Secret of the Vampire

by L. E. Wilson

  I kissed her softly. “I am. And Kenya?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Be ready,” I told her. I held her eyes, hoping I got my meaning across.

  Her eyebrows lowered, those cute little creases appearing between them. Then suddenly, her expression cleared, and her fingers tightened around mine. She nodded.

  I kissed her again and helped her to her feet as I got to mine. I was still a bit woozy, but overall, not too bad. At least I was able to stay upright now. We rinsed off and I turned off the water, now quite cool. Then we got out, dried off and got dressed.

  Neither one of us said a word the entire time. As though we both knew now that we’d left what little protection the shower provided, we had to be extremely careful.

  But I was getting her out of here. Tonight. The barrier the djinn had around the property should be nothing but a simple binding spell. Even if it was something stronger, I should be able to open it enough for her to slip out. Then I would follow her. Once we were out, we just had to get to the city and the help of my coven.

  Surely, between all of us, we’d be able to fend off the djinn.

  Right?

  Chapter 22

  Kenya

  “Run.”

  Chills ran down my spine as Alex’s breath tickled my ear. We’d been standing in the living room when he’d suddenly walked up behind me. We’d been waiting for the last hour, both of us quiet since the “shower scene” that I was still trying to process.

  I frowned, sure I hadn’t heard him right. But when I looked at Alex, I saw the truth staring back at me. He was letting me go. “What about the spell? I can’t leave. I already tried.”

  “I can lower it just long enough for you to get out, but you need to run faster than you’ve ever run in your life. I won’t be able to hold it long.”

  Immediately, I shook my head. “Not without you.” I couldn’t leave him here to face Marcus’s wrath alone. He wouldn’t survive it. I knew this all the way to my bones. And although the thought of seeing him again in a different life—one that had no djinn in it—was enough to bring a smile to my face, I wasn’t yet done living this one. And neither was he. For the sake of the gods, I’d just found him. And although I didn’t know how to love him, the thought of losing him was an unbearable agony that had nothing to do with the blood bond.

  He clenched his jaw, his voice low but urgent. “Jesus Christ, Kenya. Fucking run! Now!”

  I held my ground. “No. Not without you.”

  At first, I thought he was going to yell at me some more, but then his expression softened. “I’ll meet you back in the city. At the club,” he added. “But I can’t do what I need to do to get out of this alive with you here. Now fucking RUN.”

  He shoved me forward as the sound of a car engine drew closer. My heart in my throat with fear for him, I did as he told me to do, running toward the back of the house where the walls were caving in. Knocking a board loose, I jumped through and ran, losing myself in the trees surrounding the house. I didn’t stop and I didn’t look back. Not even when I heard Marcus scream with rage and a sound like the house was caving in on itself. Not even when I came up to the place where the djinn’s spell should stop me. Lowering my chin, I pumped my arms and legs…

  And burst through with only the slightest resistance.

  Tears overflowed, blurring my vision, and still I ran. I had no idea where I was going, and it wasn’t until I plunged into the waist deep waters of the swamp and got smacked in the face by a Bald Cypress branch that I realized I’d gone in a circle. I stopped, my heart pounding in my ears. There was a splash to my right, and something brushed past my left thigh. Vegetation maybe. Or a snake.

  Suddenly, the air pressure changed, ebbing and flowing in a weird wave of magic. I had no time to react before a second wave, this one much stronger than the first, hit me from behind, throwing me forward and knocking me face down into the cold water. I scrambled to my feet, the water now up to my chest, and backtracked the way I had come as fast as I could go.

  When I found solid ground, I stopped for a second, getting my bearings, but I couldn’t bring myself to move again, to leave him.

  I wouldn’t leave him.

  If Alex could distract him long enough, I could sneak up behind him and twist off his head. The thought made me shudder. I hadn’t been a violent human, and I was even less so as a vampire, always relying on everyone around me to save me.

  Well, tonight, I was the one who was going to do the saving.

