My comm lit up. Sariah must be at the other arch on the upper floor. She had a different vantage point.
I see six vamps.
I messaged back, hands trembling with suppressed rage.
We can take them.
I drew my dagger and nodded at my companions. Bobby’s haunches bunched, ready to attack, but I placed a hand on his back to stall him. Stealth first. We could get more of them if we used stealth.
I indicated for him to stay back, and then the guys and I slipped onto the balcony. Moving silently on the balls of our feet, we came up behind the vamps.
Don’t look at Grayson. Don’t let the anger take hold. Focus. Think. Act.
We took down three of the vamps simultaneously. Grabbed hair, yanked back heads, and slit their throats.
The three that were left turned on us with snarls and fangs. They attacked, but we were ready. I caught a flash of movement to my left, but there was no time to check it out. Vamps taken unaware were one thing, vamps in full fight mode were another. The fuckers were fast, like a blur-in-your-face fast. Bobby’s snarls and growls were a symphony as I allowed my body to take over. Slash and stab, duck and dive.
My back hit the balcony as one of them slammed me up against the barrier. He gripped my dagger wrist and smashed that against the railing. My comm crunched, but I kept hold of my dagger. The vampire grinned triumphantly as he opened his mouth to bite, but Azazel had taught me a trick or two. I pulled my head back and then whipped it forward, slamming my forehead into his nose. His scream of pain was cut short by my dagger in his throat.
Another one bites the dust because that’s literally what they did when killed. They fucking dusted.
No time to gloat.
I dove back into the fray. My blade snagged on flesh, drawing blood. It spattered on my face, and then something scraped at the back of my neck. I spun and stabbed the vampire in the face. The woman. The fucking woman.
I advanced as she stumbled back, clutching her cheek. Her eyes were pits of hatred that glowed crimson in her deathly pale face.
“Reaper,” she hissed.
“Dominus to you, bitch.” I switched my dagger from right to left hand in time for my scythe to appear and then swung the glowing blade at her neck. Her head rolled across the floor, and the room was silent.
We’d killed them. All six vamps. Gone.
Grayson.
The scythe winked out as I fell to my knees beside the alpha. Nox cut Grayson’s bindings, and he slumped forward with a groan.
His shirt was dark with blood. I cupped his face and forced him to look at me. “Grayson. Hey, Grayson.”
How much blood had he lost? The wound at his neck glinted silver. He wasn’t healing.
“They’ve coated the bites with silver,” Sariah said. “He won’t heal. It’s in his bloodstream.”
“Fuck.” Dean and his Loups joined us. “Grayson.” He dropped to his knees beside me.
Part of my brain said I needed to back off and let them have their alpha, but the other part refused to release him.
His chest was moving on shallow breaths.
“Poison.” Bobby choked on a sob. “They poisoned him.”
I didn’t need to ask or look at their faces to know what that meant. I could feel it. Grayson was dying.
“Get it out.” My voice was a rasp. “You need to get the poison out.”
“There’s no time to get him to a healer,” Dean said. “If he hadn’t lost so much blood, he’d be able to burn some of the silver, metabolize it to give us time, but he’s too weak to do it.”
He was too weak. He needed strength. He needed power. The clawing in my stomach intensified, and heat flooded my body. I had to do something. My palm tingled, and the scythe appeared in my hand. I hadn’t called it. It vanished, but the glow in my palm remained.
“No, Fee. You could kill him,” Sariah said. “He’s not a demon.”
Wait … This was how the scythe healed? My gut screamed at me to do it. To touch him.
“He’s dead anyway,” another voice said.
I blocked them all out, every iota of my being focused on Grayson and the conviction that I could save him. I pressed my palm to his cheek. It tingled and grew warmer, and then the clawing in the pit of my belly surged upward. It filled my chest then spiraled outward down my arm and into my palm. The white glow turned golden, and then Grayson’s veins lit up amber through his skin. The glow spread like a spider’s web.
