My vision went thermal, and a low growl worked its way through my chest.
“It looks like we have a little standoff here.” He fucking chuckled.
“What do you want?” I snapped, forcing my eyesight to normalize, keeping my gaze firmly pinned on his, but still cataloging every ripple of the muscles in his forearm, the flex of his fingers.
“Well, that’s a loaded question, don’t you think?” His brow furrowed. “I’ve spent my entire life planning for a moment just like this. When I’d have the king of the vampires at my mercy and his queen under my knife.” His lips twisted into a sneer. “Gun. Whatever.”
“And is it all you wished for?” I kept my voice level.
“Surprisingly, no. Imagine my surprise when you mate my daughter’s best friend! Not that Valor knows what we’ve—”
“I’m well aware!” Valor shouted from behind Lachlan, leaning to the side so she could see her father when Lachlan’s grip didn’t ease up. “This is insane! Let Lyric go!”
Moorehouse’s eyes widened slightly. “Is this your game? Trade my daughter for your queen?”
“I don’t use women as pawns.” My grip tightened on my Glock, but I didn’t raise it. The tension in here was one movement short of explosive.
“Then—” He hissed. “That’s how you got in, isn’t it?” His gaze shifted to his daughter, icing over. “You opened the fucking door for them, didn’t you, darling?”
“What the hell did you do to her?” Valor shouted, straining against Lachlan’s hold. “God, Lyric, I’m so sorry. I didn’t put it all together until the night you were shot, and by the time I learned about their plans, they’d already taken you!”
“Of course, I didn’t tell you! I knew you’d go soft! You’re too much like your mother—that traitorous bitch!” His face reddened, and his grip tightened around Lyric’s neck. “I knew you were soft, Valor, but this…I’ll never forgive you for this.”
“I’m not asking you to! Just let her go. You can have me. Do whatever you want to me, but let her go!” She lunged for Lachlan’s other side, and his hand splayed over her waist, keeping her firmly locked behind his back.
“I might not like you much, lass, but my queen favors you, which means you’re staying put,” Lachlan said without so much as looking her direction.
I used the time to calculate the distance between the guards, the angles at which they held their weapons, and their proximity to Lyric. They were no match for Hawke, Benedict, or even a one-handed Lachlan, but they weren’t my problem.
Moorehouse was.
“You think I want you? I’d sooner let every soldier in my army fuck you raw until you bled out on this floor than let you near this family again! You’re as good as dead to me, you stupid bitch, and as soon as your brother sees the security footage, you’ll actually be dead.”
Valor gasped.
Lachlan growled.
“Every bullet in their guns is loaded with Night Thistle,” Valor said softly, her voice breaking. “They increased the concentration when Lachlan didn’t die that night.”
Lachlan’s head snapped sideways, pinning Valor with an accusing glare for the length of a heartbeat before turning back to the enemy.
I couldn’t blame the woman for keeping us in the dark about that little bit of information. She thought she’d been protecting her family. But damn if that didn’t make our situation a fuck-load more dangerous. In high enough doses, Night Thistle would drive a vampire into instant, irreversible, fixated bloodlust that would require an assassin’s bullet to put down.
“Why would you betray us like that? You had everything!” he shouted, his gun-hand shaking slightly and drawing every ounce of my attention. “You were destined to take over Moorehouse! You would have been the first woman with a seat on the Board of the Sons!”
Sons...The Sons of Honor.
No. Fucking. Way.
The pieces clicked in rapid succession. Moorehouse. Sons. Night Thistle. Why the hell hadn’t I seen it?
“Every Moorehouse was killed after the 1802 massacre.” My statement shut them all up. Lachlan tensed at my side.
Moorehouse’s gaze snapped back to meet mine. “You mean the systematic slaughter of a hundred and three patriots?” he asked softly. “Is that what you call it? The massacre?”
“No,” Lachlan answered for me. “That’s what we call the night the Sons of Honor lost all their integrity by breaking the Covenant they’d begged us for, and massacring the noble bloodlines of witches, wolves, and demons, to include my grandfather and the Markovs!” His voice shook the glass in the panels of the doors that lined the halls.
