by Laken Cane
Rune lowered her hand and glanced at Z. His beauty was gone, ravaged by the disease that no longer lived inside him. He stood at the edge of the group, staring into the darkness. He looked lost.
She also recognized the look of self-loathing on his face. She knew it well—it was an old, old friend to Rune Alexander.
But Z…no. She couldn’t leave him that way. Couldn’t.
“Z,” she begged, and held her hand out to him.
He looked at her then.
Looked at her with rage and distrust. And hatred.
“You shouldn’t have brought me back,” he said. “Fuck you for the evil that made you bring me back.”
Z, whose weakness was women. Who would never have hurt any female. For Rune, he would happily have died. But now, he looked at her with hatred.
She pulled back in shock. “Z.”
The crew’s sadness was so thick she could have taken a bite from it.
“What has happened?” Ellis asked softly, confused, disbelieving.
Rune swallowed and turned away. “Go home.” There were no guarantees Rune could defeat the witch. No guarantees Damascus might not decide to invade River County even if Nicolas was no longer there. “Go home and protect the city.”
Marta took her hand. “It is time.”
“Rune,” Strad roared, and strode toward her. He yanked her away from Marta, pulled her into his arms, and held her like he’d never let her go.
Not ever.
She kissed him, gently. “I won’t be long, Berserker.” I swear it. I swear it.
I will not leave my crew.
“Take care of Z,” she whispered, her lips touching the soft warmth of his ear.
And she pushed out of his arms.
She’d rather have stayed there forever than face whatever hell was waiting for her.
Once again, Marta took her hand. Eagerly. “Come, darling. Do not worry,” she told the crew. “It is not yet her time to die.”
But no one believed her. Not even Rune.
She would change, she knew it. Change in unimaginable ways.
And wasn’t change a form of death?
Wasn’t it?
She felt them behind her, watching her as she walked away. She had to put them from her mind and trust that they’d drive the fuck out of Rock County, rejoin the humans, and leave the Others to their battles.
She put her free hand to her stomach, trying to caress away the anxiety. But that wasn’t ever going to happen.
Too bad the zombies couldn’t eat her fucking memory.
“Where is the witch?” she asked Marta.
Marta held Rune’s hand as if she might run away should she let her go. “She waits in the Camp.”
“This is not going to be fun, is it?”
Marta half smiled. “I don’t believe so.”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s run.”
She didn’t want to use her speed to get to hell quicker, to leave her crew behind. But she nodded, and with the strange vampire woman guiding her, sprinted toward the Camp.
The ground flew by in dizzying flashes of darkness. Marta led her out of the town, out to where the woods were deep and dotted with trees skinny and starving for color.
The limbs reached for her, as did the arms of zombies they flashed by, but nothing could stop the run of a vampire in full speed.
Or whatever she was.
And finally, they reached the Camp.
She stared up at the high fence, curled on top with razor wire and laced with silver. Through the wire she spotted small, squat buildings, arranged haphazardly around a tall, dark structure.
The tall building was where the witch waited.
Rune could feel her there, could smell her.
The Camp smelled like rotten boiled eggs.
The area inside the fence was barren and bleak, with no trees or plants to soften the sterile landscape. Tall pole lights bathed the ground with a cold illumination. Nothing moved, breathed, or cried.
“Is it abandoned except for the witch?”
Marta’s voice was grim. “No. No, it is not.”
“Why hasn’t she taken you?”
Marta pressed her lips together and was silent for so long Rune thought she might not answer her. But finally, she spoke. “Damascus is not interested in me. I am nothing to her.”
“What will she do if she gets Llodra?”
“She loved him, as much as one like her can love. She was—is—obsessed with him. He was her entire world, and he ran away. If she manages to find him, she’ll take him back and for eternity, he will be her animal.” She glanced at Rune. “You hate Nicolas, but if you knew what he had lived through, and what his life would be like if the witch took him again, you would feel only horror and pity.”
Rune’s body began to shake with cold reaction. Fear, insidious and strong, streaked through her.
She remembered when fear for herself rarely touched her—back when she wanted so badly to die.
Where was that girl now?
Maybe she was hidden beneath the crew’s devotion, Jeremy’s absence, and the berserker’s regard.
Maybe. But if she tried, she was pretty sure she could bring her back.
She needed her anger and her hatred. She needed her monster.
Ignoring the vampire, she wrapped her fingers around the electric fence.
“No,” Marta cried.
The shock sat Rune on fire. It started in her hands and shot through her arms to her body and into her mind that, for one second, ceased to exist.
For a second, there was just…nothing.
Then there was pain.
She accepted the pain, embraced it, and gathered it into a ball of power. And then, she shot it back out.
Sparks flew.
Marta screamed, shielded her face, and backed away.
The silver fence melted beneath Rune’s hands and ran in hot rivulets over her skin, up her arms, burning, burning.
Silver and electricity.
