Witching Hour: Blood Magic Book 3

by L.H. Cosway

“You’ll have to cut me,” he went on, still whispering. I shot him a curious look. “I can’t bite my own neck,” he explained.

  “Oh,” I breathed, understanding. Remembering the razor in my pocket, I pulled it out.

  Ethan smiled approvingly when I flicked it open, then frowned when he recognised it. “Isn’t that the blade Finn gave you?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  His frown deepened. I rolled my eyes. “Get over it. This blade has helped me out of a sticky situation or two. Besides, we’re stuck on this roof. We don’t have another option.”

  He didn’t look happy, but he finally nodded in acceptance and inhaled deeply, awaiting the incision. Raising the blade to his flawless skin, I pressed it in and cut a shallow line about an inch long. Some kind of urgency came over him as he backed me up against the wall, his arms braced on either side of me. Licking my lips, I moved my face to his neck, where a trickle of blood seeped out. I licked it away and sucked at the cut I made. The taste of it hit me powerfully.

  I relished the scent of Ethan’s skin and how his blood invigorated my entire body as it slid down my throat. I’d swallowed down three gulps before he gently pulled my eager mouth away. His eyes were scorching when I looked up at him. He rubbed a thumb over my lower lip, and I felt the blood on my mouth smearing. My breathing quickened at the intense way he studied me, taking in my every feature.

  A second later, his lips were on me, tasting his blood in my mouth. I moaned as his tongue stroked mine, but I managed to push him away before anyone noticed our passionate clinch.

  Ethan took my injured hand into his and massaged it with his fingers. “See how quickly my blood heals you?” he asked.

  I glanced down to find the burned skin repairing itself right in front of my eyes. It was miraculous. The relief was short-lived though because another thought instantly sprang into my head. “Was it a bad idea for me to drink from you again? I don’t want to become addicted.”

  He stroked a hand down my cheek. “You won’t become addicted. We’ll simply be a little more bonded now.”

  “Is bonded just a nicer way of saying addicted?”

  Ethan’s voice was seductive. “You’re already addicted, just not in the way you’re imagining.”

  Man, he was cocky. But for once it didn’t bother me. In fact, I kind of liked it.

  His demeanour turned serious when he asked, “Did you find time to look up that translation?” There was a thread of emotion in his voice.

  “No,” I replied. “I haven’t had the chance. What was it again … Te iubesc?”

  “Yes, you should have looked it up.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it means I love you,” he replied and I swore my heart stopped beating as he slid his arms around my waist and held me tight.

  I sucked in a shocked breath. Suddenly, everything else vanished and all I could see was Ethan. I forgot about the killing that was happening on the streets below, about my friends on the other end of the roof.

  “Did you mean it?” I asked, heart pounding.

  “I don’t say things I don’t mean, Sunshine.”

  I let out a slightly hysterical laugh. “You really pick your moments. You should have just told me what it meant last night when we were alone.”

  He smiled and caressed my neck. “Ah, but telling you now adds a certain dramatic touch, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to say …” I trailed off, all rosy-cheeked and befuddled.

  “There’s nothing that needs saying. I have simply told you how I feel.”

  I reached up and placed both of my hands on his face. “We’re going to discuss this later, okay? When there’s time and we have more privacy.” Normally, when someone said ‘I love you’, the proper response was to say it back. But Ethan had taken me so much by surprise that I didn’t know what to say.

  He leaned down and pressed a light kiss to my lips. “As you wish. Come, we should join the others.”

  Pushing my reaction to Ethan’s declaration to the back of my mind, I walked straight to Alvie and threw my arms around him. He wasn’t crying anymore, but his eyes were all red and blotchy looking.

  “We’ll get her back,” I told him firmly. “We’ll get our Rita back no matter what.”

  He didn’t respond, only hugged me tighter. Gabriel seemed relieved that I’d given Alvie hope of somehow saving Rita from the dark magic that had consumed her, changed her. I wished I’d paid more attention to her these past few weeks, spent more time with her than I had. Perhaps then I could have done something to prevent her from losing herself.