  Mind made up, I took a deep breath, bracing myself for what I needed to do, then I ran back the way I’d come, ignoring the fear that wound its way through me, threatening to freeze my limbs and send me flying onto my face again. Dodging trees and brush when I could and crashing through them when I couldn’t, I ran.

  As I got closer, I was more careful of my path, not wanting to alert Marcus with all the noise. Slowing to a jog, I wiped the moisture from my cheeks from tears that refused to stop falling and tried to slow my racing heart. Once I was inside the border, I wouldn’t be able to leave again until the djinn was dead.

  Suddenly, a female appeared in front of me. I skidded to a halt, wondering where the hell she had come from. She was quite lovely, with pale skin, long, dark hair and green eyes that shone even in the darkness. Immediately sensing she was a vampire, I instinctively crouched into a fighting stance and bared my fangs in warning. This was not her territory. Which only told me she was here to cause trouble I didn’t fucking need right now.

  She held her hands out in front of her, palms toward me. “Whoa, there.”

  I noticed she kept her voice down. I also noticed she wasn’t distracted by the noise coming from the swamp house. “Who the hell are you?” I asked her. Then I shook my head. “I don’t have time for this.”

  “Please,” she said. “My name is Shea. And this,”—without taking her eyes from me, she tilted her head to the side where a man in a black robe appeared—“this is my mate. His name is Jesse. And we’re not here to hurt you.”

  Slowly, I straightened as the fear I’d tried to hold at bay broke through the dam and flooded through me, making my teeth chatter and my muscles tremble. I didn’t know who the hell these two were, but I did know djinn magic when I felt it now, and the guy with her was oozing with it.

  Something rustled over our heads, and a large raven swooped down through the branches of a tree, landing on the man’s shoulder. She made clicking noises at him, rubbing her beak on his cheek, before turning one black, beady eye toward me.

  “This is Cruthú,” the female told me. “She’s here to help also. And there’s a few more of us.” She lifted her chin in the direction of the road. “They’re waiting for my call before they come in.”

  “Who the hell are you?” I asked again, though my eyes never left the male with the large bird on his shoulder.

  “Please,” the female said. “We don’t have much time. Your male won’t hold out much longer. We need to help him.”

  “Why would you help him?” I demanded.

  “Because I don’t want him to accidentally kill my father,” the male said in a low voice. “That honor is reserved for me, and me alone.”

  My eyes flew to the female and she gave me a tentative smile.

  “I still don’t understand—” I was cut off by a scream of pain coming from the direction of the house. “Alex!” I called, not caring anymore if Marcus knew I was still there. I went to run past the female, but her hand whipped out and she grabbed my arm, holding me there.

  “Go,” she told the male. “And be careful,” she demanded.

  His lips curved up at the corners, but there was nothing at all pleasant about it. I shivered as he stepped closer to us. He glanced at me, his eyes glowing a bright yellow, then he dropped a hard kiss on her lips and said, “I’ll be right back, love.”

  I watched as he left us, walking swiftly toward the house, his robe billowing out behind him and the raven on his shoulder.

  Once he w
as gone, the female—Shea—released my arm. “I’m sorry I grabbed you like that. But please don’t run off,” she said. “You’ll only be a distraction, and that distraction may cause my mate his life. And then I would have to kill you, and I’d really rather we be friends.”

  I turned hard eyes on her. “Will he save Alex?”

  “Yes,” she told me with confidence. “If you stay here and let him do it.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  She smiled sweetly. “Nope.”

  Adrenaline still rushed through my body, and I shifted my weight from one side to the other, finding it hard to settle in and wait.

  “What’s your name?” she asked me.

  “Kenya.”

  “Killian is your master, right? Irish guy? Pale? Powerful?”

  Glancing at her, I nodded.

  “Does he know where you are?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Well, he will soon.”

  I shoved my hair off my face, watching in the direction of the house. It was quiet. Eerily so. I wished she would just shut up.

