The sound of crunching bone drew my attention outward again. Jared got a second punch in, knocking Calvar to the ground before the Djinn, who’d been hopping around the room like a fucking rabbit on PCP, teleported again.
We’d arrived in the room only minutes ago, all instant witnesses to Calvar violently raping Manda. The bastard had tossed my naked and bleeding niece against the far wall of the room and charged straight at us, teleporting at the last second. He rematerialized next to Hannah, his scimitar claiming her as its first victim.
Asa teleported from the room before I could yell at her to stop. She’d reappeared with Calliope. There had been no reason for it, except as a distraction. She’d used my mate as a distraction. I was going to fucking kill Asa the next time I got my hands on her. Fuck my family. Fuck everyone. None of it mattered.
I blurred across the room as Calvar pulled his sword from Calliope’s back with a sickening squelch of blood and flesh. I reached out and managed to grab hold of him before he teleported again and pulled him close. Sinking my teeth into his neck, I let the monster within come to the surface. I needed the monster. Anger. Grief. Hatred. Pain. We took it all out on Calvar. I drank the Djinn as he screamed, his genuine fear demanding the beast within me take more even faster. We teleported from location to location to location as he tried to scrape me off his back like some kind of parasite.
But I didn’t let go.
Wouldn’t.
He’d stolen my mate. The only person on the entire planet that had mattered to me in thousands of years was dead. Stabbed in the back. Bleeding in a heap on the floor with another woman who also hadn’t deserved to die.
Finally, Calvar slowed. The teleporting stopped, and I used my own ability to take us back to that ugly blood-covered room in the Pentagon. Asa and Jared were gone. Manda was nowhere to be seen. Their blood and scents remained.
But I didn’t care anymore.
I ripped out what was left of Calvar’s throat and dropped his lifeless body to the cold floor. Then stripped him of the scimitar and sash he carried. He would not have an honorable death or burial.
With a swift hack, I separated his head from his body and spit on his still-bleeding corpse. “Rot in Tartarus, motherfucker.” I licked my lips, relishing the sweet taste of his Djinn blood. There was nothing else quite like it, a rare vintage and difficult to pin down. His had been filled with a hint of revenge and an undertone of psychopath.
I threw down the blade and ran to Calliope’s side. He’d pierced her heart with his blade, right through her armored shirt. Her death had been nearly instantaneous, but that knowledge didn’t help the gaping hole swelling in my heart. The blackness that I normally kept under control was alive and well and rearing its head. I wanted to kill more.
Anything.
Everyone.
They all deserved to die for taking her from me.
Through the noise and anger, her voice sang out in my memory. I can get a new body. The letter. The one in her store. It had mentioned her reincarnating. Maybe she wasn’t dead…maybe she was just somewhere…or someone else? How the fuck would I ever find her?
A lone heartbeat cut through the silence. It was weak, and it hadn’t been there a moment ago. I glanced down, praying it was Calliope, but it wasn’t. The small redhead’s hand—Hannah—moved just slightly, and I saw her chest rise and fall beneath my mate’s lifeless body.
“I’ll come back for you,” I whispered as I laid my hand on Calliope’s still form and pulled her through space back to Sanctuary. My vortex opened again just outside her shop. Teleporting inside it wasn’t an option because of the spell that still barred Djinn teleportation inside buildings in the town. I glanced around the empty street and then lifted Calliope over my shoulder. I carried her up the steps and kicked in the already broken front door. It opened without a fight into the mess I’d already seen once the day before. It wasn’t dawn yet, but the black sky was beginning to take on a bit of a blue hue.
After laying her carefully on the ground inside the store, I ran back outside and teleported again. Back to the Pentagon. Back to that horrid gray concrete room that smelled of rape and death and failure. But Hannah had somehow survived. I wasn’t about to abandon her to Xerxes’ men.