The Spiritgrove COS leader had attacked her with silver and electricity once, and it had incapacitated her.
No more.
The silver coated her fingers, melting into the delicate skin as it slid up over her hands, her wrists, her forearms.
It sank with a sizzle into her skin and she could feel it there, a thin, greasy layer of molten silver.
“You continue to amaze.”
The voice was male, slightly mocking, but also tinged with admiration.
Llodra had arrived.
Chapter Eighteen
She pulled the fence apart as though it were melted taffy, and without looking back, stepped inside the Camp.
When she turned around, Llodra, ravaged and ill, watched her.
He quivered—not small shivers but strong tremors that jerked his entire body. Despite his cool voice, terror lit his face. He had one hand glued to the dead fence and one hand wrapped around Marta’s arm.
He was fighting with everything he had not to go to the witch.
Even Rune could feel her call. And if she could feel it, what must that pull be like for Nick Llodra?
Marta stood quietly, her raw gaze eating up the master’s face.
She loves him.
That made her think of Amy, which was good. She needed pain, she needed guilt. She needed black.
It would make her strong enough to handle what was to come.
She and Llodra stared at each other.
He was a ghost of the Llodra she’d known before his madness, before his capture. His face was all sharp angles and hollows filled with shadows. Pale, dry skin stretched tightly over the prominent bones beneath it.
His black eyes were so bright with pain she found it difficult to look at them. He was thin and scarred, bruised and broken.
But she could not care. He’d killed Amy. He’d tortured the little bite junkie who had loved him. He’d taken her Ellis.
He’d fucked with her.
Llodra was mad, and he was evil.
And now he stood before her, shattered and damaged.
But he would heal. He was a vampire.
He was covered with blood. “You fed.”
“Oh, yes. I fed.”
“You’re a messy eater, Llodra.” She could only imagine how horrific had been his damage before he’d fed. He looked like death.
He is death.
“Why are you here? If you’re so terrified of Damascus, aren’t you afraid she’s going to come out and get you?”
He shivered harder. “If I did not give in to the call, just for an instant, my heart would have exploded.” He glanced down at his bloody shirt. “Some of this is from me.”
“Tell me what to do.”
He smiled, a little. “I do not know. I know only that you are as strong as she is. There is magic inside you. Send her away, Rune. Save me.”
“I am not doing this for you.” She was suddenly furious. Furious that he could believe she cared about him after everything he’d done. “You are not worth saving.”
“Then do it to stop the monsters.”
“I’m not sure…”
“You do not have to be sure. You just have to fight, because fighting is what you do.” His silky voice slid over her skin like melting ice. “It is not the time to talk. Now, you must do what you were born to do. Destroy the evil.
“For that,” he whispered, “is why you exist.”
She shivered and without warning, her fangs dropped. Tremors of electric power still shook her body.
That moment was all that mattered.
Nothing came before, and nothing would come after.
There was only that moment.
And the witch was calling her.
Fie was calling her.
Llodra shuddered harder. He clenched his fists and closed his eyes, a high-pitched wheeze wafting past his lips.
She turned to go.
“Wait,” Marta said.
She stopped. “What?”
“Nicolas,” Marta said. “Do it.”
“Do what?” Rune asked.
Nicolas didn’t move.
“Protect yourself,” Marta cried, and shoved him toward Rune. “You must.”
Before she could react, Nicolas was upon her, his fangs buried deep in the side of her throat.
She stood frozen with disbelief beneath his bite.
As he drank from her, he pushed the jagged edge of his torn wrist to her mouth. She had no idea how or when he’d opened his own vein, but the blood exchange was happening and there was not one fucking thing she could do to stop it.
Flashing images bombarded her damaged mind. The berserker, his lips at her breast. Denim, lost and alone. Levi and Z.
Z…
The only parents she’d known. Drinking down their blood, the joy almost too much to contain. The first time she could remember realizing she was different.
Different. Special.
She was strong, and fucking Llodra would not control her.
Her monster wouldn’t let him.
She screamed and shoved him away, shoved him so hard he flew into the air, hit the fence, and then bounced off it to land face down upon the ground.
But it was too late. His blood was inside her, and her blood was inside him.
“Why?” she cried, digging her nails into the small wounds left by his teeth. “Why?”
Marta stared at Rune with careful, terrified eyes, and grasping Llodra’s ankles, began to pull him through the break in the fence.
“Why?” Rune screamed. She was suddenly full of rage and desire—the desire to kill. One second she was standing fifteen feet from the downed vampire, and the next she had Llodra by the throat, tearing him from Marta’s grip.
She ripped out his throat almost before she realized she was going to.
“No,” Marta screamed. “Your blood is his protection. He had to!”
Rune didn’t care. She slung bloody bits of him away and shot the claws of her free hand out. She was going to take his heart, eat the fucking thing, and then tear his head off. God, the rage.
The madness.
That thought saved Llodra’s life.
