“Kaitlyn Liliana Sherrad, will you have this man to be your life mate? Will you love him and cherish him so long as you both shall live?”
“I will.”
Reaching into his jacket pocket, Drake withdrew a small golden goblet and placed it on the altar behind him. Zack looked at him askance as Drake reached for his hand.
“It is part of our ceremony,” Drake explained. Using his thumbnail, he made a shallow slit in Zack’s palm, then held his bleeding hand over the goblet.
He made a similar cut in Kaitlyn’s palm, adding her blood to the cup.
Lifting the goblet, Drake offered it to Zack.
“You must drink,” Drake said.
With a nod, Zack took a swallow.
“Now Kaitlyn,” Drake said, and Zack handed the goblet to Katy.
She smiled at him, then sipped from the cup.
“By the exchange of blood and vows,” Drake intoned, “and by my authority as Master of the Carpathian Coven, I hereby decree that from this night forward, Zackary Ravenscroft and Kaitlyn Sherrad are life mated. May you be blessed with happiness and may your love last throughout eternity. Zackary, you may kiss your bride.”
“Katy.” After lifting her veil, Zack drew her into his arms. “I will love you forever and beyond,” he murmured, and kissed her, ever so gently.
Kaitlyn melted against him, happier than she had ever been in her life. She was his now, forever his. Nothing could ever part them. Not life, not death.
She was about to embrace her father when the door of the church flew open. Kaitlyn let out a cry of alarm as Nadiya and ten other vampires stormed into the church.
Fangs bared against the invaders, Zack pushed Kaitlyn behind him.
What followed was like a scene from a horror movie. Kaitlyn saw it in bits and pieces, the brutality of the attack so terrible it was hard to process it all. Added to the graphic visuals of blood and carnage were the sounds of tearing flesh and cries of pain. And overall, the heavy scent of fresh blood.
Two of the vampires attacked her father.
One of them attacked her mother, another backed Scherry against the wall.
Two of them forced her grandmother into a corner.
Two others advanced on Stefan.
Two rushed Zack.
Most horrifying of all was the fact that there was nothing she could do to help. Kaitlyn stared at the vampire who had driven her away from the others. She knew Nadiya only by sight, having seen her once at the Fortress years ago. But this Nadiya looked nothing like the beautiful woman Kaitlyn remembered. Hatred contorted her features into a hideous mask and blazed like hellfire in her eyes. Her lips were peeled back, revealing her fangs; her hands were like claws, and felt like razors as she grabbed hold of Kaitlyn’s arms.
Kaitlyn glanced around, seeking help, seeking a way out, but there was nowhere to go, no one who could help her.
She cried out in anguish when she saw her mother fall beneath the weight of the vampire who had attacked her, screamed when the vampire sank his fangs into her mother’s throat.
Filled with a sudden fury, Kaitlyn reached deep inside herself. Summoning the power that had long lain dormant within her, she flung Nadiya aside. But Nadiya was an old vampire. Strong. Relentless. She recovered quickly, her claws raking the length of Kaitlyn’s cheek and along the side of her neck.
Kaitlyn gasped as pain exploded through the right side of her face.
“You will not get away this time!” Nadiya exclaimed, reaching for her again.
“Neither will you!”
At the sound of her grandmother’s voice, Kaitlyn glanced past Nadiya to see Liliana bearing down on the two of them, a long wooden stake in her hand.
Nadiya whirled around to fight off the new threat.
Liliana drew back her arm and drove the stake into Nadiya’s chest with such force that the stake sliced through her heart and protruded from her back.
With a look of disbelief, Nadiya slowly sank to the floor.
Kaitlyn stared at her grandmother, stunned by the sudden turn of events, and then she grinned.
“Stay here, child,” Liliana said, and spun away to rejoin the fight.
With a shake of her head, Kaitlyn rushed to her mother’s aid. Grabbing a large, decorative wooden crucifix from the wall, she broke it in half and drove the jagged end into the back of the vampire who was bent over her mother’s neck.
