Wild and Free

by Kristen Ashley

  “One bad apple,” Ruby mumbled.

  “In that story, there were two,” Yuri pointed out wryly. “However, upon hearing it, quite a number of other witches cast their lot, spelling their vampire lovers, or simply vampires they were aware of, to do their nefarious bidding, which saw one hundred and fifteen vampires burned or beheaded at the hands of witches and their partners.”

  Ruby’s eyes narrowed on him. “And this excuses centuries of persecution?”

  “Do not ever test a vampire,” Yuri whispered, and the room went still. “Your kind tested mine, exerting power over them, forcing vampires to bend to their will and do their bidding. Your ancestors knew that was playing with fire. They got burned. I disagree with how and just how long that fire raged. But it’s been centuries. Tonight, we have a common mission, therefore, at least for this evening, shall we call bygones?”

  “Whatever,” she muttered and looked away.

  “Let’s prepare,” Barb called, thankfully putting an end to that discussion.

  Yuri sighed and moved further into the room as he’d been instructed to do the night before.

  The women surrounded him and his eyes sought Aurora’s. Her hands were up and white-hot and burnt-orange sparks were glittering between them. All the witches started muttering, chanting, so mote it being and then the sparks burst forth around him, glinting on his clothes and against his skin before they were gone.

  “Right, that’s done. Let’s roll,” Barb ordered, and everyone moved to the door. Barb looked to Yuri. “You’re in van two, driving. Aurora is with you.”

  He said nothing. Only when he felt and smelled Aurora coming to his side, did he murmur, “Why the lot of them consistently remind me of things I know, I cannot imagine.”

  “They’re nervous,” Aurora murmured back.

  Excellent. Nervous witches.

  They were fucked.

  A vampire never got nervous. Or at least Yuri never knew one to do so, including himself.

  Therefore, he calmly climbed behind the wheel of one of the three black vans parked at the front of Aurora’s house. Aurora climbed in beside him as four witches climbed in the back.

  Their convoy was on their way before Aurora remarked, “I’m prepared to go in with them. Do my bit.”

  “You’ll wait until you’re cleared to do so,” Yuri replied.

  He knew she’d turned to face him when she stated, “I know what they’re up against and I’m not afraid.”

  She was lying. He could smell it.

  However, she was brave. He could smell that too. And in that moment, facing whatever they were to face that night, he wanted to stop the van, gather her in his arms, and absorb both until he knew he’d never forget either, even if he lived until the sun fell from the sky.

  He gave no indication these were his thoughts. He kept his eyes on the road as he returned, “That may be so, but you’ll wait until you’re cleared.”

  Her voice held a soft snap when she shot back, “Yuri, I’m not a child.”

  That was when he looked at her. “No, you’re not.” He returned his gaze to the road but kept speaking. “However, you’re young. You have much life ahead of you and that life, God willing, will be beautiful. Your mother loves you, she wants that for you, she’s worried about you, and she does not need to face that coven with her mind on you. So you’ll wait until you’re cleared.”

  She made an adorable exasperated sound but said no more.

  Yuri joined her in silence, and within an hour, they arrived at the designated stopping place. All alighted from the vehicles and Barb and Jane approached Yuri as Aurora made it around the van and stopped at his side.

  “Hopefully, they’ll only have three or four guarding the implements,” Barb said to him. “But word on the witch vine is that they hang here so we’ll undoubtedly be facing more. You need to get close so you can sense us. If things turn, that spell we cast on you will deflect two, at most three direct hits from them. You take them running and get my daughter out of here.”

  Yuri nodded.

  Barb turned to her sisters and called quietly, “We ready?”

  She got a lot of “Yeps,” “Yeahs,” and “Readys,” and they moved.

  Yuri took hold of Aurora’s elbow and trailed up the rear.

  After some trudging, the witches stopped at a bank of trees and looked back at them, which was when Yuri knew that was where he and Aurora were to stop. He tugged gently at Aurora’s arm and she came to a halt beside him.

  “Careful, Mom,” she called.

  “Always, sweetheart,” Barb called back.

  “Love you,” Aurora went on.

  “Same,” Barb finished.

  The witches moved into the shadows.

  Yuri looked through those shadows and saw the house. Not a hovel, not a mansion. It was nondescript, old, established, comfortable looking, alone in the middle of nowhere, and not something that would catch attention.

  Not that it would, having a lane off a narrow rural road that meandered half a mile to the house.

  It was several minutes after the witches disappeared when Aurora whispered, “Okay, I’m a little freaked.”

  He’d known this since she’d visited his suite, but he was pleased she had the courage to admit it.

  He slid his hand down her forearm to catch hers and murmured soothingly, “Calm, button.”

  Her hand spasmed in his, and still whispering, she asked, “Button?”

  He looked to her. “You. As cute as.”

  There was no spasm of the hand at that. Her fingers simply tightened their grip and didn’t let go.

  Yuri returned the gesture even as he returned his attention to the shadows, listening, feeling.

  “Anything?” Aurora asked after more minutes passed.

  “No.” He squeezed her hand.

  More minutes passed.

  “Anything?” she repeated.

  “No, my sweet,” he murmured.

