Bloodfire (Blood Destiny) (40 page)

My gaze fell on the black cloth that was
lying on the ground behind it.
 
Well, in the absence of red, I supposed that black would be just as
good.
 
This time, when it lunged at
me again, I ran at it too,
then
dove headfirst between
its legs, noting that its feet hygiene hadn’t improved since the last time, and
whipped up the piece of material.
 
As
I rolled beneath its groin, I also noticed that dangling from its waist was an
oddly mechanical looking object.
 
Huh.
 
So that was where the
electric screwdriver had ended up.
 
Part of my brain tried to work through what on earth a one-eyed
otherworldly monster would want with home DIY but before I could come up with a
reasonable answer I was back on my feet facing the ispolin and holding the
black cloth in front of me.

 
I dangled it to my side, daring the
monster to come at me again.
 
I
hadn’t counted on the blue trail that still snaked its way from it – this
time up to the sky to where Iabaru hovered.
 
As I’d picked the cloth up, the smoke
had moved with it.
 
The ispolin’s
huge eye was caught by it, almost entirely mesmerised.
 
I hadn’t expected it, but it’d
work.
 
I threw myself at the monster
in a blur, aiming my dirk for one of the gashes on its side from earlier.
 
The silver blade entered the its tough
flesh with surprising ease and began to smoke.
 
The sickening smell of burnt flesh rose
in the air.
 
It fell to the ground,
clutching the wound as I sprang back and watched warily.
 
The same cutting grass that had bothered
me earlier, now bothered the ispolin more, and it howled again, deafeningly.
 
This time it was in pain and not rage
however.
 
It rolled over and only
succeeded in cutting its hide even more.
 
This would be a handy time to have some blackberry bushes around for it
to roll into, assuming that Alex’s theory had been accurate.

Its huge arms flailed around in the air
and it kept rolling on the ground.
 
I gripped the dirk and was about to attack again when Iabartu
materialized at it its head and sank one long taloned nail straight into its
one eye, piercing it like a balloon.
 
The ispolin shuddered and went still.

Iabartu looked at me and shrugged
implacably.
 
“If you want a job
doing, then you have to do it yourself,” she murmured softly.

Without thinking, I threw the dirk
straight at her throat.
 
She was too
quick, however, and blocked it, sending the whole blade spinning uselessly behind
me
 
and
far
out of my reach.
 
“Now what are you
going to do little human?”

Good question.
 
I reached inside myself and unleashed
the full force of my bloodfire.
 
This time there would be no holding back.
 
It felt like my insides were boiling but
I relished the feeling and allowed it to take over in a way I never had
before.
 
My shoulders straightened
and I met her gaze full on.
 
She opened
her mouth to speak but my flames wouldn’t let her even start her sentence.
 
The time for talking was over.
 
Now I needed my revenge and to do what I
could to let John rest in true peace.
 
I attacked.

I had no weapon left, and had to avoid
falling on the ground, so I stayed light on my feet and clenched my fists.
 
Smacking into the side of her face, I
managed to send her reeling but she recovered quickly and answered with a blow
of her own.
 
I felt unsteady on my
feet,
both from her swipes, the continued blood loss and the
ispolin’s attack, but the heat inside me wouldn’t allow my brain to register it
properly.
 
I kicked her stomach,
thanking the heavens that I was wearing my boots instead of my
soft soled
trainers, and was rewarded with a pained gasp from
her.
 
She shot up into the
air,
body circling upwards like an arrow.
 
I span around, trying to spot where she
was and where she’d land next.
 
Unfortunately, I wasn’t versed enough in the fighting tactics of flying
demi-goddesses, and, before I knew what was happening, she was behind me, her
slender fingers wrapping themselves round my throat and her nails curving into
my skin.

Iabartu’s fingers tightened and she leaned
over to my ear.
 
I
could almost taste the smell of death from her
,
it was
so strong
.
 
This made the
unpleasant odour of the cloth pale into weak comparison.
 
“I could use my nails to end this now,”
she breathed.
 
“Rip into your
windpipe and have you bleed out in half a pathetic human heartbeat.”
 
One fingernail scraped across my skin
and I felt it draw blood.
 
Shit.
 
“But that wouldn’t
achieve what I really want.”
 
Her
hands squeezed my neck further until I started to gulp for air.
 
Black dots appeared in front of my eyes
and my lungs burned.
 
The flames
inside me shrieked and raged and I tried to kick back and knock her away, but
it was a feeble effort.
 
“Instead
all I need to do is to take away your breath for a mere minute.
 
I’ll starve your mind of oxygen.
 
You’ll be technically brain dead, but I
won’t let your body die.”
 
She
laughed coldly in my ear.
 
“I’ll
keep you alive for as long as I need.
 
You’ll be a little dragon vegetable, growing all the blood I’ll ever
need, just for me.”
 
My head was
exploding with pain and I could barely hear her words.
 
I needed to breathe but it wasn’t going
to happen.
 
Even through the haze of
oncoming oblivion, all I could think was that I’d failed.
 
Failed John, failed Julia, failed the
pack.
 
Even as a supposedly
all powerful
Draco Wyr with fiery blood, I had still
failed.
 
I closed my eyes and tried
to accept the inevitable.
 
