I was functional enough to survey the damage, Allcot and his people had either eliminated or restrained all of Asher’s supporters. A group of us had gathered in a large den on the second floor.
Pandora, a new daywalker, was standing on the outside balcony, her face turned to the sun. Allcot stood just inside the room, keeping one eye on her and another on David. His neck wound was raw and puckered, but no longer bleeding. David was lying on a long couch, his leg elevated. He had a long, ugly gash from his hip to his knee.
“What happened?” I asked sitting in a chair next to him. Link, still in wolf form, lay down at my feet, keeping an eye on me.
“Vince. He was trying to take Beau Jr.” David moved to sit up, but I held up my hand, indicating that wasn’t necessary. His wound was ugly.
“He wasn’t successful,” I noted, glancing at Beau Jr. playing on a blanket in the middle of the room.
“No. He wasn’t.” David’s words were hard and full of contempt. “And he paid for it.”
I raised my eyebrows, curious what that meant.
David grimaced. “He’s ash now, courtesy of Hunter. We destroyed an entire room trying to kill each other. Finally, when both of us were losing so much blood and neither had much strength, Hunter arrived and ended him.”
David sounded pissed about that.
“And you wanted to be the one to do it?”
He shrugged. “Not necessarily. But I do like questioning my enemies before deciding to terminate their existence.”
Normally I’d balk at the idea of ending the life of anyone, including a vampire, but in this case, I held only gratitude for Hunter. These vampires would’ve never stopped until they got to Beau Jr. And that was unacceptable.
“It doesn’t matter,” Carrie said in a tired voice. “We got all the answers we needed.” She was sitting on the floor across from Beau, keeping a sharp eye on him. Bruises had blossomed around her neckline, but other than being exhausted, she appeared to be okay.
“And the answers are?” I glanced around the room. I’d been out of it for quite a while after I’d changed Pandora. Talisen had been with me for most of that time.
Hunter cleared his throat. “I guess I’ll start at the beginning.”
I nodded. “Seems like a good idea.”
He stood and started pacing. His dark hair was wet, as if he’d just gotten out of the shower, and there was an ugly scratch on the right side of his face. “You know your brother and I were friends in high school.”
“Yes, but you didn’t go to our school, did you?”
“No.” He ran a hand over his head. “I went to a private school that was integrated with fae and humans. I had a human girlfriend a couple of years older than me who’d been turned into a vamp.” He glanced at Talia, who was leaning against the far wall, staring at her feet.
“Talia?” I asked.
Her head snapped up. “Yes. It was me. I was turned against my will.”
My heart broke for her. It was one of life’s worst invasions, having
your life stolen from you. I suppressed a shudder. “Was it Asher?”
“No,” she said quietly. “But he found me shortly after, and because of my anger at being turned, he used me for his cause—to protect humans from being harmed by vampires. From there I recruited Hunter and Beau.”
“Beau?” The question came out in a gasp. “He willingly worked for Asher?”
“Yes.” Her tone was apologetic. “Because he trusted me. The thing is, Asher had an unnatural interest in Beau, and I never knew why. Not until the night Asher killed me, or tried to, and left me where Beau would find me. It was a test to see if he could in fact turn vampires into daywalkers.”
Holy crow. Asher had set him up. If Beau had never met Hunter or Talia, would he still be with us today? It was possible, but I wasn’t naïve enough to believe nothing would’ve ever happened. The gift was too strong a lure.
“After that, it became apparent Asher was after Beau,” Hunter continued. “We set up a plan to turn a group of vampires into daywalkers as his security team. But Asher got wind of it and picked them off one by one until he gathered enough information to get to Beau himself.”
I sat back, horrified. Poor Beau. He’d been so young and all his resources had been new vampires. I turned to Carrie. “Did you know about all this?”
She shook her head. “Not at first. Not when he was aligned with Asher, anyway. Beau knew my sister was a vampire and didn’t want to upset me. He felt strongly about protecting humans but didn’t want to fight about it. It wasn’t until he knew he was in real danger that he told me. I was already making a plan to get us out of Eureka when Beau was killed.”
The familiar ache in my heart throbbed. I missed my brother more than words could convey. And today, with my defenses so blown apart, his absence hit me harder than it usually did. I glanced at little Beau and took comfort in the fact my brother had left such a beautiful gift behind.
“So he turned Vince, Grace, and you into daywalkers?” I asked Talia.
“Yeah, and Victoria.”
That explained why I hadn’t felt her vampire energy, either.
“He’d planned to turn a few others but never got the chance.” Talia’s tone was sad as she continued. “After that, I made it my mission to take Asher down. But he went into hiding and no one knew where he was. I teamed up with Hunter, and we’ve been looking for him ever since. We got close once or twice, but it wasn’t until he recruited Rox, Grace, and the others recently that we got a real line on him.”
“Why?” I asked, genuinely curious. “You could’ve just gone off and lived your lives. Especially after four years of false leads.”
She met Hunter’s gaze and an unspoken communication passed between them. Hunter nodded, and Talia took a deep breath. “First, if it wasn’t for me, Hunter and Beau never would’ve been involved with Asher. I felt responsible.”
“I did, too,” Hunter added.
Once again, the knowledge of Beau’s dangerous secret life made my heart ache. Why hadn’t he ever said anything? To protect you, the thought ghosted through my mind, and I knew it was true.
Talia cleared her throat. “But mostly I did it because it’s my fault Asher found Beau. I was the only one who knew where he’d be at all times. I was supposed to trust no one, because we knew someone was feeding Asher information. But I was scared and needed someone to talk to. I told one person. Grace. She was quiet back then, with an air of honor about her. She was always talking about right and wrong, trying to live a moral life.” She let out a huff of sardonic laughter. “I was so gullible. Within two hours, Beau was gone.” Her eyes misted with pink-tinged tears.
