Bloodlines (Demons of Oblivion) (35 page)

He took a breath and paused before continuing, freshly shaved jaw moving like he ground his teeth with frustration. “We’re going to try to reinforce the barrier out there, and then I’m going to see what I can do about dispelling the sudden lack of sun. If you’re out there, it’ll kill you when I succeed.”

“
If
you succeed. Didn’t your bother usually kick your ass?”

Nate said nothing, glaring at me.

Peter stepped between us. “Zara, exactly how changed are the vampires you and Nate left with Sean? Will you be able to fight off all of them?”

“If I have to.” Fuck them both if they thought I needed protection.

“I’m going to try to make sure you don’t have to,” Nate replied. “Let me do this. If I can’t bring back the sun, they’re all yours.”

I bit my lip. Glared some more. But he was right—he had to try. Not just for my safety, but for everyone’s. Feeling useless, I simply watched him and Heaven head outside to do whatever it was they could to keep a wicked powerful warlock and his vampire-monster lackeys from killing us all horribly. I wasn’t so sentimental that I considered hugging and kissing Nate goodbye, or making him promise to be careful. I respected him and his abilities too much to behave like that. But we exchanged a single glance before he disappeared into the woods and that said it all.

“We’ll need stakes,” I told Peter as I shut the front door. “Metal would be better able to get through the skin. Wood might do, but I’m not sure.”

And that was what we did for the next fifteen minutes—collected anything we could find that would act as an appropriate weapon. I snapped the legs off of chairs, stocked up on broom and mop handles, and anything else I encountered that could be useful. Peter grabbed the guns and ammo from his car and we set everything out in the living room. After that, we could do nothing but wait.

“Do you think they’ll be able to dispel whatever magic caused the sky to blacken out here?” I asked.

“It’s hard to say.” Peter frowned, brows pulled tight with worry. He kept his dark eyes fixed on the front door, pistol aimed. His finger remained on the trigger and I considered taking the weapon away from him in case he fired on the wrong person. But there was still no sign of our witch and warlock, so his concern was starting to seem well-founded.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Can they do it or not?”

“Sean...Sean was perhaps the only magic user Nate ever really feared,” he said. “Aside from his father, that is.” Peter glanced my way, perhaps gauging my reaction.

“Yeah, I figured out his pops was a controlling, abusive loon.”

“Picked on his youngest. Wanted him to be strong, supposedly.”

Yeah, ’cause that logic always worked. I said nothing.

“Nate’s brother was—is—strong. The family was devastated when he died. Sean Jr. was the one who took care of the zombie fiasco and berated Nate for years about his stupidity and inexperience for doing something like that.”

“But summoning those demons and then raising hundreds of people from the dead sounds pretty impressive to me.”

“Except Sean pointed out that a truly powerful warlock wouldn’t just be able to do that, but be able to control it. Nate dabbles. Always has. Learn a bit of this, a bit of that. Couldn’t be arsed to specialize, so results can be...unpredictable.”

My eyes glazed over and I rolled my shoulders. If sex magic was considered something he just “dabbled” in, it was time well spent.

“Despite the nine years age difference,” Peter continued, “Nate often came pretty close to matching Sean’s magic. Had he kept up with it for the past six years and focused, Nate probably would have surpassed Sean by now, however...”

“However, he quit after the zombies.” Not the most encouraging news. I knew little about magic, but I hoped that maybe having Heaven there would strengthen whatever Nate could do.

“Zara, Nate’s been a good friend of mine for a number of years now.”

“Hey mentioned.”

“And what I’m getting at is, I know him well, and he’s like a brother to me...and I suspect he loves you.”

I grinned and a touch of colour rushed to my cheeks. Never thought there’d be a day when I
blushed
. “Yeah, we kind of covered that last night and today—up until you and Heaven arrived.”

Peter chuckled. “I don’t need to hear the details. Nate was relentless in looking for you the past four months. He’s always been like that: for someone who dabbled in his studies, he’s always shown remarkable focus on certain things. Stubborn to a fault, perhaps. Heaven thought both Jamie
and
you were in on it, but he didn’t accept that. He wouldn’t give up until he’d discovered what happened and never even considered the possibility that you were dead. His every waking hour was spent searching, but he didn’t tell Heaven or I until about a month ago when he could no longer go anywhere without being recognized and hunted down by those hoping to collect the reward on him.”

