by Mandy Rosko
But Cecil was still right. Those wild wolves, wherever they’d come from, were not about to be put off and leave that easily. What made it a thousand times worse were the men still standing within the tree line. The tallest of them was at least double Silus’s height, and Cedric didn’t need to so much as squint his eyes in order to see them. They stood with their arms crossed, severe and watching as any parent observing their child’s football game.
They were biding their time, waiting for the chance to enter the fight.
Joey had once described that tactic to him. That in the wild, real wolves, when hunting rabbits, would work together as a team in order to catch their lunch. One wolf would give chase, preferably in a large circle, while the rest watched. When that wolf grew tired, another would take his place, and on and on it went until the rabbit was so tired that he could run no more.
“Fuck, we’re rabbits.”
“What?”
Cedric ignored his cousin and shot for the door.
“Where are you going?”
Cedric stopped, his hands gripping the door handle. Where the hell was he going? What did he think he could do? Run out and start fighting? Yeah right, he’d get snapped in half, and he couldn’t just leave the omegas and those kids downstairs, helpless like that. Whatever little he was capable of doing, it needed to be done here.
Cedric stepped away from the door. Cecil was staring at him as though he’d lost his mind, which, for a second, he likely had.
“We need to barricade the window and deal with him,” Cedric said, nodding to the mass of bloody wolf on his floor.
Seemingly glad to have something to do, even though the worth of the actions was debatable, Cecil helped push the bookcases, chairs, and even the leather sofa in front of the windows, blocking them off.
Two of the male adult omegas heard the commotion and came upstairs to help.
“Take off your belts,” Cedric told them, already starting with his own. “Tie his hands, feet, and knees. I don’t want him moving if he wakes up.”
“Will it help?” Cecil asked.
Probably not, but it would buy them some more time, and maybe they could question the bastard to find out what this was all about. “Yes,” Cedric said, binding the were’s huge wrists.
The banging on the walls and doors already started. The wild wolves were right outside.
“What about the upstairs windows?” Cecil asked. The two omegas looked at him with a mixture of fright and disbelief as more crashing and banging sounded from outside. The walls rattled with the pressure of it.
Cedric didn’t need to be a mind reader to know what the omegas were thinking. Those wolves outside didn’t need to use the windows if they didn’t want to. They were going to tear down the walls.
“Nothing we can do about it now,” Cedric said. “Get to the basement. Help me with him.”
“We’re taking him?” Cecil demanded as Cedric and the omegas bent down and, using every ounce of strength they possessed, lifted the man up and off the floor. There was still broken glass everywhere, and they had to be careful of it as it crunched under their shoes.
“He’s a hostage,” Cedric said through clenched teeth, his face growing hot with the strain. Goddamn this guy ate a lot of protein. “If those alphas out there care anything for their pack, they won’t want us to hurt him, right?”
Cecil nodded, finally understanding, and ran ahead of them to the basement door. He knocked and called out who he was, and when the weres inside opened the door for him, Cecil held it open while Cedric and the two omegas slowly made their way down, ever mindful of the loud banging that shook the house.
Any second, those wolves were going to get inside the house and start ripping the hell out of everything until they got what they wanted. What the hell was he supposed to—
A crash of exploding wood sounded upstairs, and Cedric knew without a doubt that one of the walls had been broken through. Heavy boots stomped above them as the wild alphas searched for their prey. These guys were on a total mission.
He recalled how, six months ago, Seth had been their temporary prisoner in this same basement. The walls were concrete, and the windows were too small for those giants to fit through. But the two doors, the one at the top of the stairs and the one leading into this room, were going to do little more than slow the weres down.
Cedric looked down at their hostage and realized with a sinking gut that it wasn’t going to be enough to keep the weres upstairs from doing what they wanted to the people in here once they got around to realizing where the basement was and that their prey were hiding in it.
Everyone had their eyes turned up, the female omegas clutching their young to themselves for what little comfort they could gain from each other. Everyone was smart enough to stay quiet.
Cedric went to stand in front of the group, grabbing their attention. He had to make his instructions fast and quiet. “They’re going to find us down here eventually. We’re going to let them come down the stairs, and Cecil and I are going to flash a bright light in their eyes. It’ll blind them long enough for you all to run back outside, and he and I will take care of the rest. So you all just keep your heads down and your eyes shut when that happens. Got it?”
Stiff, fearful nods followed.
“Cecil?” Cedric asked.
He jumped a little. “I—right. Sounds good.”
“Okay, now everyone—”
Another crash of furniture sounded and then a crash of glass as the weak barriers Cedric, Cecil, and the omegas put up were thrown aside. The heavy feet shuffled, and a heavy something was thrown down, making the floor above their heads bang and rattle, followed by heavy cursing, shocked shouts, and a feminine scream.
“Varinia!” Cecil ran for the stairs.
“Wait!” Cedric grabbed for his cousin just as he reached for the lock on the door. Cecil spun, punching Cedric in the eye.