With a gasp of pain and surprise, the vampire toppled sideways and lay still.
“Mom!” Kaitlyn shook her mother’s shoulder. “Mom, answer me!”
Frantic, she looked around.
Stefan was sprawled on the floor, bleeding heavily from several wounds on his neck and chest. The vampires who had attacked him were both dead, their hearts ripped from their bodies.
Her father had destroyed one of his attackers. As Kaitlyn watched, he broke the neck of the second vampire; then, pulling a long-bladed knife from a sheath under his long black coat, he quickly decapitated his opponent.
Scherry sat on the floor nursing a broken arm that, thanks to her vampire blood, was already healing.
Where was Zack? She glanced around, then saw him near the back of the church. He moved with lethal precision as he fought off two vampires at the same time. It was like watching a beautiful, deadly dance, the way he moved. There was no fear in his eyes and she had the strangest notion that he was enjoying himself, that he could have killed his attackers at any time.
As though feeling her gaze, he glanced at her, the exultant smile on his face fading when he saw her mother, unmoving, in her lap.
At the same time, her father’s roar of anguish filled the air.
Moving almost quicker than Kaitlyn’s eyes could follow, Zack ripped the throat from one vampire, the heart from the other, and then he was kneeling at her side, across from her father.
“Elena!” Drake called her name, his voice thick with unshed tears. “Elena.”
Her eyelids flickered open, her gaze unfocused. “Drake?”
“I am here.” He clutched her hand in his. “You will be all right. I will take you to the hospital. . . .”
“I’m dying. . . .”
“No! Do not leave me!” He bit into his wrist, then held it to her lips. “Drink.”
But it was too late. Her eyelids fluttered down and her head fell back against Kaitlyn’s arm.
“Elena!” Eyes filled with torment, Drake looked at Zack. “I cannot turn her, but you can.”
“Would she want that?” Liliana asked, coming to stand behind Drake.
“I do not care,” Drake said. “I cannot lose her.”
“We discussed it,” Zack said. “She and I.”
“What?” Drake stared at him. “When?”
“A while back. She asked me if I’d ever turned anyone. Said she was just curious.”
“Do it,” Drake said. “We do not have time to discuss it. She is dying.”
Zack glanced up at Scherry, who was standing to his left. “I’ve only done it once before.”
“If you fail, she will be no worse off than she is now,” Drake said, his voice tinged with desperation. “I will do anything you ask of me, give you anything you desire, if you will do this for me.”
With a sigh of resignation, Zack took Elena into his arms. He hesitated a moment, suddenly torn by uncertainty. He had turned Scherry and it had been hit and miss. It was one thing to drink from healthy prey, another to drink from the sick, the dying. If he took too much, and that was a risk with those who were sick, it could be fatal. Completely drained, they lacked the strength to fight their way back. Could he live with himself if he caused Elena’s death? Could he live with himself if there was a chance he could save her and he didn’t take it? She didn’t seem to be breathing. Her heartbeat was faint, erratic.
Kaitlyn placed her hand on his arm. “Please, Zack.”
Murmuring, “Forgive me,” he bent his head to Elena’s neck and drank.
Kaitlyn held her breath as what little colo
r was left drained from her mother’s face. Was Zack taking too much? Even with her preternatural hearing, she could barely detect her mother’s heartbeat.
Looking up, she met her father’s gaze. She had never seen him look so distraught, knew it would kill him as surely as a stake through the heart if her mother died.
After what seemed like forever but was only a few minutes, Zack lifted his head. Kaitlyn watched, unblinking, as he bit his wrist, then held the bleeding wound to her mother’s lips.
“Drink,” he said, stroking her throat. “Elena Sherrad, if you want to live, you must drink.”
Kaitlyn leaned forward, her whole being focused on her mother’s face, willing her to drink.
“Elena!” Drake took her hand in his. “Elena! Come back to me!”
Tears burned Kaitlyn’s eyes when she looked at Zack.
Zack shook his head. “The rest is up to her.” He stroked her throat again. “Elena, drink.” It was not a request this time, but a command.
