He and Bennett were playing cat and mouse between the shadows, but I had a clear shot of them both. “Let me go,” I said to Maciah, focusing my own power on keeping me upright.
He did as I asked, and I grabbed my crossbow with shaking hands. I wasn’t sure my aim would be true, but I badly wanted one less traitorous vampire in this fight.
I brought the bow up to my shoulder and took a deep breath. Maciah stood behind me with his hands loosely holding my waist.
Eddie was keeping a steady pace, and I timed his movements as he seemed to be darting between every third tree.
As soon as Eddie disappeared into the shadows again, I pulled the trigger, anticipating where he’d reappear. Sure enough, my stake pierced him, but not in the chest. The arrow struck his arm, pinning it to his side and throwing Eddie off balance.
Bennett took the opportunity to leap onto Eddie’s back. Nikki came racing around the corner just in time for all of us to watch Bennett dig his fingers into Eddie’s neck. It seemed as if Bennett leaned in and whispered something to Eddie, but none of us could hear the words.
Just as I suspected Eddie’s head to come off, a wave of dark energy blasted us from behind. I stumbled back to the ground, landing on my hands and knees with Maciah right beside me.
Sam was nowhere to be seen, and I hoped that was a good thing for the she-wolf.
The normal white wisps of original power inside me were tinged with a murky grey color. I started with my arms and tried to expunge whatever it was, but no amount of shaking was breaking the dark energy loose from me.
Viktor was stalking toward us, his lips tilted up, but not quite smiling. His eyes were a dark crimson, and every step he made seemed calculated.
Maciah was struggling to stand, and I made it to my feet first, doing my best to help him just as he’d done for me, but every movement was more difficult than the last.
Viktor held his hand out, his eyes only staring at me. “My prize. Come join me.”
I pulled the remaining potion from my chest and threw it at the vampire. Viktor moved out of the way, but Beatrix was smarter than that. Her spell spread wide, and the impact of the small explosion rocked all of us.
I couldn’t see where Viktor might have been hit, but that didn’t matter. Whatever hold he’d had on us with his dark magic was broken, and that was a win for us.
CHAPTER 22
Once the smoke from the explosion settled, Viktor was nowhere to be seen, but neither was his dark energy, so I wasn’t too nervous.
I grabbed Maciah’s hand, drawing on our bond and focusing on my abilities. I had to be able to find Viktor, even if I couldn’t see him.
The heaviness I’d been covered in only a minute before had completely dissipated, and my power shot out of me, desperate to get free—an action I hadn’t experienced since before Beatrix did her juju on me.
“Are you okay?” Maciah demanded, but I held my hand up, silently asking him to give me a minute.
I could taste the sourness of Viktor’s dark energy. He was close, but I couldn’t tell what direction he’d gone. As I continued my search, using only my mind, I sensed that the bigger part of the fight had stayed at the house. Vampires and wolves alike were still battling against each other.
Holden and some of his pack had stayed, but they seemed to be keeping to the outer parts of the battle, doing their best to make sure everyone was contained. A small, but impactful job we hadn’t thought of.
“Is she okay?” I heard Rachel ask.
Maciah must have nodded and signaled for them to be quiet, because my concentration wasn’t interrupted again.
I searched for another minute before snarling. “He’s gone.”
“What do you mean?” Maciah asked with a growl of his own.
“I mean his tainted energy is left behind, but I can’t find him within a mile radius of this very spot.” That fact pissed off every single one of us. We’d worked so hard to get him here, to set him up for a fight he didn’t think we were prepared for.
I hadn’t taken Viktor for a coward, but his lack of appearance was proving every predisposition I had about the old vampire wrong.
“Where’s Nikki and Bennett?” Rachel asked.
I glanced behind us expecting to see them both there, but they weren’t. Not even Eddie.
A wolf howled from the forest and my gut twisted. Something was wrong. I knew it as soon as the howl cut off and nobody came out of the trees.
I took a hesitant step forward with my crossbow raised. There was movement beyond the shadows, but I couldn’t tell what or who was there.