The tugging inside me was a pulse pumping power into him—taking from a reserve deep inside me and giving it to him.
“What the fuck?” a male voice said.
“Fee, stop. You have to stop,” Sariah urged.
But Sariah’s voice was far away, and I was floating. Rising above the scene. Ooh, look, there I was, holding Grayson. Why was I so gray? He looked good, though. A little color in his cheeks, even if it was gold.
Sariah grabbed my wrist and pulled it off Grayson’s cheek, and then I was yanked down from the ceiling and slammed back into my body. My vision blazed white, and energy fizzed through me as the scythe’s power replaced what I’d lost.
What the fuck did I just do?
“What the fuck did you do?” Dean echoed my thoughts.
I blinked and stared at the faces looking down at me.
“He’s healing!” Bobby said excitedly. “The wound is knitting.”
Grayson opened his eyes. His foggy gaze sharpened and focused on me. “Seraphina …” He said my name like a prayer.
He was alive. I choked back a sob of relief. “You’re okay. We got the vamps, and you’re okay.”
His eyes popped open, and he sat up. “The vault.” He glanced around. “There are more in the vault.”
Shadows zipped around us, filling the room.
Vampires.
Too many vampires.
We were surrounded.
Chapter Seventeen
Blood coated my hands and stained my face. I stood with my back against a pillar for cover. We’d been forced to the lower chamber by the vamps. Forced to fight, and we were sorely outnumbered.
“Call it in,” Sariah shouted to me.
“What?”
“You need to call the other Dominus. You’re the only one with a direct line to them.”
I stared at my busted comm. “I can’t.”
Sariah pressed her mouth into a thin line. “I’ve sent an alert to Dayna.”
Too many vamps and two wolves wounded. At least Grayson was back on his feet. Or all fours to be exact—a massive golden wolf that was tearing into the vamps when he was able to catch them. But they were fast. We were outnumbered three to one. So much for the nests being small.
We needed backup, and we needed it now.
Uri …
I closed my eyes and channeled every ounce of earnestness I had into my words. “Uri, I need you. I need you right now.”
Sariah rushed toward me, dagger out.
What the—
A vamp froze in front of my face and then slumped to the ground and turned to ash.
Sariah glared at me. “Focus!”
“I was calling for backup.”
“I thought your comm was broken?”
“It is.”
Something hissed, and then two vamps rounded the pillar. So much for a safe spot. I swiped with my scythe, but the vamp blurred out of the way. Damn it. The scythe had too much reach. I needed my dagger, but my brain short-circuited while making the switch, and the vamp was almost on me.
Fuck.
The vampire exploded into ash, and Uri stepped through.
“You called?” he said with a wry smile.
“Fuck, I could kiss you.”
His brows shot up.
“I need backup. I need you to get the other Dominus. Tell them where we are. Please.”
He scanned the room.
“Uri, please.”
“No humans on this level. I can intervene.” He winked out.
I hope that m
eant he was getting help. If not, I’d wring his neck the next time I saw him. If I made it out of here alive.
Taking a deep breath, I dove back into the fray, scythe in hand, ready to take off some vampire heads. It was the most efficient method to stop them. Turn them to ash and stop them in their tracks. It had a ring to it. Look at me, multi-tasking. I was getting the hang of this reaper business. I was more useful than just for healing.
Grayson bounded past me and straight into the vamp who was headed toward me. The throng was thinning. Maybe we had this under control, after all. If this were one of my RPG games, I’d be doing a healing spell on my comrades and downing a potion to put my mana up. Ignoring the ache in my limbs, I kicked out at a vamp to my left, knocking him back so I could use my scythe on him.
“Not fair,” Nox said. “We should all get one of those.”
“Right?” I grinned at him. “It’s a total fail on the administration’s part.”
My humor was back. I was back. The weird Fee that had emerged around Grayson was gone. No. Not gone, just sleeping.
Where had that thought come from?
“Fee, watch your six!” Sariah’s yell cut through the chaos.