The guy was stronger than Cedric imagined, because after the stars vanished from his vision and the throbbing pain set in, he realized he was on his ass, being assisted to his feet by the frightened omegas as Cecil ran up the stairs, screaming his wife’s name.
Cedric ran after him. The stupid idiot was giving them away! He was just going to bring the wolves down here faster!
“Cecil, stop!”
But Cecil had already thrown open the door and ran outside. Cedric was halfway up the stairs when he saw the flash of Cecil’s body go flying across the kitchen and, judging by the sound of the crash, fall into the table, destroying it.
There was nothing he could do to help him now. Cedric only continued to run up the stairs so he could shut and lock the door and pray that would buy them enough time for Silus’s alphas to get over here and chase the wild wolves away.
He had just reached his hand out to grab the door when a delicate hand slammed down on the wood, preventing him from pulling it shut.
Varinia’s eyes were cold as she stared at him.
He stared back. He’d thought she was being ripped to pieces, and so had Cecil. “What are you—?”
Her small hand reached out and snatched him by the throat. His airways were immediately crushed, and he couldn’t breathe, and she lifted him clear from the ground.
She might look small and delicate, but she had a vampire’s steeltough strength in her, all right.
He wanted to demand to know why. Why was she doing this? Had she brought these wolves here? Why was she turning on them? On her husband?
He could still make out the struggle going on down the hall in his living room. It hadn’t been just the wild wolves to get inside the house. Damon was in here, too, and Cedric recognized Elliot and Jayne, two of the alphas in the pack. Maybe they would see him, but even if they did, there likely wasn’t much they could do to help him, considering how full their hands were now.
“My sincerest apologies for this,” Varinia said, and then, as though Cedric weighed about as much as a baseball, she hurled him down the hallway just as one of the w
ild alphas was charging through, and Cedric felt the distinct, juicy sensation of razors slicing through his flesh before he was thrown down.
Chapter Ten
It felt less like they had won the battle and more that the wild wolves had decided to retreat simply because they’d had enough sport and were finished in their game.
No one congratulated themselves as the wolves vanished into the trees, though several of Silus’s alphas were still able-bodied and more than willing to give chase. Silus called them back to assist in damage control.
God only knew how many of the omegas had been taken. Silus had watched them being carried off screaming and flailing in the arms of their captors, while he’d been helpless to assist and forced to fight the wolves in front of him even when he attempted to leave the battle so he might offer his aid.
His home, his beautiful home, looked ready to fall down. There was only one person within it that he cared for at the moment, and suspicion and fear began to build up the moment he noticed how his lover had yet to run out and into his arms now that the danger was gone.
What did come was much worse.
Instead of Cedric, Mitch, one of the younger alphas, yet still old enough to battle, leaped out of a gaping hole in the house and ran across the grass as though the devil himself were on his heels.
He spotted Silus and immediately ran to him. “My lord! My lord!”
Silus didn’t need to know what Mitch was about to say. Only one thing could make the kid run to him like that.
Something had happened to Cedric.
Silus ran. He ran past Mitch and to the house, faster than he’d ever run in his life. The blood rushed to his ears at the thought of what he might find.
Everyone who saw him coming stepped out of his way. Most, the alphas who had not yet been in the house, wore looks of cautious confusion as he raced past them like a madman, others, the few omegas still present and the alphas who had been inside, either looked at Silus with pity, or avoided his eyes altogether.
“Cedric!” Silus called as he made it inside.
Damon rushed down the hall at his call.
“Where is he?” Silus demanded, hating the similar look of pity on Damon’s face.
Damon stepped out of the way and motioned with his hand. “This way, my lord. Please prepare yourself.”
Silus rushed forth and into the hall, barely noting the wreckage around him as he moved.
The strong scent of blood was the first thing he took note of. There was a crumple of bodies in the middle of the dark hall. Long scratches marred the walls, and strips of wallpaper and broken picture frames littered the floor, but that was not what he cared to see.
Varinia muttered soothing words, and Silus’s first thought was that she was making a prayer over his corpse until a spasm in Cedric’s legs and the gurgle of watery breath sounded.
Silus moved to the mass in the middle of the floor and fell to his knees. Varinia held what had once been one of Cedric’s white cotton T-shirts over a spurting wound in his neck. Cedric’s eyes, his beautiful blue eyes, once so full of life, were wild with panic, glazed, and dull.
He was blind.
“Cedric? I am here.”
Cedric jerked to the sound of his voice. He opened his mouth as though to speak, revealing teeth stained with blood, but he only coughed up more of the thick red liquid, and he choked on it.
Silus stuck his hand under Cedric’s head to help ease his suffering. His hair was damp with sweat and blood, and Silus felt another gash, soft and leaking his precious fluids.
“My lord,” Varinia whispered. “His lungs are quickly filling with blood. I cannot stop the flow like this,” she said, motioning with her head down at the makeshift gauze she used to stifle the flow at Cedric’s neck.
Silus tore his eyes away from Cedric’s pale face, fully aware that he’d fed from Cedric that morn, and the blood he’d drank would have been better used to help keep Cedric’s heart beating.
“What can be done?” he demanded.