  She told me of her fears that she would go bad and let Theodore’s darkness take her over one day. I’d brushed off the idea, too wrapped up in my own problems. I’d told her that if she just made sure to hold onto her good side, the side that came from Noreen, that she’d be okay. In my deepest fears, I’d never anticipated that anything would happen to the woman, or that Whitfield would end her life so callously.

  Noreen had been Rita’s rock, the one who taught her about benevolent magic and using it only to achieve positive results and to make the world better. Perhaps it wasn’t simply the grief that turned her. Perhaps it was the fact that her rock, her anchor, no longer existed in this world. Without Noreen, Rita’s potential for evil took over.

  I wasn’t even listening to Finn as he spoke, explaining some detailed plan to everyone. I only paid attention when I heard him say, “So, we’re all agreed that getting out of Tribane is the best idea?”

  “What!?” I exclaimed loudly. “We can’t just leave. What about Rita? What about all the people here?” I gestured frantically to the street below us.

  Finn locked eyes with me. “Rita made her choice, and the people can’t be saved. You saw how the extinguishers did nothing to deter the mist. It’s evolved. It’s harder to kill now, and the humans are all infected. Just take a look down at the streets and see how they’re murdering each other for no reason. Pamphrock’s dead. Practically all our slayers are dead, too. There’s nothing left for us here. Leave Theodore and Whitfield to battle it out. Tribane isn’t going to be saved. We’ll only end up sacrificing our lives by trying.”

  A heavy brick settled in my gut because Finn was right. I couldn’t see any way of making things better here. There were only twelve of us. What could twelve people do against Whitfield and hundreds of his vampires, against Theodore now that he had Rita on his side?

  “You’re right,” I mumbled reluctantly. “I hate to admit it, but it’s not going to be long before this place is a wasteland.”

  “The city has finally come to its bursting point,” Ethan said sadly. “Now it’s going to tear itself apart. Let’s not allow it to take us down with it.”

  We all made noises of agreement and began gathering our things. I might agree that we needed to get out now, but I had no intention of staying away for good. I’d make a plan and come back for Rita no matter what.

  As we made our way back to the fire escape, a head popped up over the roof. A head with fangs and eyes of midnight.

  “There they are!” the vampire screeched, just as the last person I wanted to see climbed up behind him.

  Whitfield.

  He slinked up onto the roof with catlike grace, eyes flicking over our group. More vampires followed behind him.

  “Jack-POT!” he shouted in delight. His facial expressions were all over the place. For a second I thought he might be drunk, but then I recognised what it really was, bloodlust—or maybe blood-drunk. I didn’t know what it was about seeing him, but my entire body tensed up.

  Whenever I’d come across an adversary in recent weeks, I’d been determined to defeat them, but now I just felt tired. Why did Whitfield have to find us here when we’d been about to leave the city?

  Way too much had happened today. I didn’t have the energy to face Whitfield.

  “We’re leaving, Jeremy. You’ve won,” Ethan informed him in a hard voice.

 
; “Leaving?” Whitfield pouted as though we’d just told him we were leaving his birthday party early. He had his sword with him, the one he’d used to kill Noreen. I wished for the strength to take it from him and shove it through his heart.

  “Leaving?” he repeated, and now he sounded amused by the idea. His voice sent unpleasant shivers down my spine.

  “Well now, you may leave if you wish, old friend. I washed my hands of you when you were exiled.” His eyes cut to me. “But this one is going nowhere.” He paused and grinned at me. “We have unfinished business, don’t we, Tegan?” His voice was all sing song-y until it got to my name, then it turned harsh and cutting. His eyes were ablaze with hate. The vampires who came with him were still climbing up onto the roof. It seemed like the trail of them was never-ending. Half of them were already battling it out with Finn and the others while Whitfield backed me and Ethan into a corner.

  My hands shook and my lip quivered, my emotions somehow overriding my magic. I tried to push past the fear and bring my magic to the surface, but it was useless.