On the floor in front of me was a huge puddle of smeared blood, but no body. Where the fuck? She’d been alive, but she’d been hurt, too. No way had she just gotten up and walked off. I turned at the dragging sound of footsteps behind me. Hannah stood a few feet away, staring at me like I was a three-headed hydra.
“Hannah, we have to go.” I reached toward her, and she stared at me, confusion painted on her face.
“Who are you?” Her heart was racing. “Who’s Hannah? Is that me?”
I opened my mouth to speak again and then paused. What if…what if she wasn’t Hannah? What if she was someone else? Calliope had been lying on top of her. They’d both been dead. There had been no heartbeats and then…there had been.
“I’m Godric. Don’t you remember coming here with me and the others?”
She shook her head and continue to study me with an intense interest. “Where am I?”
“We have to get out of here.” I walked toward her, closing the gap between us quickly, expecting her to resist, but she merely offered her hand to me with a hint of a trust in her eyes. Not acting like Hannah at all. The grief was gone. The brokenness.
She was so much shorter than Calliope. Hannah’s body was more willowy and waiflike, but there was something about her that reminded me of the Siren—of the Calliope I’d lost. Something in her eyes. The witch’s eyes had been a light green, but now they were brown. Very dark brown. Just like Calliope’s had been. I shook my head, clearing my thoughts. Why the hell was I comparing this little slip of a woman to the mate I’d just lost? Because you think she’s the reincarnation of your mate. I was crazy. Or going crazy.
I clasped her hand and teleported again. The street was still dark when we arrived. No one had noticed me, and I didn’t hear a soul moving outside the walls of the castle. Not yet, anyway.
I led her inside the shop and around Calliope’s body.
“I need you to stay with me.” I stared into her eyes, willing the influence to take effect. It should’ve been instantaneous. Witches weren’t immune to vampire mind control. But her pupils didn’t dilate, and she kept staring at me…it had to be her. Calliope. My heart leapt in my chest, and I bit back a cry of hope. Hope that perhaps I hadn’t lost my mate completely. Perhaps her ramblings about getting a new body and reincarnation hadn’t been crazy after all. She was immune to my vampire powers, just like Calliope. She was Calliope. Had to be, even if she didn’t know it yet.
New Calliope looked down at old Calliope’s body. Gods, this was strange.
“Did you kill her?”
“No. She was a friend. I didn’t kill her. I did rip the throat out of the man who did.” I heaved a longer breath, watching her every move for any sign that she intended to run. But instead she stepped closer to me, still studying me as if she was trying to figure out something.
“I’m sorry for your loss. Did you care for her?”
I nodded. “Very much.”
“But?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.
I glanced at Calliope’s body and then up to the redhead again. I drew in a deeper breath, reaching for her scent across the room, but there was so much of Calliope in the store and her old body on the floor only a few feet away. I couldn’t tell what was her and what used to be her, except there was that familiar pull toward the redhead. The same feeling I’d gotten when I’d first laid eyes on Calliope outside of the castle.
She was my mate.
The person—the soul—in Hannah’s body was my mate. I was sure of it.
The woman on the floor was gone. I had to make sure the new Calliope trusted me. I had to keep her safe. Grief and hope warred in my heart. I’d lost her. But now I had her. When I’d touched Calliope in her new body, she’d felt like my mate. Bu
t my mind still hadn’t processed the new face. The new scent. The person who didn’t recognize me. “I need to get a letter from the storage room. It will explain what’s going on.”
“You mean why I don’t remember who I am? Or you? Or this place…or why you have blood smeared on your face?” Her voice was barely a whisper by the time the last word left her lips.
I wiped my face with my arm and met her gaze again. “I hope so,” I answered, fighting through the choking sensation in my throat. I have to get you back. Another I had failed…the story of my life. Letting down the people who trusted me. “You’re my mate, Calliope. I won’t fail you again. I promise. We’re going to figure this out.”
“You said I was Hannah.” She stepped even closer, running her hand up my arm and over my shoulder. “Why did you call me Calliope?”
My entire body tensed beneath her touch. Her very sensual, very interested touch. What was happening?