My skin burned with energy, my heart raced with dread, and the fight around us grew quieter by the second. Even still, I pressed my energy out once again, searching for our target. I found him. Only it was too late.
“No,” Rachel cried out softly at the same time I saw them.
Viktor had Nikki and Bennett each held by their necks, both of them hanging limp and seemingly unconscious.
Viktor’s beady red eyes met my hardened gaze. “You had a choice, Amersyn. You could have come to me willingly, but instead, you asked your friends to risk their lives in some feeble attempt to kill me. I tried to tell you before, but you didn’t listen, and now they’ll pay for your stubbornness.”
Before any of us could move, Viktor tightened his hold on Nikki and Bennett until their bodies crumpled to the ground, separated from their heads. The deaths were quick and likely painless, given their slack forms.
My eyes cast to my feet for the briefest of seconds. I wasn’t strong enough to watch them turn to ash. I couldn’t. Not when Rachel wailed next to me and Maciah’s pain soaked through me, overshadowing my own.
My throat burned with heightened emotions—a mix of grief, rage, and something I couldn’t identify—as a white light grew within me. The wisps I’d always associated with my inherited power took a solid shape, pulsing inside me in time with the shifting of my emotions.
By the time I looked back up, Nikki and Bennett were officially gone, and Viktor was still standing at the tree line.
“Will you allow your other friends to find the same fate as these two, Amersyn? Or will you surrender yourself to me?” Viktor taunted, but the four of us had pushed beyond the shock and grief Viktor intentionally overwhelmed us with.
The shared wrath of Maciah, Zeke, Rachel, and myself swirled within each of us as we took a calculated step forward. No matter how hard this loss was going to hit, I knew none of us would let Nikki and Bennett’s deaths be in vain.
Viktor would not best us. He wasn’t going to take everything from me. Not a second time. Nikki and Bennett were the only wins that bastard would get, and he would pay for their lives dearly.
I charged for him with the others at my side, and renewed energy buzzed along my skin as I collided in the air with Viktor, doing something I probably should have tested first, but I was all out of cares to give.
With my energy coating my skin, I gathered as much of it as I could into my palm before slamming my hand against Viktor’s chest, hoping to stun the bloodsucker before we took him down.
Maciah jerked me back before my feet touched the ground, but my eyes never left Viktor as the three of us crashed to the ground. I recovered quickly and pulled a stake from my hip, determined to send it through Viktor’s chest.
The bastard rolled out of the way, and the stake lodged into the dirt instead of his heart. Viktor blurred left then right and left again before he launched himself at me.
I met him in the middle once again, my hands reaching for his neck. His fist connected with my stomach, sending me ten feet in the opposite direction, but Maciah was there to catch me while Rachel and Zeke used more of Beatrix’s spells.
Explosion after explosion went off in front of us until we couldn’t see Viktor, but I wasn’t going to let him out of my sight. Not again.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered to Maciah when I darted past him and into the cloud of smoke the potions had caused.
&nb
sp; I couldn’t see a thing, but my senses didn’t rely on only sight. I listened for the vampire, knowing he had to have been hit by at least one of the potions. I searched for his mind, hoping to incapacitate him before my eyes found him.
A hand grabbed on to my ankle, and I kicked out, enjoying the crunching sound that followed the impact of my foot. I bent down, channeling my power through my arms and into my palms as my hands wrapped around Viktor’s neck.
When I pulled him out of the smoke, he was smirking. “I’m going to take everything from you.”
Little did I know, Zeke and Rachel were behind me and Viktor blasted them with dark energy that made me want to vomit as the bits of black magic floated over my skin toward their target.
I yanked Viktor’s neck, throwing him toward the ground and pummeling my fist into his face. “You aren’t taking anything else from me, you sick twisted bastard.”
Viktor laughed in my face. “If I can’t have my prize, then no one will.”
His elbow came up and slammed into my left side, but I wasn’t letting the bloodsucker go. We rolled together, and I caught sight of Maciah again as I ended up on my back.