This I already knew—Nate had told me as much—but having another person confirm it sent shivers down my arms. All that time, he cared. Even when he insisted he had no attraction to me whatsoever...he just genuinely needed time to adjust to what Mishka had done. I had a renewed desire to shout “I told you so!” but this was neither the time nor the place. And all it took was a little kidnapping to bring these feelings out in him. God help me, I even thought it was
sweet
. Cute. Shit, I should stake myself before I got any more twitterpated and embarrassed myself.

“My point is, he loves you,” Peter said. “Don’t hurt him.”

I waited, but he didn’t follow it up with a grin or a chuckle. My smiled dropped—damn, he was serious. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

“I saw your eyes light up when I mentioned the forty million.” Peter raised a brow and looked at me pointedly, daring me to deny it.

I couldn’t. I was an awful, horrible person, and I wouldn’t lie about it—I
did
think, for just a second, about the possibilities.

“There are more important things than money, Zara. And you know all too well what it’s like to be betrayed by someone you love. Don’t put Nate through that again.”

My stomach twisted, irritation burning hotly against my sternum. “I’m not—”

I was interrupted by the door being ripped off its fucking hinges.

I pushed Peter flat to the ground as the door flew at us. It narrowly missed our heads, and smashed into the brick fireplace. Splinters of wood sprayed across the room.

We looked up to see Dragomir in the doorway, his eyes fixed on me. Behind him there was no sign of daylight.

Ohshit
. “I’m gonna to take a shot in the dark and say the spell didn’t work.”

“It looks that way,” Peter agreed.

Dragomir snarled, showing his teeth. A tremor of fear worked through me at the sight.

“Peter, I’d like you to meet Dragomir again. I’m sure you’d love to document this encounter for a book, but I’m afraid I have to kill him now.”

“By all means, go to it.”

I snatched up a stake and threw it straight at my maker’s heart. Unfortunately, I missed my target, because Dragomir grabbed the weapon midair and flung it to the side.

“I think he’s faster than you,” Peter said.

Yeah, thanks for that.
I sighed. “Close combat it is, then.”

Two more bulked up, monster-vamps appeared behind him. A tall, bony woman with stringy red hair that looked vaguely like my missing vamp friend Annalise Jean. The other was a shorter, stouter male vamp—or former vamp—I didn’t recognize, with short black hair and eyes tinged red. The three roared in unison and charged into the room.

Oh boy
. “Do lots of shooting, and avoid getting in their way.” I jumped to my feet.

“I can do that.” Peter fired at the vampire to the left.

I had hoped that multiple bullets would impede the creatures.

They didn’t.

Armed with a stake in either hand, I rushed at them, ducking beneath the first swipe at me and dodging the next. I slashed upward with the sharpened end of a mop handle, catching poor Annalise in the neck. It tore through her flesh, and she staggered back.

I was about to follow up by driving my other stake through her heart when Dragomir grabbed me by the throat. He yanked me off the ground, squeezing my neck with a strength I hadn’t thought possible. The stake fell from my grip and my hands shot up to his wrist, shredding my nails through his skin. I kicked at him, legs swinging wildly in the air.

He tightened his grasp.

Maybe
he’d remember me—I could... Fuck, even if that were true, I could do nothing but sputter unintelligibly.

Then his black eyes got huge. A throaty, animalistic growl left his throat and his grip slackened. My feet touched the ground as he slumped forward. The end of a rake stuck out from his back.

Nate stood in the doorway and tossed me an ax. “This might be helpful.”

I caught the weapon and didn’t think twice about swinging it down on Dragomir’s neck. Maybe I’d’ve felt remorse if
something
in there had some semblance of my maker. But he was gone, and with his head completely severed, now his body was dead for good too.

“Some help would be nice,” Peter called.

I swung around to see the male vamp I didn’t know advancing on Peter. My grip tightened on the fire ax; I somersaulted over the couch, and with one quick swipe of my weapon, the vampire’s head rolled to the floor.

“Well, at least when they haven’t fed, they don’t get blood on the floor,” I said. That’s me, always looking for a bright side.

