by Kari Gregg
But Garrick wasn’t human.
He didn’t need her caution.
He needed the familiarity of her touch, her scent.
He needed her blood.
Kate’s hand poised a stingy inch above his slack mouth. Only wild desperation could’ve forced her to bite the seeping punctures into her wrist, especially since the virus healed those wounds so rapidly they closed within minutes unless reopened. She’d gagged the first time she’d bitten her own flesh, her stomach literally turning in horror at what she’d done, and man, had it hurt. Not that she’d ever expected it not to. She’d stabbed her incisors into her wrist until she drew blood. Of course it’d hurt. Only a moron would believe otherwise. Luc and Garrick had made it look so easy, though…
Blood slipped in a slow plopping cadence from her dangling fingers to his lips.
Well, whatever her reticence, her initial gut-wrenching reluctance, she’d overcome it long since.
She’d torn the ragged punctures in her wrist back open countless times in the past hours, felt the cumulative blood loss in the weary beat of her pulse, the heavy drag on her body, the fatigue that made clear and coherent thinking nigh impossible.
Still, Garrick did not stir. “It’s all right, Luc. Go.”
He frowned at her. “I’ll return as soon as I can.”
But he didn’t leave.
She curved her lips, tried to hide her exhaustion from him. “You’re headed north, toward Westwego. A lot of bayou, but not many homes until you get closer to New Orleans, which is too dangerous. So you’ll range a farther, wider circle, stick to the rural areas to avoid drawing attention. You could be gone several hours. I know, Luc. It’s okay.”
His lips thinned to a harsh, disapproving line. “No, it’s not okay!” He beat a fist against the frame of the door.
Kate’s temper snapped. “He needs blood, and I can’t get it for him, Luc.”
“Do you think he’d thank me for jeopardizing your safety?” He jerked a furious shoulder. “If another of our kind stumbles on Pridemore while I’m gone, you’ll be vulnerable.”
Her mouth curled to a chiding sneer. “His damned werewolves will protect me.” The pack of weres had sworn to lay down their lives, if need be, to defend her. Perversely, she believed they would.
But these were the very same weres that had poisoned Garrick and flogged him within an inch of his life, so it was hard to feel magnanimous.
Breath by ragged breath, she felt Garrick slipping away from her. Heartbeat by stuttering heartbeat.
He was dying.
She was powerless to stop it.
Even Luc, who had worked so feverishly to heal Garrick at first, had pulled back as his condition had worsened. The only reason she’d persuaded him to hunt for fresh blood to replenish Garrick was her threat to do it herself if he refused.
“It’d take the entire pack to take one of us down. The masters draw nearer in their search for us, every day, and they’ve armies of servants and slaves with them.” Luc swore under his breath. “Leaving you is too great a risk.”
“You almost starved the both of us to death in Chicago because you were afraid to leave me. Don’t make that mistake again.” She glared at him. “Get out of here, Luc. And don’t come back until you have blood for him.”
“I’ll hunt for more blood,” he said, dark eyes narrowing on the slow trickle that spattered to Garrick’s lips, “if you give him no more of yours.”
Her brow furrowed. She bit back a curse.
He meant it.
She didn’t need to link with him to know by the rigid tension in his body that her guardian meant every word. Even if Garrick died before he returned. Even though his death would spell their doom.
Luc’s caution would kill them all.
“I’m fine.”
“Kate,” he growled in warning.
Her lips pursed. “Oh, all right. Have it your way.” She yanked her hand back, rubbing her wrist to speed its healing.
Luc’s head dipped to a sharp nod. “Don’t think to reopen the wound once I’ve left.” He tapped his temple with his finger. “I’ll know.”
Watching his retreating back, Kate was painfully aware that what he said was true.
Luc would know.
If she gave Garrick a drop of her blood, her guardian would race back to her.
Kate was counting on that.
But, alone in their rooms after he’d gone, she waited.
She whispered to Garrick. Murmured into his ear. Caressed his unresponsive body. She reached out to touch his mind more tenaciously and more often. “Hold on, Rick. Just a little longer.”