  As if she’d read my thoughts—which she may well have—Shea said, “I know you wish I’d just shut my face, but I’m talking as much to keep myself distracted as you.” Quietly, she added, “That’s the love of my life in there. He’s scary. And he’s not who I imagined myself with, but he’s mine. And I would be completely lost without him. So, I need to talk to you to keep myself from rushing in there. I swore to him I wouldn’t, and it’s the only reason he allowed me to come. Plus,” she smiled. “I told him he needed me here to keep you out of the way when we found out what was going on.”

  “How did you find out where we were?”

  “Witches,” she told me. “Apparently, there’s some sort of a spell hiding you guys so when they tried to do a location spell, it wouldn’t work. However, we brought a secret weapon.”

  When she didn’t continue, I raised my eyebrows and waited.

  “Keira Moss,” she said. “She knew how to get around it.”

  “How did she do that?” Then I waved my hand in the air and shook my head. “No. Know what? I don’t even care.”

  But she answered me anyway. “She’s a powerful witch. It totally freaks out Luukas when she uses her magic, though.”

  “Luukas?”

  “Luukas Kreek. Master vampire of the Pacific Northwest. And her mate,” she added.

  “Why does it freak him out?”

  “That’s a long story for another time. But let’s just say he’s been through a lot, so when you meet him, don’t let him scare you. He’s a good male. Just…he’s been through a lot,” she repeated.

  An orange flash lit up the sky, and I think we both stopped breathing.

  Chapter 23

  Alex

  I felt the bones break in my back as I hit the tree. With a grunt of pain I fell to the ground, my face smacking off of one of the exposed roots.

  I was going to die here. I knew this now. My own power was nothing at all compared to the djinn’s. He threw me around like a rag doll with nothing but a wave of his hand, playing with me, and knocking aside anything I threw at him.

  I was fucking exhausted. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that I was giving Kenya time to escape and get to The Purple Fang. Hopefully, the ward I’d put around the building would be enough to keep Marcus out until my coven could figure something out, until it gradually faded away with my death. Maybe they could even figure out a way to keep her alive once I was gone. But I was wondering now if the djinn had only been fucking with us that first night. If my spell would keep him out at all.

  In any case, I wasn’t going to last much longer. Weakening the binding spell for Kenya had taken more out of me than I’d expected. Maybe she’d been right and the blood loss was a part of it, too. I didn’t know. A sense of foreboding filled me. A foreshadowing of my own death. I’d overestimated his need for me. Gotten too puffed up with my own importance to him. Too cocky. The truth of it was he didn’t give that much of a shit about anyone. He only cared about what he wanted. His own power. Family or not, he was going to kill me.

  I’m so sorry, Kenya.

  His boots appeared in front of my eyes. “Get up,” he told me. “And go get the vampire. I need her.” He nudged me with his toe, and I bit back a yelp of pain. Guess my spinal cord was still intact after all, because it hurt like fuck. “Come on, Alex. What kind of warlock are you? Heal yourself, boy. Stop this foolishness and do as I say.”

  I don’t know what he thought I was, but I couldn’t heal myself. Only a certain kind of witch was able to heal themselves, and sometimes others if they were particularly strong.

  I was not one of those witches.

  And even if I were, I wouldn’t do it, just to piss him off. Pushing myself slowly and painfully to my side, I waited until he looked me in the eye before I spoke. “Fuck. You.” Blood filled my mouth, and I spit it out, aiming for his feet. I managed to splatter one shiny shoe, but not the other.

  Good enough.

  I watched as his eyes faded completely to black. My head began to ache, the pain increasing until I felt like worms were digging through my brain matter. I clenched my teeth, refusing to give him the satisfaction of hearing my suffering, but I couldn’t stop myself from clamping my hands to either side of my head. My eyes bulged, and I closed them tight in an attempt to keep them in their sockets. Clenching my jaw against the scream that welled in my throat, I knew that at any moment my head was going to explode, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

  Something screeched above our heads, and the pressure in my skull let up a fraction as Marcus frowned, looking up into the night sky. Fighting the blackness that threatened to overwhelm me, I tried to see what had distracted him from my death.

