by Gaja J. Kos
The instant I got close, he twisted away with a snarl.
Holding the woman tighter in his arms, he hunched over her protectively, his mouth never leaving the exposed column of her neck.
Shit, this was bad. As I tested the waters, not coming closer but trying to find some better angle, I could see him monitoring my every move out of the corner of his eye. I didn’t doubt for a second he’d rip the woman’s throat out if I attacked.
If for nothing else than to spite me.
I wouldn’t be getting his kill, even if it meant sacrificing the taste of the woman’s blood for his victory. The sadistic twist on primal nature the curse had brought on disturbed me to my very core, but I didn’t let it lock me in again.
My gaze briefly flicked to the motionless woman on the ground.
I didn’t know how—if—Aric would be able to come back from this, but I had to give him a chance.
“Please, fight this, Aric,” I said, my voice steady yet deeply toned down on the dominance.
While I needed to be assertive, I also didn’t want to trigger him again.
This is just the beginning, I reminded myself, though it was hard to sink into the patience required to pull this off when every silent tick of a second made the death toll within my skull louder.
When Aric didn’t show an immediate negative reaction to my words, I pressed on, “You’re stronger than the magic. I know you, Aric. I see you. You don’t want to hurt her.”
His hunger-dark gaze drilled into mine, but his mouth kept working, depleting the woman of her blood. She’d stopped thrashing in his arms, only whimpers now escaping her lips. It wouldn’t be long until she lost consciousness.
I had to get her away from Aric. But how?
I took a tentative step forward, and Aric’s entire body tensed.
Yeah, a direct approach wasn’t going to cut it.
“Aric,” I tried again. My voice, at least, wasn’t setting him off. “Do you remember my brother? Do you remember Dominik?”
For a second, he ceased swallowing blood. The woman fell silent. Shit. I had to hurry.
I licked my lips and said, “Dominik, who has the same kind of magic in him as you do. The magic that’s convincing you you need to drink.”
Aric’s eyes flashed. For a moment, I thought I’d had him—that I’d punched through the vile cocoon that had wrapped itself around his mind.
Then Aric sank his fangs into the woman’s neck again.
The back door of the club swung open with a loud thud, and drunken voices spilled into the parking lot. Aric’s head shot up.
Screams fractured the night, but I didn’t have time to dwell on the horrific sight Aric posed to extract such a reaction. Instead, I lunged.
I yanked the woman from Aric’s arms, then twisted to set her on the ground while simultaneously delivering a kick to Aric’s side. The drunken patrons fled back into the club, and I hoped as fuck they would call for backup. The woman was still alive, but she wouldn’t last long without help.
As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t tend to her.
Not as Aric snarled and came at me, demanding my full attention.
I should have probably considered myself lucky he hadn’t rushed after the people who’d interrupted his meal. But, then again, the hex-stained predator in him would never let go of a lone, exhausted wolf he could overpower with minimum effort.
When he gazed at me with those night-dark eyes and sharp fangs out, I knew that, like with my brother, in the shifted state brought out by the hex, the person, the soul I loved, was gone.
Aric’s chest rose and fell as he watched me. There was nothing seductive in his gaze, nothing attractive about how the planes of his otherwise so heartbreakingly handsome face contorted. Because the driving fire that was Aric’s soul wasn’t there.
He was a shell shaking with hunger.
And I had no idea how to bring him back.
Through the nausea, the hurt that seemed to rake through my very spirit, a tiny whisper of an idea seemed to speak as if put there by some divine guidance.
Aric didn’t know me by sight. He didn’t know me by voice.
But maybe…
Holding onto a fool’s hope, I stepped forward.
Maybe, just maybe…
I craned my neck.
He’d know my blood.
Chapter 29
Aric’s fangs sank into my neck.
He wound his arms around me, holding me without passion or lust, and as I felt the heat of his body, as I smelled the foul magic on him while my muscles tensed in the explosion of blazing pain as he ripped into me like a walking blood bag, my worth only that of a meal…
My heart broke.
Not for me.
But for him.
Like a ghostly imprint, what Aric—the real Aric—would do if we ended up like this behind a club, me in his arms and my blood on his tongue, hovered over the harsh reality I was starting to believe I didn’t have the power to change. A tear rolled down my cheek, and I told myself it was just from the searing pain of the bite.
That it wasn’t my inability to help the vampire who deserved everything fucking good in this world that was wrecking me worse than the forceful sucking of his mouth.
With a hard mental slap that at least partially shook me free from the soul-deep sorrow, I reminded myself that I’d done this for a reason. That it had been my choice—no, my plan to put myself in this situation. I had to see it through.
But as I blinked past the haze that had settled upon my sight, my healing trying to cope with the blood loss, I also realized I’d miscalculated.
I hadn’t counted on Aric taking quite so much so fast.
Somehow, the hex had shoved Aric into an even graver famished state than the one he’d been in when Milton had sliced him up, and the only thing standing between him and death had been the blood he needed to consume to get his systems back to work.
A starved vampire, I understood.
The ravenousness stemming from it, I could comprehend.