Of course, he didn’t answer either her soothing touch or her urgent mental pleas.
Garrick hadn’t stirred since the day before.
More alarmingly, his presence had faded then disappeared from her mind too.
She hadn’t told Luc. Hadn’t dared. Mating to Garrick, it was she, rather than her guardian, who now had the stronger connection with the elder vampyr. As Garrick had weakened, Kate’s link with him had outlasted Luc’s, but no matter how she’d tried, she hadn’t been able to reach Garrick for hours. Already fighting against a hunt to restore his blood, Kate had used her intimacy with her mate to conceal their increasingly dire circumstances from Luc. So he would do what she could not. If he’d known, there was not a promise or threat in the world that would’ve parted Luc from her.
So far, so good.
Garrick was still dying, but she’d persuaded Luc to relent. To hunt.
Voraciously.
She kept a loose connection with her guardian in the background of her mind. Not because he’d insisted on it, though he had. Not to ease his acute and mindless fears, though it did. Definitely not to quiet her alarm and trepidation. Nothing could do that now except Garrick’s survival.
Kate maintained the link to monitor Luc’s hunt.
She felt the thrumming increase in his pulse when he found and fed from his first human. If she trembled when her guardian moved on to a quick second and third victim, if her heart clutched in horror to be so exultant at his success, nobody knew it but her.
The shivery, soul-numbing terror she’d felt, too, when she’d been stalked as human prey faded in comparison to Garrick’s overwhelming need.
But as Luc’s body vibrated with the influx of energy, of life, when he hurried on to track another victim, Kate tucked her head into the crook of Garrick’s shoulder for comfort.
Because his deadweight, the slackness of Garrick’s body, tore at her more fiercely than the unmitigated panic of the humans Luc fed from. In her guardian’s head, sharing his thoughts, she’d felt their fear. Their apprehension.
She should be revolted.
Sickened by the efficiency of Luc’s merciless pursuit of blood.
She wasn’t.
She was too relieved.
Luc’s quarry sacrificed only a unit of blood each, a short ten minutes of their lives.
Garrick’s death would cost much more.
Besides, it wasn’t all that bad for Luc’s prey.
Kate had also shared their crushing relief, had known their peace when her guardian had mesmerized them to complacency for the feeding. The memories Luc supplanted to replace those of the hunt weren't anything like Kate's horrendous experience when she had been bitten.
It’s not like the humans were being callously traumatized.
Kate’s snuggled closer to Garrick, basked in the warmth of his body, the comfort of his scent.
Maybe it was time she finally admitted, if only to herself, that something inside her had shifted. In the past days and hours, she wasn’t sure when, she’d changed. Fundamentally.
She couldn’t lie to herself.
Not anymore.
She was no longer human.
Oh, if she stepped back, tried for a little clinical self-evaluation, finding pieces of herself that held on to her non-vampyr sacred cows wouldn’t be difficult. Her heart still seized in fright at the
vampyr that had mysteriously become as important to her as her next breath, wondered in stunned dread that Garrick had become so vital to her so quickly. Drinking blood was just as gut-wrenching, the werewolves equally bizarre, and she absolutely detested either Luc or Garrick crawling around in her head. Those things bothered her. Those things shook her to her core.
Other things didn’t.
And should have.
Luc hunting for blood?
Nope.
Garrick needed it, so Luc preying on humans wasn’t just an absolute necessity—it was a welcome development.
Connecting with her guardian?
Even when doing so meant sharing his thrill of the hunt?
She sighed.
That didn’t bother her at all.
If anything, she encouraged and prodded Luc’s feral anticipation to hasten him along.
Kate wasn’t human anymore, no.
She was a vampire.
She shook her head against the cradle of Garrick’s neck and shoulder.
No, if she was going to do this, she’d do it right.
She wasn’t a vampire.
She was vampyr.
And as long as it’d taken her to come to terms with that, it was time both Garrick and Luc realized it too.