  Whitfield laughed. “Your death is coming for you, Tegan. Can you feel it? It’s in the air. Aw, look at that,” he put on a theatrical frown before grinning at the vampire beside him. “She’s frightened. Isn’t that just hilarious? How funny it is to see fear on the face of a heartless murderess.”

  “You’re the one who’s heartless,” I spat, finally finding my voice. “I killed your daughter in self-defence. If she never came looking for me, then she’d still be alive today.”

  “I care nothing for your excuses,” he snarled, before shouting an order to the vampires around him. “Get her!”

  Finally, my magic came to me, and I whipped out a spray of sparks at Whitfield’s cronies. They jumped back, cringing and hissing from the burn. It didn’t deter them for long though. I panicked, knowing we were surrounded by enemies. There was no getting off this roof.

  However, just as thoughts of giving up began to overtake me, I spotted something out of the side of my eye. Another ladder! It was almost the same colour as the wall, so it was slightly camouflaged. It led up to the next building, which was substantially taller than the one we were currently on.

  Before I even had the chance to consider using it as a means of escape, Ethan threw me onto his back and leapt onto the ladder. He zoomed up the side of the building.

  When we reached the next roof, Ethan kept going. He leapt across the gap between the building we were on and the next one. The force of our landing shattered through me. This happened several more times, and I couldn’t help looking back to see that Whitfield was still coming for us. Keeping one arm firmly around Ethan’s neck, I dropped the other and squeezed my eyes shut, concentrating on creating a stream of sparks in our wake. It slowed Whitfield down a little, but he and his crew just kept dodging the magic. Hell, that vampire didn’t give up easily.

  At one point, I felt us going down another ladder and dropping onto the street. Ethan zoomed across to a high-rise building, and I just about made out a stairwell as we sped up it. Then we were outside again on another roof. I couldn’t gauge how much distance we’d travelled, but it seemed like we’d gone a long way. It was only when Ethan stopped running that I saw it wasn’t true. All we’d been doing was running around in circles, and we were now on a building directly across from the one we’d started out on.

  “Why did you come back here?” I cried at Ethan.

  “I didn’t have a choice,” he answered. “The streets are crawling with Whitfield’s followers. There’s no escape.”

  I looked down and saw my friends still fighting off a never-ending stream of vampires across the way. I peered at the street below, and my heart dropped. The place was full to the brim with vampires. I couldn’t even see any humans left, and I dreaded to think that was because the vampires had killed them all. Glancing down Campion Row and out onto the Hawthorn river, all I found was more vampires coming over to this side of the city. I’d felt hopeless many times in my life, but never more so than this. Ethan was right. There really was no escape. That fact was further reinforced when Whitfield came to a stop before us.

  “Now, now, Cristescu, that’s bad form. I never pegged you as the tucking tail and running away type.”

  Ethan pushed me behind him protectively before addressing Whitfield. “You’ve penned us in. There’s no shame in running away when you are outnumbered hundreds of times over.”

  Whitfield brushed off his response with a laugh. “Is that sour grapes I hear in your voice, old friend?”

  “You’re no friend of mine,” Ethan fumed. “So, stop referring to me as one.”

  “There’s no need for such anger. I said you were free to go. It’s the witch I’m after.” He stopped and sucked in a savouring breath. “I’ve rarely smelled such appetising blood as hers in all my years. I will relish finally getting the chance to taste it.”

  “I thought you wanted to kill me because of Eliza?” I said shakily.

  Whitfield stared at me condescendingly, as though I was an idiotic child. “Of course, I will be killing you as a tribute to my daughter. Your blood is simply an added reward for my loss.”

  “I’ll kill you with my bare hands before you ever get to her,” Ethan threatened.

  “Go ahead and use your bare hands,” Whitfield pulled his sword out of its holster. “And I will use this.”

  He swooped down on Ethan, who shunned his bare hands in favour of pulling out his own weapon. They sparred against one another, and it struck me that both of them possessed sword fighting skills you didn’t encounter in this day and age. Skills possessed only through the necessity of living in a time when guns were not so readily available. Not to mention their moves were lightning fast and entirely inhuman.