But nothing about his craving was natural.
Not even the laws it followed.
Aric drank more, not caring about the hot liquid gushing down the side of my neck as long he got his mouthfuls in because there would always be more victims. The world presented an endless supply of the sanguine drug.
But that endless supply didn’t apply to me.
My body struggled to replenish the blood, the ratio between what I was able to regenerate and the amounts Aric claimed tipping ever more in the latter’s favor. Soon, the gap would be too large to bridge.
“Aric,” I rasped, though I wasn’t sure if his name even truly left my lips.
Holding me in the rigid cage of his arms, he fed.
Another tear rolled down my cheek.
My gamble hadn’t paid off. Aric hadn’t recognized me. Not even my blood—the blood he’d tasted in a moment that had been so raw and vulnerable I was certain not even the hex could overwrite entirely—was enough to reach that buried part of him where his conscience was being held captive.
Food. That’s all I was. All my blood was. A sustenance he was tricked into believing would sate the hunger the hex had made insatiable.
I could feel the putrid magic dangling empty promises and driving him to suck me until I was nothing more than an empty, dry husk.
I thrashed in his arms, but what little strength still remained inside me couldn’t support a single punch.
Aric ignored my struggle. I wasn’t a danger to his safety. I wasn’t even a flight threat.
My body turned heavy and light at once—
With an internal cry, I forced open my sagging eyelids, but they dropped the very next second.
I was fading.
So, I let my mind drift into the landscape of memories Aric and I had woven together.
Even if it was for me, I refused to accept this was the end for him. He was too bright, too fucking vibrant to fall into the gray.
As I r
eadied to release my white-knuckled grip on my consciousness, I let my love for him flood every last corner of my being. Even as distant as it seemed, floating somewhere beyond my reach now, I felt my body soften. Felt it surrender to the vampire I was willing to give everything to.
Even my last breath.
Aric jerked.
His mouth left my neck, and through the heavy drapes of my eyelids that had raised a crack, I glimpsed the terror shaping his features. “Gina…”
I smiled. I did it.
Then I dropped into the dark.
“No, no, no.” Aric’s voice sounded continents away.
He shuffled me around, then jammed something against my mouth. A coppery but not unpleasant scent drifted to my nostrils precisely as liquid warmth spilled across my lips..
“Gina, you have to drink.” He shoved his wrist harder against my mouth, working some of the blood inside.
A drop of it hit my tongue.
My lips parted.
The sanguine nectar flowed inside me, almost burning—yet smoother than the finest liquor I’d ever drunk. My whole body ignited as if it were touched from within by the sun, touched by velvet-darkness of Aric’s song, and a clear, untainted breeze that called to my wolf’s soul.
The elements came together in an eruption of power that irradiated my atoms.
I gasped, then wound my arms around Aric and held him tightly. The hex continued to plague his scent, but his rapid heartbeat, the way his fingers hesitantly caressed my back—it was all him.
A sob raked through me. I pulled back, taking in Aric’s face, but before I could lose myself in the relief of having him back, the reality the increasing tightness of his features reflected sank its claws into my mind and shook me straight.
“The women…” I half turned to the two bodies on the ground, then looked at Aric. “Help—”
“No.”
I stared up at him, my fingers digging into his sweat-slicked skin where they were still wrapped around his forearm.
“You have to restrain me, Gina.” His voice sliced hard through the air. “I can feel the magic inside me. I’m not sure how long I can keep it at bay.”
“But—”
Footsteps cascaded into the parking lot. Releasing Aric, I spun protectively in front of him, but the three figures who rushed around the corner weren’t enemies.
Finn’s gaze locked on mine, his steps faltering for a second, while Jorn sprinted past him to crouch beside the two women, and Sarah surveyed the scene.
“They’re still alive,” Jorn shouted.
Shaking free, Finn propelled himself forward and dropped to his knees beside Jorn. Not a second later, two vastly different yet potently light magics poured from the two men. They ensconced the women—women, both of them, who were still fighting for their lives.
“I’ll do crowd control,” Sarah announced, then blurred at vamp speed toward the back door.
I could feel Aric stiffening beside me, and I reached out to wrap my fingers around his arm.
“Help them.” I gently gestured toward Jorn and Finn. “I’ll watch over you.”
But Aric only shook his head.
For a moment, frustration arose. Was he really still keeping his whole blood healing a secret?
But then I realized it wasn’t that at all.
Aric was holding himself too still, too stiff—as if he feared even the smallest movement would trigger the hex.
“Fuck,” Jorn swore, his voice so low I would have missed it if it weren’t for my werewolf hearing.
I looked between him and Finn, both men’s faces strained. Their magic wasn’t enough. They were losing them.
“Aric, they need you,” I said softly, but with conviction Aric couldn’t ignore. “You can save the women. They aren’t dead yet. You can save them.”
The pained expression on his face made my chest clench. He was terrified, and his fear continued to leak into his scent, saturating it almost to the point that it buried all else. I slipped my hand down until our fingers entwined, then I gently led him forward.
