by Sage, May
Almost everything.
Not fire.
Fire killed vampires, as surely as drowning or a sword through the heart.
No. No, no, no. Alexius couldn't be dead. He just couldn't.
The pack was storming the valley, but she ignored them. A part of her she didn't know existed ached incomprehensibly, rendering her unable to see anything except him. In the distance, all she heard was his fading heartbeat. Still alive. She felt it. Though she couldn't see him, she felt him somewhere inside her.
She knew what that meant, yet she couldn't think clearly about anything, or comprehend anything, beyond the need to get to him right now.
So she did it, each of her steps barely tapping the ground, without a single sound. She moved so fast she couldn't see her destination well, but she felt him, in her heart. One instant later, she was crouching next to him, having crossed the entire valley in the fraction of a second.
She didn't question how she could move at vampire speed. She didn't question what she felt, to her bones, she had to do. All that mattered was saving Alexius, and her heart, her soul was telling her she knew how.
Ignoring the sting of the smoke in her sensitive eyes, she found him. He was a mess of burned flesh, just like the second time she'd met him. And like back then, he was in this state because he'd been saving her.
Avani lowered her mouth to his neck and bit down, hard, fast, leaving a gnarly open wound. She sucked at his blood, claiming every part of him inside her. Then she presented her neck.
"No. Hurt." His voice was so weak. "I—not in control."
"You won't hurt me," she managed to say through her tears. "You could never hurt me. Take me."
Claim me.
His fangs rested on her skin, smooth and cool to the touch.
He had to do it; he had to bite her, and stay with her. Now she'd realized he was her mate, shaped by fate for her, she wouldn't survive losing him.
His heart was slowing down; she'd tuned out all sounds of battle around them. The only thing that mattered in her world was the unsteady beat that already seemed so weak.
She wished she could slice her wrist, force her blood into his system, but he had to take it; she'd marked him as hers. If he didn't accept her, they couldn't form a bond.
"Please, Lex."
He remained still. Then a sharp pain seized her at the side of her neck as his fangs penetrated her skin. She closed her eyes and let go of any tension, giving in to the bite. He sucked her blood, ever so weakly, only taking in a few drops.
That was enough. She could feel it the moment her heart beat alongside his and linked them together, as if they were one—unified, a small pack comprised of just the two of them.
She pushed as much energy through him as she could spare. Alexius groaned against her skin, and pulled his head back, looking straight into her as if she was a thing of wonder, a miracle he couldn't quite believe.
Before her eyes, his neck healed, and a gold line curved alongside his shoulder, dipping under his collar, a beautiful shapeless graphic she'd only heard of in legends, echoed in her own marks. When wolves formed a bond with their fated mates, they were blessed with a physical manifestation of their link.
She would have liked to look at hers. She would have enjoyed kissing, hugging, crying with, and fucking her mate.
First, they had to protect their friends, their family, their territory.
Their pack.
He stumbled to his feet, steady by the time he was upright. His skin healed in an instant, faster than it had before.
Avani felt it inside. Not just her strength. Also his. His speed, his healing ability, his strength. Just like he had her claws and fangs.
Her fur, if he wanted it.
Realizing it, Alexius growled low, and allowed the beast to take over. He tore his clothes, feeling his skin mold into a different shape, his bones break to assume another body. And next to her, there was a pure white wolf with blood-red eyes fixed on their enemy.
She laughed before leaping in the air and joining him in her wolf form, watching his back.
Together, they ignored the pack that tried to pick them off, focusing on an offensive against the self-proclaimed queen.
Levi had joined Chloe, flanked by a redheaded man who must be Sylvan—the only person in their team she didn't recognize—and Mikar. The three were spectacular, but added to the three females, all they could do was hold their ground.
Avani leaped at the queen's shin and took a nasty bite. The bitch deserved it.
