“That was really strange,” Vexx muttered.
Mitchell smiled warmly at her, feeling a bond to the woman who should be a complete stranger. “That is one way to put it. Let’s see if we can get to Kishara before she kills someone.”
“I hope you both know who’s on our side,” Vexx added. “I’m not sure who most of these vampires are.”
“Let the vampires do the fighting,” Winter suggested.
“Good idea,” Mitchell agreed, suddenly no longer feeling like a vampire, though he technically still was. While he recognized Connor’s vampires, he’d seen Abram join the fight, and he didn’t recognize most of Abram’s vampires.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Kish felt the magic swirling around her as the battle raged on. Rafe was dead, and Richard would be soon. Hurt and rage bubbled out of her body, making it impossible to control her own power, let alone the mage’s.
“Focus!” Richard snarled close to her ear. “We need to get out of here.”
“You lied to me!” Kish shouted. “Now, Rafe is dead and my sister will die because of you.”
She wanted to kill him. What he’d done to her was much worse than anything Rafe had done over the years. Rafe had beaten her and threatened her family, but he’d never pretended to care about her. He’d never made her believe she wasn’t alone.
Richard grabbed Kish by her hair and shook her, probably expecting her to cower. Instead, the pain helped ground her.
“Get a grip, little demon kitty, or I promise you will never make it back to save your family. Help me and they live,” Richard snarled. “I am your only hope of ever seeing your sister again.”
Laughter rang through the air as a vampire approached them. His long brown hair hung in a tangled mess, and his smile seemed to mock Richard. “You really expect her to believe a lying sack of shit like you?” he asked Richard. “Don’t listen to him, honey. He’ll just use you and destroy you. That’s what this fucker does.”
“Abram,” Richard hissed with a sneer.
“You know, I just love the way you say my name,” Abram drawled. “Gives me the warm fuzzies and makes me wish we’d both died on that bridge together. That would have been fucking fantastic.”
“Kill the crazy bastard,” Richard ordered, giving Kish’s hair another vicious tug.
Kish was about to react when she heard something like a growl coming from Abram.
Abram bared his fangs, moving closer. “If you yank on her hair like that one more time, I’m going to make you beg for death.”
“Brave words for a dead man,” Richard taunted, shaking Kish by her hair.
She wanted to fight back for the first time in her life, but she was too weak. The energy pulsing from her body became a dull hum, and she wondered if this was what it felt like to die.
Abram’s roar startled Richard, who stepped back when Abram lunged at him with a knife. Richard released her hair to fight, and Kish dropped to the ground, her legs suddenly unable to hold her own weight. When Richard looked around, he was clearly surprised to see his vampires were losing the fight.
“Help me get out of here, Kish, and I promise to save your sister,” Richard said urgently.
Her laughter was more like a sad sound of defeat.
“She won’t help you because she knows you’re already dead,” Abram taunted.
Drawing a knife, Richard faced off with Abram, but Kish had no doubt who the winner would be.
Curling into a ball on the ground, Kish wept. She could no longer control the energy fluctuating in and out of her body. Very little was going in, and as her eyes scanned the area, she suddenly knew where the power was going. A male, flanked by the mage and the female Cruz had claimed as his mate were approaching.
With each step they took, she felt the strands of power snapping in the air.
The male squatted down beside her with a kind smile. “My name is Mitchell. Let me help you, Kishara.”
“My sister,” she whimpered pitifully.
“Give me your hand,” he commanded, reaching out a hand to her.
With great effort, Kish raised her hand and placed it in his. The world seemed to implode around them, collapsing in on her before everything faded to black.
Chapter Seventy
After Mitchell disappeared with Kish—literally disappeared into thin air—the battle ended pretty quickly. Abram had taken great pleasure in killing Richard, and Cord hoped he never had to fight the crazy vampire.
While Cord wanted to stay with Winn and Vexx, he’d needed to help Connor wrap things up, which seemed to take hours. He was annoyed Connor was choosing to send any prisoners back to Fangri La, but he could at least take comfort in the fact that he would get to deal with the jaguar. Normally, he would share that responsibility with the lynx leader, but that wouldn’t be possible this time.
