The Bite That Binds (The Deep In Your Veins #2) (27 page)

“I’m looking forward to this, Sam.”

“I’m not the easy target that you think I am, Magda.” Ignoring her snicker, I quietly said, “Novo.” Then Dexter was draped over my shoulders – yeah, he’d gone for a wander from my arm to my shoulders in his tattoo form. There were gasps and sounds of appreciation, but I was more interested in the nervous gasp that flew out of Magda. Ha. Carefully, I placed Dexter on the ground. He didn’t move away from me, just as I knew he wouldn’t.

Most likely in response to my anger and the clear danger of the situation, he turned a dark-red and hissed loudly. His tail was going crazy, too. Much like the black mamba, he was able to raise a third of his body from the floor. Handy.

I returned my attention to Magda then. We stared at each other, feet slightly apart and clenching our fists, much like a pair of cowgirls ready for a shootout. As I always did in a duel, I let everything else around me fade away. I honed every single one of my senses on her, intending to predict her movements as best I could.

“You don’t have a hope in hell of winning this,” taunted Magda. She almost sang the next words. “I
will
defeat you.”

I gave her a pitying smile. “Oh, you and your wishful thinking.”

That was all it took to make her move. She hadn’t needed to come very close to take a swipe at me with that jagged-blade-for-an-arm. I ducked with vampire speed, making my action blurred, and then stood tall again. Without giving me a reprieve, she attempted to slash at my chest. Bitch.

I dodged the move, smiling in satisfaction as Dexter spat venom at the blade, making it sizzle. Magda cried out in pain and pulled her arm back, quickly changing it back to skin and bone. Oh, so it turned out that even when her arms were steel, she still felt the pain. Interesting. And gratifying.

I watched, morbidly curious, as the blisters slowly healed. Only then did she morph her arm back into a blade and take another swipe at me – this time aiming for my feet. I jumped high, missing the jagged blade by mere inches. Crap, she was a lot faster than me. The reason that I wasn’t separated from my feet was that I had my Sventé agility. A lot of people underestimated it, but having the dexterity of a leopard came in handy at times like this.

Another thing in my favour was that you could always count on a Pagori to stupidly rely on their immense strength. It meant their movements were often a little clumsy. And as Magda’s movements were fuelled by anger, her forceful swings were very clumsy.

“Give it up, Sam. Save yourself the embarrassment of being beaten to a pulp.”

“You’re just upset that I have bigger tits than you.” Apparently those words hit a little too close to home, because her red irises practically smouldered. “Aw, don’t be upset because you like my boobs. Be upset because Jared likes them.”

Suddenly, both of her arms were steel; one was a blade, the other was a spike. Wasn’t that nice. I repeatedly dodged them: ducking, diving, leaping, and jerking backwards – always remaining out of reach. As I’d hoped, she became more and more frustrated. As such, she became clumsier and clumsier.

I knew that people would be wondering why I wasn’t using my gifts, might think I was simply toying with her with the intention of using them later in the duel. If I could just get her close enough for Dexter to take a chunk out of her, I could act as though I was ending the duel early for that reason. She wouldn’t be in a fit state to fight me once his venom was in her system.

Magda must have guessed that, because she did her best to stay far away from Dexter and me. None of the venom he spat managed to reach her. I thought about signalling for him to leap at her, but I didn’t want to risk that blade slicing him in half. Well then I’d just have to piss her off so that she charged at me. “Shame I didn’t bring my chopsticks.”

“Bitch.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ve just thought of a great idea—”

“Wow, beginner’s luck.”

“—why don’t
you
come at
me
this time? Or do you only know defensive moves?”

Wearing a daring smile, I winked. “Oh I’ve got plenty of moves. Just ask Jared.”

Picking up on the insinuation, she hissed louder than Dexter. Then she was rocketing at me so fast that the effect was more of her disappearing and then materialising right in front of me. Although I’d been expecting it and had flipped backwards out of her reach, she still managed to slice at my chest with the tip of the blade. I cursed with the pain. She might have charged at me again had Dexter not spat venom in her face.