No sooner had she retreated to brace for her next offensive than a familiar dark wolf jumped at her. There was a furless scar on his neck, the remnant of a barely healed bite. Zayne. Avani had run from him, once. Not today. He was…slow. Awkward. She could play with him and still pay attention to the queen’s fight.
Alexius, true to his inclination, went for the throat. She punched him out of the way, but he managed to claw at her arm, and she gave Chloe an opening to get to her neck and bite out a chunk of flesh.
The queen was too fast; she headbutted her, hard enough for her skull to crack.
Ouch. That must have hurt.
Hand on her wounded throat, the redhead hissed. "You're going to regret that, lowborn bitch."
It was the first time she talked, and it sounded wrong. Out of character. Too sweet and innocent.
Now that she paid attention, Avani noticed it wasn't a woman at all. She looked…young. In her early twenties, if that.
She knew better than to let it sway her. The woman was thousands of years old; her physical age didn't matter, her past didn't matter. Sure, her life might have sucked, but right now, she was trying to hurt them. That made her the enemy, full stop.
Starting to understand she was outmatched, the queen turned to hiss an order.
"Go for the witch," she told her mutts.
Fuck.
Greer.
Where was she now?
Queens
Dammit. She'd never been one for outdoor sports, so trekking up a hill in the rain? Not her idea of a good time. Maybe she should buy some hiking boots.
Greer pouted at the notion. She liked her boots to be pretty, or at the very least, badass. Maybe she should cave and ask Blair where she got hers. That witch had style.
She walked as fast as her feet could carry her, which wasn't very fast, while maintaining an invisibility field and masking her scent as well as her aura. Her energy was draining by the minute.
Greer seriously questioned her choice to concentrate on charms and spells. Maybe she didn't have a great disposition for fighting, but she should at least take on some cardio exercise to have better endurance. It wasn't like attacks were that rare around here. And for better or worse, Oldcrest was her home.
Part of her wished she could be down in the valley between the lake and Night Hill with the rest of her friends, though she knew why Avani had sent her away. Making sure that she remained safe was protecting her friends. She wasn't a sword, a hammer, or even a spell. She was Oldcrest's greatest shield.
Maybe it was strange that as soon as she'd heard she should get to safety, she'd thought of one place. Not the Institute, despite the wards. Not Night Hill, though it was guarded by a troll. Here. Cosnoc. The cave in the belly of the mountain.
It was smart, she told herself. People abhorred getting anywhere near the caves; the spells put in place by her ancestors held strong, keeping intruders at bay. And Eirikr, the monster locked inside, might hate and despise her, but he was sworn to help her. At least, make sure she stayed alive. Going to him made sense, if only because the queen wouldn't expect it. Greer bet she'd sent the wolves hunting her elsewhere.
She'd just cheered herself up with that notion when she heard a growl, and turned to face three oversized wolves, all nose to the ground, sniffing her out.
Shit. She wasn't that smart, after all.
She couldn't stay here. Invisibility spells only worked when people didn't actually know she was here. But if she moved,
she might make a sound or betray her location otherwise. She looked around. The cave was at least a mile away. What were her chances of getting there on time?
Her heart beat so freaking fast. Could they hear it? Maybe. As much as she'd studied all of the spells she used, she just couldn't remember whether that specific one masked sound, too.
"Come to me. Now."
She knew that deep, low voice. Its strange accent. It shouldn't have reached her here. Maybe she was imagining things. Right?
"You can hear me because you're in danger. I can't come out yet. Not until you're hurt. Come to me. I may not make it in time."
Oh, that made sense. Somehow. Only, why was he talking in her mind at all? It certainly had never happened before.
"Focus."
"I don't know if I can make it. They might hear me. Sense me."
"You'll be faster."
She would have snorted if she could. The dude obviously didn't know her very well, if he thought she could outrun werewolves.
"You'll be faster with me."
That made no freaking sense.
Didn't it?
