The way she says it, the glee in her voice when she recounts the events leading up to my sister’s murder, makes something snap inside me.
“You fucking bitch!” I roar. The lights above Stella flicker, and she glances up at them, concern marring her aged face.
I stoke the flame, urging the power I just felt forward—letting my rage guide me. Magic builds in my blood, something I never would have thought possible, but I don’t allow myself to think about it.
Not yet.
Because thinking is hesitating.
And I want to see Stella burn.
The bars beneath my hands are hot, but I don’t notice the pain. I grip them tighter as the steel melts away beneath my fingers.
“It’s not possible,” she whispers, backing up farther and farther away from me as I shove the moldable steel aside. It drips to the concrete floor, bright orange tears that instantly cool against the cement.
“Not possible?” I ask her, my voice deadly. “Obviously, you’re wrong.” I stalk across the floor toward her. “Now, what is it I promised you when you nearly got Elijah kill—” My threat breaks off as pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt rips through my skull, and I drop to my knees, a scream tearing from my throat. “Get out of my head!” I roar, my fingers digging into the concrete as though it was nothing but foam.
“It is not your turn, Hunter,” a voice whispers moments before everything goes black once more.
However, even though the world around me is black, I can still hear each word spoken from my own mouth.
“It’s about time, Heather. She nearly killed me!” Stella’s panicked voice is muffled, but the next as clear as day.
“Then don’t provoke her.”
“Why didn’t the silver in the bars work? She was able to access her magic!”
“Seems the hunter blood overrides the silver. It’s why we were able to access her when that foolish bloodsucker thought he’d shielded us from her. She’s a valuable one, this hunter. We need to ensure she doesn’t escape.”
The threat is evident in Heather’s voice, and Stella begins to stutter. “Well, if you could keep better control of her—”
“I have to rest at times, Stella. It’s up to you to keep her within these walls while I do. The plan cannot work if I don’t have a body to inhabit. Preferably one with power such as hers.”
“We can find you another—”
“Can you, Stella? Do you believe another being with a resistance to silver is just going to waltz into this cell, asking to be inhabited? Because until one does, Rainey Astor is our only possible choice.”
Stella clears her throat. “Well, then, shall we get on with it? You have a box to obtain, don’t you?”
“Dear, Rainey, I bet your bloodsucker will love to see you again, don’t you?” I know the sadistic bitch is speaking to me, and inside, I want to rage, to scream, to fight. Though I try to break the mental chains she has on me, nothing happens.
“You do realize I am inside you—we are one. You cannot shield your thoughts from me, Hunter.”
Good. Then fuck you. I shove whatever mental force I have left behind the words before taking a deep breath and trying to clear my mind of all thoughts. No damn way I’m giving this bitch any more ammunition than she already has. I’m going to fucking kill you for what you’ve done.
A laugh fills my head, a chilling sound that makes me wish I had ears so I could plug them. “Rainey, I’m just getting started.”
6
Elijah
“Now that we’re all here, how about we figure out what we’re going to do about the witch bitch?” Tarnley asks as he takes a seat in the large armchair near the roaring fire. We’re gathered in the study of his windowless home near the blood bar.
Cole, Josiah, Paloma, and her husband stand off to one side, Jack and Willa directly beside them, and Jane next to me near the edge of the fireplace.
Bronywyn joined us but has steered clear of the large group by stationing herself near the door. I can sense her fear just as easily as I can feel my own.
Hell, everyone in this room is terrified of what might happen should Heather continue riding shotgun in Rainey’s body.
“Any ideas? Agatha?” I look to where she sits at the very edge of the room, the three black crows perched on the bookcase behind her. “You do seem to be the resident Heather expert.”
She snorts. “Just because I know her doesn’t make me an expert.”
“How is that exactly?” Jane asks, voice layered with irritation. “She was locked in the box before you were born. I am the one who warned you about her, who told you of the box.”
Agatha shrugs, but her dark eyes and strained expression directly contradict the action. “I may have opened the box myself a time or two.”
“Then why the hell weren’t you possessed?” Jack demands.
She doesn’t even bother looking at the hunter. “Because I wasn’t the one they wanted.”
“And how is it she knew you weren’t who she wanted? You are a lunar witch, just like Rainey. An Astor born during a full moon. Why would it matter?” I ask, already fearing what the answer may be.
Agatha levels her gaze on me, power swirling within the depths of her dark eyes. She’s trying to intimidate me, an action that will prove futile for her. “I was born a witch with hunter blood. Rainey is a hunter with witch blood. The difference may not seem like much to you, but I assure you it is, and Heather can see it.”
Beside me, a tortured cry leaves Jane’s lips and she covers her mouth with both hands. “You bargained for Rainey,” she whispers, her voice barely audible over the sound of my blood hammering in my brain.
“You promised your granddaughter to a psychotic fucking witch?” I blur across the room, knocking her staff to the side and gripping her by the throat before she has the chance to use her powers. The crows take flight, their wings flapping wildly around me. Though, to their credit, no one comes after me.
I’ll knock their feathery asses out of the sky if I have to in order to make Agatha pay for that particular revelation.