Crying out, she staggered back, scrubbing at her eyes. Not willing to play nice, I chose that moment to lunge forward and deliver a fast, hard uppercut. The force of it sent her somersaulting backwards. Her vampire grace meant that she landed steadily on her feet, but she looked dazed enough to slightly placate me.

In some sort of Matrix style manoeuvre, she abruptly jumped into the air and darted at me with her leg ready to strike. Again, she was fast. But with anger driving her, her movements had been too brisk to be anything but inept. I – though just barely – captured her foot, and spun her entire body clockwise so that she did a lovely spinning flip. Her back met the ground with a loud thud and there was a harsh crack that made me wince.

“He doesn’t love you, you know,” she said as she sprung upright, snapping her dislocated arm back into place. Ew. “Not really. Jared’s too scarred and guarded to let anyone past his walls. You might be snuggled up against those walls, but you haven’t got through them.”

I knew what she was trying to do: make me lose it so I rushed at her the way she had at me. Poor cow really thought I was daft, didn’t she? “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you make me think of a pigeon that keeps flying at a glass window. No matter how hard the knocks are, you just keep on hitting it – totally missing reality. The reality in this instance is that you can’t mess this up for us. Keep trying, though. It’s funny as shit to watch.”

Magda laughed. “You’re the one who isn’t facing reality, sweetie. In a way, I actually feel sorry for you.”

“Aw, bless your little black heart.”

“Whether you like it or not, that link I have with him makes me closer to him than he is to you. And you hate that, don’t you? He still wants me. That’s why he’s so desperate for me to leave. He doesn’t trust himself around me…and neither do you.”

“You know, I really wish I’d brought my Gullibility Test Kit with me. I’ve got a feeling you’d have passed with flying colours.”

I could always count on this mental case to react in anger. Growling, she charged at me. I could have ducked and swept her feet from under her with one whip of my leg. That had been the plan, anyway. But what I hadn’t known was that at that very second, an all familiar agony would assail my entire body. Helplessly, I fell to my knees, narrowly missing the blade aimed at my chest. But I didn’t miss the spike that pierced through my shoulder.

If I hadn’t already been in unbearable pain, I might not have screamed, but with so much agony tearing through me, I couldn’t hold it in. I knew that no one would know about the other more excruciating pain, I knew that they would all simply think Magda was defeating me. Hell, she
was
defeating me. But there was nothing I could do.

My peripheral vision picked up Dexter lunging at her. More pain – this time, emotional –seared me as I saw her backhand him with the blade, sending him crashing into the wall. Instead of darting at her again, he remained limp. Oh I’d fucking kill her if he was dead – even if it meant somehow coming back from the afterlife, I’d fucking end the bitch.

I screamed again as she repeatedly twisted the spike, tearing into the wound and preventing it from closing. I could feel the blood spilling down my dress, just as I could feel tears filling my eyes. To add to that, I had the sensation of invisible hands clawing their way into my abdomen, ripping me open, snapping my intestines, and trying to pull my stomach out of my body. Only twice before had I felt anything like it; in the bungalow, and that evening when I’d woken, paralysed, by torturous sensations.

Abruptly, Magda yanked the spike out of my shoulder. “Fight me,” she hissed.

Even through the pain, I understood why she’d pulled back. The duel would be ended if it looked as though she was attempting to kill me. No one would intervene as long as it looked like nothing more than a battle of strength.

“Get up,” she spat.

I told myself the same thing, but my legs couldn’t support me just then. Not while those invisible hands were still ravaging my insides and poking around in my head. Unexpectedly, a harsh kick to the face sent me tumbling onto my back. Blood gushed from my now-broken nose.
Twat!
What bothered me more than the blood was the nauseating crunch I’d heard as the cartilage snapped.

