by Kari Gregg
Garrick left the pair to bicker and walked to Kate instead. He grasped her arm, but not in anger. His fear was a terrible black void inside him that sucked all warmth and vitality into its greedy maw. “That is not so for you, love. Your vampyr is new, your power nascent.” He tipped his head to Isabel. “Someday. But for you, not yet.”
What he wanted, more than anything else, was to pull her into his arms and just stay there. Forever. He’d give anything to just rest his forehead to her shoulder, feel her fingers twining in his hair and just weep. Pain squeezed his throat. “I can’t lose you too.”
Color drained from her face. “Luc?”
“He’s alive. For now.” Garrick’s head jerked in a stiff nod when a pair of beasts appeared at her side. “Peter will see to your safety in my stead. Tim?”
The gray beast plopped in the dirt by Kate, but the much younger black, coat streaked with gore and mud, fastened his teeth around Garrick’s fingers to guide him to the fields to the east.
“Time is a luxury Luc can ill afford.” Garrick pulled his hand away. “Run. Find the injured master. I’ll follow.”
* * *
When he returned, Peter sprawled, naked and smeared with mud, at Kate’s feet in the barn’s smoldering interior. His chest heaved in exhaustion, his body spent, but a wide smile stretched across his soot-streaked face. Kate, Aidan, and Isabel argued in low voices, paying no attention to the blood-spattered were.
Garrick wouldn’t ignore the traitorous mutt.
Fresh fury made his blood pump urgent haste, made his grip on his bloody sword contract and compress with the demanding rhythm of his heart. “You deliberately disobeyed me,” he snapped at Peter.
The were focused happy, adoring eyes on him. “I shifted, and she didn’t blink. None of them did.”
Garrick’s lips pulled back in an enraged snarl.
“Oh, put a sock in it.” Kate shoved at him when he would’ve kicked foul temper at Peter. “If I’m not safe under the care and protection of your stupid prince—”
Aidan glowered. “I resent that.”
“You resemble that.” Kate turned eyes that flashed wrath and indignation on Garrick. “He thinks you should kill Luc.” She crossed her arms and glared, the determined jut of her chin daring him to agree. “He won’t let me near him.”
If his heart wasn’t breaking, he might’ve laughed at the livid tap of her foot, but instead, he tugged her hand from her chest, cradled it in his. “Luc’s too dangerous.”
“He would never, ever hurt me.” She yanked on her hand, but he didn’t release it. “And no matter how you try to shield me from him…” Her dark eyes glistened. “He needs me.”
Garrick swore, fluently, under his breath. He’d pushed Luc’s cries for help to the perimeters of his mind while he’d pursued Krystiyan. The young vampyr was fighting the compulsion, but his sly mental pleading for help alternated with increasingly faint warnings to stay away. Garrick had finally caught up with Krystiyan, taken his head, and released Luc from that master’s influence. Only then had Luc found the strength to once again demand death to end his torment.
He’d shielded Kate from that slice of hell, but he should’ve guessed she’d sense his growing need to respond to Luc’s anguish. To go to him. Comfort him. Beg his patience while Garrick worked to free him from the dark master’s ruinous, enthralling blood.
Kate’s nature was too loving, too giving.
She’d pay no heed to Garrick’s equally steadfast refusal to do any of those things.
“The masters who still live will use him and our love for him to trap us, if they can. Even with his body a crippled wreck, they’ll force him to attack anyone who draws near him now.” Garrick squeezed Kate’s hand. “Luc would not forgive me if I risked you. He’ll hurt you. Right now, he’d hurt all of us. He can’t help himself.”
Tears spiked her eyelashes. “But he’s dying.”
Garrick tore his glance away, felt the pain slice deep. “Yes. He is.”
The prince clapped a hand to his shoulder and frowned at a sudden crash from the floors above. He scowled at the shouted curses that filtered down to them. “You’d better hurry. Malachi and Elliot won’t be able to keep the third master cornered much longer.”
Garrick jolted under Aidan’s grasp and gaped at him.