“Finn,” I whispered, then repeated his name once more when the warlock didn’t react.
He glanced up from the women—his gaze darting between Aric and me.
“Aric needs to be restrained,” I said calmly, “but leave him free movement of one arm.”
Finn’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t question my request. I brought Aric closer. He tensed as Finn’s magic slipped around him in silken yet sturdy bands—then relaxed.
We closed the rest of the gap.
Jorn shot me a questioning look, and I mouthed “later,” then got to my knees, dragging Aric down with me. After one last second of hesitation, when the war within him raged in his scent and features alike, Aric bit into his wrist.
Blood welled from the twin punctures.
I hardly breathed when Finn dipped his chin in an all clear, but this time, Aric didn’t waver. He slipped his arm into the cocoon of power and brought it to the weaker woman’s mouth.
Within heartbeats, she began to recover. Although both Jorn and Finn continued to work their magic, their attention—much like mine—shifted to Aric’s wrist, to the woman who had not only regained a steady pulse but was also now drinking from Aric willingly. I’d never seen anything like it. Even aided by the twin power Finn and Jorn generated, the scope of Aric’s healing, the speed with which it sailed through the woman, surpassed the limits of what I’d thought was possible.
Was this ability somehow tied to the witch his maker had run with?
Discreetly, I glanced at Aric’s face, drawn in concentration, not pain.
What was it that he’d said? That any atypical abilities were linked to the way a vampire was made? A witch meddling with the transition certainly presented a valid theory as to how he came to possess such healing power.
But—I watched him bite into his wrist again, then offer it to the second woman—why healing?
Why not something more…malevolent?
From what little Aric had said of his maker, Roscoe didn’t strike me as a person who walked the straight and narrow. Quite the contrary. I got the feeling he’d been entertained by Milton’s lethal escapades—as long as Aric had been there to clean up the messes.
So, why choose to gift Aric with healing?
Unless…
Unless this was nothing but a means for Aric to keep draining people and restoring them over and over.
The thought chilled me, but as the second woman stabilized, I couldn’t help but be grateful for the ability, whatever its initial intent. Aric returned to the first woman, supporting Jorn’s and Finn’s healing as they smoothed out the last of the trauma her body had sustained, but I could see him struggling.
Not against the hex.
No, this was a curse of his own mind—the guilt and horror of facing what he’d done.
I whisked my thumb across the top of his hand I still held, letting him know I was here. That I wasn’t leaving his fucking side, no matter what.
The women’s eyes cleared, and even with the thick layer of magic tinted with drops of Aric’s blood, I could smell their renewed vitality.
Finn dropped on his haunches and looked at Aric. “They’ll be all right.”
I scanned the pained, knife-sharp lines of Aric’s face.
The women would be all right.
But would he?
Chapter 30
My gaze roamed across Aric’s shackled form lying prone and unconscious on the hospital bed. Five witches stood around him like the points of a pentagram to represent the five elements, with Mara captaining their joint effort from her Spirit position. Although their magic was invisible to the eye, it was somehow palpable despite the thick glass separating me from the cell turned infirmary.
Cell turned infirmary.
Because no one had dared put Aric in our regular hospital wing. Not with the very real possibility of all that could go wrong if the witches failed looming over us.
A
wise precaution. An understandable precaution.
But one that nonetheless wrecked my already shot nerves and transformed hope into some flimsy concept I could maybe touch but never truly feel. Besides, it didn’t help that the very cells in my body seemed to remember—
A gentle touch anchored on my shoulder blade.
I jerked, then swore. Shit, I’d been so focused on Aric, I hadn’t smelled or heard Zaynab approach.
“Gina…” Affection and no small amount of concern deepened the lovely browns of her eyes. “He’ll be all right.”
I wanted to believe her, I really, truly fucking did, but the sight of Aric losing control when we’d transported him to HQ had imprinted not just on my brain but also scarred my heart as if someone had thrust a branding iron straight into the damn thing.
That instant, that vicious moment when the hex had wiped away the struggling, fighting Aric I knew and had replaced him with a nightmare that would have gone straight for our throats had Finn’s magic not held him in place, refused to release me from its grasp.
I still recalled the vicious snarls and vitriol he spewed when he realized he was bound. The absolute murder in his gaze.
We had to knock him out in the end.
I grunted and rubbed my face.
Maybe it was my exhaustion making things worse. Maybe I was falling into a spiral of my own making, so familiar from all the years I’d dragged witches over to my aunts’ place to examine Dominik, only to hear the same bad news over and over again.
Permanent.
Incurable.
Maybe it was all that shit combined that was responsible for this godsawful downer mindset, but I just didn’t have it in me to fucking see this turning out all right.
Zaynab drew comforting circles on my back, then, as if reading my wretched state, said, “It’s not the same as Dominik’s curse.”
“But just as stubborn,” I muttered, then released a tense breath.
I wasn’t even sure how long we’d all been here. A day? More?
All I remembered since rushing into HQ and relaying what happened to the witches was Finn, Jorn, and Sarah bringing me food and drink. Zaynab practically dragging me away to shower.
