Deliver Me from Darkness: A Novel of the Paladin Warriors (35 page)

With an enraged scream she pushed back, ripping him from her mind. It tore, carving out a chunk of herself as she did. Needed to go. Like blight on a tree, this bond between master and slave
had
to end.

Searing lightning. A brilliant flash of white. And then it was gone.

She tried to lift her head but couldn’t. The world was a black hole of pain.

You
are
not
going
to
pass
out, Gabby.

Her entire body shook as she wobbled on her knees. Her heart skittered from one rhythm to the next as if it were a drummer on crack.

Then hands were there, clasping onto her shoulders and holding her steady. “Easy there, cookie.”

She snapped her head up, baring her fangs. The movement sent a blinding slash of agony through the base of her skull, but when it started to recede, so did the dark tunnel vision. She couldn’t decide if the sight of the naked Paladin before her, smiling with his devil-may-care attitude, was welcome or not. She was just glad the extreme weakness was starting to dissipate.

She jerked her shoulders, trying to scramble up. He held firm.

“Let go. I have to help Roland with Christos!”

“I think he’s got it under control.” Valin stood, linking his arm around her back and helping her up.

Roland stood panting over Christos, eyes red as he stared down at the gaping hole in the vampire’s chest. A few yards away Christos’s head lay on the ground, the eyes unblinking and dimmed with death.

Gabriella’s mouth turned down at the corners, disappointment lying like lead in her chest. “Rats.”

“What?” Valin asked.

“I wanted to do that.”

A hand came up, tucking a sweaty tendril behind her ear. “You fought your own fight with him and won.”

“Did I?” She frowned down at Christos’s shell. Had she won her internal battle before or after Roland had lopped off the vampire’s head?

She might have asked but just then Roland shook himself and spun around, racing to the back corner of the cavern. He skidded to his knees, lifting something off the floor to cradle it in his arms.

Curls.

“By the Father.” Valin all but dropped Gabriella as he raced across the room. Gabriella remained where she was, swaying as she stared at the dark pool of blood that the woman had been laying in. Dying. Or dead. No. Not dead. She wouldn’t have felt the connection if the woman were dead. But she’d obviously knocked and had one foot through death’s door.

“Why haven’t you converted her?” Gabriella screamed as she stumbled after Valin.

Roland reverently bent down, kissing her pale forehead. “She would not want to live like this. I cannot take her light.”

A sick wedge lodged deep in Gabriella’s gut. If the woman died, Roland would be lost. If Roland were lost then so would she be. It was his defiance that inspired her. The belief that enough of his blood had made it into her to counteract the double whammy of her mother’s genetics and her vampire nature. It didn’t matter that Christos was dead; if anything that was just a score on the game board for evil. Without Roland to look up to, without Christos to pin all her hatred on? She’d fall. She knew she would.

Squaring her shoulders, she brushed by Valin who’d stopped and was staring like a shell-shocked idiot down at the dying woman. “You fool. Either you do it, or I will.”

Roland twisted his head around, his face mottled into a look of inhuman emotion as he bared his teeth at her. “I won’t turn her into what we are. I won’t turn her into something evil.”

Gabriella jerked back as if slapped. Roland’s well-placed thrust to her heart was greater than anything Christos could ever have inflicted. “Am I evil? Are you? Truly? Are we?”

A hand slipped into the crook of her elbow, pulling her away from Roland and into the solid weight of a man’s steadfastness. “Listen to her, Roland. Don’t let another Paladin die.”

“Isn’t this,” Roland gestured at himself, “another sort of death for a Paladin?”

Valin’s jaw set, but his gaze was accepting as he reached out and clasped Roland on the shoulder. “I may not like you, but you will always be my brother.”

Gabriella sucked in her breath, watching the filmstrip of emotions flash across Roland’s face.

Valin’s hand tightened, giving Roland a shake. “Do it.”

Roland looked from Valin back to Karissa. Gabriella gnawed her lip, holding on to her breath. He had to do it. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she did: They both needed this woman.

With a growl, Roland lowered the woman back to her bed of blood. In a movement too quick for the eye, he reopened a scabbed wound on his wrist and pressed it to Karissa’s lips.

Gabriella watched, waiting for the slack lips to tremble, the throat to bob, for the teeth to grasp on. Nothing.

“Karissa…” Roland pleaded, stroking her throat.

Alarmed, Gabriella shook off Valin’s grip and moved to flank him. Maybe the woman was too far under? She pressed her finger against the pale throat, her gut sinking as she waited one second, two, three…No pulse.

Karissa!
Her name was a howling scream of agony, a soul-piercing cry of grief. Her soul answered, tried to reach out, tried to soothe. And couldn’t. She was in the abyss and falling.

She didn’t want to die. Didn’t want to leave Roland. God. She cried out, tried to grasp onto something, anything. But there was no lifeline here.

Something slid past her lips. Her mouth filled with something hot and sweet and slick, adding to the drowning sensation. A coaxing word. A plea. She swallowed.

The world came alive.

With a gasp, her eyes flew open. “Roland?” She choked on the thick liquid pooling in her throat and turned her head. Roland hushed her, pulling her up against his chest. She tried to grasp his shirt but failed. “Why? Told you. Trap. Shouldn’t ’ve come.”

“Because I love you.” He pushed back her hair. “Forgive me.”

Forgive him? For what? She was about to ask when pain hit her like a fist in the gut. No, not a fist, a fireball. She burned.

***

Roland ran, cradling Karissa through the agonizing burn of her blood, anchoring her through the shredding of her being. Her pain was his pain. He could only hope that his guilt—like a knife in his gut—didn’t feedback to her. What had he done? Had he saved her only to kill her?

