I nodded my head and glance up to meet Travis’ gaze.
His blue-gray eyes were filled with compassion. “We will get you to them. I promise. Just hang on. Do you hear me?”
I nodded again and tried to swallow, but my mouth felt like it was stuffed with wool. He reached for the cup on the bedside table and put the a slender hollow stick up to my lips. Eira had called it a straw. It was strange to suck water from the reed-like thing, but it did allow me to drink without straining and for that I was grateful.
The cool water coated the inside of my mouth and throat as it slipped down. “Thank you.”
“This vampire, Eira, do you trust her?” Travis asked, leaning closer.
“Yes,” I murmured.
“What about the female Lycan? The one in charge called Charlie?” Travis continued, helping me get another sip of the ice cold water.
“Yes.”
I hadn’t at first. But after Charlie’s heartfelt admission and thanks, I did. She and the others really were trying to save people. Nothing more.
My eyes fluttered and I struggled against the black spots filling my vision.
“Diana.” Travis’ smooth voice rumbled beside me.
I opened my eyes again.
“Fight,” he ordered. “You’re a freakin’ dragon. You can fight this.” Travis set the water glass on the table and stood as Charlie and Eira appeared in the doorway.
The three Lycans stared at each other for a moment before Eira began barking out orders on how to move me from the bed. But I’d seen the flaring nostrils and I could smell their arousal when Charlie had entered the room. No wonder they hadn’t been interested in me, even with my heat, they were already focused on Charlie.
I grimaced as they lifted me from the bed, using the sheets as a sling to keep from touching my fiery hot skin. Each took hold of a corner and they carefully walked me outside and up into a large vehicle. One bigger than I’d seen, yet. At least there were no metal weapons fixed to the top of it. I’d had quite enough of those.
Chapter 16
DIANA
They situated me at the back of the vehicle, propping rolled up blankets around my body to help keep me in place as the vehicle started to move. Eira was arguing with one of the Lycans. I couldn’t tell which one, but their faces betrayed their emotions.
I knew Eira was worried, but I had no intention of slipping away until I at least saw my mates. Two mates? Husbands? Who in their right mind would marry two men at once?
My mouth felt as though I’d swallowed sand. “Eira—” I gasped for a breath, but what I really needed was water.
She was by my side in an instant; whatever she’d been arguing about with the Lycans was forgotten.
“Water?”
I nodded.
“She’s sweating it out faster than she can drink it,” the Lycan named Garrett said from his position behind Eira. “Damn, why is the air conditioning on so high?” He rubbed his arms and visibly shivered.
“It’s not the bus, it’s her. Remember her room?”
“Yeah, but you said that was when she was unconscious. She looks awake to me.”
“Unconscious just means it ices faster. She can’t control her powers so she’s constantly throwing off ice and cooling the air. Look at the windows.” Eira inclined her chin above my head.
I couldn’t see the windows, but I knew what they looked like. The Lycans’ eyes widened with understanding.
“We need to hurry,” Eira said, her voice heavy with concern.
The male turned and walked to the front of the bus. I heard him tell the driver to “step on it.” It must’ve been a signal to go faster, because I felt the vehicle accelerate and shudder as it was pushed harder. The noise of the road beneath me became soothing and drowned out the voices of my companions.
I knew I might die. I didn’t need to hear them argue about it for the entire three hours of the journey. Eira roused me from my semi-conscious state every few minutes, urging me to drink as much water as I could.
Even as my energy waned, I could feel that same pull I’d felt when I first crossed through the ring of stones. The closer we came to the place the Lycans called Sanctuary, the stronger that feeling became.
It had to be them—Miles and Eli. They had somehow felt my presence in Ada and sent their friends to get me. I knew we were heading in the right direction, too. I’d just been too ill to really notice it through the heat that consumed my body and my injuries. But now … we were so close. Even the beast within me struggled and fought against the darkness that was closing in on us.