“I-I’m going to explain. The letter—”
Her mouth touched my neck, and I couldn’t stop the flow of blood that went straight to my dick. I jumped away from her and pressed my lips tight. What did I say? Hey, you’re my reincarnated mate, but you don’t have those memories, and oh, yeah, the woman you used to be is lying dead on the floor a few feet away.
“Let’s find that letter quickly then, because I can think of several things I’d rather be looking for,” she said in a tone that sounded just like old-Calliope. Then she grabbed a quick glance at the erection stiffening the front of my jeans and smiled before gesturing for me to lead the way.
Chapter 30
JARED
“We have to go,” I hissed, tugging gently on Manda’s arm. She was so bruised already. I didn’t want to cause her more pain, but we needed to get out of this place before an alarm went off.
She flinched at the touch and peeked around the corner in the current hallway. “I’m not leaving. He’s taken everything from me. And I have a chance to hurt him. I’m not leaving.” Tears flowed down her smudged cheeks, leaving trails through the grime and blood.
“What are we going after?” I laid a palm on her shoulder, wishing she would just let me hold her. Take her away from this horror. She could heal. I would take care of her until she found her way through the darkness.
“A baby,” she snarled, wrenching away from my hand again. “Taking the baby will hurt him. I want to hurt him. I want him to know it was me that did it.”
“How will taking a baby hurt Xerxes?”
“He can turn himself invisible from the genetic splicing they’ve already completed.”
“Invisible?” My stomach knotted up, and I pushed down the overwhelming urge to vomit. How the fuck?
“It didn’t work like that on the Lycans, but it did on him. She’s a kitsune baby. Her blood is powerful.”
“Fuck.”
She nodded and turned to face Asa and me. “I can’t kill the bastard, but I can hurt him by taking her. You can take her, anyway.”
“My sweet daughter,” Asa crooned, reaching out to touch Manda’s face. But Manda shrank away from the touch. Just like she’d retreated from mine. I’d given her my shirt, which covered her to the tops of her thighs…but her body was covered in scars and bruises and blood and the sickening scent of agony.
Guilt riddled my soul like bullet wounds. We’d left Godric with Calliope’s and Hannah’s bodies. With Calvar as well. I hoped to the gods the vampire Godric had taken his vengeance on Xerxes’ man. I hoped it had been ruthless.
Manda hurried down one empty hallway after another. And we followed—her mother and I. We’d encountered two guards so far, and Asa had put them both down before they’d even realized we were there.
I wanted to touch Manda again. I wanted to pull her into my arms. I wanted to assure her that she would heal. That I would help. That I would be there for her through everything. But Manda just kept moving. So much anger. So much pain. I kept following. I would follow her to the end of the earth if that was necessary.
She was my mate. Everything inside my body sang out to her, needed her. My Phoenix pushed forward, wanting to rub all over her until she didn’t smell like that bastard Djinn any longer. Until she only smelled like us. Until she was mine. Except I had this gut-wrenching, sickening feeling that the woman beneath the pain was missing. She was in so much pain. Been through so much suffering. We were both right there, willing to save her, but she went deeper into the building. Like she didn’t want to be saved. Like she wasn’t going to let me…
Manda limped along the hall, counting doors under her breath. She turned at fifteen and pressed her finger to a bio-scanner on the wall. The light on the panel turned green. The door clicked open, and we followed her down another long hallway.
“Where is she?” Asa said, her tone sharp and impatient. “We don’t have time to tour this entire place. I want to get you away from here.”
Manda turned slowly, her eyes dim, barely purple…more of a grey. “You’ve already tried. What’s going to be different this time?”
“He’s a phoenix. He can melt the wards off. His Dragon friend melted off cuffs,” Asa half-screeched. “You can be free.”
She huffed out a snort of disbelief. “I’m wearing piercings. All over my fucking body. There will be no burning or melting of any kind. The only pain I want to feel is what leads me to my final peace.”