“She thinks it might work.” His lips thinned, his glance darting to Isabel in annoyance. “I think you’re both crazy, that Luc will hate you for it, but I sent hunters to track the fourth who escaped. They may have picked up a blood trail heading south. If you kill all four masters, at least Luc will be free. As she reminded me,” he said, dipping his head to Isabel, “isn’t that what we’re fighting for?”
Emotion choked his throat. “Thank you.”
Aidan laughed, but the brittle sound lacked any trace of amusement. “You have until dawn.” The tight pinch in his voice brooked no argument. “If it isn’t finished by then, I’ll destroy your brat vampyr myself.”
Kate bit her lip. “Luc doesn’t have that much time.”
Isabel wrapped Kate’s hand in her elegant fingers. “The boy is your guardian, yes?”
Her brows furrowed. “Yes.”
The other woman smiled. “Then he will survive long past sunrise. If you bind him to you.”
Kate blinked. “I can do that?”
Garrick gaped. “She can do that?”
Isabel nodded at Kate. “It won’t be easy, and his blood doesn’t run in my veins, so I can’t do it for you. But I’ll show you.”
Kate pushed Garrick to the ladder. “Go.”
He skated a kiss across her warm lips. “Save him.”
Sword in hand, he climbed.
* * *
“Close your eyes.”
Isabel sat beside Kate in the dirt and rot of the decrepit barn. She coughed at the smoke from smoldering embers of the explosions. The metallic reek of spilled blood, vampyr, were, but none of it Garrick’s, made her stomach ball into a hard knot. The clash of metal and the shouted curses of battle rang in her ears.
But Luc, so close she could feel pale shadows of his torment and pain casting a funerary pall over her, was slipping away.
So she lowered her lashes.
“Concentrate,” Isabel said, her hands gently clasping Kate’s fingers. “Remember what you felt when Aidan and I interrupted your mating in Louisiana. The tangled jumble of each of our scents. The clamoring echo of our voices in your head.”
Kate shuddered.
Her belly roiled.
“While we mate, our senses are wide open. Naked. To best equip us to search out and forge the connection with our mates. Once we’ve cemented the pair-bond, our senses focus on him and shut everyone else out, but that first rush of seeking, of chaos, is a skill we never unlearn.” Isabel squeezed her clasped hands. “Use that instinct, that untapped power, to reach your guardian.”
Kate’s eyes flashed wide. Unblocking her mind amid battle and bloody war? With vampyr and weres all around them hurt, some of them dying? “Oh my God.”
Isabel’s shoulders bunched, stress lines grooving her mouth. “Do it. Or watch him die.”
Shuddering in stark terror, she shut her eyes. “Crap, this is going to hurt.”
“Most likely.” Isabel sighed. “But that boy single-handedly dragged Garrick from the thrall of the dark masters and kept him alive while the rest of us failed him time and again. We owe him for that.”
Kate gulped. “I owe him.”
Isabel patted her hand. “Then concentrate. Tune everything out except the sound of my voice. Focus inside you first. To the center of your being. For some of us, our core is in our minds, the seat of our thoughts. Our intellect. For others, it’s here.” Kate shivered as Isabel’s palm settled on her chest, above her pounding heart. “The source of our spirit and our emotions.”
Kate didn’t hesitate. “My heart.”
“All right. Gather your energy there. Imagine you are created of light, a cloud of soft diaphanous l
ight.”
“Okay.” Kate didn’t understand how this could help Luc, but she envisioned the rough shape of her body, filling it in with ghostly pinpricks like starlight shining through wispy clouds.
“Pull the light tightly to you. Draw every iota of what makes you who you are, and funnel it to your core. Pack the light; compress it. As though you could fashion it into a pressurized ball, each spark of light making the ball burn brighter. Can you do that?”
“Yes.” Kate pretended the kernel of light at her center was a magnet that could pull the tiny pixels of her spirit in, and as soon as she visualized it, the gossamer threads that comprised her body streaked to her heart in a giddy rush.
Soft warmth filled her chest.
“Kate?”
Though she felt increasingly disconnected from her physical body, she nodded. “That was intense.”
