by Martha Woods
The Vampire’s Ultimatum
(Book 10 of Fatal Allure Series)
Martha Woods
Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
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Preview
PREVIEW: The Alpha’s Return
Chapter 1
Preview
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Chapter 1
© 2018 Martha Woods
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Chapter 1
You don’t know true desperation until you’re staring helplessness in the face when you know that oblivion is waiting for you or someone that you love. That was me, sitting with my head in my hands with my ears ringing, blind to the world and deaf to Vincent’s assurances that this whole situation wasn’t my fault. But whose fault could it be if not mine? I was the one who had pushed so hard for an alliance, I was the one who had poked and prodded endlessly at Tristian for all these months, I was the one who had driven Rick away with my secrets and not even bothered to tell him everything when he found out anyway, how was it possible that any of this couldn’t be my fault?
No, I was the one who poked at a sleeping bear, and now there were five of my loved ones who were in the line of fire because of it. If I had just done things differently… maybe if I’d just been less intense about the whole thing I could have turned Tristian into an ally rather than an enemy…
“Amy…” Vincent said, kneeling down to my level and reaching for my hand. “Amy, we need to come up with a plan for what to do, Tristian won’t give us long…”
No, he won’t. And that’s something that could have been easily solved all those months ago when it had become increasingly obvious that he was going to keep killing paranormals regardless of what I decided to do, whether he was a part of the alliance or not. The reason he left in the first place was because I stopped him from killing a completely innocent paranormal, why would I have any reason to think that he would just stop because things were going to get better for us all? He was selfish, monstrous, racist (Or whatever the equivalent was when you were talking about paranormals. Speciest?), there was nothing that you could say or do that would get through his thick skull.
Hell, the last time that he had been something approaching an ally was only possible because he refused to yield to Damon’s command unless he was beaten in a fight, to the very end of our short lived alliance he was defined by his need for a fight, the insatiable need for combat and the kill, when it came to people like that you couldn’t count on them to remain functional in peacetime. I’d seen it many times in my work as a forensic investigator, people who lived for combat, for war and nothing else, eventually they set their sights on the innocent or themselves, very rarely could they find something fulfilling to work towards once they had tasted blood for as long as they had.
Vincent was still talking, still trying to get my attention, but I was stuck in my own head for the moment, the reasons for what had happened and the possibilities of what was still to come racing by at a mile a minute. One thing was very clear, and the more I thought about the danger that my friends were in the more compelling of a thought it became, none of this would have happened if I had just committed to the path and stuck my knife right into his heart as soon as it became obvious that he was going to be a problem. How many creatures were dead because of him? How many innocent paranormals had lost their lived because I didn’t have the stones to push past that final limit that I’d set for myself and do what was truly necessary to protect those around me. Two witches were dead, one innocent bystander would likely be in therapy for the rest of her life, and that was only the ones that I had personally dealt with recently, god knows how many he had killed that escaped my notice.
I’d seen personally just how deadly Damon could be when the mood struck him, he’d damn near dismantled entire vampire dens by himself before, imagine the kind of destruction that a whole group of his could do if they were no longer concerned with being subtle. While I was distracted by the serial murders they had almost killed every witch in the alliance in one fell swoop, but I’d hazard that those were far from the only acts of violence that they had committed lately. We hadn’t heard anything too distressing from the werewolves, but it was also true that a number of them had left the city to travel and spread the word to their brethren in other territories, so I wasn’t ruling out that at least some of them had been intercepted along the way. Tristian may not have as many people as he had a few months ago, but the people he did have were well trained, fanatical and utterly impossible to negotiate with.
“Amy!” Vincent pushed my shoulder, finally snapping me out of my own head and drawing my attention back to him. He looked more worried than I’d ever seen him before, even more so than when we’d dragged him out of purgatory itself. It wasn’t too surprising, he’d heard every word that Tristian had to say on the phone as well, and by now, as impossible as it seemed, it wasn’t a secret that he had a connection with most of those who were in danger. “Amy, we need to think of a plan right now. I will not let you sacrifice yourself for nothing, not while I can still help you.”
Ah, sacrificing myself, that was a novel idea. It was the term that Tristian had set for the release of my friends, and as ashamed as I am to admit it it’s not exactly something that I would be opposed to if there was no other option. As much as I would prefer to live and work alongside my friends and loved ones if there was even a slight chance that they could live at the expense of my own life I was well prepared to take it. Normally something like that could be seen as a virtue, but when you wear your heart on your sleeve as I do I guess it makes it absurdly easy to be exploited with the things you care about huh?