“I had to buy time,” Agatha tells me.
Jack doesn’t make a single move toward me. Based on the look the hunter is giving me, he’s rooting for Agatha’s death.
“You sold her out! Your own blood! Tell me, how old was she when you bargained her life away? Huh? Two? Three?”
Bronywyn rushes to my side, her hand on the arm holding Agatha. “Let her go, Elijah.”
“No.”
“Let her go or I will make you.”
I turn my attention to her, a growl leaving my lips. “Try, and I’ll kill her.”
Bronywyn holds my glare for a moment longer, but it’s a crow that pulls my attention away from killing Agatha. Delaney lands on my shoulder softly, perching as she stares across at Agatha, so I let her go and step back.
Agatha bends and retrieves her cane. “Eighteen months,” she replies tightly. “Touch me again, and I’ll take those hands off.”
“You won’t have time to react if I put my hands on you again,” I toss back her way as I stroll across the room, Delaney never leaving my shoulder. My stomach churns, and the moment I reach the wall, I ball up my fist and slam it into the paneling.
It crunches and does absolutely nothing to curb my growing rage.
“You knew Heather wanted Rainey this entire time. Why the hell wouldn’t you warn her?” Jane asks. “And why would Delaney leave the box for her to find?”
Agatha’s gaze flickers to Delaney for a second—an action so quick I nearly miss it. “Delaney was not in her right mind when she left the box for Rainey,” Agatha tells us. “She’d been manipulated into doing so by a woman I once considered my friend.”
“Doloris,” I clarify, and she turns to me.
“How do you know?”
“Because I ripped her throat out back in Salem.”
Agatha presses her lips together in a tight line and nods. It’s the first time she’s shown me even a bi
t of respect. “Good. That woman was long overdue for a meeting with the reaper. You’re sure she was dead?”
“I didn’t exactly stick around to see, but I’m pretty damn sure.”
“I removed her body,” Tarnley explains. “Then I burned it. She’s gone.”
Agatha nods again before shifting her gaze to the crow on my shoulder. “Doloris branded Delaney and placed her under a spell that would force her to complete whatever task the witch laid out for her.”
“Then why would Doloris want to kill Rainey? If the entire time she wanted her to have the box?”
“Doloris was born of a witch and a warlock with the power to reanimate the dead. Had she succeeded in killing Rainey, my granddaughter would have been dead, but the witch could have brought back her body for Heather. A host with no issues.”
“What the fuck.” Jack pinches the bridge of his nose.
“You are the hunter Delaney was seeing before she died. The one with her the night she was killed.”
Jack nods at Agatha’s question, and Willa takes his hand.
“You should know. She knew she was going to die that night, didn’t she, Cole?”
At her question, Cole pales, and his eyes fill with pain as he nods.
“What the hell does he have to do with it?”
“Why don’t you ask him?” Agatha counters, tilting her head to the side.
“Cole?” Josiah asks. “Can you clarify?”
The wolf straightens, jaw clenched as he regards each of us. “Because I killed her.”
The room falls into complete silence for the span of a heartbeat before it breaks into chaos. Jack lunges at the shifter, Delaney takes flight as I blur across the room at him. By the time I get there, the hunter has a blade to the wolf’s throat, and Willa’s arm on his is the only thing keeping him from slicing.
“You killed her!” Jack roars.
“Delaney asked me to,” Cole chokes out. “She knew about Doloris’s hold, that hiding away from Salem was only a temporary stay of what was to come. She told me that she had to die or Rainey would.”
“You’re a fucking liar!” Jack roars.
Delaney lands on the floor beside Cole, her head cocking to the side and staring at me. I take her actions as proof that the wolf is telling the truth, so I blur toward them, wrapping both arms beneath Jack’s and pinning his up as I rip him back before he can start a war between himself and Josiah’s pack.
By the time this is over, I imagine we’ll all have more than enough blood on our hands.
“Let me go, Vampire, or you’re next,” Jack warns.
“You can’t kill him.”
“Did you ever care for her? Because if you fucking did, you know I can.”
“Delaney was my friend,” I confirm. “But she doesn’t want you to kill him.”
“She’s a fucking bird!” Jack roars. “Because he ripped her throat out. You didn’t see her that night,” Jack chokes out. “There was so much blood.”
I let him go, sensing the grief is overshadowing the rage. Still, I stay close enough to stop him should he go for the wolf again. He turns to glare at me, but it’s filled with pain. “I swore I would get vengeance for what happened to her. You should have let me fucking kill him.” Then, he shakes his head and heads for the door, slamming it behind him.
After Willa follows, I turn my attention to Cole, who got to his feet while Jack was talking. “You killed Delaney.”
“Yes.” The word is filled with so much agony that it gives me the strength I need to not finish what Jack started, regardless of Delaney’s objections.
“Why would you do that?” Josiah asks. “Why kill the hunter? We could have helped her.”
“I didn’t mean to. I told her no.” He shuts his eyes and shakes his head. “Everything got so fucked before I even had the chance to figure out what happened.”
“What do you remember?” Josiah asks, tone level—calm.