“You’re quite gifted for a fledgling vampyr. Learning that trick took me days and weeks of practice.” Isabel chuckled. “But if you’ve done it right, that was the hard part. The rest is easier. Unbar your senses, dear. Unlock your mind to let us in.”
Quivering nervy reluctance, Kate did.
Instead of the wild, blaring cacophony that had assaulted her in Louisiana, the world seemed to brighten. The sounds of battle grew louder. The thunder of her pulse resounded like cannon fire in her ears, and the thick coppery scent of blood saturated even the air she breathed.
But her belly didn’t pitch. Her head didn’t shriek or throb.
She could function.
“Very good. Now find him.”
Kate’s mouth opened, her whispery breath pulling in and out.
That’s all?
Just…find him?
Mated to Aidan, Isabel may be the strongest and most powerful female vampyr in the universe, but she sucked as a teacher.
“How?” Kate asked.
“His blood, his vampyr, is inside you. He’s part of you and always will be. Let instinct guide you home.”
Kate allowed her world to expand out from her immediate surroundings. She ignored the beckoning call of Garrick—her true home—fighting in the floors above to arrow below, to the damp stench of Luc’s prison cell.
She couldn’t see him, but she could feel him.
And what she felt—Luc’s agony, his misery—made her breath wheeze past her lips.
“He’s damaged. Garrick coddled the boy, so the devastation the masters inflicted on him almost certainly scarred him, especially now when his pain is so fresh and new.”
Kate frowned. “I can’t see him.”
“I’m not talking about his body, dear.” Isabel patted her leg. “Push past his torment. Quick. Like a laser. Straight to his core. Don’t give him the opportunity to lock you out.”
Far above her, Kate’s body tensed, but her spirit, who she truly was, lingered in the cellar with Luc. She stabbed into him. Fast. As Isabel had said.
Just like that, she felt him around her. Luc’s scent filled her nostrils. The aching love he felt for her bloomed in her soul. His grief and misery cocooned around them, but deep inside her guardian, in Luc’s center, who he truly was waited. And who he truly was?
Beautiful.
Worth fighting for.
Isabel’s voice hummed low and indistinct in the background.
Kate tuned her out. She didn’t need the other vampyr’s instruction anymore. She knew what to do.
Safely enfolded in Luc’s heart, Kate imagined him as the diaphanous cloud of light and slowly, carefully, began coaxing the shattered pieces of him to her.
“You’re my father in every way that ever counted, and I will not watch you die. I love you, Luc.”
She held him together.
And she would move heaven and earth to someday make him whole.
Chapter Twenty-three
Headhunters skirted the gymnasium and spread out to circle the school. Some dabbed injuries that dripped blood in the breathless lull before dawn. Others stared, still as stone, waiting. Garrick strode to the door of the deserted parking lot, snapped the padlocked chain threaded through the handles, and yanked the door wide. Two or three of the rebels that crouched in position were so new, their skin would smolder when the sun finally edged over the horizon.
But they would stay.
And bake.
The perimeter would remain impenetrable. The ground under his feet vibrated with the force of the headhunters’ fury.
None would enter save Garrick.
None would leave except Garrick.
No matter the cost.
Regardless of the battle to come, the rebellion would not—could not—allow Zechariah to live. He would answer for the crime perpetuated on Luc. The master would be punished. Made an example of.
Striding down a darkened hall, Garrick slowed when he neared the school lobby. A man had been propped just under a glass-encased bulletin board of school notices and announcements printed on paper in neon blues and greens. The human’s dark hair was peppered gray, his glasses askew on his nose. His uniform of sturdy work clothes told him the man had been a janitor; the glint of gold at his fingers indicated he was a husband. Likely a father. Maybe a grandfather.
Heart heavy, Garrick dropped his sword, unmindful of the discordant clang when it hit the floor and vibrated against the utilitarian tile. He’d carried the weapon for centuries. Its weight had become a familiar friend, the balance and grip as intimate to him as his own arm. But the sword was unnecessary now. He wouldn’t need it. When he discarded the weapon, it ceased to exist in his mind. Trivial. Unimportant.