I shook my head, not so much to clear the idea but to clear the rest of my head, much as I didn’t want to admit it we were short on time and even shorter on plans, if push came to shove I may just have to serve myself up on a platter and hope that Tristian is feeling merciful. Slim chances there, but a girl can always hope can’t she? Not like I was in any position to do anything else, time was ticking by and I was choosing now of all times to stay in my own head rather than using my supposedly considerable intelligence to formulate a plan.
“Alright,” I said, looking back up at Vincent, “Do you have any idea what we’re going to do? Because I’m completely stumped.”
“I…” He trailed off l, screwing his brow up and sighing gently to himself, “You’re always the one who
comes up with the plans, I just go along with what you say for me to do.”
“Well, not tonight,” I said, “Right now all I can think about is the fact that five people are in danger right now because of me, five people that wouldn’t even be in this situation if it wasn’t for the fact that they are all connected to me, so no, my mind isn’t really in the ‘planning’ mode to say the least.”
“Oh, come on Amy,” He said, running a hand through his hair, “Look at what you’ve managed to do before! I was gone remember? I was pretty much a dead man and you found a way in not even a full day to bring me back to this world and kill the man who had been terrorizing us for so long in one fell swoop. You can think of a way to save your friends, you’re just choosing not to.”
“Oh really,” I said, rolling my eyes into the back of my skull, “Why wouldn’t I want to think of something? Hmm?”
No answer, just a glance over at the wall and a stubborn clench of his jaw.
“Well? Come on, you know everything about why I want to do everything, why don’t you just say it already?”
Exhaling roughly through his nose, Vincent turned back to face me, his gaze open and angry, mouth turned down in a scowl as he said, “Because part of you doesn’t think you deserve what you have. Because for about as long as I’ve been with you and seen how you feel about Damon you’ve been constantly chastising yourself for how selfish you are, how you should just pick, that you should just be with one person like any other normal woman would. You’ve been constantly beating yourself up for things that you can’t control, things that aren’t even your fault, now that something’s come along that you think you can use to atone for whatever it is that you think you’ve done wrong part of you just wants to jump in and put yourself out of your misery!”
I didn’t like what he was saying, not because it wasn’t true, I wasn’t naive enough to deny a truth that was so plain to see, but I really didn’t like having to confront the fact that I was prepared to martyr myself at the first opportunity for something that might not even work. For someone who made a living out of finding solutions to complex problems, that wasn’t what I would call a very smart move at all. I suppose I should count myself lucky then that I managed to stop myself from snapping at him, considering how immediately angry the evidence of my own stupidity was making itself known in my head.
“I don’t want to see you throw your life away before you think about what you can do with it,” He pleaded, “None of them would either, every one of them would want you to fight to the very end, even if it meant they didn’t make it out in the process.”
“Ok, I get how you can know what I’m thinking, but how can you know what they are thinking?”
“Because every single one of them is as stubborn and as dumb as the three of us!” He laughed, finally letting himself feel something other than sadness and panic, “You make friends with a bunch of adrenaline junkies and cultural rebels and you’re surprised when they might have something other than mercy on their minds when they get kidnapped? Half of them are probably gagged just in case they try biting their way out...”
I wasn’t going to argue there, I’d seen Cara handle herself at more than enough college parties to know that biting was almost second nature to her, get between that woman and whatever it was that she wanted and you could count yourself lucky if you only needed a few stitches in your fingers. Come to think of it I’m actually surprised that Cara hasn’t run into more werewolves in our time together, with her history I’m sure that they would get along famously.
“Fine,” I said, crossing my arms and looking very pointedly at the phone next to me on the floor, “If I’m not going to hand myself over and hope for the best, what am I going to do? It’s not like I can just tell him to go fuck himself when he calls back, I’m not just going to throw my friends away like they were nothing.”
“No, no we’re not going to do that…” He tapped his chin in thought, pacing back and forth while he tried to think of a solution. “What we need are allies, but who can we possibly contact in time? Joseph and the other vampires are out of the question given the time, everyone else we know has been captured… who else is even available right now?”