Looking up, I saw a spike once again aiming for me. Somehow, I rolled onto my side out of the way, still clutching my abdomen. The spike missed me, making Magda curse with frustration. Apparently, it also inspired her to deliver a hard kick to my back. Oh the witch!

“I told you I’d beat you. Look at the great Sventé Feeder curled up like a foetus on the ground. You’re
nothing
. And now they’ll all see that. Now Jared will see that. He deserves better than you, and he’ll see that too.”

Striving to ignore the relentless aching, I struggled to get back onto my knees. But I must have looked feeble, because she merely laughed, sure of her dominance in the duel.

“You tell yourself that you don’t believe that he wants me, Sam. But truthfully, it plays on your mind, doesn’t it? It plays on your mind that maybe, behind all his anger, there lies some lingering desire for me, even some lingering feelings. Oh you believe he means it when he says that he doesn’t want me. But you worry that he’s only kidding himself, don’t you? You worry that he’s trying to convince himself as much as he’s trying to convince you.”

Each word was like being stabbed at with a hot poker. The cracked cow was right. I hadn’t acknowledged any of this until now, but it was true. I’d always worry that I’d lose Jared, because that was what happened when you loved someone, when you knew you’d be a shell without them. It wasn’t distrust. It was fear, pure and simple.

Hating her so much in that moment, I used every ounce of energy that I had into making my body move. Trying to set aside the pain somehow, I sprang to my feet. But a shoe slamming into my kneecap had me back on my knees only a second later. Then there was even more pain as the spike drilled into my uninjured shoulder. As she had with the other, she twisted it this way and that way.

“Beg me to stop, Sam. Beg me, admit defeat, and I’ll stop.”

Not bloody likely. She had to be off her rocker. Pain or no pain, she would never get that from me.

“Do it.”

Instead, I peered up and scowled at her. “Fuck you, you demented, unhinged crank.”

The spike went deeper into my shoulder, scraping bone and tearing through more muscle. I squeezed my eyes closed against the pain, thinking that I might actually pass out with it. But then something happened. The torturous abdominal agony…it went. The sensation of invisible hands went. The feeling of being torn inside out went.

Where all that had been, there was something else in its place: power.

CHAPTER TWELVE

(Sam)

Strength blasted through my veins like a hot wave, invigorating me, energizing me, galvanising me. My eyes snapped open with the shock of it. Whatever Magda saw on my face made her gasp and back away, taking that sodding spike with her. My nose quickly snapped back into place, and each of my wounds swiftly closed over. It was then my turn to gasp – that kind of instant healing shouldn’t have been possible for injuries as severe as those. I’d had giant holes in my bloody shoulders, for God’s sake.

I inhaled a long breath, filling my lungs, as I took stock. Physically, I was fine. More than fine. In fact, I felt better than I’d ever felt. But inside…inside I felt…different.
More
.

Effortlessly, I jumped to my feet. Lifting my hands, I saw that they were literally sparkling with energy. That wasn’t all. Those same silvery-blue glimmers of energy played around the surface of my entire body. As I wiggled my fingers, tiny sprinkles of it peppered the air. It was like I was dripping silvery-blue fairy dust.

I didn’t know what any of this meant, but I knew two things. One, something very fundamental had occurred. Two, I was
so
much stronger than I’d been before. But it wasn’t
bad
strong. Not like when I Merged with someone and felt engulfed by the power or threatened by the measure of it. No, I was simply…
more
. That was the only way I could explain it.

Testing myself, I played with the energy that was spilling from me, shaping it into my much beloved whip. It buzzed against my skin, leaving tingles as I threaded it through my fingers – God, I’d missed that. Hence my huge smile.

Two things, however, were quite different about the whip. Not only was it longer, but it had occasional flashes of ultraviolet – whatever the hell that meant. Curious as to just how long the whip was, I spun it around my body again and again, as if preparing to crack it at Magda. It was able to loop around me three times. This was just bloody brilliant.