Final peace. Dead? No. “I can fly with you, Manda. Once I shift, I can pick you up and fly.” I nodded down the hallway. “You don’t have to die. I don’t want you to die. I need you. I’ve been searching for you since that moment. I—”
Manda gave me a look that sent a chill all the way through me. A look that said she was done fighting. She looked so tired. So worn. Like she could lie down at any moment and just go to sleep…forever.
“Please, Manda. Give me a chance to show you—”
A loud alarm blared through the hallway, making my ears ring with each pulse. Red lights at each end flashed. If they hadn’t realized at first, they knew we were here now.
Manda took off, and we had no choice but to follow. She blew through two more doors before we entered a large room—probably at one time it had been a conference space, but now it was a nursery. A crib. Toys. Blankets.
Several women shrieked at our entry. One grabbed up the baby and backed toward a large floor-to-ceiling window looking out into a large green space.
Manda walked toward the woman holding the little bundle. “Give her to me now.” She shook her arms again, but didn’t try to force the woman to give up the baby. She just waited.
Slowly, the nurse’s arms relaxed, and she extended the bundle of blankets toward Manda. Taking the baby, Manda hurried to her mother’s side. “You get her to Sanctuary and tell them I’m sorry. Tell Charlie I’m so sorry. You promise me. And don’t come back here. Not for anything. I don’t know how you got it down, but they will have the barrier back in place within five minutes. Go,” she shouted, shoving the baby into Asa’s arms. “Go.”
Tears streamed down Asa’s cheeks. She took the baby and looked at me. “You take care of my girl.” Then she was gone.
Chapter 31
KILLÍAN
The phone on my belt buzzed. They must be back. We’d set up a rotating guard to watch through the ice. All four sides were covered. All four sides were clear. All of Xerxes’ soldiers had backed off for now. And we’d see anything coming before it hit. I unsnapped the small cell and checked the screen.
Asa is running for the main entrance.
“Miles. The door. Asa is back.”
“Just her?”
I shrugged. “That’s what Connor sent.”
We were only a few feet away, unable to stray far while our friends were out there. The big Drakonae closed the gap between him and the door in seconds. He heaved the heavy beam from its place and then pulled the big door open just enough that a body could fit through the opening.
Asa slipped into the foyer a moment later. Her face red. Ey
es glassy. And with a…baby. She held a small baby in her arms.
I peered out into the street behind her. “Where are the others?”
She shoved the baby into my arms. “I have to go back. They’re going to die. She made me take this baby and go.”
“Who’s going to die? What are you talking about?” I grabbed her arm, and Miles grabbed hold of her, too, preventing her from blinking.
She tried to twist away from both of us, but it was futile.
“Where are Jared and Calliope and Hannah? Where are our people?”
“Dead or about to be dead. Let me go. I have to try to get back inside before the barrier goes back up.”
My chest tightened, and I swallowed down bile. “What do you mean dead? Did you see them die? Tell me what’s going on.” I tightened my hold on the baby and shouted down the hallway. “Bella!” I knew the pixie was within earshot. Then I focused back on the freaking out Djinn female.
A low rumbling growl rolled consistently from Miles’ chest. “You better get a hold of yourself and answer the questions. Now,” he snarled.
“I…” She stared up at Miles, and her entire form sagged. “Hannah’s dead. Calvar stabbed her. Then he got Calliope. I don’t know if Godric is dead or if he got Calvar. We didn’t wait to find out. Manda ran, and we chased her.”
“Both,” I said, the word coming out in a painful gasp. Hannah and Calliope were gone?
“You’re sure?” Miles shouted, anger heating the air surrounding us.
“Miles, the baby,” I said.
He glanced at me, and some of the heat subsided in an instant. Guilt darkened his eyes, and he shuddered out a controlled breath.
Bella, followed quickly by Alek, came into the foyer from the outside courtyard. “What is it?” Bella asked, hurrying to our side. “What’s going on?”
Sanctuary, Texas Complete Series Box Set Page 129
