Blood Destiny (32 page)

Marquis growled a low, indistinct rumble in his throat. The corner of his lip turned up in what appeared to be the hint of a smile, and as he left the cabin...he winked at her.

Jocelyn's heart skipped a beat—

Nathaniel was fighting for his life...for the lives of those he loved. He was fighting for her. Nachari was steady...and arrogant...and sure as always: a soldier doing his duty. But Marquis? He was a kid in a candy store. He lived for the adrenaline and approached the upcoming battle as a sport.

Jocelyn's heart rested a little easier: These warriors would not go down easily. Not against an entire lycan army.

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She double bolted the front door and took a place on the floor next to Kagen, the heavy wool blanket still wrapped securely around her shoulders, the nine-millimeter Beretta packed with silver bullets...and nestled snugly in her hand.

* * * *

Kagen had carefully cleaned Jocelyn's wounds and wrapped her arm in a soft cast using a poultice made from Marquis's venom. She had managed to find an old pair of sweat pants and a long-sleeve shirt, probably belonging to Tristan, in one of the back rooms, and she was already feeling better, the sharp pain in her arm subsiding.

Braden was finally awake and at least resting peacefully.

His skull fracture and chest wounds were healing rapidly, and Kagen was working tirelessly to reset and fuse the broken vertebrae in his neck—once again, injecting Marquis's venom into the surrounding tissue, providing repeated infusions into the bone. Kagen splinted the neck in an effort to keep it still, using two straight pieces of wood torn from the fireplace mantel to hold it in place.

The sound of the ferocious battle taking place outside was more than unsettling: Savage howls of rage cut through chilling stints of silence, and horrifying shrieks of pain sporadically pierced the night as rapid waves of gunfire went 302

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off in short bursts amidst the intermittent sounds of blades clashing...claws tearing...and bones cracking.

And then there was the unmistakable sound of...death.

Anguished cries of defeat—as immortal beings were repeatedly forced to embrace the irony of mortality.

The sound of thunder roared through the heavens, even in the midst of the heavy snowstorm. It was an awe-inspiring phenomenon to behold: an amazing paradox of nature.

It was as if the universe was caught in a war of juxtaposition: flaunting wrath and peace at the same time, hurtling intense heat and severe cold all at once, whispering and screaming with one voice.

Jocelyn clutched at her stomach as another wave of thunder shook the sky with a deafening roar, and the answering lightning once again rocked the earth beneath them with a fury so powerful, she caught at the arm of the sofa...afraid the earth might just open up beneath them.

All the while, the snow continued to fall in heavy blankets, swirling noiselessly around the cabin, as shimmering crystals of white ice were occasionally upstaged by an orange and red encore.

The temptation was just too strong. Jocelyn could no longer bear the suspense or the endless waiting. Moving slowly in order not to draw attention to the cabin, she got up from her position next to Kagen and approached the window.

She had to see.

She had to know that Nathaniel was still alive.

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Wiping her hand against the glass to clear the fog, she peered out into the night, straining to catch a glimpse of the battle first-hand....

And what she saw stole her breath away: Blood.

Everywhere.

The snow was crimson, the trees painted red. There were scarlet puddles running into snowy rivers, snaking along the ground. There were parts of bodies strewn haphazardly like morbid statues randomly erected in the snow. Heads, limbs, and claws were scattered about like garbage, and spent gun shells littered the ground.

Jocelyn watched in wonder as the vampires moved in and out of the stalking lycans. It was obvious the wolves had enormous physical strength on their side. Their powerful jaws were lethal, and they continuously launched attacks relying upon the strength of their upper bodies, their strapping arms, and their treacherous teeth to bring them victory. But the vampires were far too fast, and they had the added power of invisibility on their side—the ability to cloak their appearance at will.

Jocelyn watched as two lycans approached Nachari, one from the front and one from behind. Nachari whirled around with dizzying speed, keeping his eyes fixed on both. He never even blinked, tracking their every move effortlessly, no matter how cunning. The wolves leapt in unison, counting on the fact that he couldn't defend two sides at once, but Nachari simply disappeared...dissolved in midair...and the heavy, lunging animals crashed into each other with perilous force, like two freight trains colliding on a misguided track.

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As if he were a spider dangling from a web, Nachari reappeared above the dazed animals spraying silver bullets in a fountain of lead. The lycans slumped to the ground.

On the far side of the gorge, about fifty yards in front of the cabin, Jocelyn watched in horror as Marquis was taken down, tossed onto his back, and thrown to the ground. As a blanket of snow-matted fur descended upon him. There were so many wolves; the odds seemed impossible.

Cringing, she covered her mouth and turned to glance at Kagen. He seemed completely unaffected by whatever she was witnessing; his attention focused solely on healing Braden's neck. His faith in his brothers' abilities was absolute.

Marquis's movements were undetectable: a blur of preternatural speed.

Did he use daggers or claws? There was no way to tell. The blurred image looked like an invisible blender, a storm of sharp blades engulfing the wolves, the snow, and the very air around them. He was a whirl of silver—spinning and turning in every direction—slicing the lycans into dozens of pieces...even as they twisted and turned this way and that trying to get a strangle hold on the vampire's constantly shifting neck.

Although the cuts didn't kill them, they left the wolves incapacitated; they were unable to leap, turn, or lunge—their great, muscular frames carved into mere remnants of the powerful creatures they once were. Covered in scattered and bloodied body parts, Marquis sprang to his feet; he went from flat on his back to vertical in the blink of an eye like some 305

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kind of ninja. He was positively graceful, his movement fluid and effortless.

He turned up his palms and spun a pair of daggers, one in each hand, and then he began to carve out the hearts of his enemies...one after the other. A fourth lycan leapt at the vampire, undetected and closing in from his blindside, just as Marquis was thrusting a dagger into the third lycan's heart.