“The covenant never should have existed!” Moorhouse shouted. “We could have won the revolution without you! But the original thirteen families were so weak that they put the fate of this country in the hands of…abominations. They’d made a deal with the devil and finally started to set things right by beginning your extermination. They were patriots who died defending the human race, and we will finish their fight!”
The guards all nodded, the same crazed zeal in their eyes that shone in Moorehouse’s.
Lyric’s heart slowed even further, and it took everything in my body to keep my gaze locked on Moorehouse. If I could just keep him talking, he’d slip and give me the split-second advantage I needed to get Lyric out of here alive.
“They were cowards who murdered children in their beds,” Lachlan countered.
“My ancestor, Zebulon Moorehouse, was no coward! He ran from the house as a horde of you undead fucks set it on fire! He lived, and we live on! Descendants of the twelve honorable families who wouldn’t live under the reign of evil!”
Twelve. Because the O’Flanneries had been the thirteenth and never wavered from their support of the Covenant.
I felt an ice-kissed breeze along the back of my neck and smiled. It was time.
“What the fuck are you smiling about? I have your queen! I have the upper hand!” His voice pitched higher with every word.
“Zebulon Moorehouse didn’t escape the fire. I let him go.” I shrugged.
Moorehouse’s jaw dropped.
Good.
Prickles of heat danced over my forearm, and my grin widened.
“He was the nephew of Abigail and Ephraim, if I remember correctly, and I do.” That night was crystal clear in my memory. I could still smell the wood as it caught fire. “After all, he was the one who’d led us to that meetinghouse where all the families were celebrating the death of our loved ones.”
“You lie!” He shuffled Lyric forward, and her heartbeat picked back up. “It was his son Isaac, my great-great-great-grandfather, who wrote The Liberated Sons’ Manifesto! Isaac wrote it all down and raised us up! Zebulon was a hero!”
I cocked my head to the side. “You’re telling me that you’re not just a Moorehouse, but you’re a direct descendant of Zebulon?” Fascinating.
“I am honored to be his progeny!” He yanked Lyric even higher against his chest, and her toes dangled off the floor before she found the ground again.
My stomach churned, and my vision flipped back to thermal for two blinks. Then it was back, and I couldn’t stop myself from glancing at my mate’s eyes.
They were locked on mine, wide, but steady.
I’m okay. I felt her words down the bond as clearly as if she’d whispered them in my ear, and they steadied me like nothing else could have. My queen wasn’t quivering in fear. She was strong and shaken, but nowhere near broken.
She glanced to my left, then my right.
I nodded almost imperceptibly, but she saw it.
“What honor do you have?” Moorehouse yelled, his complexion shifting from red to almost purple in his rage. “If you saw Zebulon that night, you were there when they set the building on fire! You let them die!”
“In my defense, they were already dead. In fact, I personally killed Ephraim and Abigail, who I might add, was dancing around in my mother’s pearls. The pearls Ephraim had taken off my mot
her’s body the night before while I’d been upstate.” I bared my fangs. “And I thought the fire was a fitting ending since they’d dragged my parents wounded bodies from the safety of our home into the sun to burn. Why do you think we killed every human involved? They were the only ones who knew the location of the estate.”
Some of the color left Moorehouse’s face. “And the humans here that you’ve slaughtered? You betrayed your own Covenant!”
“For which I will answer to the Conclave. It was your kind that broke the Covenant, not ours.”
“And I’m ready to rule justifiable homicide.” Genevieve appeared to my right in the space between my arm and Benedict, her icy glamour falling away in an avalanche of magic. “What about you, Xavier?”
Heat blasted at my left as Xavier dropped his own glamour, cracking a yawn. “I agree, and I’ve got O’Flannery here on the nanny cam.” He wiggled his cell phone.
“I agree. No charges will be brought by the Consortium.”
“Excellent, then we all agree.” Xavier cracked a grin, revealing a dimple.