“She told me there was no other way, and when I refused—” He closes his dark eyes again and takes a deep breath. “I refused to kill her, started to walk away, but before I knew it, I was standing over her as she bled to death on the pavement. I don’t know what happened.”
“Then how do you know you killed her?” Jane asks.
He shifts his attention to her. “Because I was covered in her blood.” Cole’s eyes meet mine. “You have no idea the pain I felt when I realized what I’d done. I can still see her—”
“It wasn’t your fault; you were forced into it,” Agatha tells him, and if I’m not mistaken, I sense a bit of pity in her tone.
Cole shakes his head. “I killed my friend, my best fucking friend, and that’s something I have to live with.”
It still doesn’t make any sense. Delaney wouldn’t ever want to hurt anyone she cared for, so why put that on him? “Why would she go to you? There were plenty after her. She could have just as easily gotten herself into a fight and let the enemy take her out.”
“She told me that she wanted it to be quick but that she couldn’t bring herself to do it on her own.”
“So she would leave you with the pain of completing the act?” Jane asks. “That’s selfish as hell and not at all like the Delaney I knew.”
“The Delaney you knew had been gone for a while,” Agatha clarifies.
“Is Stella involved?” I ask Rainey’s grandmother.
She shifts her gaze to Delaney for a moment before looking to me. “Delaney doesn’t know. She believes a local witch had a card at play, but she’s unsure who it might have been.”
“The card that the Drake patriarch gave Jack seems to lean toward that particular route,” Josiah says, his hand on Cole’s shoulder.
The shifter is tortured; that much is evident. And his pain is the only reason he’s still breathing. Even if he refused to kill her—he still did—and that’s not something I can just push aside, no matter what logical thinking dictates.
“Enough about what got us here,” Paloma speaks up for the first time. “Where do we go now? How do we stop Heather?”
Jane clears her throat. “I have some thoughts about that, but it’s not going to be easy.”
Tarnley straightens. “Let’s hear it.”
“Getting Heather into the box the first time was nearly impossible,” she tells us. “And she trusted me—inexplicably. Something she will never do again for another person—she’s too damn smart to make the same mistake twice.”
“Then how do you propose we do it?”
“We don’t. At least not the way I did it before. We have her grimoire, and inside is a spell for the cure. Since she’s using magic to control Rainey—” she trails off.
“You believe using the cure will strip Rainey’s body of all magic—including Heather’s soul,” I finish, and Jane nods.
“What will happen to Heather’s soul then? Or the other ones you say are haunting her?”
“If we can separate her inside Elijah’s house, the silver should prevent her from escaping, and we can perform the spell to shove her back into the box.”
“Except she reached Rainey through that silver, didn’t she?” Bronywyn asks.
“No. I believe she took over Rainey’s body while we were at the crime scene for her partner’s murder.”
“Oh, shit,” Paloma mutters. “She lost it. I thought it was just grief, but—this is all my fault.”
“No, it’s not.” Grey rubs his hand on his wife’s back. “This was no one’s fault but Heather’s.”
I don’t agree, but not because I believe Paloma should be held to blame but because I know I am at fault.
Josiah clears his throat. “Where are the other souls if they aren’t inside Rainey too?”
“They are in the void as well,” Agatha clarifies. “Though they only remain there until Heather uses them to fully resurrect herself. Something she needs her bones for.”
“And do we know where her bones are?”
Agatha barely spares me a glance. “Unfortunately,
no, we do not. Though I would assume they are somewhere in Ireland.”
“Actually,” Jane says. “I do know where they are, and they are not in Ireland.”
All eyes shift to her, and she clears her throat. “I buried them.”
“Where?”
“In the Astor crypt.”
“You have got to be kidding me. They’ve been there this entire time?” Agatha snaps, her temper sharp.
“Seemed the safest place for them.”
“Where’s the Astor crypt?”
Agatha rolls her eyes at Grey’s question. “Have you not been paying attention? Where the hell do you think they would be?”
“Salem,” I answer for him since Agatha apparently burned her decorum in the fire she claimed stole her life. That’s if she ever had any, to begin with, which based on what Rainey has told me would be a no.
“I can send someone to guard the crypt,” Josiah offers.
“I’ll go.” We all turn to Cole. “She doesn’t know who I am. I can leave without being noticed and stay put until we know what our next move is.”
“You expect me to be okay with a shifter taking up residence in a hunter’s crypt?” Agatha looks completely offended, and I roll my eyes.
“Will you cut the shit already, Astor? You are a witch, not a hunter, so this bias is completely hypocritical, and frankly, I’m over it.”
“I may be a witch, but I was born of a hunter. My lineage is full of hunters whose bodies are worth protecting. My daughter, her husband, and Delaney were not buried properly, and look what happened.”
“And why weren’t they buried properly, I wonder? Perhaps because you alienated Rainey and Delaney both, so when their parents died, they had no interest in bringing their bodies back to your crypt? And how about when Delaney died, and Rainey had nowhere proper to bury her sister?”
Blood Cure: A Paranormal Vampire Romance (Vampire Huntress Chronicles Book 3) Page 4