“The damn stone walls. I can’t reach Logan.” Valin’s cursed words were a reminder that even now he might not have saved her. There was only so long Logan could stall. The moment he and the other Paladin entered the cave and came across the army Ganelon had prepared would be the moment Elder Calhoun would demand his son release the full power of his gift. Even Logan knew that the loss of his friend, a vampire, was far outweighed by the deaths of a hundred vampires.

But it was not worth Karissa’s life. Or the life of the brave young woman who’d helped Valin find them. He glanced sideways at Gabriella, who ran beside him, her face contorted in worry as she watched Karissa writhe in his arms. With each of Karissa’s agonizing moans, with each spiked gasp, the redheaded vampire flinched. As if she felt it too. Why?

“And you can’t, what was it you called it? Cloak us?” Gabby asked, her question directed to Valin’s back as he ran before them. He’d chosen to remain in human form a while in hopes of reaching through the thick stone walls to contact Logan. So far, no luck.

“I can’t cover all three of you. One for sure, maybe two. Not three.”

Roland doubted the Paladin could even do two, at least not with any sort of assurance. All it took was one small hole, one thin area, and Logan’s light would burn through. “Our only chance is getting topside so Valin can let Logan know and he can give us time to get away.”

Gabriella skidded to a stop. Roland almost tripped trying to keep up with the abrupt movement. “Gabby, what’s wrong?”

Valin spun around, his eyes widening in alarm when he saw they’d all stopped. “What are you doing? We have to get out of here, now!”

She shook her head, starting back down the path behind her. “I’m fast. I might be able to go deep enough, find a spot to hide.”

“Gabriella…” Roland took a step forward, heart torn in two directions. He always knew she was a brave girl, but he didn’t want her to sacrifice herself. Not for him, at least. Karissa, yes, but not him. His mouth firmed. “Valin, take Karissa.”

Valin ignored him, he was too busy bearing down on Gabriella, his face hardened into cold fury, as if he would grab her, toss her over his shoulder, and spank her like he would a recalcitrant child. “I already told you that wasn’t possible.”

“You said you can shield two.” And with that Gabby spun around, running back into the cave.

***

Valin roared, his body vibrating as he stared back down the tunnel through which the girl had fled. What was the stupid chit thinking? He took a step downward and stopped, belatedly remembering that smacking some sense into the girl was not his only concern here.

He turned back around, his shoulders sagging a bit as he looked at Roland and the female shuddering in his arms. In his defense, Roland looked as pissed as he did.

“Does she do this sort of foolish crap often?” He tried for the joke, forcing himself to turn back up the tunnel. Roland’s hand shot out, grabbing him and forcing him to stop. “What?” he asked.

“Go after her. You can’t reach Logan from down here anyway.”

“And you two?” Valin shook his head. “My loyalty does not lie with some foolish vampire child who doesn’t listen to reason.”

But it did. For some asinine reason it did. Maybe it was seeing her up in that dilapidated warehouse, a cloud-break away from extinction, yet possessing the bravery to try and send him after Roland and the woman rather than trying to bargain for her life.

“Once Karissa and I reach the surface, I’ll make sure Logan sees us. He’ll do what he can to hold them off while we get away.”

“And what if Logan is already in the tunnels?”

“If he was already in the tunnels, we’d hear the fighting, or we’d be fried crisp by now.”

Valin wavered, his body leaning forward then back as his loyalties tore at him. One girl. A vampire at that. He shook Roland’s grip off, then started forward. He needed to get Roland and Karissa safely to the surface so that Logan would know to call the retreat.

A growl rumbled deep in his throat and he spun back around. Two steps and he faced Roland again. “This doesn’t mean I like you.” Then clasping his hand around the vampire’s head, Valin pulled Roland’s forehead to his. “Welcome back, brother. Now hurry, because I’m going to be really pissed if I come out of here and you’re not around to settle the debts you’ve piled up here.”

“Understood.”

***

“Roland?” Karissa stirred in his arms, her sweet voice like a rainbow of light in this world of darkness. Her shuddering had stopped a few minutes before and he had hope that she’d come around soon. He hadn’t known how hard it would hit him though. She was alive. Because he’d turned her. Would she forgive him when she realized what he’d done?

He tipped his head down, brushing a kiss over her forehead and soaking up her scent. Still flowery, with a soft hint of musk that was all Karissa. His pulse accelerated, blood pumping to regions that were not needed for running, while in the vaults of his mind his primal beast screamed out:
Mine!

How could so much be the same, while so much had changed?

“Roland. Something’s different. I feel strange.” Her fingers dug into his chest, her panic evident in her voice.

“Hush, love. We’re almost there.” He didn’t tell her that as soon as they were, they’d have to run again. Two vampires would never be accepted by the men he once called brothers. Valin and Logan were the anomalies in that equation. And Roland knew that when he converted her. And condemned her.

Later. He’d worry about that later. When he had her far away from here. Someplace safe. Then he’d tell her. And if it would make it better, he’d even offer his knife to her and let her end the life of the monster who’d turned her. He cried at the thought of losing her so finitely. With no soul he would never see her again. But if it would ease her pain—a pain he’d caused when he’d let his selfish monster rule him—then he’d help her drive the knife home to his treacherous heart.

A shift in the air, a slight brightening of the near blackness. They were close. First get them out of here. Contact Logan. Then run like hell to safety. He just prayed that the cloud cover held.

He pushed himself harder, knowing every second counted. Every instant. But the moment he rounded the last bend he knew he was wrong. They hadn’t heard the fighting because it wasn’t in the tunnels, it was outside. The moment he crested the rising floor and caught sight of the violent battle creating those noises, his heart sunk even further.

Holy fuck. How was he ever going to find Logan in all of this?