Witches Be Burned: A Magic & Mayhem Novel (15 page)

“Ah, yeah,” Nexi muttered in disbelief.

Willow took a few steps backward and pressed her warm, thick body against Nexi’s thighs.
That means I deserve a big juicy steak.

Nexi glanced down at Willow’s huge frame, forcing herself to remember that while not in protector mode Willow was a cat and not a panther that could rip her freaking head off. “You kicked ass, Willow. Two big steaks for that.”

Willow purred, sounding more like a growl in panther form.
Finally, the treatment I deserve.

Feeling safe enough with Willow guarding her, Nexi scanned the room, looking for her next target. Maddox and Thalia helped the other guardians, vampires, and werewolves, and by all appearances, their group was taking care of things just fine. Maybe they were a little worse for wear, but nonetheless still alive.

Wounds could be fixed by magic.

Deaths could not.

Briar and Zia, plus the other witches, attacked Astoria with force. In the most remarkable display of magic Nexi had ever seen, Astoria’s thick black smoke surrounded her, keeping at bay any magic thrown her way. That didn’t mean the lodge wasn’t consumed with every type of natural disaster possible.

“Get off me, you peasant,” Thalia shouted.

By the time Nexi turned to Thalia, the vampire attacking the Mistress Vampire was headless, and she tossed his head like salt over one’s shoulder. Before Nexi could absorb such a sight, Haven’s scream cut through the air.

Fear that did not belong to her coursed through Nexi’s veins. Haven’s terror cut through Nexi’s soul like a sharp sword to the gut. She spun on her heels, frantically searching for Haven, regretting that she’d been so focused on everything else that transpired that she’d lost proximity to her soul-sister.

Finn screamed Haven’s name, adding to the tension, making it hard for Nexi to breathe. She continued to scan the room, but in the chaos of bodies both alive and dead, magic and mayhem, Nexi couldn’t find her.

Time slowed.

She turned to Finn again, and his fixed stare pointed her in Haven’s direction. He was closer to Haven than Nexi was, but he couldn’t get past the two vampires he fought. His eyes were filled with panic and he yelled her name with much fear in his voice.

A sound that meant death was creeping in the shadows.

Haven was stuck in a corner, trapped by a vampire hunting her. While the ground beneath the vampire rocked and rumbled, Haven used her Earth magic, but the vampire kept coming. Even Thalia, with vampire speed, couldn’t get there in time. “Keep me safe,” she called.

Willow’s answering growl declared she’d heard her.

“I’m here.” Thalia rested her hand on Nexi’s shoulder.

Even though Thalia’s touch made Nexi almost shudder, the protection was appreciated. Nexi couldn’t trust that if she conjured magic she’d be safe. These things needed concentration, since she was so new to her powers, and she didn’t want to die in the process.

She closed her eyes, cutting off the world and praying her magic wouldn’t fail her. Bursting heat rushed through her veins, building with each passing second. Her chest tightened as the flames within burned red-hot. The elements inside of her tingled, happy to be allowed out to play.

Only when the fiery touch of the Fire element burned in her chest, fierce and ready, did Nexi open her eyes. She didn’t hesitate; she raised her hands, aiming them toward the vampire. And as the vamp reached for Haven’s throat, Nexi begged the flames to burn evil instead.

A shiver cascaded through her veins as the orange flames, tinted with a light purple, soared toward the threat. The fire barreled like lassos eager to strangle and take a life, and the rich energy roared through Nexi’s soul, mixing with her anger and propelling the elements to move faster.

When the flames struck the vampire in the back, he dropped to the ground, and a split second later the lasso of fire engulfed him from head to toe. Nexi ran forward as Willow took out any threats coming toward her. She crinkled her nose, avoiding the vamp’s remains, as the ash stirred up with her shoes, barreling into Haven. “Okay?”

“Yes.” Haven squeezed Nexi’s arms. “Yes. I’m fine.”

Nexi breathed a sigh of relief but was drawn away when an odd energy rushed across her. She turned around, almost as if compelled to. Astoria’s black smoke thickened around where she stood and her body vibrated, her long hair fluttering over her face. As Astoria looked to her right Nexi did the same, instantly horrified to see more than ten vampires rushing Kyden.