  More minutes passed.

  “Any—” Aurora began just as a shaft of violet light shot from a window of the house and pierced the dark sky, straight to the heavens.

  And that was when it hit him in a wave so violent, it knocked him back on a foot.

  Fear.

  And agony.

  “No no no no no,” Aurora chanted, and he knew it was strong enough, she’d felt it too. Then came a terrified, tormented, “Mom.”

  “Fuck,” Yuri bit out, took the van key from his pocket and turned to her. “Back to the van. Get in, start it. You get a bad feeling, go.”

  “Yur—”

  He caught her at the back of the neck with his vampire speed, bending and yanking her to within an inch of his face.

  “Go,” he growled.

  He let her loose, and maddeningly, as she was wont to be, she didn’t run as he instructed, and this time, he didn’t find it charming.

  Her voice dripping with fear, the rest of her reeking of it, she asked, “What if they haven’t gotten the protections down?”

  “There’s little time, Aurora,” he warned.

  She latched onto his arm. “What if they haven’t gotten the protections down? You’ll burn, Yuri.”

  “Then be prepared to stop me from doing that if I make it to the van and I’m on fire,” he replied. “Now, go.”

  “But—”

  “Go!” he thundered.

  She wasted a precious second, then turned and ran.

  Yuri ran the other way.

  Toward the clashing covens.

  He was far faster.

  Within an instant, he was at the door, and without hesitation, he burst through.

  What he didn’t do was burst into a ball of flame.

  What he did do was take in the state of play which, unfortunately, was grimmer than he’d suspected.

  The coven that guarded the implements was not formidable.

  It appeared they were invincible.

  He dashed over Jane’s dead body, sensing and speeding toward Barb, who wa
s hanging upside down at the top of the stairs, her frame contorted in unnatural ways, her face twisted in agony, her mouth opened in a silent scream.

  He located the witch spelling her, made it to her in a millisecond, snapped her neck in less time than that, and Barb was falling.

  Before she hit the stairs and broke her neck, Yuri caught her, raced out of the house, and dropped her to the grass by the side of the van.

  “Mom!” he heard Aurora shout from inside the van.

  He also heard her moving.

  And last, he heard Barb beg, “Help them.”

  Yuri caught her anguished eyes, jerked up his chin, and sprinted back.

  When he arrived, in short order he found Jane was lost. Jordana was as well. Ruby was still fighting, and apparently losing, until Yuri dispatched the witch she was battling, then grabbed hold of her and deposited her back at the van before he went back to the house.

  He then dispatched six of the opposing coven, and while doing it, saw that eight of Barb’s coven were gone.

  He vaguely felt the blast of a spell and knew he was under attack. He slayed the witch who’d spelled him only to feel the blast of another spell. He dealt with her too before he heard something that made his blood turn to ice.

  “Yuri, watch out!”

  He was hit with another spell that deflected as he turned to see a witch with her hand up, a ball of red and blue fire floating in her palm, her aim: Aurora.

  In a flash, the warm gush of blood spraying his torso, the witch’s body was at his feet, but her head was in his hands.

  Then Aurora screamed and shoved both hands forward. A shimmering wall of undulating white and glittering vermillion and silver burst forth, moving through him, and Yuri looked over his shoulder to see a ball of deep blue slam against it and ricochet back, hitting the witch who threw it, making her immediately burst into flame.

  “Fuck,” he clipped, sprinted to the witch and shoved a hand through the fire and into her chest with such force, she flew backward through a wall and outside, where he heard her short scream as she fell.

  He also heard her scream die when she landed.

  He raced back, hooked Aurora at the waist, and felt her body move like a ragdoll as he bolted through the house, locating the last of the enemy coven and eliminating them, all with Aurora held close to his side, her arms locked around him.

  He stopped, dragged in a deep breath, and opened his senses.

  There were humans alive in that house, not many, but they were all from Barb’s coven.

  The rest were dead.

  He put Aurora to her feet, whispering, “It’s clear.”

  “Thank the goddess,” she whispered back.

  At the sound of her voice, Yuri let her go and took a step from her as he took in another breath.

  A breath that didn’t work.

  Therefore, he bent toward her and roared, “Are you out of your mind?”

  Her body gave a jerk before her expression turned placating and she said softly, “Yuri, I was just—”

  “Living out a death wish?” he finished for her irately.

  “No, I wanted to—”

  “See the end of your days?”

  “Let me—”

  His voice turned deathly cold when he informed her, “You’d already earned a spanking, my sweet. This fucking stunt,”—he threw out a hand to indicate the house they were in— “means writhing.”

  She blinked and asked, “What?”

  He bent closer. “Writhing,” he hissed. “What you’ll be doing, along with begging, before I allow release.”

  Her eyes rounded as he heard her pulse spike. “I—”

  “Nearly got us both killed.”

  She straightened her shoulders. “I saved your life.”

  “Something that would not have occurred if I hadn’t first saved yours,” he retorted.

  Her eyes shifted side to side before they fell to his throat and she admitted, “That’s kinda true.”

  “There’s nothing ‘kinda’ about it,” he clipped.

  She lifted her gaze. “I was worried about you.”