My protector. He was right there, ready to act if I needed him, but not interfering with what I had to do. This was my fight to finish. Viktor was here because of me. He’d killed my family in search of me. I had to show him what a mistake he had made. I had to do this. Not on my own, but with the support of those I’d grown to love and trust.
Viktor grabbed hold of my shoulders, trying to pin me down, but I wasn’t the weak little girl he’d been hunting all these years.
Maciah disappeared from my peripheral, hopefully going to Rachel and Zeke once he realized I was handling Viktor for the moment. In Maciah’s place was a set of furious wolf eyes.
Sam leapt from the forest with her teeth bared and claws out. Her paw landed on Viktor’s chest, ripping open his skin before she snapped her jaws, seeming to wait for my permission to end him.
Unfortunately, Viktor wasn’t out of his tricks. Before I could consider giving Sam permission to rip the vampire’s head off, Viktor reached for my arm and threw me behind him with little effort. By the time I got to my feet, he had Sam’s wolf by the neck and was squeezing the life out of her, just as he’d done to Nikki and Bennett.
With a guttural roar, I charged at Viktor. I hardly knew Sam, but she was here fighting for us, and I wasn’t going to let her die.
A wave of power left me just before my hand shoved into Sam’s wolf in hopes of sending her soaring as far away from Viktor as possible. Maciah, Zeke, and Rachel were all headed my way, allowing my chest to release some of the tension I’d been holding in since Zeke and Rachel had taken the hit, but I couldn’t focus on them for long.
With another stake in hand, I jammed the pointed tip into Viktor’s chest. He flipped us around, throwing my aim off, and I ended up hitting his collarbone, but I wasn’t done. Not even when I could feel his energy recharging, ready to strike me at a moment’s notice.
As Viktor knocked us back to the ground, my hands reached up for his neck. He was hovering above me, and his dark magic crawled over my skin. Thankfully, I was prepared for that, letting my original power battle with the evil energy.
His lips parted, showing off his long fangs that were ready to rip my throat out. “I’m going to kill you,” he sneered, moving closer.
“Only in your dreams,” I spat, gathering my own power.
With a force I didn’t know I was capable of, I slammed one of my hands into Viktor’s chest while the other stayed wrapped around his neck. I managed to knock him off balance before shoving the bastard onto his back. The impact rattled Viktor long enough for me to scramble on top of him, pinning him to the ground. I shoved my forearm against his throat as I pressed my other hand over his chest again.
He bucked underneath me, and my hold jostled, but Maciah, Zeke, and Rachel were right there with me, exactly when I needed them most. Maciah and Zeke each grabbed one of Viktor’s arms as Rachel disappeared behind me, presumably grabbing his legs.
I kept one hand on his chest, using my power to keep him mostly immobile as I reached for another stake—the last one I hoped to need for the night.
My eyes met Viktor’s cold ones. There wasn’t a trace of fear or regret in them. He was a sick, murderous bastard through and through, but that stopped now.
“This is for my mother,” I hissed as I pierced his chest with the stake, thankful my friends were keeping him still.
The last remnants of dark magic exploded from him, knocking each of us back, but the impact was nothing compared to what Viktor had been throwing around before. When I got to my feet, I was certain we’d won and that the battle was over, but there was no stake protruding from Viktor’s chest as he rolled over to face me.
Mother-effing effer. Why wouldn’t he just die?
He had only made it to his hands and knees by the time I shook off the heavy energy and blurred back to the vampire, not wasting a second on shock or fury. My hands grabbed on to his neck just as he’d done to our friends, and my nails cut into his skin with ease. He tried to throw himself backward, forcing me onto my back, but I was stronger, and I wasn’t letting go of him. Not for any reason. Not even as I caught the sight of Sam’s wolf prone on the ground and unmoving behind us.
With a ferocious scream, I squeezed harder on the bastard, uncaring about anything else until I removed his head from his neck.
Viktor was clawing at my arms, but I was done playing his games. I leaned forward and ripped a chunk of his neck out with my fangs before sinking my fingers into the injury while my other hand pressed down on his shoulder.