No!

Her heart slowed, not raced as expected, but slowed in those scary moments of danger. Kyden could not see the attack coming his way.

No!

Fear nearly crippled Nexi as the looming danger hovered over him. Once she’d watched her mortal family die brutally. Once she almost lost Kyden. And because of evil she never truly knew the supernaturals who gave her life. She refused to witness anyone else die, and she roared at Willow, “Protect Haven.”

Willow’s fierce growl of refusal echoed in Nexi’s ears, yet her familiar obliged the order, and Nexi ran for her life toward to Kyden. Her sword was a heavy weight in her hand, calling for the blood of anyone who threatened someone she loved again. The vampires were closing in. Too close. Nexi ran harder, pushing against the strain of her muscles.

A vampire reached out to Kyden, but Nexi was there, right at Kyden’s back, when suddenly she noticed a flicker over the vampires, almost as if they weren’t real and were a vision produced by magic.

Awareness hit and she attempted to skid to a halt. “Shit!”

Her breath froze as she smacked into a wall of energy. A circle of darkness appeared in front of her, and she roared against the evil clawing at her. Worse than that, she could do nothing to stop herself from tumbling forward into the darkness.

Wrapped in a portal she could not run from, she managed to scream, “Kyden!”

Screams rattled Kyden’s soul as his sword went through flesh and bone, spraying blood in all directions. The intensity of the scream zeroed his focus on that single sound, yet he couldn’t identify who or where it came from. Roars of death echoed off the walls of the lodge, mixed with the ear-shattering blows of magic.

The Grim Reaper was certainly getting his fill tonight.

When the vampire dropped dead at Kyden’s feet, no other threat approached. In those few seconds of reprieve, he returned from the instinctual state of kill or be killed, scanning the lodge. The Earth Witches clearly used the full strength of their magic, as the floor around the vampires quaked. But the shake of the earth never reached Kyden. Each death brought him closer to avenging the guardians who had lost their lives. While it would never bring Trefan and Radek back, the message to any other vampire was clear.

Touch one of the Council’s Guards and die without mercy.

Kyden’s chest constricted as his focus went to the vampire running straight for him. A slow grin spread across Kyden’s face. He welcomed the fight. There were two outlets to shed tension: sex and a fistfight. Both heightened his senses and pushed a heady amount of adrenaline through his body. Now wasn’t about pleasure, it was about bringing death.

His muscles flexed as he charged the vampire, and his sword nearly sang a song for the vamp’s life. Even Kyden ached to hear the loud swish in the air as his blade cut deep into the vampire’s throat, yet with Nexi involved in this fight, he didn’t seek pride. He wanted to end this battle.

Only a foot away, the vamp lost his footing on the blood drenching the floor, sending him tumbling to the ground. Kyden didn’t hesitate—he leveled the vamp with a hard punch, wishing to himself that this vampire was Ellery. The vampire flew back, sliding along the floor, and seconds later, he hit the wall of the lodge with a loud
crack.

Kyden didn’t pause to consider his opponent. His lungs burned and muscles ached with exhaustion as he shoved the tip of his sword into the vamp’s throat, pushing the blade until it hit the hardwood floor beneath him. The vamp’s black eyes went instantly lifeless, and with a quick twist of the blade, the vampire’s head rolled away from its body.

As Kyden withdrew the blade, Zade shouted, “None of you will walk out of here alive.” The Master of Vampires circled a vamp, slow and lethal. “Surrender to the Otherworld.”

“Never,” the vampire snarled.

In the same amount of time it took Kyden to inhale, Zade had killed the vampire with his bare hands. After Zade tossed the head to ground, Kyden surveyed the fight, searching out his next target.

Finn and Talon, along with the other guardians, vampires, and werewolves, continued fighting through the horde of rogue vampires. Maddox and Thalia worked their way around the room in a speed that Kyden’s eyes couldn’t register, dropped bodies in their wake. Holten, in his wolf form, growled as he gnawed on a vamp’s neck.

Kyden’s gaze slid past a dark figure, but then returned in nothing short of a double take. A panther stood in the center of the lodge, and the orange-tipped tail was a dead giveaway that it was Willow. Pleased that the familiar had finally shown her worth, he scanned the area around the panther, now understanding that she was a shifter to protect Nexi.