Looking over, Cord saw Jase kneeling beside his father, who was waiting to be transported and not expected to live. Max had saved his life, and he intended to do whatever it took to repay him. Sadly, he expected the only way to repay Max now would be to help Jase, Cam, and Zane deal with their loss and the change in clan leadership.
“You should go to him,” he urged Vexx, coming up behind her as she watched Jase. She shook her head, while absently stroking the mark the asshole jaguar had left on her.
“It’s better this way,” Vexx uttered. “The mate bond was broken when I died, and now he’s free to find someone better.”
Cord sighed. His daughter had briefly told him about the Fae bringing her back to life, but he still wasn’t sure what to make of that. “I’m sorry,” he told her, sensing her pain at the loss of her mate but not sure how to make her feel better.
Vexx nodded and walked off.
Winn came to his side, wrapping her arms around his waist, and he could tell she was trying hard to keep her emotions in check.
Ian, the vampire who’d adopted Mitchell, stalked toward them. “Where is he?” he demanded. “Where the hell is my son?”
Connor had tried to keep Ian away from them at first, but Ian was panicking, and Cord didn’t blame him. That was the only reason he was allowing the vampire to speak to his mate that way.
“I don’t know,” Winn admitted.
Ian was about to argue when his phone rang.
“What is it, Kyleigh?” he asked. “How did he get there? All right, I’ll be home soon.”
When Ian ended the call and looked at them, he appeared completely baffled. “He’s at home. In his room. According to him, he’s been there six hours, but he was here less than two hours ago.”
“Time isn’t linear,” Winn explained.
“I’m tired of that fucking explanation,” Ian grumbled as he walked off, muttering about how it made no sense.
Cord had waited long enough. With all the loss that day, he needed to hold his mate. Pulling her into his arms, he kissed her until they were both breathless.
“I love you,” he murmured against her mouth when he broke the kiss.
“I love you, too,” she replied. “Take me home. I need to be close to our clan.”
Hearing his mate say those words filled him with an overwhelming sense of peace. It was their home and their clan. Despite all they’d lost that day, they had each other, and they would survive.
Epilogue
In had been two weeks since the battle against the jaguars and vampires. In that time, Winn had struggled with many emotions. When they’d questioned the surviving jaguars, they’d heard about the brutal takeover of her father’s clan. The confirmation that her father and brothers were dead had hit her harder than she would have expected. There had been part of her that had always believed she’d see them again, but now, that was impossible.
She was also worried about Vexx. Winn felt utterly helpless when it came to her friend. Vexx had horrible nightmares she refused to talk about. Winn knew her friend wanted to see Jase, but she refused to even discuss him. As for Jase, he was busy dealing with his father’s long recover
y and trying to run the lynx clan. From what Winn had heard, Max was expected to survive, but in a meeting with Cord, he’d already admitted he was stepping down as clan leader. That meant Jase was also being pushed to take over the lynx clan. Winn suspected Jase’s new responsibilities were the only reason he hadn’t come to see Vexx.
“I knew I’d find you here,” Cord said as he approached her.
She was sitting by the creek, the place that called to her most, especially when she was troubled.
“Have you seen Vexx today?” she asked.
Cord nodded. “I have, and she’s fine. You need to stop worrying about her.”
“She’s not fine,” Winn argued. “Because of me, she’ll have that stupid mark on her for the rest of her life. She also lost her mate bond with Jase.”
“You didn’t mark her,” Cord said with a huff. “I know that. Vexx knows that. Everyone other than you seems to realize it’s not your fault.”
Winn shot him an annoyed look. “I do know that, but I’m still the reason the jaguars were here.”
“And Vexx trying to track down the jaguars near her heat cycle is the reason that bastard noticed her in the first place. Had she been less impulsive, she wouldn’t have been marked. If she’d let Jase claim her and take her back to the lynx territory, she wouldn’t have been kidnapped. Had I ordered her to stay on cougar land earlier, she never would have been out the day the jaguar noticed her. It’s easy to place blame, but it won’t change anything.”
“You’re right,” she agreed. “I just worry about her.”
“I do, too,” Cord admitted. “Vexx is a survivor.”