Every bump in the road sent pain shooting through my aching body. And with each jolt, my tension grew and I felt the temperature drop further inside the vehicle.
“Her heartbeat’s slowing! Tell the driver to hurry.” Eira’s voice growled from my side.
“We’re ten minutes away. I’m calling them now. Do something.”
“There’s nothing to do. Even my blood didn’t help.”
My eyes fluttered open to a familiar vision. Frost coated the inside of the bus. Small icicles hung from the ceiling and the air around me felt icy. It was comforting. Peaceful even, were it not for the yelling echoing around me. The two Lycans were arguing with someone and Eira was … yelling at me? I tried to focus on her face. I could see her mouth moving, but the words were lost. It was almost as if I’d slipped beneath a body of water.
Chapter 17
MILES
Travis had just called. They should be here any minute. Darkness had fallen and the old street lamps were glowing all the way around Main Street Circle. I took a deep breath and pushed back my dragon. It took every ounce of strength to keep from changing and flying toward the bus I knew was only a mile or two away. We couldn’t risk it, though. The Protectors worked hard to keep Sanctuary off the human radar. If dragons were sighted flying through the Texas sky, we’d have a whole new set of problems.
My brother, Eli, stood next to me shifting his weight back and forth from one foot to the other. He wasn’t doing much better. In fact, his eyes would flash orange every few moments. His dragon was as agitated as mine.
I knew he could feel the same thing—her life slipping away. With it, our humanity would also go. Nothing would hold back our dragons if Diana died. And Rose already knew she would have to kill us before we burned Sanctuary to ash.
The sound of a diesel engine rumbled over the hill and down the main road to the circle. We leapt into a run, crossing the grassy area in the center of town in a few strides. Eli was quicker. He wrenched open the bus doors before the driver could pull to a stop and I followed right behind him.
Travis and Garrett stayed in their seats as we hurried down the aisle of the frost-covered bus. Our dragons turned on the heat and everything began to melt. My brother’s back blocked my view, but I knew she was there.
A snarl and a hiss from the back seats made my brother roar and the temperature in the bus rose higher, making it feel more like an oven than an ice box.
“Get out of the fucking way, Eira. Miles and Eli will roast you alive if you don’t.” Travis’ voice bellowed out the warning from the front of the bus.
A small, brunette woman, a vampire by the scent and lack of heartbeat, stepped to the right and Eli knelt next to Diana, releasing a howl of agony that made my fiery blood run cold.
I leapt over my brother and landed gingerly on the seat cushion above her head.
“You can’t touch her!” The vampire cried out. “She’s burning up.”
I turned my head and snarled.
The vampire backed away and followed Travis and Garrett, along with the driver out of the bus.
“Miles, I can barely hear her heartbeat.” My brother looked up at me, his eyes swirling with orange flame. His voice conveyed the pain I felt. We could still lose her. She was climbing the steps to the afterworld at this very moment.
Pulling the small, dragon-steel dagger from my waistband, I sliced my palm and then one of hers. Then I p
ressed my palm into hers so our blood would mix. Eli took the dagger from me and did the same with her other hand.
“Ready?”
Eli nodded and we began to chant the old blood magic spell together. It’d been so long since I’d seen the spell done. I hoped and prayed to the gods it would work.
“Mitt blod er ditt. Blodet ditt er mitt. Vi kaller på den magiske vår obligasjon til å helbrede. Mitt blod er ditt. Blodet ditt er mitt. Vi kaller på den magiske vår obligasjon til å helbrede. Mitt blod er ditt. Blodet ditt er mitt. Vi kaller på den magiske vår obligasjon til å helbrede …
We repeated it over and over.
Diana’s body trembled and more ice formed around us, cocooning us and the bus in a solid glacier. I could hear shouts from the outside, but quickly turned my focus back to our mate. Eli’s and my dragon’s heat kept the back of the bus clear of ice through the entire spell and the curved walls of ice that’d formed around us ran with water, melting almost as quickly as it had formed.