  A raven, black as the sky above it, circled above our heads.

  “Hello, Father.”

  Marcus whipped around, releasing me from my torture. My head hit the ground as my vision went in and out. I tried to lift it, to see what was happening, but the world moved around me in slow motion, going in and out of focus until I finally lost the battle and my face sank into the wet ground.

  Breathing in an out of my mouth, I fought to stay conscious. When I thought I could handle it, I gritted my teeth and pushed with one arm, rolling onto my back. My vision went white, and then black, and then finally cleared.

  A creature with glowing yellow eyes in a flowing, black robe stood about twenty feet away, its face hidden by the large hood. As I watched, the raven swooped down, batting Marcus in the face with her wing before landing on the creature’s shoulder.

  I closed my eyes.

  Sweet darkness swallowed me.

  When I opened them again, Marcus was talking.

  “…son. How did you find…”

  His voice went in and out as my eyes slid closed again.

  “What do you think you’re going to do…you left me!”

  And the creature with the glowing eyes…

  “Kill you.”

  The djinn laughed, loud and obnoxious, making my head ache.

  The next time I woke, it was to a flash of bright orange light and the scream of the raven. I tried to lift my arm to block my eyes. Red hot pain blazed through my body from my head to my tailbone at even that slight movement.

  Darkness descended…

  “Alex!”

  Kenya.

  I tried to say her name, to let her know I was still here, but I don’t know if anything came out.

  “Get Grace!”

  A woman’s voice. I didn’t recognize it.

  Minutes or hours later, I honestly didn’t fucking know, cool hands gripped my head.

  “What do you think, love?” a man asked in a British accent.

  I never heard the reply, or even if there was one.

  Something sweet dripped past my lips to my tongue. “Mmm…”

  “He’s coming around.”

  It seared my throat like fire, but it
didn’t burn. No. It was more like the warm rush of a good liquor, and I thought at first that someone was pouring whiskey into my mouth.

  But unlike alcohol, this stuff didn’t relax me. Just the opposite. I moaned as it spread through my chest, hitting my stomach and rushing out to the very ends of my limbs. Electricity sparked through my back, the bones that had been crushed against the tree adjusting themselves slowly and painfully.

  I cried out, my voice raspy and thick with whatever they were giving me.

  The pain stopped for a moment, and then something was pressed against my mouth. The flow of fluid was faster this time, and I swallowed a great mouthful as once again hands pressed to the sides of my head.

  “Drink, Alex. Come on. Drink for me.”

  I did as Kenya told me to do, knowing she wouldn’t hurt me, and sucking hard when the flow threatened to stop.

  White light flashed behind my closed eyes, like fireworks, and I moaned.

  “Keep drinking, Alex. Just keep drinking. It’s okay. It’ll be okay…” Kenya’s voice drifted away.

  I did as she told me, taking in great mouthfuls of the liquid and doing my best to ignore the pain of my body and the twinges and flashes going on in my head.

  A woman spoke behind me, her voice soft, her words unintelligible.

  Still, I drank. I drank until the fire filled my blood, until my muscles clenched with need and my cock swelled in my pants. Blindly, I reached for Kenya, one hand finding her waist and the other discovering it was her arm pressed to my mouth.

  Her blood I drank.

  Ah, gods.

  I moaned as it filled me, healed me, made me feel like the strongest man alive.

  All except my head.

  “Keep drinking,” she whispered.

  “Kenya,” the first woman I’d heard spoke again. “He’s taking too much.”

  “It’s fine,” she told her, but her voice sounded weak. Thready. “He can take whatever he needs.”

  Was I drinking too much? I tried to slow down, to take it easy, but it was like a heroin addict trying to stop pushing the plunger after only getting a drop. Like an alcoholic trying to put down the bottle after only having one shot.