Instead, he planted a boot against the wall for better leverage, and wrapping his fingers around the hilt, he pulled a second, superior sword from the janitor’s skull. Zechariah had threaded the blade down the man’s spinal column, so Garrick grunted, strained. Moments later, the weapon dislodged from its sheath of bone, slid free.
The janitor crumpled to the floor.
Garrick hefted the weapon, swung the longer blade in an experimental arc.
It felt good in his hands.
Right.
Even after all these years.
His nose lifting, he scented the air, pushing past the dead human’s lingering odor of blood and excrement. His head swiveled to the right. Locking his fingers around the hilt, he marched on wooden legs down a locker-lined corridor, following the trail Zechariah had left him.
When the hallway branched, Garrick turned down a side corridor, unsurprised to find the master slouched against a wall of frosted windows that flanked a glass door at the end. His pace didn’t slow, though dread weighed his feet. He didn’t stop until he reached where Zechariah lay, back pushed against the cold glass. The master’s legs sprawled inches from Garrick’s booted feet.
“You found it.” He tipped his head at the blade in Garrick’s tight-fingered grasp. “Good.”
The muscles of his arm shook. His head buzzed. Nausea clenched his stomach. Another, grittier part of him pushed the queasiness aside as unimportant and stared, unblinking, at the master. “Stand up.”
Zechariah’s lips curved. “In a minute.”
Garrick kicked his foot, snarling frustration when the attached leg flopped loosely, accepted the blow. “Get up, damn you.”
The master stared up at him, his body lax and vulnerable. “I’m unarmed.” His green eyes shimmered in unconcerned amusement, his chin jerking to the seeping, bloody hamburger a were had chewed his side into. “Wounded.”
Garrick had been fighting the sinister temptation of his blood scent since he’d crossed onto the school grounds. Since…forever. His mouth watered, his saliva flush with the virus. Need snapped his nerve endings, screamed through his pumping blood. So far, he’d resisted. Kate loved him, so he’d resisted. “What do you want?”
“It’s been a long time, Garrick.” He sighed. “Too long. I’ve missed you.”
In spite of the decimation of headhunters and weres in Gettysburg, in spite of what they’d done to Luc, Garrick had
missed Zechariah too. And loathed him for it, almost as much as hated himself for his weakness. “The building’s surrounded.”
“I know. I hope they allotted the more sheltered areas to the youngest vampyr.” His eyes twinkled. “The burns will make them useless for weeks. What a waste.”
Fury snapped at him. “It’s their blood. Theirs to sacrifice. Theirs to squander.”
The master sighed. “If that’s what so concerns you, I won’t compel them to offer it. If you fail to kill me, they will—kill us both, if it comes to that.” He chuckled. “Don’t worry. Toying with the slaves doesn’t tempt me. I never intended to escape them. Or you.” He flashed a lopsided grin. “And I certainly didn’t go to all this trouble to debate the war with you, as delightful as that prospect might seem.”
Garrick stared at him.
Hated him.
Loved him.
“What do you want?” he repeated.
Zechariah shrugged. “To talk.”
He growled. His feet widened for the more powerful blow; his fingers wrapped tight around the base of the sword.
The dark master raised a hand in warning. “My weres wouldn’t like that, son.”
He froze, chest heaving in hard, eager pants.
“I, too, discovered they can be useful creatures. They’ve grown quite fond of me.” Zechariah lowered his arm, leaned forward. “If we talk first, my pack has agreed to pledge to you after. I also reserved my strongest slaves from that bloody disaster in Pennsylvania, so you stand to gain more of our kind to the rebellion.”
He regarded Garrick with cold, calculating eyes. “You must agree I did well designing an inheritance to most entice you. I understand you that much, more thoroughly than I once did. Does that not earn me fair hearing?”
The muscles of his arms trembled with the effort to resist slashing the blade down, slicing through meat and bone. “If I don’t listen?”
“I didn’t anticipate Aidan allowing juveniles to join rank with the headhunters. Many will be killed.” The master frowned. “Probably a good many. I don’t want that.”