When Luc had glutted himself on so many humans his body shuddered with the power infusing it, Kate lifted over Garrick’s chest.
The wolfsbane Peter had flung on his open wounds had raced into his bloodstream, polluted his body, saturated his tissues and organs. Burning pain had progressed to prickling weakness that had hardly been slowed by the blood she’d given him. His pulse had dwindled to a shallow, thready rhythm. His chest struggled to rise and fall.
At least after caring for Garrick and sharing his experience through their link, she knew what to expect when the wolfsbane hit her.
Kate leaned close to his neck, listened hard for the failing beat of his heart.
Killing him would be easy.
The trick would be reviving Garrick before the poison paralyzed her heart and lungs along with his.
She frowned.
No, the trick was timing it to ensure Luc returned to Pridemore in time to fetch the antidote the pack had adamantly refused Garrick.
The weres had denied treatment that would help her mate.
But they wouldn’t deny it to Kate.
Not after they’d sworn their loyalty to her.
Luc had been cursing “the damned savages” when he’d let that slip. The pack wouldn’t save Garrick, because he had stood in Olivia’s place and substituted for her still. The weres would’ve executed the female alpha, so they’d done all they could to execute Garrick in her stead.
But they’d never, ever allow Kate to be killed along with him.
Her lips curved to a sly smile.
Garrick wasn’t the only vampyr who could equal Machiavelli’s ruthless deceit.
She bit.
Her mouth began tingling within moments.
Then burned.
Dear God, how it burned.
The shrieking pain built like fire, blistering her lips, scorching her tongue, but she fed at the wound, pitilessly sucked the life’s blood from Garrick’s overburdened body.
When the scalding sensation streaked from her mouth to spread over her skin, she re-tuned her mind with Luc’s, only now leaving herself wide open to him. And so introduced her guardian to the excruciating snap of taut nerve endings. She shared the torturous, crippling clench of her stomach when the poison reached her internal organs.
“Bébé, no!”
She lifted from Garrick’s neck, hers corded to ride out the hellacious pain. He was dead. He had to be dead, but groaning out her anguish, Kate straightened the stiff claws her fingers had curved into, forced them to move to the punctures she’d made.
“Oh God, what’ve you done?”
She ignored Luc’s horrified moan, his fear. Instead, she moved her fingers over Garrick’s neck. She needed to check his pulse. Her other hand unfisted to settle over his chest. Though the pain was hideous, she ignored her guardian’s mounting terror and bent low to Garrick’s mouth, pressing her ear to his nose to feel for his breath.
She had to be sure.
Her heart slowed while she patiently waited for any sign of life from him.
Precious seconds ticked by.
Nothing.
“Hold on. I’m coming. God help me, I’m coming.”
Triumph glittered along with agony in her eyes. Because while hers struggled, skipped an increasingly lethargic beat, Garrick’s heart didn’t beat at all.
With more effort than Kate would’ve believed possible, she lifted her hand from his chest, fisted it to make her veins swell to prominence, and brought her wrist to her mouth. Her teeth slashed, making a clumsy wound that gushed scarlet.
“Hurry,” she mentally whispered to Luc, teeth clenched as she shoved the spurting wound to Garrick’s pale lips. “I don’t know how much longer I can last.” Then she shut her guardian out, ruthlessly closed her mind against him.
Not knowing if she lived or died would spur Luc to greater haste.
Besides, her guardian was so distraught, she couldn’t afford the distraction.
Instead, she focused her entire being on Garrick.
She rubbed her blood against his mouth, angled her wrist so her jetting blood filled it. Her body weaved shakily, but she fought the poison’s ruinous effects on her heart and lungs. She concentrated, struggled to break into his thoughts, the closed-off portions of his mind. Too much blood spouted from her body, streaming wasted down his chin.
She almost wept at the feral punch of his roiling emotions when he finally let her in. His desperate need, the giddy relief. And overriding both, his awesome love for her. If she wasn’t so annoyed by the certainty that he’d planned this all along, Kate might’ve reveled in it. But right now, she was too scared. “Feed, Garrick. Feed, or we both die.”