Her body stopped shaking and both of us blew across our palms to heal our cuts, doing the same for her. Even though she was an ice-breather, our warm breath could heal her because she was our mate. The cuts on her palms closed and I kissed the newly healed skin, drinking in her sweet scent. She’d always smelled like the lilac flowers that bloomed on the hills above Orin in the Veil. I took another deep breath and looked up to meet my brother’s gaze.
“The spell has taken hold,” he said, his voice deep and relieved.
I nodded.
He peeled back the bandages wrapped around her torso. The open wounds were gone—completely healed, as if they’d never existed. The injury was still there and she would need time to mend on the inside, but the process had clearly begun. She would live.
We had our mate back. After a thousand years apart, it seemed almost unreal.
Eli continued to unwrap her, inch by inch. She was completely naked, but for a pair of lacy, white panties.
Gods, she was gorgeous and just as I remembered her. Legs that stretched for miles and luscious breasts with … large, dark pink nipples begging for my mouth. Wait. I remembered her nipples being lighter, smaller, and more delicate.
I reached forward and caressed one breast, then pulled my hand back. She was injured, in pain, and had nearly died in front of us, and yet I groped her like a man who’d never seen a naked woman.
“They look different, don’t they Miles?” Eli said, then stood and turned toward the solid wall of ice blocking our exit from the bus. He placed his hands against the frozen wall and it began to melt quickly. We would only need a few minutes to completely thaw the entire bus.
Pulling off my shirt, I tugged it over her head and down her bandaged body. It was so much bigger than her that the hem reached about midway down her thighs.
“They do,” I said, finally answering my twin brother’s question.
Eli looked back over his shoulder at me for a second. “Do you think …” The crack in his voice was the same one I felt in my heart.
My vision blurred. I blinked the unshed tears away and nodded.
She’d had a baby.
Chapter 18
ELI
My heart lurched in my chest. Questions raced through my mind about what had happened. Her breasts had changed enough that Miles and I both had come to the same conclusion.
She’d had a child. But what happened to him or her? And who had fathered the child? Was it mine, or Miles’, or …
A murderous growl rumbled in my chest at the ugly memories being sluiced up from the recesses of my mind. Rage I hadn’t dwelt on in centuries bubbled to the surface. My brother and I had been whipped with dragon-steel-tipped cat-o-nines and chained to the pillars in the center of the throne room. Then they’d taken one of our fathers’ swords and made us watch as they beheaded our fathers, Gareth and Konrad Blackmoor, and their mate—our mother, Adria.
No sooner had the bodies of our parents been cast off the dais, the Incanti bastards had dragged our beautiful, strong mate up onto the platform, thrown her over the same rock, bloody from the beheadings, and raped her in front of us.
Diana’s cries had haunted my nightmares since that day. We’d been powerless to do anything, held in place by dragon-steel chains enchanted to withstand our strength and our heat.
Instead of killing all three of us right then and there, we’d been locked up in the prison tower west of Orin. The Incanti wanted to torture us indefinitely, but one of the few guards still loyal to the House of Blackmoor helped us escape a few days later. To our horror, Diana had been snatched from the ring of stones by Incanti dragons, just before she placed her hand on the center rock. Miles and I had tumbled through to the earth realm without our mate and had been cursing fate ever since. The only way back into the Veil was with a piece of the Star of Shamesh. Diana had been holding our family’s dagger when she was taken from the circle.
A few centuries later, Rose found us in a tavern drinking ourselves into oblivion and gave us a new purpose. The Sisters had given us new hope. Each appointed Oracle through the years always told us the same thing.
She will come to you.
Now here she was.
Over a millennia had passed and she had finally come back to us. I continued to move forward through the bus, melting the ice with each step. Water ran down the sides of the frozen walls, pooling around my boots. I focused the heat through my palms and in another thirty seconds, I stepped through the door and off the bus. Miles walked behind me carrying Diana.