Nate uttered a spell and Annalise flew back away from him, hurtling into a bookcase. The floor rumbled as she fell and books scattered around her. Magic held her in place as I approached.

She gazed up at me with eyes that didn’t see, didn’t recognize anything. No mind left. I sighed heavily, sadly, and raised the ax. I’d have to call Toby to spread the word about what happened to her.

Her head came off easily and rolled across the floor. My eyes closed and I pinched the bridge of my nose. It was such a waste. So stupid. My maker dead, Ilona dead, Annalise dead—all those other vampires, some of whom probably never hurt anyone. All dead. Or insane.

I sighed and cast the ax down.

“You’re sure it took twenty-something Hunters to take out just one?” Nate asked Peter.

“Could be exaggerated,” he admitted.

“Hunters
are
simply humans well-schooled as fighters,” I said. “Throw an actual vampire at them and—”

A horrific screamed pierced the air, sounding from outside the cabin. Nate, Peter and I exchanged looks, all thinking the same thing.

Heaven
.

We raced for the door.

Nate reached it first. One foot stepped down on the threshold and something struck him, hard and forceful; it threw him back and he collided with Peter. The pair of them toppled onto the couch, rolled and struck the coffee table.

Atop them was Heaven’s bloody, lifeless body. Vacant green eyes stared back, blonde hair was mussed, and her white shirt was shredded and stained almost black with blood.

Jamie stepped into the room. He was still mid-change, as I had seen him the night before. Growing bulge thinning his hair, fangs extra long, nails sharp. He was taller, too—taller and with broader shoulders. Spine had a slight curve to it.

He turned to smile at me. “Hi sweetheart. Miss me?”

I pretended to think it over. “Should I answer that with a kick to your balls first, or go straight for staking you?”

“That’s too bad.” He sped toward me so fast that I barely had enough time to pivot out of his path. Still within reach, he took a swing at my face.

Claws tore through my cheek, pain blooming and blood splattering across my face, down my shirt. I stumbled, righted myself, and danced back before he could claw me again.

My gaze darted beyond Jamie. Peter checked Heaven’s vitals, then looked at Nate and shook his head.

“Yeah, she’s dead,” Jamie said, appearing to be aware of what transpired behind him. “For a race of beings that look down on vampires, they really are weak.”

Magic sparked in the air. An invisible force knocked Jamie forward; he landed with a
thud
on the floor, vibrating the hardwood under my feet. I glanced at Nate, but his gaze was set on the doorway. Colour drained from his face, lips trembling. I followed his stare to see Sean leaning against the doorframe. Arrogant prick looked smug as hell and I wanted nothing more than to smack that grin off his face.

“Watch it, Jamie,” he said coolly.

Jamie rolled his eyes.

Maybe I could play them. Jamie was a worm good at changing sides—I had to give it a try. “Aren’t you supposed to say, ‘Yes Master,’ or something?”

Jamie shot a glare my way, lips twisting in a cruel grin. “I’m surprised you haven’t tried the ‘Help us and we’ll defeat him together’ act yet.”

Well. There went
that
idea. Best for honesty. “You can help if you want, but I’m going to kill you either way.” I glanced past him again, tried to keep an eye on the events behind him, but Jamie leaped up and charged.

Fuck.

I ripped my gaze from the magical showdown between brothers to evade a series of high-speed punches from Jamie. Block. Duck. Duck. Block. Two caught me in the face, ripping at the flesh he’d already torn. Another hit my gut, hard enough I thought he put a hole right through me.

My steps wavered; I fought my way up again.

His foot slammed into my face.

Bone cracked under the force. I whipped back, struck a window, and broke through the glass. Stars played over my eyes; my back landed on the window frame and I started to topple—

Jamie grabbed my foot and hauled me back in before I could fall. He whirled me around, snatched both my wrists in one of his hands, then forced me down, down, ’til I was on the ground, flat on my stomach.

Struggling did me no good—the prick had me pinned.

“Oh, this is great, love. You gotta check this out.” His hand knotted in my hair and yanked my head up.

Peter stood trapped behind some sort of glowing green barrier across the room, looking on as Sean circled Nate.