“Die, you son of a bitch!” With focused effort, his head finally tumbled off, but I didn’t move away from the gore. My hold stayed on him until fissures formed along his body and ash scattered all around me.
I dropped to my knees, searching for Maciah, Zeke, Rachel, and Sam. My eyes spotted the wolf first. Her eyes were still unmoving, but her body was twitching as she fought against the remaining hold of Viktor’s energy. Another wolf was racing toward her, so I moved on, looking for others.
Maciah’s hand wrapped loosely around my ankle as he groaned. He was on the ground behind me, dark veins protruding from his neck.
My hands gently pulled him closer toward me. There was a large hole in his shirt where he’d been hit with Viktor’s energy. The skin wasn’t broken, but it was dark and angry and hot as I ran my fingers lightly over the marks that resembled char.
Maciah’s breath stuttered, and then he went limp in my arms. He was no longer breathing or making a sound, but he also wasn’t turning to ash, so hope wasn’t lost. Not yet.
Zeke had his arm around Rachel as they hobbled together, kneeling beside me. “Is he…” Rachel tried to ask, but a sob cut off her words.
“I don’t know,” I said, stroking Maciah’s head and frustrated that his wounds weren’t healing. I couldn’t lose him now. We’d won. We stopped Viktor. It was time for our peace. I couldn’t have that without Maciah at my side.
“Maybe we can call Beatrix. She might not have wanted to fight, but she might be able to handle this,” Zeke suggested.
“We don’t have time for that.” I didn’t know how long we had, but the warmth I normally felt from Maciah was slipping away by the second and panic was beginning to choke me.
“What if you gave him some of your blood?” Zeke asked, and I was confused.
“What?”
“You’re bonded. I could get blood from the house, but given the two of you have shared blood before, this might be better,” Zeke explained.
It was worth a try. We’d only bitten each other twice, but the magical connection when we did was undeniable both times. Without wasting another second, I extended my fangs and used them to cut my wrist. Blood began to pool as I opened Maciah’s lips.
Drips fell on his chest as I moved my arm toward him and positioned my wrist over his mouth. He wasn’t actively feed
ing from me, and I hoped I wasn’t going to make things worse by choking him.
With that thought, I used my other hand to angle his head up just to be sure.
“Look,” Rachel said and pointed to his chest.
Smoke was rising, and as I swiped at the blood I trickled on him, the smoke cleared, as did the char marks on his chest.
“It’s working,” I said, tears filling my eyes in relief.
I switched hands when I felt my wrist begin to heal and opened the veins on the other one, placing it against Maciah’s lips.
He groaned and began to jerk his body around, so I pulled my arm back and held his face tightly. “It’s okay, Maciah. You’re okay. We’re okay,” I said softly until he settled, and his eyes began to flutter.
“Viktor…he…” Maciah muttered.
“I know, but he’s dead now and you’re going to be okay.” My throat burned with emotion as my words registered with my heart.
We’d done it. Viktor was dead. But once again, the price of winning hadn’t been cheap. We’d lost Nikki and Bennett, and I was sure there were others as well. Their lives would forever be remembered for what they sacrificed today.
My biggest hope was that Nikki and Bennett found each other again. They deserved that and so much more for their sacrifice.
Rachel and Zeke moved in closer, each of them wrapping an arm around us. We shared a moment of silence for our friends and a collective sigh of relief at the knowledge that Viktor couldn’t take anyone else from us. Not now or ever again.
CHAPTER 23
Several hours later, morning came, but the rising sun brought no smiles. Lives had been lost. Hearts shattered. Worlds broken.
Losing Nikki and Bennett wasn’t the only massive hit taken. Holden’s wolves had lost two of their people while Sam’s pack had Paul taken from them. He’d died taking a bullet that was meant for Collin, and judging by the look on Collin’s sullen face, the wolf was wishing the roles had been reversed.
Sam nodded stiffly at Maciah and me. “We’re going to head home. Thank you for the car.”
Vampire Vow (Scorned by Blood Book 3) Page 15