The little vampire jumped toward me, but Rose froze her in mid-air.
I nodded to Rose and she flicked her wrist, releasing the lionhearted woman from the clutches of her Lamassu magick.
The vampire showed no signs of fear, even after being handled by Rose. Her gaze narrowed and her gemstone blue eyes ringed with a dark scarlet red. Then her fangs descended menacingly and she blocked my path. As if she thought she had any chance at all of stopping me. The corners of my lips curled upward just a hint.
“Who are you? Where are you taking her? And how is the brute behind you able to touch her without pain?” Her questions fired at me like a repeating revolver.
“My brother and I thank you for your zealous care of our mate. I assure you, she’s safe with us. She needs only to be put to bed to heal. As far as the fire in her skin, it does us no harm. We’re her mates, vampire,” I said, huffing out enough flame on my breath to make her jump back in surprise. “We are of fire.”
My brother turned and walked around the semi-frozen bus. His only thought, like mine, was to get her safely into the Castle—into our home and tucked into bed to rest. Everything else could wait.
Diana was in heat, but she would remain in a hibernation state until her body was completely mended. The spell we’d cast would make sure she rested in peace.
I turned to watch Miles cross the dark circle of grass and then looked back to the vampire who I knew wasn’t going to take no for an answer. She reminded me of several of the younger Sisters—stubborn as a three-legged mule.
“She has been in my care for nearly three weeks. I would like to know where you’re taking her and how she’s being treated. You can claim to be her mates until the cows come home, but she will be terrified when she wakes up and I intend to be there.” She waved her hand toward the Castle behind me. “Unless you want your stone fortress over there to turn into the first Texas glacier.”
The glacier threat didn’t concern me in the least. Now that she was with us, her anxiety should be much less and she shouldn’t create any more deep freezes. It was strange that she would’ve frozen the bus that badly, but even that could be overlooked because of her injury. What caught me off guard was the vampire’s claim that she would be terrified when she awoke.
“Why?” I started. “Why would she be afraid of her mates?”
“Because she doesn’t remember anything. She has some form of amnesia.” The vampire explained. She waved her other hand at the cafe and stor
efront to her right. “You might also want to let your neighbors know to expect unwelcome visitors.”
“Why?” Rose stepped to my side. “Who was following you?” Erick, Bailey, Sita, and Calliope also stood by, just a few yards away, ready to spring into action should the unknown vampire female present a real threat.
The strange female’s blue eyes flashed and she turned to Rose. “Soldiers. Two attacks on our way from Clarksville to Ada, both from SECR soldiers. They have video of her as a dragon in the first town she popped up in, somewhere on the East Coast. She called it a village, so it had to be one of the smaller towns outside Charlotte. But it still would’ve had street cameras.”
“She wouldn’t have shifted in front of humans,” I growled. Diana wasn’t stupid.
“She would if she didn’t know she was a dragon and jumped a millennia into the future without realizing it. Like I said, big guy, she’s not quite with it.”
I took a deep breath and tried to tamp down the anger flowing through my body. Our mate had been hurt worse than we’d ever dreamed possible. The Incanti had taken away more than her life, but her memories as well. Rose touched my arm, bringing me back to the present. The little slip of a brunette continued to speak.
“Anyway, our best guess on where she came out of the Veil was somewhere close to Charlotte. Makes sense because of the sacred circle in the mountains north of there. Government’s been tracking her ever since. I wouldn’t put it past them to slip into the Texas Republic unannounced and try again.”
“We will speak to Diana when she wakes. Until then, can you find a spare room for our guest?” Rose’s hands clenched at her sides, but her face remained calm. “I think it would be wise to keep …” She looked to the brunette and waited.
“Eira … Eira Rennir. And you are?”
“Rose Hilah.”
“Hilah?! As in related to Xerxes, pain-in-my-ass, Lamassu freakin’ Hilah?”
Sanctuary, Texas Complete Series Box Set Page 32