She paused, and as she did, Marta slashed her eyes, blinding her.
She dropped Llodra.
The last thing she heard as she stumbled away, her fists to her eyes, was Marta’s voice, echoing inside her mind.
“The blood he gave you will help you defeat Damascus. It is the blood of your father!”
Your father.
Your father.
And then Nicolas Llodra and Marta were gone, and there was only Rune.
She fell to the ground, scrubbing at her sightless, agonized eyes, and began to giggle.
Her father was there?
And Llodra knew. Of course he did. Her gut had told her all along that Llodra knew more about her than he’d pretended.
Her father was there.
Where was her mother?
Why did they hide from her? Why did they reject her?
Because she was a monster?
They were monsters.
She had parents. And they’d left her to strangers—strangers she’d killed.
Her eyes burned, burned as though fire ants bored into them as they carried bits of food into her brain.
She howled with laughter, thin blood and gore mixing with the earth to make a bloody soup in which she writhed, full of agony and madness.
Chapter Nineteen
It was the captive Others who roused her.
Specifically, Darius Elliot and his wolves.
He knelt beside her and pulled her back to reality. “Rune. Rune Alexander.” His voice was almost chiding.
She opened her watery eyes, surprised when she could see. They stung, and felt as though a few dozen stray eyelashes were clinging to them. But she could see.
Darius had been through his own hell. His body was thinner and his face was cut and bruised. He touched his swollen lip a little self-consciously. “The witch’s magic keeps us from shifting while we’re this close to her.” He stood then, and offered her a hand up.
But when she stood, shaky and somewhat numb, he stared over her head. “I’m sorry.”
“I should kill you,” she said tonelessly.
“We were afraid you wouldn’t come if you knew the truth.”
“You’re idiots.” But she could think again. “Go, before the witch comes to stop you.”
“She can’t leave the tower,” he told her. “She spawned there and she can’t leave that spot.”
Rune frowned. “Then how the fuck does she cause so much damage? The zombies, you?” She rubbed her eyes. “How did she get the kid?”
He shook his head. “She can’t leave. Someone brought her the child. The rest she does because she’s just that powerful. Her magic…I’ve never felt anything like it.”
Llodra and Marta had lied to her. The witch couldn’t destroy RISC. She couldn’t have gone to get Llodra. True, her call might have ripped him apart as the RISC bars held him captive, but he and Marta had known Rune would have him released. They’d seized the chance to give him his freedom.
And Rune had fallen for it.
When she found them…
Then she closed her eyes, thankful her spirit had not been broken, after all. Was she mad? Perhaps a little. Perhaps a lot.
But she was still the person she’d always been, and she had a reason to live.
Someone had to help save the fucking world.
“Why are you smiling?” Darius asked.
She shook her head, then glanced around the area at the Others gathering there. Large eyes stared back at her from thin faces. “The military is coming. There is an opening in the fence.” She pointed. “Get out of here.” She met the wolf alpha’s gaze. “Run.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
“Darius,” she called, as he was about to climb through the fence. “The Others can be infected. I saw some of your wolves. They’re zombies now.”
He nodded, and then he was gone.
They were all gone.
And she was alone with the witch.
Every light in the yard went out.
“Bring it, bitch,” she muttered. She dropped her fangs and lifted her hands, ready to shoot out her claws.
But her claws wouldn’t come.
“The hell?” she said. She could feel them in there. She tried again. “Now that can’t be good.”
It was almost like they’d been sealed inside by—
The fence.
The hot melted metal and silver had covered her skin. Had sunk into her pores, coating her bones, her claws…
She would just have to try a little harder. She’d break the bastards loose.
Grinding her teeth against the pain, she concentrated on nothing but the claws and pushed with everything inside her.
They burst free with a sound like a sword being ripped from its sheath, but still it took her a few seconds to understand what the gleam of her claws meant.
The moonlight bounced off a metallic glare so bright she had to squint against it, but even as she watched, the brightness slowly dimmed.
Until she waved them through the air, then once more they brightened…waking up.
“Son of a bitch,” she murmured.
She had silver claws. And they responded to movement…to thought.
It was like Christmas.
Magic. She was full of magic. What was it Llodra had once told her?
“You do not fully realize your power, do you? There is a chance you would pull out the secrets inside you and give me what I so deserve.”
Yes, Llodra knew things.
And she was still learning. Growing.
She had a father.
But she couldn’t let that distract her. Not yet.
She looked up at the tall building. The witch watched and waited there. She could feel her the same way she felt impending storms—heavy pressure in her chest and a tickle of unease in her throat.
At a sound behind her she whirled around, and saw a zombie pushing its way through the gap in the fence.
But she couldn’t be bothered with the zombies. The humans would take care of them. Or she would, if she…
When she got rid of the witch.
Ignoring the zombies now piling into the Camp, she jogged to the tall building—the witch’s tower—retracted her claws, and slipped inside.