I frowned. “But yet you continued to work with her undercover this whole time?”
“No,” she said forcefully. “I actually went solo for a long time and only infiltrated their group after I started working with Hunter again. That was a few months ago. Yesterday when you were kidnapped from the bar, I had no idea Vince was going to do that. It was supposed to be a recon mission, which was fine for undercover work, but by the time I realized what he had planned, it was too late. I did everything I could to get you away from him.”
I narrowed my eyes, not sure I could believe her. “How do I know you’re not lying to me?”
Allcot spoke up for the first time since I’d entered the room. “Everyone has been given Truth Clusters. Her story meshes with the information we’ve ascertained from the remaining prisoners.”
Oh. Right. He’d placed an order at my shop recently. I stared at him. “Did you suspect someone on your team was disloyal? Is that why the emergency order?”
“Yes, Ms. Rhoswen. And as it turns out, I was correct. Our guard, K.C., was a mole. He’s been eliminated, along with the vampire Vince. The other vampire and that traitorous fae will undergo more questioning before we decide their fate.”
He was talking about Meredith and Grace.
“I see,” I said, trying to suppress the desire to find Grace and end her. It was her fault Beau was gone. My only consolation was my certainty that Allcot wouldn’t show her any mercy. A small twinge of guilt twisted in my gut, but it was hard to feel bad about it after all we’d been through.
Phoebe entered the room, her brilliant blue eyes scanning as they always did. “Everyone okay in here?”
There was a murmur of agreement. “How is everyone else? Harrison? And Mom?” I stood suddenly. How had I forgotten about Mom? “Where is she?”
“Relax. She’s tending to Harrison and the other guard. David levied some impressive blows on them while they were under Meredith’s compulsion magic.”
David frowned. “It’s not like I had a choice. They were trying to kill me. And hell, at that point, I had no idea who was on what side.”
“You did what you had to,” Hunter said.
“But Harrison is… dammit. He’s our most loyal guard and my best friend.” David blew out a long-suffering breath. He must have been in a lot of pain still, but just about the only thing that would help him now was fresh human blood. And he wouldn’t accept any from the humans in the house.
“He’s right,” Carrie said quietly. “Harrison won’t hold it against you.”
Beau chose that moment to run over to David, a toy truck still in his fist. “Uncle David?”
David’s expression softened as he smiled at my nephew. “Yeah, little man?”
“You’re hurt.” Beau dropped the truck and climbed up on the couch to sit next to him.
“I’ll be okay.” David smoothed Beau’s red hair down ever so gently.
“I can hep,” he said, his toddler lisp adorable, and then he turned toward Carrie. “Right, Mommy?”
Carrie smiled at her son and then at David. “We’ve been working on a few healing spells.”
“Beau has magic?” I asked, surprised I hadn’t heard about this before.
“Of course he does,” Carrie said lightly. “How could he not with who is parents are?”
I laughed. “I was just surprised it’s already surfaced. It’s a little early, isn’t it?”
Carrie shrugged. “We haven’t had a lot to do considering we’ve spent the majority of our time indoors these past few years.”
That made my heart hurt and it must have showed, because Carrie gave me a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, Wil. Things should get better now that Asher’s out of the picture. Right?”
There was a cautious murmur of agreement around the room. Asher’s second in command was still out there somewhere. But Carrie was right. The main threat was gone and we had a solid lead on Asher’s second. With any luck we’d have him in custody soon. Hopefully Beau would have a relatively normal childhood now.
“I can fix Uncle,” Beau told his mother.
“Sure you can, baby,” Carrie said, humoring him. She cast David a questioning glance to see if he was game.
He shrugged slightly and nodded.
“It’s just a simple healing spell. He’s practiced on me a few times. Pretty harmless. It might not even
work on you.”
“Nothing could be worse than this.” David waved at his leg and chuckled. “Go ahead, little man. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Beau grinned up at David, then furrowed his brow as he focused. He ran his small hands along David’s leg, parallel to the wound.
David stayed totally still, giving Beau his undivided attention.
“Ready?” Beau asked David.
“Ready.” David made a show of closing his eyes as if to prepare for the sting of Beau’s magic.
Beau bit his lip and scrunched up his face in concentration. “By the magic of the sea, I give you what you need to be healed by me.” Magic burst from Beau’s fingertips and latched onto David’s skin, skittering across his large body until David glowed with it. The magic brightened into a flash of white light and then it vanished.
David’s wound was completely healed.
Beau let out a loud laugh and clapped his hands together. “I did it, Mommy. I did it!”
Everyone in the room was completely silent as we gaped at David.
“Mommy?” Beau asked, suddenly self-conscious. “I fixed him, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, baby,” Carrie said softly. “You fixed him.”
I stared at David, taking in his tired eyes and softer physique. His features were less defined and his marble-like frame had vanished. Beau had fixed him all right. Totally.
The vampire was gone.
David was once again the man I’d dated—a human.
Chapter 33
One Week Later
I stood behind the counter of The Fated Cupcake, blissfully filling the case with a new batch of Hibiscus Healing bars. It was my fourth day back in the shop after spending three days filling out reports and sitting for interviews for the director of the Void regarding the events surrounding Asher’s demise. Phoebe and Hunter had apprehended Asher’s second in command and, thankfully, the case had been put to rest. Phoebe and I were both on a much-deserved break from everything vampire related.