Marquis was hit in midair by the awesome force of the hunter, only to spin around, draw back his arm, and throw a fierce uppercut with a spiked fist...a fist cloaked in an ancient cestus. And then there was a hail of silver bullets, a strike of deadly precision, as the lycan hit the ground, already dead.

Nathaniel: from all the way across the yard.

He sat perched like a bird of prey on a high branch of a snow-covered birch tree, surveying the scene from above, covering his brother's back like a sniper. He was orchestrating the battle like a general as he reached into his coat to retrieve a fresh clip and reload.

Jocelyn drew in a sharp breath; he looked like a wild thing.

Part warrior. Part animal. No part human. The vampire took her breath away. She could hardly believe he was real.

One after another, the lycans approached the tree, trying to gain Nathaniel's ground. They leapt up at his perch, using powerful hind legs as spring-boards. She even saw one huge male shape-shift back into the form of a human in order to climb an adjacent tree. He took out an automatic weapon and tried for a straight shot at Nathaniel.

The lycan fired, getting off a clean round of shots, but once again, Nathaniel simply moved faster than the bullets. He 306

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sped out of the line of fire and threw off the trajectory using the force of his motion...the vacuum created by his velocity.

It was as if he had a built-in radar system: as if he controlled the laws of physics.

In one effortless leap, he cleared the distance between him and the hunter, landing in the adjacent tree, a sickle extended from his arm like a silver extension of his own hand.

With one smooth flick of his wrist, he started to whirl the weapon around, creating a high-pitched humming sound like the buzz of a helicopter blade.

Jocelyn never saw the weapon connect.

She never saw any interaction at all between the two mortal enemies. She simply saw a suspended moment in time where both creatures stood still, perched in the same tree, their feral eyes locked together like two savage animals; and then the hunter's head rolled off of his body and tumbled to the ground.

Jocelyn slowly exhaled as the reality of what she was witnessing struck her. Even with all she had seen—all she had learned about Nathaniel in the last couple of days—she she still had no idea whatsoever of the power the vampire possessed: the lethal potential he wielded. The sons of Jadon were simply—for all intents and purposes—invincible.

And they knew it.

No wonder Marquis had left the cabin with a wink and a smile. This was child's play for them.

And then, without warning, Jocelyn saw movement coming from the edge of the forest, the unmistakable image of lycans tangling with...vampires.

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Her eyes shot back and forth, trying to understand what she was seeing, stretching to account for all the combatants.

Nachari stood only yards from the cabin, taking inventory of the dead bodies surrounding him, searching vigilantly for any remaining enemies.

Marquis had moved away from the shed and was heading toward Nachari, reloading the double-barreled shotgun in his hand as he moved on the balls of his feet, his senses flaring out in all directions.

And Nathaniel had come down from his perch in the tree.

So who was fighting at the edge of the forest?

Jocelyn's heart began to race and she swallowed hard.

There were red and black bands of hair—wild manes the color of a king cobra—blowing in the snow-gusted wind, as several Dark Ones warred with their werewolf enemies.

Jocelyn watched, spellbound, wanting to cry out, to say something to Kagen—she needed to alert him—but she was too paralyzed by her own fear to get out the sound. She was catapulted back into the cave with Dalia and Valentine; she was still in the shed staring into a crazed creature's eyes as he lay strapped to a guillotine; she was still witnessing the quick, easy work the Dark One had made of Willie the moment she had released him....

And she was frozen with the knowledge of who—and what—they were.

These creatures had the same speed, the same capacity to become invisible, the same weapons as Nathaniel and his brothers. These were enemies of equal ability.

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In a very short time, the world had grown silent, and the land in front of the cabin was still. There were no more lycans. Only blood. And bodies.

The forest had ceased its own violent show as the last of the hunters had fallen, and Nathaniel and his brothers were now walking toward the cabin, each nursing various injuries, none of which seemed life-threatening, at least not from a distance. And then all at once the brothers spun around facing the forest, their backs turned to the cabin.

They spread out in a wide semi-circle, facing their new enemy as the Dark Ones approached like powerful jungle cats: pacing...turning...slowly creeping closer and closer....

"Kagen!" Jocelyn finally managed to croak out his name, but not before her own body unwittingly sprang into action.

Whether out of instinct born of too many years in the field, or just a primal reaction to the threat to Nathaniel, Jocelyn forgot the pain in her arm. She forgot that she was human, and she forgot that Nathaniel had ordered her to stay inside...no matter what occurred.

She only knew that there were four of the Dark Ones, warriors from the house of Jaegar, slowly approaching the cabin, and only three of the Silivasi brothers to meet them.

Why she didn't wait on Kagen, she would never know.

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Fingering her Beretta with all of the comfort and expertise of years of training, Jocelyn headed out the front door and ran toward Nathaniel.

Nathaniel spun around with a look of pure menace on his face, anger flaring deep red in his eyes as he watched her approach. The fearsome look caught her by surprise and almost stopped her in her tracks.

"Get back to the cabin," he hissed, slowly turning his body to shield hers, placing his broad, powerful frame between Jocelyn and the dark vampires.

Jocelyn stood frozen for a moment, uncertain of what to do: She did not want to incur Nathaniel's wrath, not after what she had just witnessed with the lycans—and Nathaniel's eyes looked absolutely furious—but she was there now. And she was not some helpless maiden in constant need of being rescued.

She was his destiny.

His other half, right?

It was time for her to start acting like more than just a scared victim. Like more than just a captive. If this was going to be her new world, then she might as well enter it with a bang.

Jocelyn squared her chin. "No."

Somehow, it sounded a lot more confident in her head.