Now that she focused, something had changed around her. Inside her. There was…something else. He was there, lending her his strength.
She bit her lip. She had to do this. She had to; if not for her, for her friends. If she was hurt here, all they loved and believed in would be lost. The Institute, Night Hill. Even the idiotic wolves who'd joined the queen stood to lose if their world became known to the mortals around them.
She stopped questioning herself, and started to run.
She was fast.
Very fast.
And best of all, she wasn't actually hurting herself—not anymore. In fact, running felt good. Euphoric. She was so freaking strong she suspected she could punch through a wall and it'd just collapse, like they did in movies.
Far away, she could hear the wolves in pursuit, following her scent or her noise. It didn't matter. She was already in the cave, the safest place on Earth.
"Why, hello there," purred the monster who lived there, right behind her.
Chloe had never been so enraged. Not back in NOLA when she'd been assaulted by bounty hunters. Not on Cosnoc, that night she'd actually died—the mortal part of her, in any case. Not when the Stormhales had tried to attack Oldcrest at the end of the summer.
Everything, from the very beginning, had been because of that woman and her daddy issues.
She was not going to let some voodoo Barbie asshole hurt the people she loved. She cried before punching, kicking, slapping, slicing, biting her way to the "queen," ignoring all of the hits she took, all of the wounds she received. If it didn't kill her, it would heal. Pain was irrelevant.
"Eirikrson!" Levi's slayer shouted.
She only had moments to greet Sylvan, but he'd mostly been silent and observant, the sort of man who unsettled her. Now, she turned to him and found him holding on to one of the two swords at his side; one was almost identical to the old, beautiful blade Levi had gifted to Catherine a while back. He'd been fighting with it since his arrival.
The one he held was shorter, and Chloe could tell, more modern. Easier to use, no doubt. Unexpectedly, he turned it over, grabbing it by the blade, and threw it at her, hilt forward.
Chloe caught it midair.
The instant it was in her grasp, she felt like it belonged with her. It was the right weight, better than any of the practice swords she'd sparred with when Cat had endeavored to teach her swordplay.
There was something special about it, something that resonated with her.
As a vampire, she had a lot more energy than she did before, but fighting the queen was taking its toll. The woman was relentless, ridiculously powerful. She'd started to lose some energy.
Now, her reserves were rekindled, amplified. It had to do with the sword, she was sure of it.
It wasn't the time to wonder at it. Instead, she attacked, yelling as she struck. She had a moment to see the queen's eyes widen before she stopped it with both hands. Blood fell down the blade. Purple blood. Like hers.
Chloe gasped. It wasn't the first time she’d inflicted a wound, but she hadn't noticed it before.
Whatever that queen was…it was the same thing as Chloe. If it had been anyone else in the world, she would have had a thousand questions. The only thing that mattered was killing that woman, though.
She drew the sword back and prepared to attack again; the queen's eyes remained on Chloe, as Levi, Cat, Ruby, Blair, and Avani and Alexius in wolf forms—what was that about anyway?—all circled her, while the rest of their group was hunting the wolves in search of Greer.
Then she grinned, lifted her arms, and a wave of black mist engulfed her as she shouted in Latin.
"That can't be good," Ruby said.
"Someone shut her up before she's done!" Blair shouted. "She's…"
Moments later, it was obvious what she was doing.
Summoning the dead.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
The dozens of fallen werewolves twitched on the ground before lurching to their feet.
Dammit.
At least forty zombies. They'd had trouble with one, last time.
"Fire!" Levi said. "We need fire."
His power was water; Chloe could feel his frustration.
"Would lightning do?" Cat suggested.
"It's worth a try."
She leaped out of the way of the queen, rolled to a crouch, and called to her elements, eyes closed. Meanwhile, Chloe concentrated on the important thing: kicking the bitch's ass.
She yelled as she leaped and thrust her sword forward, aiming for the heart. The queen blocked the attack, but winced at the impact, though she managed to catch Chloe by the throat. Then she went for the sword.