“She isn’t moving,” Kaitlyn said. Had they waited too long? Had Zack taken too much?
“Dammit, Elena,” Drake said, his voice thick with unshed tears. “I forbid you to leave me!”
At the sound of Drake’s voice, Elena slowly licked the blood from her lips. And then she grabbed Zack’s arm.
Drake blew out a sigh of relief.
“You did it!” Kaitlyn exclaimed. She threw her arms around Zack and kissed his cheek. “Thank you!”
“Yes,” Drake said, never taking his gaze from his wife’s face. “Thank you.”
Zack nodded. Would Drake still be grateful, he wondered, if he knew that his wife and Zack now shared a bond of blood that could not be broken?
Chapter 41
“What happens now?” Drake asked, lifting Elena into his arms. After feeding, she had closed her eyes, seemingly unconscious.
“She’ll sleep the rest of the night,” Zack replied. “When she wakes tomorrow night, she’ll be a vampire, with a new vampire’s thirst.”
Drake nodded.
“You’ll need to watch her closely when she feeds the first few times. It’s not always easy for fledglings to feed without draining their prey. Maybe you already know that.”
“Indeed.”
“Take her back to the hotel. I’ll clean up the mess here.”
“I will help you,” Stefan said.
“I thought you were dead,” Zack remarked, grinning.
“Not quite.” Stefan glanced around the church. “We can dispose of the bodies, but I do not know how we will remove the blood from the floor.”
“Yeah, that might be a problem,” Zack agreed.
“I’ll take care of the mess on the floor,” Scherry said.
“How’s your arm?” Zack asked.
She stretched it out and rotated it back and forth. “Good enough to clean up the blood,” she said, grinning.
“I will help you, if you like,” Liliana offered.
“Great.”
“We’d best get busy,” Zack suggested. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“What are we going to do with the bodies?” Kaitlyn asked.
“We’ll take them up in the mountains,” Zack said, “and leave them there for the sun to find.”
Kaitlyn looked at her father. “Who were they?”
“Three of them were Nadiya’s sons. I did not recognize the others.”
Kaitlyn shook her head. What a waste. Nadiya was dead, and all her sons with her. Had Nadiya survived, Kaitlyn wondered if the woman would have considered the blood of all her sons well spent.
“Revenge is a terrible thing,” Stefan remarked, hoisting one of the bodies over his shoulder. “The worst of it is, Florin brought his death on himself with his treachery against our father. There was nothing to avenge.”
It took several trips to transport all of the bodies to a place where they wouldn’t be found before sunrise. Standing between Zack and Stefan, Kaitlyn felt a moment of remorse for those who had needlessly died, but it was quickly swept away when she recalled how close she had come to losing her mother.
“I can bury them if it’ll make you feel better,” Zack said.
Kaitlyn shook her head. “No. They don’t deserve a decent burial.”
“We’d better go,” Zack said.
Kaitlyn glanced at Zack and then at Stefan. Both men were covered with blood and gore. As was she. Her beautiful wedding gown and veil were splattered with blood. Her satin shoes were smeared with stains she didn’t care to examine too closely.
“Not the way you planned to spend your honeymoon, is it?” Zack asked ruefully.
“Not quite,” she admitted with a wry grin.
Stefan removed his bloodstained jacket and tossed it over one of the bodies. “The woman, Scherry,” he said. “Is she . . . ?” He cleared his throat. “Is she married or engaged, or . . . anything?”
“No.” Zack took off his own bloody coat and added it to the pile. “She’s not married, or anything. If it helps, she thinks you’re, and I quote, ‘a hottie.’”
“She told you that?” Stefan asked.
“No, I read it in her mind before the ceremony.”
Stefan grinned, obviously pleased. And just as obviously smitten by Zack’s bartender.
“I’ll put in a good word for you next time I see her,” Zack said. “In the meantime, I don’t know about you two, but I’d like to get out of these clothes and into a nice hot shower.”