I spun and swung my blade in an arc parallel to the ground. It lodged and swept the vamp off his feet. A blur of golden fur leaped past my head, and then the vamp was no longer on my scythe. He was on the ground being torn to bits until there was nothing but ash.
Grayson raised his silver eyes to mine, and I swear he grinned, a wolfy grin, and then jerked his head up as if to say, look. Look around.
Wolves, reapers, and a handful of vamps.
Euphoria bloomed inside me because we were winning. We were actually— wait a second. Were the vamps stupid? They were severely outnumbered now. Why not run? Something was off.
My instincts were confirmed a second later as shadows whizzed into the room from every arch.
Mother of toasted bagels. A fresh wave. How? Where from? We were so screwed. We gathered back to back, wolves and reapers in the center of the room, weapons at the ready as the fanged fuckers surrounded us.
These vamps were bigger. Their faces inhuman with ridged foreheads and heavy brows. Their fangs were longer.
This was gonna hurt.
I took a deep breath and braced myself.
The vampires descended on us in a single wave. But there was movement behind them. Huge beasts, similar to wolves but not wolves, skulked into the room and surrounded the vamps.
The Rising Pack? It had to be. They had spikes on their backs and tusks, and shit, did that one have a horn in the middle of its head?
The vamps hadn’t registered the new threat. They were still focused on us. They were almost on us. Crap. The closest one leaped at me with his fingers hooked into claws and his eyes burning with bloodlust.
Fuck you, bloodsucker. Taste my scy—
Arms wrapped around me and the world fractured. It reassembled on the balcony above the action.
“Are you all right?” Conah asked.
He was here, which meant the cavalry had arrived. I shrugged out of his grip. “We have to get back down there.”
“No,” Conah said. “We can’t. We need to leave now.”
“What?”
“We don’t have authority to be here. The Rising Pack is here. They’ll deal with this. Azazel got us a dispensation on the basis that you’re new. But we need to go. Now.”
Sariah, Nox, and Nix joined us on the upper level.
I looked down at the chaos, at the wolves fighting the vamps, and caught sight of Grayson.
“We can’t leave. What about the Regency Pack?”
“Not our problem,” Conah said.
“What will happen to Grayson and his wolves?”
“Not our problem.”
Sariah pressed her lips together and focused her eyes on me. “Dominus, your orders, please.”
I wanted to punch Conah. Instead, I backed away. “We fight.”
I ran toward the stairs. I had to help. I had to speak to the Rising Pack and explain this had been my idea. They needed to know the truth.
I was halfway down the stairs when Conah’s arms snagged my waist, and the world melted away again.
Chapter Eighteen
“What the hell!” I shoved Conah away and put distance between us.
I’d heard the phrase my blood was boiling, but this was the first time I’d experienced it.
“How fucking dare you undermine my authority with my reapers?” I stood, hands on hips, chest heaving, vision blurring with rage. “How dare you take away my choice. How fucking dare you?” My voice was a screech, and yeah, I sounded insane even to my own ears, but I couldn’t help it. Fury was pulsing behind my eyes, making me feel as if my eyeballs were about to pop out of my head.
“What the fuck?” Mal entered the room. “Conah, what the fuck is going on?”
Mal was half-dressed as usual. Bare chest, bare feet, and for some reason, that just served to amplify my fury.
I leveled my boiling eyes on him. “What the fuck do you care? Why don’t you get your dick back inside whomever you were just fucking?”
“Oh, shit.” Cora appeared by the mantelpiece. “She said whomever. She only goes proper grammar when she’s pissed …”
I ignored her and focused on the two Dominus. “You made me leave them to fight alone. You made me leave.” A sob of frustration caught in my throat. “You think because I’m a woman, because I don’t have wings and can’t teleport, that you can push me around and make my decisions for me? That you can lie to me, keep secrets, and keep me fucking cooped up in these quarters. Well, you fucking can’t.” My scythe appeared in my hand. “I have a big one too, you wankers, and I’m not afraid to use it.”