With everything in her, Chloe knew she couldn't relinquish it. It was hers. Hers.
"This is mine," she snarled, baring her teeth like a savage and twisting her head to bite the queen's hand.
She grinned when the enemy retreated. Two feet away, the queen paced around her.
They were alone now; her friends and mate were focusing on the zombies, preventing them from spreading to Adairford, the dorm, and the Institute.
They'd understood something that Chloe just realized.
She had this. This fight was hers. Unlike everyone else, who wasn't quite matched against her…Chloe could take the queen.
And the queen had begun to understand it, too. Unless she was much mistaken, there was fear in her eyes.
Chloe started to pace.
"Just like the hill. Just like Skyhall. Just like Eirikr. My father." He might not have been the man who'd fathered her, but he called her daughter, and he treated her as such. "They're all mine."
The queen yelled and jumped her, enraged.
Rage was useful to Chloe. It increased strength and speed; also stupidity.
As the queen went straight for her, Chloe grinned. The redhead seized her by the throat. Chloe let her. And when she was right there, she thrust her sword into her stomach, deep through her belly, smiling at her.
They were the same height. They even smelled similar.
The one true difference between them was their hearts.
The queen leaped backward, curling down in pain, hand over her belly. She looked around. Chloe grinned at her.
The werewolves and their zombie counterparts had spread through the territory, but they were being hunted. None would survive the night.
"Mine," Chloe repeated. "And I protect what's mine."
The queen bared her teeth. Then she yelled in Latin again, and the next instant, a column of dark smoke surrounded her.
And she disappeared.
Like a coward.
Forever
"I hate zombies."
"I hate ferals more than zombies."
Because, naturally, clearing their territory hadn't just been a matter of killing the undead the queen had brought back to life. There also were ferals at the borders.
Alexius had eventually shifted back because the lot of them stank. Biting them wasn't his idea of fun.
It took a while, but they finally had some peace and quiet. Well, they would when all the corpses were burned or buried, anyway.
"Should we call a cleanup crew?" Levi offered, once they'd piled up the zombie carcasses high and burned them all.
There had been about forty or fifty undead, and they couldn't get away with leaving them crawling about. The ferals, at least, didn't have to be handled in person.
"Marvelous idea. Perhaps they'll give us a multi-order discount."
They'd won. It was over, and they'd won.
Or rather, Chloe had won. Jesus, the woman was savage.
Avani was still fussing over her, treating her like her alpha. Which was exactly what Chloe was.
They'd rushed through Oldcrest to go find Greer as soon as the queen had been taken care of, but just as the fight was winding down, the woman had walked down the hill and helped with the fire spells.
Spotting Mikar dragging a wayward zombie to the fiery pit, he noticed the way his shoulder was sagging down.
"Ouch. Let me snap that into place before it heals at the wrong angle," Alexius offered, joining him and cracking it.
"Thanks, man."
“Lex?”
He turned, tilting his head, watching his mate—his fucking mate. That made so much sense, though it still blew his mind—her stunning smile lighting up every single one of her features. “You’re outside. You’re outside of Oldcrest.”
With everything going on, it hadn’t even registered when the fight had moved to the borders; he was firmly out of the Wolvswoods, somehow.
Shit. How?
“How…”
"Maybe it's the bond. Since I'm able to get out, you are too?" Avani guessed.
“Actually, probably not. I wasn’t allowed to tell,” Greer admitted, wincing. “I tried, many times, but my ancestors are nasty. They sent me migraines so acute I almost passed out every time I attempted to give you a clue. The way your spell works, it would only lift when you’d forgiven yourself. That’s why I pushed you to act on your attraction for Avani. I figured, if you could, even for one moment, see yourself like the rest of us see you, you’d stop beating yourself up for being a dreadful kid like, a thousand years ago. Literally.”