Yet if that was true, why was Nexi nowhere near her?

Willow growled at the air and spit flew out between her sharp teeth as she bounced on her two front paws. A slow coldness that he didn’t understand, but also wouldn’t ignore, descended through him.

Uncaring of the vampires or the fight around him, he turned, searching the bodies on the ground. Though he never found Nexi near Willow’s large paws, his heart rate increased, and that coldness became icier. He scanned the lodge in a quick sweep, yet Nexi was nowhere in sight.

He didn’t doubt that if Nexi was hurt Willow would be protecting her, though Willow wasn’t standing over Nexi’s injured body. The panther was snarling at nothing but air. Kyden’s stomach roiled as he ran toward the panther, an ache forming in his chest pulling him forward. A vampire struck Kyden from the side, latching his fangs into Kyden’s shoulders, but he simply shoved his sword in the vamp’s chest and kept moving.

“Where is Nexi?” he asked Willow, when he reached her.

Willow pointed with a giant-sized paw to where Kyden had been standing and her claws cut through the air. She growled, low and deadly, her eyes looking frantic and wild. Kyden’s fists clenched as he glanced over to the spot where he’d been, but Nexi was not there.

She wasn’t anywhere.

His body became heavy, his heart even more so. With his vision blurring, he turned to the witches. That’s when he noticed that Haven was on her knees, sobbing, not even paying attention to the fight around her or her own safety. That told Kyden something had gone terribly wrong.

While part of him panicked, wondering if Nexi had been struck accidentally by a guardian’s sword and the magic made her dead body vanish, he also didn’t see grief in Haven’s features—he only spotted wide-eyed fear.

“Clear me a way to Haven,” he called to Willow.

Willow pounced forward with a roar that shook Kyden to his bones, not because he didn’t think Willow could help, but because her growl sounded urgent. With each step Kyden took the panther ripped a vampire to shreds, clearing him a pathway.

One young vamp got past Willow, and Kyden punched out, sending the vamp soaring in the air. When the vamp tumbled back to the ground with arms and legs flailing, Kyden burst forward, burying his sword deep into the vamp’s gut. His blade slid like a knife through butter, and Kyden didn’t lose a hitch in his step.

He needed answers, and he needed them
now.

Worry made his stride tense and urgency made his body ache. Blood drenched the floor beneath his boots as Willow continued to rip apart vampires with a speed that at any other time would have impressed Kyden. As yet another vampire lunged past the panther, Kyden didn’t slow his stride, but dropped to his knees, sliding along the wet floor.

The silkiness of the liquid made him move fast as he lifted his sword above his head. When the vampire’s torso met the tip of his blade, warm liquid rained down onto Kyden’s head. He shut his eyes, continuing to slide along the floor. Only when the drops stopped beating down on him did he reopen his eyes, spotting Willow taking out two vampires in a split second.

Haven was finally in arm’s reach, so he jumped to his feet, and his gut twisted as he saw the fear raging in the depths of her eyes. He grasped her by the arms. “Where is Nexi?”

Haven didn’t respond, staring blankly at him.

“Tell me!” He shook her.

She blinked, tears spilling down her ashen face. “I don’t know…she went after vampires that were going to attack you…but it was magic…a portal appeared…she ran right into it.”

The world slowed as the wretched sounds of crunching of bones and screams of agony washed over him. “What portal?”

“Astoria…” Haven’s chin quivered, then she broke into fierce sobs.

Kyden released his grip on her arms and she sank to the ground. He scanned the room, searching out Astoria. That’s when he found Zia and Briar standing where they’d been fighting Astoria, looking to the space Nexi had apparently vanished into.

How could this be possible?

It didn’t make sense.

What would Astoria want with Nexi?

Zia looked to Kyden, and she shook her head slowly, tears streaming down her cheeks. The strength in his body evaporated, sending him to his knees, an agony far worse than death shooting through him. His mind spun with more questions than he could possibly solve. Nexi, yet again, put someone else’s safety above her own.

Now she was in the grips of an evil witch…
all alone.