“Nothing,” Varinia said, her expression strong enough to convey to Silus how utterly serious she was in her diagnosis. “I cannot perform any sort of surgery here that would stop the flow of blood to his lungs.”
Cedric jerked again, attempting to struggle, to move. Silus pressed his palm flat on his chest, taking comfort in the feel of his beating heart and also preventing Cedric from injuring himself further.
“Then we will take him to a surgeon who can do something!” he snapped.
“My lord, he is already drowning from within. What I do now I do to buy you the time you need to say good-bye.”
Cedric jerked again. Whether it was because he’d heard what Varinia had whispered or because of his continued trouble with dying, Silus could not say.
Nor did he wish to dwell on it. The earth seemed to fall away from him at Varinia’s words, and he would have liked nothing better than to expunge the horrible sensations he felt by vomiting all over the floor.
He held himself in check, swallowing back the despair and sickness he felt with considerable effort.
“Jesus Christ.” It was Cecil. Silus hadn’t even been aware the man was standing behind him, nor did he bother to look at him as he panicked and blamed himself for Cedric’s condition.
“There must be something.”
“I am deeply sorry, my lord.”
He reached out and snatched her by the neck. “You are a healer! Don’t you dare allow him to die!”
“Let her go!” Cecil had come out of his guilt-ridden stupor the moment Silus put his fingers around Varinia’s neck. The knife at his throat felt too large to be something that could easily be concealed in his pocket and too small to be a dagger.
Likely Cecil had taken it for protection during the raid of the house.
Let the cowardly bastard slit his throat. He would not release her until she did something, and if Cedric died, let Silus die with him.
Cedric released a helpless, wet, gurgling sound from his throat, this one much weaker than the last several struggling breaths he made. He was going, and it would be soon.
“Please,” Silus begged. He could no longer be angry or in control while his lover lay dying in a pool of his own blood beneath him, and it must have shown on his face, because Varinia’s eyes softened.
He released her, wetting his lips. “Do anything for him. I will give you anything you want. Do not let him die.”
Varinia’s eyes flickered to her husband, and she made a gentle motion with her head. The knife at Silus’s neck was removed.
“My lord, there is nothing that I can do for him in this state. He is too far gone. The only remote chance he would have for survival would be a transformation.”
Silus’s heart beat a frightening rhythm inside his chest as he looked down into Cedric’s unseeing eyes. “Transform him.”
He had not even thought to do such a thing. Not to a sun sprite, at least.
It was said that when a vampire drank the blood of a sun sprite, the poison doomed him. Silus knew better than anyone the load of rubbish that was, though no one, not even Varinia, would dare make a test of what would happen should a vampire attempt to transform a sun sprite into one of his own.
Being the only option available to him, Silus took it.
He lifted Cedric into his arms and slipped beneath him, cradling the other man against his chest.
Cedric was taller, his body containing more muscle mass than Silus had, but the bloodlessness almost seemed to shrink the other man, and he fit all too easily in Silus’s arms.
Cedric put up a mild fight, his one hand still weakly holding the cotton shirt to the gaping wound at his neck, his other attempting to grab at Silus’s garments, his lips moving weakly, like a fish gasping for breath out of water.
“I’ll not let you die, love. I swear to it.”
Silus bit into his own wrist to open his vein. He did it quicker than he ever had before, and the pain was sharp. He winced, but clenched his jaw and pre
ssed down with his fangs and teeth until he damn near ripped a good chunk of the flesh away.
There would be no need for Silus to drink from Cedric, as he had already fed from him that morning and still had the other man’s blood inside him. And with Cedric’s severe blood loss, all he needed was for Cedric to be able to take in some of Silus’s blood.
Then Silus merely needed to pray that the procedure worked.
He put his wrist to Cedric’s mouth, forcing the man’s lips open until Silus’s open wound was fully concealed within them.
Cedric’s throat worked as he choked on what he could not get down and swallowed the little that he could. Silus spoke to him encouragingly, even though it looked as though a great deal of the blood being spit up could easily be Silus’s, as well as Cedric’s.
But then the most frightening thing occurred.
Cedric’s tongue ceased to move. His throat no longer worked in an effort to swallow any of the blood leaking into his mouth, and his glazed eyes became—if possible—more transparent. They stared straight ahead, completely losing their look of panic, which Silus had used to comfort himself, for it at least meant Cedric was still alive.
Now he could no longer sense so much as the beating of his mate’s heart.
Silus kept his wrist where it was, allowing his blood to continue to trickle down Cedric’s throat, now that there was no longer a struggle to swallow it. He didn’t dare remove his hand, even when his hope left him.
He stroked Cedric’s cheek. Still warm, perhaps he was still in there, a soul still clinging to life, waiting to be saved in the same way a drowning victim relied on the physical aid of paramedics to bring them back.
All Silus had was his blood, and Cedric still would not return to life.
Silus bent down, kissed Cedric’s forehead, stroked his beautiful hair. He spoke and begged, curled around his lover and wept, praying to a God he barely acknowledged during the best of times, but there was still no change from Cedric.