“She lost Jase,” Winn remarked sadly. “He’s no longer her mate.”
A thoughtful expression came over Cord’s face as he considered what she’d said. “I’m not convinced she’s lost Jase. When I went to check on Max earlier today, Vexx was the first thing Jase asked about, and he mentioned her several times while I was there.”
“He did?” Winn asked. She knew Vexx cared a great deal about Jase, and she’d hoped he felt the same.
Cord nodded. “Just give them both time to figure this out on their own.”
“What if they don’t figure it out?” Winn asked.
“Then we can give them a push in the right direction,” Cord assured her, wrapping her in his arms and kissing the top of her head. “You do realize I have the jaguar to thank for bringing you back to me. Although, I’m sure you would have eventually come to your senses and realized you couldn’t live without me.”
“Don’t be too cocky,” she warned.
Cord grinned. “I think you’re forgetting to respect your mate again,” he teased.
Winn laughed. “You could just tell me you want to tie me to your bed.”
“I always want to tie you to my bed,” he assured her.
“Can you do one other thing for me?” she asked.
“Anything,” he assured her.
“I was curious about something, and I need your help with a little experiment,” she explained.
“What kind of experiment?” he asked suspiciously.
“My heat cycle is coming up, and I was wondering if we’ll have jaguar cubs or cougar kittens,” she admitted and watched as Cord’s eyes lit with joy. They’d talked about this only one other time. With all that had happened recently, she didn’t want to wait to become a mother. Life was too short, and she’d already wasted too many years.
“I’ll certainly try to help you with that experiment,” he said, pressing her down onto the soft ground with the weight of his body.
“Ugh!” Lark groaned as she came upon them, throwing her hands up in the air for emphasis. “Do you two always have to do this?”
Cord chuckled and got to his knees, giving his daughter a stern look. “We do need to practice if Winn’s going to give you another sister.”
Lark shook her head and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I’m tired of sisters. I want a brother this time.”
Winn laughed, and Cord seemed to have trouble keeping a straight face for his response. “I can try, but it’s harder to make males, so I’ll need extra practice.”
“Really?” Lark asked before nodding and continuing. “That makes sense since you need to make that ridiculous dangling thing.”
“Yes, it is hard to make that ridiculous dangling thing,” he agreed with a laugh.
Lark nodded before turning and walking away. She shouted to the approaching cougars, “We can’t have our picnic here. My papa needs to practice sex stuff with Winn so he does it right during her heat cycle. He needs a lot of practice since he hasn’t been good at making dangling things so far.”
Winn and Cord both managed to contain their laughter until Lark was gone, but it wasn’t easy. When each got their laughter under control, Cord asked her, “Are you sure you want one of those?”
“At least five,” she assured him.
“Then I suppose we’d better get to work since Lark thinks I need practice,” Cord murmured, pressing her down onto the soft earth as it molded to their bodies.
Cold. Distant. Deadly. Winter had been described by all those words in her many years of life, but they’d all been an act to cover who she truly was. In the arms of her mate, she’d discovered she was untamed, passionate, and only deadly when it came to protecting those she loved.
Author’s Note
Dear Reader,
When I first started writing the Moon Virus series, three years ago, I had no plans to write more than one book. As it turned out, I had many ideas for this new world I created. Many of you are probably wondering where I am going next with this series. At this point, I am not sure myself. Naturally, I plan to write a story for Jase and Vexx. I also want to write the conclusion to Max and Eleanor’s story. This book was a struggle for me in many ways because I felt my characters needed a break from all the strife they have been forced to deal with, so I plan to give them a short break. If you are wondering about Serenity and Legion, I have a story planned for them, but it will not be part of the Moon Virus world. The same is true for Kish and Abram.
To keep posted on the details of my next book, or just to see what I’m up to, you can follow me on Facebook or Twitter.
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About The Author
Cassandra Lawson is an author of paranormal romance and contemporary romantic comedy from the San Francisco Bay Area. She has always had an active imagination and enjoyed making up stories from a young age. A hopeless romantic, she loves a happy ending. When she is not writing, Cassandra enjoys baking, spending time with her family, listening to music, or curling up with a good book.
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