I glared at them. My breathing was too fast and shallow. It was making me dizzy.
It was Mal who broke the silence. “There was a fight, and you didn’t stay to help?” he asked Conah.
“Fuck you, Mal,” Conah said. “It’s not like you were bothered. I knocked for you.”
“Not very hard. You could have teleported in and spoken to me.”
“No, thanks.” His lip curled. “I don’t need to see you fucking your whores.”
“Oh yes,” Mal said. “Because you’re not getting any love. Kiara still got her snatch closed?”
Conah snarled at Mal and I lost it.
“Shut up! Shut up, the both of you. And fuck your sex lives. I don’t give a shit. This is about me. About the wolves and the fucking vamps and what you did.” I pointed an accusatory finger at Conah.
“What happened, exactly,” Mal asked. “Fee, look at me.”
I tore my gaze from Conah and focused on Mal’s concerned expression.
“What happened, Fee,” he asked again. His tone was soothing.
I took a shuddering breath, and the scythe in my hand winked out. “I was on patrol with my reapers, Grayson, and his Loups.”
Mal blinked sharply. “You were in Westside.”
“Yes.”
“I thought patrol was tomorrow?”
Impatience and annoyance stabbed at my chest. “Things changed, okay. What the fuck does that matter?”
“Okay.” He held up his hands. “So, what happened.”
I filled them in on our scoping out the club, Grayson being taken, the weird magical corridor, my little chat with the smarmy owner, and how we’d encroached on the Rising Pack’s territory to save Grayson. “And after I healed him, more vamps arrived. They just kept coming, but we fought them off, and then he fucking came and pulled me out.” I jerked a thumb in Conah’s direction. “He didn’t let me speak to the Rising Pack and explain the situation. He left Grayson and his wolves to the mercy of the Rising Pack.” I shot dagger eyes at Conah. “What is wrong with you?”
Conah’s jaw ticked. “You broke the fucking law, Fee. You went onto their land without permission. You fucked up.”
“I wasn’t going to let a piece of paper stop me from saving a
life, and neither should you? I mean, what the fuck? What kind of people are you if you can do that? If you can just walk away when you know you can do something?”
Conah’s eyes narrowed. “This is why you’re cloistered. This is why you haven’t been allowed out there. Because you’re not ready. Our world exists on a delicate balance. There are treaties, alliances. There is protocol, and you didn’t consider any of those.”
Seriously? He was trying to turn this on me? “Because you never told me.”
“Would it have stopped you today?”
“No, and it shouldn’t stop you either.”
“We’re going around in circles,” Mal said. “I’ll contact Azazel. Get him to check on Grayson, intervene if he has to. He’s the only one of us who has access to all territories.”
He was the outlier liaison. Of course. “He should know the vamps have a witch on their payroll. They had magic.”
Mal nodded and tapped out a message on his comm.
Conah strode to the drinks cabinet and poured a large whiskey before downing it. His shoulders were tense, his knuckles white where he gripped the glass.
“Enough.” My tone was flat as the adrenaline leached from my system. “No more lies. No more treating me like I’m lesser than you. I don’t need you to baby me. I need you to trust me. To teach me and give me the choice of whether to fight or flee. I need you to treat me as your equal because I am. I fucking am, and you need to accept that.”
“Conah?” Mal said. “It’s time.”
Time? My pulse pounded harder.
Conah ran a hand over his face, and when he fixed his sapphire eyes on me, they weren’t filled with anger or disappointment. They were filled with compassion.
Ice trickled through my veins.
“What? What is it?” Cora asked on my behalf. “Shit, Conah, can’t you see you’re scaring her. What is the problem?”
Conah turned his attention to Cora. “The problem is you.”
She balked, and then her eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“What the fuck?” I walked over to Cora. “Don’t you speak to her like that.”
Reaper Uninvited: Deadside Reapers book 2 Page 11