  Seeing that the other vamps were trying to get past Ethan to capture me, I began moulding my palms together and creating balls of sparks to throw at them. It was exhausting, and I felt my magic dwindling away with the effort it took to create them. However, right now they were my only bet at keeping the vampires at bay.

  At one point, a female jumped high into the air, and before I knew it, she had her hands on my throat and her fangs were coming down on me. As quick as I could, I pulled the stake out of my pocket yet again and plunged it right into her heart. Her dark blood sprayed in my face, and her body crumpled to the ground.

  The victory was short-lived, however, because my fight with her allowed the others enough time to get to me. I did my best to gain my previous momentum, and I started throwing sparks at them again. I glanced at Ethan and Whitfield just as Ethan slashed Whitfield’s arm. The vampire governor reeled back, hissing at the strike.

  Just before he had the chance to recover from the blow, strange purple smoke began to seep out of the ground around us. It came from everywhere, pouring eerily through the bricks and cement. It became so thick that it practically blinded me, and for a few brief seconds, I couldn’t see anything at all. The purple clouded my vision, and the world around me vanished. Slowly, the smoke began to drift away, and when I could see again, I rushed to Ethan, affixing myself firmly to his side.

  Things were bad before. There was no way we could fight off the vampires for much longer, but now the situation was ten times worse because standing before us were Rita and Theodore, their black eyes almost identical.

  And when Rita’s landed on me, she smiled.

  18.

  It wasn’t a friendly smile. It was the smile of a killer just before they took their knife and gutted you. My entire body turned to ice.

  “Hello, Governor,” Theodore said, his dark eyes landing immediately on Whitfield. “I’ve been searching for you. What a coincidence to find you here with my dear little Treasure.”

  I’d always hated Theodore’s pet name for me, but right now, I despised it with every fibre of my being. It was almost like he was mocking me, or like he knew how frustrated it made me to have all this power bottled up inside and not know how to tap into it.

  I
was a treasure for anyone who could capture me, but hardly ever for myself.

  “Rita,” I burst. “What are you doing with him? Please, just stop this and come back to us. I know you’re in there somewhere!”

  Theodore wagged his finger in my direction. “No, no, no, she’s mine now. Contrary to what you might believe, my daughter has only just become her true self. Before she was a shell and had not yet discovered her potential. Oh, isn’t it marvellous how grief can transform a person, how it makes them see the world the way it’s truly supposed to be seen?” He paused and glanced at Whitfield, who had suddenly lost the confidence he had before the sorcerer showed up. All of a sudden, getting his revenge by killing me was no longer his top priority. “I suppose I have you to thank for that, vampire.”

  “What do you want with me?” Whitfield demanded, his voice coming out strong and firm. It was clearly a façade because it was obvious even to me that Theodore’s sudden presence had shaken him.

  “With you?” Theodore asked. “Why dear governor, I want to kill you of course. You might not yet have heard that I recently ended Pamphrock. Now I only need to take care of you and the city will be mine again.”

  I knew Rita was far gone when she didn’t even look at Whitfield. The Rita I knew would murder him as soon as he was within reach for what he did to Noreen, but there wasn’t a single flicker of emotion in her blank face and it made my heart sink.

  Angered by Theodore’s words, Whitfield gestured for his men to advance on the sorcerer. They barely got the chance to move an inch before Rita’s hands came up and black waves pulsed out of her palms. The waves halted the vampires in their tracks, leaving them still as stone, unable to move their bodies against her magic.

  “Isn’t she just magnificent,” Theodore beamed, his eyes cutting slyly to me, as if to rub it in my face that Rita was now his to use as he saw fit.

  Seeing how Rita was holding his vampires captive within their bodies, Whitfield grew desperate. This was clear when he pleaded, “Look, I’m sure we can come to an arrangement. I could simply hand the city over to you and command my people to do your bidding. Look down onto the streets and see how many vampires there are, and that’s only half of them. Why waste what could be a beneficial alliance by killing me, when you could have an army of vampires at your beck and call?”