“I don’t…” I paused, suddenly remembering something very important. Vincent was right, sure Tristian wasn’t able to capture Joseph, but at the same time, his aid was unquestionably out of our reach. He may have been a formidable opponent, as well as likely out of his entire mind, but he wasn’t stupid enough to risk showing his face when the sun was shining high in the sky, he hadn’t lived for hundreds of years only to be undone by something so monumentally stupid.
But Joseph wasn’t the only one that Tristian hadn’t managed to capture, and if he had killed them I have no doubt that he would have loved the chance to rub my face in it. Someone who was in their own right incredibly dangerous, but still managed to keep themselves under everyone’s notice.
“Faye,” I said, picking up the phone from my side, “We need to get in touch with Faye.”
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We didn’t have much time, Tristian was going to be calling back any time now and I did not want to miss his call. If there was any clearer way to get one of my friends killed I have no idea what it could be.
I had her number memorized in my head, just like all the others in case something like this ever happened to me, I just had to hope that she hadn’t changed numbers or lost her phone. It’s not like she would have called to let me know if she had, we weren’t that close, not really, we were more acquaintances that liked each other rather than friends. Come to think of it I think that might be the closest that she gets to anyone, she likes to keep it professional for the most part.
“Come on, come on, pick up,” I said, bouncing on my heels anxiously while I held the phone to my ear. This was my one lifeline, if this didn’t pan out we were back at square one, and square one was the one that ended with me walking into the lion’s den with no plan and no backup, not exactly the position that I wanted to be put in any time soon.
I was about ready to give up and try to reach someone else, who I had no idea but someone, when the line abruptly connected, a heavy silence greeting me for those first few seconds before I heard that wonderful, unenthusiastic drawl greeting me, “Hi Amy, what can I do for you?”
“Faye?” I didn’t bother hiding my relief, there was no point at the most normal of times but now I especially wanted her to know how glad I was. “I thought that maybe… I don’t know, maybe you’d been hurt too, you’re the only one that I have to talk to.”
“That’s really nice Amy,” She said, the heavy grunts breaking up her sentences telling me that she was still on the move, “But I’m a little busy here trying to get away from a group of fanatics, so unless you can help me with that…”
“Faye…” I couldn’t help the pause, even though time was very much not on my side. It wasn’t good news that I had to give her, but that was just something that I would have to push through. “Damon’s been captured, same with Alexis, Tariq, Tabitha, and Cara. Tristian’s got everyone, he’s threatening to kill them if I don’t show myself personally.”
“They got everyone?” That gave her pause, though it wasn’t long before she gathered herself again, it never was. “Shit, I knew that they had Damon, but I didn’t know about the rest of them.”
“Wait, how did you know about Damon?”
“They grabbed him in my store, came right through the front door and tried to beat him down right in front of the counter. He laid one out pretty easily, I took care of the other one, but a whole group of them swarmed in and it was pretty clear that we weren’t going to be able to take care of all of them.” She paused for a moment in her memory, and I didn’t have the heart to interrupt her. “He told me to run and then threw himself at all of them. He didn’t last long but… it was enough time for me to get through the back door and away from the store.”
In spite of everything, I had to chuckle at that. “Yeah, that sou
nds like Damon alright. That stupid, caring idiot. At least you’re alright, we can be glad about that at least.”
“Glad? What’s to be glad about, you know that they’re eventually going to find me anyway, they’re like bloodhounds,” She grunted in frustration, stepping indoors if the sudden echo on her words was any indication, “What are you going to do? You can’t actually be stupid enough to think that he’ll let them go if you turn yourself in, right?”
“I might not have a choice…”
“If you turn yourself in all that’s going to happen is him shooting you in the face, then cutting their throats while you bleed to death on the floor. Don’t be that stupid, even a bad plan is still better than turning yourself over like that.”
I sighed, it seemed like everyone was going to make it known just how bad my options were, while seemingly refusing to offer up a solution of their own. No big deal, I would just have to talk them into giving me one myself. “Look, Faye, I didn’t call you up just because I wanted to know you’re ok, even though I’m really happy that you are… I need your help.”
She scoffed, “Yeah, that was pretty obvious. I don’t know what I can do without my supplies or any of the usual practitioners, but if you have any suggestions then I am all ears.”
“Oh, don’t give me that,” I said, “You’re one of the most talented witches that I’ve come across in all the time that I’ve been doing this, you don’t need a store full of… things to work your magic.”