“But…but…” Moorehouse sputtered, and the gun against Lyric’s head began to tremble. “We’re protected here! You can’t—”
“Please. I wear jewelry with more ruby dust than this.” Genevieve rolled her eyes. “We’re ancients, you dumbass human.”
Xavier sighed. “Now will you just get to the part where you tell Borehouse over here that Zeb was half-vampire? Because this whole evil mastermind speech is boring the shit out of me, and I have better things to do at five a.m., like sleep.”
Valor sucked in an audible breath.
Moorehouse lost a little of that color. “You lie!”
“Like I’d even bother with you. I’ve seen enough.” His gaze settled on a wounded guard at the edge of the hallway. “Oooh, look, a nice survivor to interrogate. I want answers on how you convinced those low-level demons to attack the vampire princess.” He gripped the man by the collar, then nodded at Lyric. “Nice to meet you, Seer. Good luck surviving the morning.” He disappeared.
Moorehouse gave a battle cry and wrenched the gun away from Lyric’s head.
Now.
Bullets erupted from the pistol as I charged him, speeding past the diaphanous barrier of frosted wind as I raced toward Lyric.
Time slowed to a crawl, a gift from Genevieve, and I used every bit of it as I raised my Glock, squeezing off two rounds.
I took one in my chest, but it barely registered more than a slap, failing to pierce the Kev—
Pain erupted in my shoulder, searing and urgent. Again at my neck, grazing the side. Then my abdomen, right below my vest, caught fire once—twice—and my vision went thermal…and stayed that way.
My first bullet hit Moorehouse right between the eyes, and the second only made the hole bigger. I lunged forward and ripped his arm off Lyric before his body even had a chance to fall or drag her with it.
Time resumed its normal speed, and I heard Genevieve pant from exertion—the cost of what she’d given me.
Lyric spun out of Moorehouse’s grip, baring her fangs with a hiss before launching herself at the guard next to her, ripping into his throat and draining him dry as the other guards dropped from bullet wounds delivered by my Assassins.
My vision normalized.
Fuck me, she was glorious, a warrior queen rising not only to avenge her own abuse, but defend her mate as she made quick work finishing off he guard. She released him from her grip, and he crumpled to the ground just before the last beat of his heart.
“I fucking love you,” I growled.
She wiped the corners of her lips with her index finger. “Good, because I’m head over heels for you.”
Relief took me out at the knees, the adrenaline washing out of me now that it was over. She was safe. Her wounds would heal. She would thrive. We would—
The world went hazy, blurring at the edges, then doubling.
“Alek!” Lyric shouted, reaching for me, but suddenly I was staring at the drop ceiling and the fluorescent lights. “Oh, God, no!”
My ears rang, and the pain—holy shit, the pain—consumed me as warmth spread along my stomach. I reached down, but Lyric was already there, and her hands came away red. “Lachlan! What do I do?”
“Damn it!” the Scot yelled, but it was all so far away. Every beat of my heart pumped more of my life force out of the holes in my flesh, while something else burned in my veins, spreading quickly.
“Move, baby vampire,” Genevieve snapped.
“She’s the best healer there is,” Benedict urged.
Cool hands covered my belly.
My eyes searched for Lyric’s as her hand found mine, squeezing tight. Then those emerald orbs filled my vision as she forced a smile.
“You’re going to be okay.” She pushed my hair back with trembling fingers. “He’s going to be okay, right?” She glanced back over her shoulder.
“There’s too much blood loss,” Genevieve muttered. “Hold on, I think I can get…”
Icy relief spread along my wounds like frost, its tendrils sealing up veins and patching organs, but the burning only intensified, racing toward my heart like it could sense the witch’s magic.
“Oh, God, the Night Thistle. I can’t stop the Night Thistle,” Genevieve whispered.
“Kill. Me.” I managed to croak as the burn reached my throat.
“Never!” Lyric shouted, poising her neck over my mouth. “Feed!”
“Stop her!”
“No!”
“Fuck!” Lachlan roared, using both hands to pry Lyric off me. “He’ll kill you, lass!”