“I won’t let you die, love. I couldn’t. Any more than you could bear watching it kill me.”
When she stroked his trachea to stimulate the pharyngeal reflex, he swallowed, weakly swallowed.
Relieved tears burned her eyes. “Did you have to make this so scary?”
“If blood-mating didn’t terrify us, more would die attempting it.” His hand lifted moments later, clamped her wrist to his ravenous mouth. He groaned gluttonous satisfaction. “What took you so long?”
* * *
Kate glared venomous hatred at Peter as he sat across the living room from her. Sat? No, he sprawled, arm curled around the little redhead he’d introduced as his new mate. The were woman, already swollen with child, quivered against him, shooting terrified glances at Kate.
As though Kate had been the one to inflict the vicious beating, had spilled Garrick’s blood, torn his flesh—
“Kate?” Garrick handed her the coffee service he’d retrieved from the kitchen upon the weres’ arrival and, wincing, eased himself down beside her on the loveseat. He leaned cautiously against the sofa cushions, bare chested because the slashes across his back remained too tender to be covered with a shirt, the slashes Peter had whipped into him too raw. But Garrick only nodded to the pair of weres once he’d settled in the most comfortable position possible, which wasn’t very given the extent of his injuries. “Serve them.”
Eyes narrowed to angry slits, she shifted forward to pour.
Garrick flinched.
She whipped her attention to him, stricken. “We shouldn’t do this. You’re in no condition to—”
“Pour the fucking coffee, Kate,” Garrick said through gritted teeth.
Peter snickered.
Tight-lipped, Kate sloshed hot coffee into two delicate china cups.
“Elise takes hers light, with two sugars.” Peter’s lips curled to a sly grin. “I like mine black.”
Biting her tongue to restrain a scathing retort, Kate added a dollop of creamer and twin sugars to one cup before shoving them forward. H
ardly gracious, but the best she could summon at the moment. Kate ignored both weres, taking special care in remaining as still as she could as she settled back on the couch. Garrick kissed the crown of her head in mute gratitude.
Peter sipped at his cup. “Thank you, Kate. Elise?”
“Thank you.”
“Ah, the mouse squeaks.”
Garrick growled her name in warning in her mind, but outwardly, he tucked her against his side. She tried to ease her weight from him. “I’ll hurt you.” Even the lightest of touches must hurt, but he tugged her adamantly to him.
He stared with grim determination at the weres. “You’re worth it.”
“Show them you cherish the body that endured a beating for you.”
Kate flashed her eyes up to his, hers wide and glimmering with sharp regret. “I do! If I had known…I would have never…” She swallowed the lump in her throat, still aching and wounded by all that he’d suffered.
But she obeyed.
Careful not to aggravate his injuries further, she snuggled against Garrick, burying her face in his chest so the weres wouldn’t have the satisfaction of seeing her cry. “I’m so sorry.”
“So. When’s Elise due?” Garrick said tipping his head toward the were female, his free hand stroking Kate’s shoulder.
“Any day now,” Peter replied, his voice a lazy drawl. “Twins.”
“Congratulations, Elise. Peter will be a fine protector for you and your children.”
The mouse sneaked a peek from the crook of Peter’s arm. “I’m very grateful to him.” Then she shoved her nose back into the shadowy bulk of Peter’s body, trembling visibly.
Garrick squeezed Kate’s shoulder. “We’re very sorry for your loss.”
Peter grunted. “Barry was a good man. A strong member of the pack. He will be missed.”
Kate turned her eyes away from them all.
“Kate.”
She ignored Peter.
Hated him.
“You can’t go on punishing him, love.”
Though she knew she hurt him, Kate curled deeper into Garrick’s embrace when she heard the rustle of his clothes as Peter stood, heard the were’s whispered reassurances to Elise before he circled the coffee table to crouch at her feet. “Won’t you even ask what happened to Barry? This woman’s mate. Father to her children.”