While he could succumb to the deep pain blazing inside him, he forced strength to return to his soul.
For Nexi.
He couldn’t even pretend to understand why Astoria wanted to get Nexi alone, and that point didn’t matter—he needed to find a way to get to her.

And he needed to do it right fucking
now.

He stared into Zia’s eyes and spotted a change in her expression, a look similar to one coming from a mother whose daughter had been stolen away. He noticed the sudden silence, then he glanced around, finding no other threats. With Thalia and Maddox helping, the fight was over in mere minutes.

It all went exactly as planned, and that rubbed Kyden wrong.

The fight was too easy.

Now he realized why—this was a diversion, all Astoria’s plan to get to Nexi.

With his heart banging against the walls of his chest, he surveyed the room, and he discovered that one fight was still going on between Finn and a vampire. Rage had Kyden rushing forward as he heard the gasps around him.

Only a foot away from Finn, Kyden spotted Finn raising his sword to end the vamp’s life, when Kyden lifted his own blade. He shoved Finn out of the way and then slammed his sword deep into the vamp’s gut. Moving at full speed ahead, he slammed the vampire into the wall, lifting him off his feet and pushing his sword into the wall to trap the vampire.

A scream tore from the vamp’s mouth; his eyes were wide, lost in agony.
No mercy
. Kyden let go of the sword, leaving the vampire pinned to the wall by nothing but his blade. “Where has the witch gone?” he roared, grasping the vamp by the throat and squeezing hard. “Tell me now!”

“I don’t know,” the dark-haired vamp wheezed. “She was supposed to stay and help us fight.”

A hand pressed against Kyden’s shoulder, and he noticed Finn giving him a curious look, so he explained, “Astoria has taken Nexi through a portal.”

Darkness drifted across Finn’s features, but Kyden paid it no attention. He returned his focus to the vampire, refusing to accept anything but an answer that would help him find Nexi. Any seconds that passed were seconds that she most likely fought the black witch. “I ask again, where the fuck is Astoria?”

The vamp gasped beneath Kyden’s tight grip, “I. Don’t. Know.”

Talon interjected gently, “I doubt he’d lie to you in his current position, Kyden.”

Kyden’s heart nearly burst out of his chest as his father settled in next to him. Worry pinched Talon’s brows, tension oozing from him. Kyden’s knees went weak at the overwhelming desire to lean on his father’s wisdom.

Nexi is gone.

Talon’s eyes became sad as he placed a hand on Kyden’s shoulder, and then he turned to the vampire. “Are there more of you?”

“Not that I know of,” the vamp gasped.

Kyden’s actions tonight swirled like a disease through him. He should have demanded that she not join the fight. He should have listened to his damn instincts telling him through all this that she was
not
safe.

He lowered his hand around the vamp’s throat and placed it on the wall for support as questions raced through his mind. No lead they had received made him believe this had anything to do with Nexi.

What in the hell would Astoria want with her?

Breaking into Kyden’s thoughts, Talon asked, “Why did you choose this place to gather?”

“We were preparing for our attack.” The vampire cringed, glancing to the sword lodged in his stomach. “We were gathering our army to fight.”

Talon’s brow lifted in surprise. “You were planning an attack against the Otherworld?”

“No.” The vamp paused, inhaling a sharp breath through his nose. “Our attack was to be against the Mistresses.”

“Idiots,” Thalia murmured somewhere behind Kyden.

He didn’t look at her. He stayed focused on Finn as he asked, “If that’s true, then why are you killing guardians?”

The vampire lifted his head and barely managed, “Proving loyalty to Astoria.”

Kyden pinched the bridge of his nose. Astoria had fed these vampires false promises. And none of it made any sense. “Why is she helping the vampires against the Mistresses? What could she possibly gain?”

The vamp looked Kyden dead in the eye. “Do you not know who she is?”

“A black witch,” he replied.

The vamp grinned, maliciously. “She is not only that. She’s…”

The vampire’s last words faded to the background as Alazar’s fierce yell echoed through the lodge. “This isn’t over. Ready yourselves.”

Then Kyden’s concern, grief, fury, and everything in between melted away as more vampires—by the hundreds—stormed the lodge.