The burn gripped my heart, transforming it into a ball of pain as Benedict and Hawke lifted me, moving quickly toward a door.
“Let me go!” Lyric shouted, and I tried to roll, but my strength was gone. My entire body was cold, and my heartbeats were coming slower and slower. “I’ve fed him when he was starving before! I’m not afraid!”
“You’ve never fed a Night Thistled vampire, lass! He won’t stop. He’ll kill everything with a heartbeat!”
“Kill. Me,” I demanded, looking at Hawke. “Leave. Me. To burn.”
Being incinerated by the sun was far more merciful than what awaited me once the Night Thistle took complete hold, and it was close, creeping up my spinal cord with insidious fingers of flame.
“There has to be a cure!” Lyric shouted.
“You’re a Seer, aren’t you?” Genevieve asked, calm and collected.
“So I’ve been told.” Their voices faded as my vision blackened at the edges, tunneling me out. Good. Maybe I’d lost enough blood that I’d die before the Night Thistle had a chance to do its worst.
“We have to get him to Gabriel!” Benedict snapped as the cool air of predawn hit my face.
“Blood bags. Chains. We’ll do what we can to save our king,” Lachlan ordered. I’d chosen my second well. He’d protect Lyric when I was gone. He’d advise Avianna and keep the nobles from rising up against her reign.
“Funny that the demons always called you Seers when we always knew your kind as remediums,” Genevieve mused as Benedict shifted his grip, preparing to wend. “Maybe they just heard the ‘medium’ part and figured you could see through glamours so—”
“Cut the etymology lesson and get to the point!” Lyric snapped.
“Humans.” Genevieve snorted. “You’re the counterbalance. Figure it out, or you don’t deserve him.”
Ice and dark washed over me as the feral strands of madness wove through my brain, burning with so much pain I couldn’t even cry out from it. Couldn’t fight it.
Then Gabriel’s lights were in my eyes, and I felt incredible weight at my hands and ankles as I snapped my teeth toward the movement near my head.
“We’re going to lose him!” Benedict shouted.
I fought for rational thought. For logic. For anything besides the clawing, demanding need for blood that turned my throat into an inferno of thirst.
Blood.
Lyric. I loved Lyric. If I could just hold onto that bond—to her, I’d pull through this.
Agony prickled into every cell of my body like I’d been stabbed in every molecule with the thorns of the thistle.
Lyric! I called out to her along the bond one last time.
My vision went thermal, and I ceased to exist.
Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood.
20
Lyric
I slammed the tome on the table, the sound echoing throughout the library like a death knell.
My fingers trembled as I frantically flipped through the yellowed, crinkled pages. Dust floated around me, the light from the chandelier catching on the particles like a prism.
Remediums. Remediums. Remediums.
The word Genevieve had thrown in my face back at the Moorehouse compound pricked my brain over and over and over again.
You’re the counterbalance. Figure it out, or you don’t deserve him.
Her words echoed in the recess of my mind, each time ratcheting up my fury. The witch may have centuries of age and power on me, but this was my mate’s life. When he returned to me, and he would return to me, I’d have to remind Genevieve just who the fuck I was.
Queen of the Vampires.
Mate to the most powerful being of all—Alek.
But…later.
I willed breath into my tight, aching lungs, and focused all my rage-fueled energy into finding that word. A foggy memory, from my early days as a human in this estate, tempted me just beyond reach. I’d seen the term the witch mentioned before, and if I could just find it—
A pure, undiluted, predator’s roar vibrated along the walls of the estate. The sound was angry, starving, and just this side of madness. The library walls trembled from the power thrashing through the house.
Alek.
Hold on, mate. Just a little longer.
I sent the words with all the love and power I possessed down our bond, and the scream dulled, just slightly. I flipped page after page, my vampire eyes reading faster than I ever knew possible.
“Lyric,” Avi’s voice was so soft and low and devastated, it nearly broke the thread I was holding on to. I jolted at her sudden appearance before the table.I hadn’t heard her come into the library, not even a whisper at the doors.
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