“We never even got any pictures taken,” Kaitlyn wailed. “And now it’s too late. My gown is ruined. I’ll never get these bloodstains out.”
“I’ll buy you another dress,” Zack promised. “And we can get married all over again.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” Kaitlyn said as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “See if I don’t.”
A rush of preternatural power, a sense of being whisked through time and space, and Kaitlyn found herself in a room she didn’t recognize.
“Where are we?”
“Harrah’s.”
“But this isn’t our suite.”
He shrugged. “It’s a vacant room. Not quite as elegant as the other one, but it’ll do for now.” Moving around behind her, he began to unfasten the long row of buttons on the back of her dress.
Kaitlyn stepped out of her heels, shivering with anticipation as his fingers parted the fabric of her gown and slid it down over her shoulders. It pooled at her feet.
Turning her around, he eased her out of her petticoat, her lacy bra and panties. Her heartbeat increased as his gaze moved over her.
“Now you.” Her fingers trembled as she removed his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. He obligingly heeled off his boots so she could remove his cummerbund and trousers.
“I think a shower is the first order of business,” Zack remarked while she divested him of his briefs. “You’re kind of bloody,” he added, running his fingers through her hair.
“So are you.”
“Come on,” he said, “I’ll wash your back and you can wash mine. If you’re good, I’ll even let you wash the front.”
“As if you could stop me,” she retorted with a saucy grin.
Showering with Zack was an experience like no other. He washed her hair and then, very thoroughly and slowly, he washed the rest of her, starting at her neck and working his way down. He had magical hands, she thought. His touches, his kisses, had her practically screaming with need.
Deciding that turnabout was fair play, she took the soap from his hand and washed him from head to heel. Running her hand over his stomach, she grinned, thinking he could be the poster boy for perfect six-pack abs.
He gasped when her hands slid lower, and she laughed out loud. She could hide what she was thinking and feeling. He couldn’t.
The water was nearly cold when he turned it off and carried her, wet and dripping, into the bedroom. Still holding her in his arms, he fell back on the bed, carrying her with him, so that she landed on top of him. One hand cupped her nape
as he kissed her brow, her nose, her cheeks.
Almost frantic with need, she wriggled against him.
“Stop that,” he growled.
“Why? Don’t you like it?”
“Oh, yeah, but I was hoping to draw this out a little longer.”
“Next time,” she said.
“Whatever you want, darlin’,” he replied.
He rolled over effortlessly, tucking her neatly beneath him. He kissed her, his tongue dueling with hers while his hands stroked her damp skin, caressing her, arousing her. It was a good thing her skin was wet, she thought, or she probably would have gone up in flames. But, oh, what a way to go.
“Now, Zack.” She lifted her hips to receive him. It was heaven, pure heaven, to be in his arms, to feel his skin against her own as his body became a part of hers, two halves uniquely different, yet made to be one, each half incomplete without the other, each heart unfulfilled without the other. Heat suffused her. They were bound by more than the love they shared, she thought. They were forever bound by blood.
They moved together in perfect rhythm, a mating dance as old as time, as new as the love they shared.
She clung to him, breathless, weightless, as he carried her into a world filled with moonbeams and rainbows and pleasure beyond anything she had ever known. His own climax came hard on the heels of her own. Sheened with perspiration, she closed her eyes, sated and content as she slowly drifted back to earth.
With a sigh, she trailed her fingertips over his shoulders. “Next time,” she murmured, “I get to be on top.”
After the next time, they took another shower, then scurried back to bed and snuggled under the covers. Zack stroked Kaitlyn’s neck and shoulders. Her skin was soft and smooth, warm beneath his hand. Though she lay quietly beside him, her head pillowed on his chest, she was thinking so loudly, he had no trouble hearing her thoughts.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
She tilted her head back so she could see his face. “About what?”
“About your mother’s new lifestyle.”
“You must be reading my mind,” Kaitlyn remarked with a sigh.
“It isn’t necessary. I know you must be wondering about it.”
Bound By Blood Page 27