A tiny rational
corner of me hoped that whatever Iabartu was planning to do with my blood
wouldn’t cause any more harm to anyone shifter or human, whilst my hands clawed
desperately at her fingers, trying uselessly to pry them away from my throat.

Dimly, I heard a roar and a thunder of
steps.
 
Before I could pinpoint what
the noise was, I was on the ground, gulping and gasping at air and trying to
fill my burning lungs.
 
I didn’t
even notice the grass this time.
 
My
head felt ridiculously heavy, and it took a vast amount of effort, but I lifted
my eyes up to see a huge bear on its haunches extend a clawed paw out to
Iabartu’s shape, preventing her from taking off into the air and slamming her
into the ground.
 
Seemingly from out
of nowhere a sleek black panther pounced on top of her, massive paws digging
into her shoulders.
 
It snarled
venomously and raised its head for just a brief second to look directly at
me.
 
And then it ripped out her
throat.

Chapter
Twenty Eight

I staggered to my feet, hot angry tears burning
my eyes, lungs still screaming in agony, blood leaking from a thousand cuts all
over my body, and blood at near boiling.
 
The panther sat atop Iabartu’s still body, looking incredibly self-
satisfied.
 
I staggered over and
slapped it.
 
In theory, I’d flung
all my power behind that one blow, but there was little left inside me to
offer.
 
The panther reeled back ever
so slightly and growled, rising up.

The Lord Alpha began to change.
 
His fangs retracted first, although the
traces of Iabartu’s blood remained on his white teeth.
 
His muzzle and whiskers twisted into
human features, and skin and muscles ripped through the fur.
 
His bare feet straddled her body and he glared
at me.
 
“You fucking idiot.”

I gasped, trying to get the words out, but
my voice felt lost.
 
“She...” I
croaked,
 
“She was mine to kill.”

Corrigan placed his hands on his tanned
bare hips and suddenly looked amused.
 
“And you were doing such a great job of that, kitten, weren’t you?”

The sound of more ripping fur and shifting
came from my left and Anton sauntered over, lip curling.
 
“My Lord, she attacked you.
 
The Way…”

“Under the circumstances, I’ll overlook
it,” Corrigan said calmly, not looking at Anton.

“I needed to kill her,” I whispered
hoarsely again.

Corrigan’s eyes flashed.
 
“And you presumed to think that you
would do it single-handedly?
 
That I
didn’t have a plan to sort all this out in the first place?”
 
Anger shimmered across the taut muscles
of his face.
 

Okay, so he was pissed off, but it had
still been my fight not the fucking Brethren’s.
 
I opened my mouth again to say so but
the pain of drawing breath was too much and I found I couldn’t speak.

“At last, silence reigns.
 
With any luck your vocal chords will be
permanently damaged and then you’ll be forced to keep that sweet mouth shut for
good.”

I snarled at him and took a step forward.

You
forget yourself, human.
 
Anton’s Voice slammed into my mind.
 
I stared at him aghast, with a horrible
sense of deja vu.
 
Anton’s Voice
meant that Julia…

An articulate noise sprang from my throat,
grating against my already wounded windpipe.
 
I gasped for breath and pitched forward,
caught by Corrigan’s hard arms just in time.
 
He looked down at me expressionlessly
and cleared his throat.
 

“She’s not dead,” he said softly.
 
“But her wounds are such that she no
longer hast the physical ability to manage your pack.
 
Anton’s Voice emerged several hours ago
and Mother Nature is doing its job.”
 
He paused for a second, appearing to consider his next words.
 
“Funny, I thought it would be you.”
 
He said this last quietly, so quiet that
I doubted that Anton heard him.
 
Probably just as well
;
I doubted the bear would
take too kindly to hearing the insinuation that a human would make a better
alpha than he would.
 
I supposed
that on the bright side, it meant that Corrigan still wasn’t aware of my true
nature. This thought was then suddenly followed by the slamming realization
that it had been far too long since I’d used the lotion to mask my human
smell.
 
Unconsciously I took a step
backward.
 
Shit.
 

Corrigan’s face closed off.
 
“We need to leave.
 
The other portal will not remain open
for much longer.”

I swallowed, trying to edge closer to
Iabartu’s body, praying that the stench of death emanating from her would mask
me.
 
“Uh…
.other
portal?”

Anton looked at me as if I was
stupid.
 
“How do you think they got
through to attack the keep?
 
The
beach portal was already sealed by your friend,” he spat the last out.
 
“There was
obviously
another gateway.”

Oh yeah.
 
I’d been so caught up in my grief and
horror, not to mention absorbed by the revelations of my ancestry, that I
hadn’t even considered where the nasties had come from that had maimed
Julia.
 
Duh.
 
I was clearly off my game.
 
My lack of sensible brain activity then
wasn’t stopping me now from picturing just how much danger I was putting the
whole pack in right now.
 
I stared
at Anton, willing him to initiate another conversation so I could remind him
about what would happen if Corrigan decided to inhale past Iabartu’s covering
scent.

It was Corrigan, however, who looked at me
impatiently.
 
“There’ll be time to
analyse later.
 
You need to shift so
all those cuts will start healing and we need to return.
 
I don’t want to spend more time around
this plane than necessary.”

I squeaked and continued to try to implore
Anton with my eyes.

“For fuck’s sake,” exclaimed
Corrigan.
 
“She’s dead, your alpha’s
death is avenged,
you
can shift.
 
We don’t have time for this.”