  “And this, my sweet, is the only reason you’ll be writhing and begging for hours rather than days.”

  “Yur—”

  “Is the coast clear?” they heard Barb call from downstairs, and Yuri clasped Aurora about the waist again, dragging her to him, and took her with vampire speed to the bottom of the stairs.

  There, Barb, Ruby, and one of the other remaining members of their sisterhood stood. The other witch was bent to the last survivor, who was unconscious on the floor of the foyer.

  “Okay, that didn’t go too good,” Ruby muttered.

  Yuri kept Aurora clamped tight to his side as he took in Ruby, then slowly turned his infuriated gaze to Aurora’s mother.

  “Were you aware they were that formidable?” he asked.

  She had the good grace to look abashed before she answered, “I had an inkling.”

  He let that go and noted with false calm, “According to the intelligence you reported to me last night regarding their numbers, the entire coven was here.”

  “Apparently, they were having a party,” Barb shared.

  Yuri gritted his teeth.

  “That was good,” Barb noted. “They were involved in that, which meant we could get their protections down so you could get in and help.”

  “Indeed. You achieved that, leading your daughter to it and your sisters to slaughter,” he grated.

  “And our other option was what?” she snapped back.

  “Gather more intelligence and hit them when their numbers were fewer,” Yuri returned.

  “We can’t sit on this house. They’d know,” she retorted. “We had to go with what we had and hope for the element of surprise. The Sacred Triumvirate has been united. There was no time to waste and we both know that.”

  He couldn’t argue that, but that didn’t mean he was done.

  “Regardless of popular culture saying otherwise, I do not relish taking the lives of twelve living beings,” he bit off. “And you lost eight.”

  “I’m standing,” she shot back. “That doesn’t mean my heart isn’t bleeding.”

  Yuri snapped his mouth shut.

  Tense moments passed before Aurora asked quietly, “What do we do now?”

  Yuri took in Barb and Ruby and noted the other one was helping her now-conscious sister to her feet.

  “You four, find the implements and secure them,” he ordered. “I’ll call The Vampire Council and have them send someone to deal with the carnage.”

  “Witches require a pyre,” Ruby told him.

  “That will be arranged,” Yuri replied, “for all of them.” He looked back to Barb. “How is this going to read on your witch vine?”

  “The quieter we can keep it, the better it will be,” she answered.

  Yuri pulled in a breath before deducing, “They have allies.”

  “Pretty much everyone is scared of them, but a vampire taking out a coven isn’t gonna go over too great, even if the true story is told and nobody much liked this coven,” Barb shared.

  “Fuck,” he murmured and felt Aurora’s small hand curl around his.

  “We should finish the mission,” she said gently. “Get this done. Cover our sisters, do a blessing over them, get the implements safe, and get home.”

  Finally, she said something smart.

  Yuri gently pulled his hand from hers and shoved it in his pocket to retrieve his phone. “Go. See to the implements. I’ll call The Council.”

  A call he did not relish making. His father would be pleased the implements were secured. He would not be the same about the bloodbath.

  He’d engaged his phone but had not pushed any buttons when he felt a light hand on his arm.

  He looked down at Aurora even as he sensed her mother and the others moving to search for the implements.

  “Thank you for saving Mom,” she whispered. “And me. And well…” She squeezed his arm. “All
the rest.” Her voice turned melancholy. “What’s left of us, that is.”

  He regarded her and took his time doing it, before he lifted a hand and trailed the tip of his middle finger from her temple, along the apple of her cheek, to the side of her lip. Once he made that destination, he dropped his hand but dipped his face close to hers.

  “You should be aware, Aurora, that when I’m angry at you, being sweet will do much to tame that emotion,” he told her quietly.

  She nodded, drawing in breath through her nose, and he easily read she was relieved.

  “However, when I’m furious at you,” he continued, “being sweet will only fan that flame.”

  She bit her lip and he watched her do it, therefore, he had more to say.

  “And being adorable will make it worse,” he carried on.

  “Maybe I should leave you to your phone call,” she suggested.

  “I would run with that,” he agreed.

  She nodded, removed her hand from his arm, and swiftly moved away from him.

  With iron control, Yuri didn’t watch her go but turned his attention to his phone.

  This didn’t last a second before he heard Aurora call, “Yuri?”

  He lifted his eyes to see her—her black clothing, her ridiculous knit cap, and her utterly preposterous black smudges—standing halfway up the steps, looking down at him.

  “I know you’re mad, but my thank-you still stands. If it wasn’t for you, I don’t…I mean, it doesn’t bear…” She trailed off and he sensed the sorrow saturating her soul because he could smell it in his nostrils and taste it down his throat.

  Therefore, within half a second, he was one step below her. As she gasped at his sudden proximity, he laid his hands gentle on her cheeks and pulled her to him. He bent and kissed one glistening eye, then moved and kissed the next.

  He kept hold of her face as he urged, “I’ll comfort you when we’ve finished our mission. Now, you must go. Help your sisters.”

  She held his eyes, hers brimming with tears, before she nodded, pulled free, turned, and continued to walk up the stairs.

  Yuri watched until she disappeared.