by Trina M. Lee
I reminded myself that the lung-crushing pain was temporary. It would heal, and it wasn’t like I needed to breathe in the same way I once had. Torn between getting up and laying there a little longer, I decided the view of the ceiling wasn’t so bad.
“We are going to have some good times here.” Shya raised his glass to me, a blur of movement in my peripheral vision. “Well, I will anyway. Until you decide you’ve had enough. There’s only one way to break the curse, and when you find out what it is, you’ll do anything to avoid it.”
Gritting my teeth through the pain of broken ribs, I hissed, “You’re never getting out of here, Shya.”
“We’ll see if you still feel that way a few moons from now.” His laughter reached inside me, crushing the bravado I’d mustered. “I am going to break you.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Lex?”
Shaz. Now that was a voice I wanted to hear.
My eyes opened, and I found myself staring at a concrete wall. The floor beneath me was hard. More concrete. I smelled laundry and wolf. Everything hurt.
The room spun as I sat up. My unfinished basement bounced before my eyes. A mess of scratches marred the closest wall. It would take substantial strength to do that kind of damage.
Shaz sat near the doorway on one of the kitchen chairs. Shoulders slumped, leaning forward on his knees, he regarded me with a hopeful spark in his tired eyes. He looked exhausted.
“What happened?” The blanket covering me fell to my waist, baring my nakedness. When had that happened? Oh right, I’d shifted at some point.
Relief flooded his face. He scrubbed both hands through his hair before shoving off the chair and coming to me. “Shya’s curse. That’s what happened.” He knelt down and wrapped the blanket around me. “You went ape shit, Lex. Totally rabid. I’ve never seen anything like it in all my time with werewolves. I was afraid we weren’t going to get you back.”
My gaze dropped to his hands as he adjusted the blanket. Pale pink lines in his forearms and hands were all that remained of what had clearly been some serious gashes.
“Did I do that?” I motioned to the marks.
“Yeah. Arys healed it after we got you home. Before you ripped the door off the hinges.” He jerked a thumb toward the doorway where the door sat propped awkwardly in its place. A hole had been clawed through the middle. “Willow knocked you out and helped us get you back here. He stayed until sunrise forced him away. We locked you in here and hoped for the best. You came to and ripped the door down. It took both of us to wrestle you back down here so you wouldn’t destroy the house. You don’t remember any of this?”
I shook my head, searching my memory. “The last thing I remember is Shya pounding my head into his living room wall, screaming at me about seducing him. He promised to make me wish I’d never done it.”
“Shya? You saw Shya?” Green eyes wide, Shaz stroked a gentle hand over my cheek. “Did he do this to you? How?”
I winced at the pain that scattered across my face beneath his fingers. Vampires could take a hell of a beating, but even we couldn’t bounce back right away from a demon’s abuse.
“I was in the stone with him. My mind, I mean. It was in there. Like a bad dream.” A shudder racked me as I relived the hell Shya had rained down on me for hours that felt like years. “He said it will happen every full moon until I let him out.”
My voice cracked and I choked on a sob. Every time I thought I’d won with that demon, he found a way to one up me. Perhaps it was futile. There could be no winning with demons.
“Come on. Let’s get you upstairs.” Strong arms slid around me as Shaz helped me to my feet. “Arys went up to shower. He’s going to want to hear everything.”
Leaning heavily on Shaz, I touched his face, worried. “Did you go all night without shifting?”
The three nights of the moon called to wolves, demanding the shift. Though there was only one true full moon night, the night before and the night after were also wolf nights for our kind. Denying the shift could be painful and even dangerous.
“I’m fine. I’ll go out for a run once you get settled upstairs.” His flippant tone didn’t fool me. I could feel his beast pacing beneath his skin. “Do you need anything? Your bed? A hot bath?”
My gaze dropped to the pulse beating in his neck. The thirst was incredible. Weak and starved, I hungered for blood and power. The itch for Falon had grown substantially since Shya stripped my power and beat the hell out of me. I didn’t want to want Falon. In that moment I wanted a little of everyone.
“I need a few things, yeah,” I said, holding tight to him as he helped me up the stairs.
Having one’s power stripped was an agony like no other. Total fatigue, constant pain. The recovery was slow for vampires using humans as a food source. Lucky me. I had a werewolf, a vampire, and a fallen angel to help me bounce back. If the latter bothered to make an appearance.
The second flight of stairs proved difficult. My bedroom felt so far away. Shaz swept me up into his arms and carried me.
On the way up, I learned that Jez’s binding had gone as well as such a thing can. She had stayed in the city at Kale’s house, at Arys’s insistence, for her own safety. When Shaz saw her last, she’d been fine, tired and worried about me but happy. This entire scenario had me uneasy. I didn’t trust any of it.
Shaz got me settled on the bed before fetching me a robe from the closet. Because he was too good to be true, he plumped the pillows behind my back so I could sit propped against the headboard. Then he offered me his wrist.
“Wrist or neck?” he asked. “Whatever you prefer.”
I must’ve looked like death. When Sloane had been stripped of her power back in Las Vegas, she’d become a skeletal mess, begging me to give her my blood. It had been ghastly.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said. “If I start, I may not be able to stop. The only thing stopping me from bleeding you now is that I’m too weak to even try.”
“You need it. I’ve got it. This is no time to deny yourself what you need, Lex.”
At his gentle insistence, I accepted the wrist he thrust at me. I paused to trace a finger over a thick, pink scar that would likely be gone by next sundown. Arys’s healing skill far superseded my own. He’d had centuries to perfect it. Again I thought of Sloane as an exchange we’d had popped unbidden into my head.
When I’d asked her to heal Shaz, I learned only Arys and Harley had that power in our bloodline, as far as she knew. And now me.
And Lilah. She’d healed Jez. Since healing wasn’t a vampire trait, and demons only did it at the cost of someone or something else, it had to be a twin flame trait. More along that line of thought tried to break through the fog in my head, but I couldn’t make sense of it right then.
I was confused and starved. Probably a little out of it from the events of the night before.
The heady aroma of wolf blood called to me, and I answered. It took more effort than it should have to pierce Shaz’s flesh with my fangs. I never wanted to feel this fragile and powerless again. But I would, during the next full moon.
Shaz’s heartbeat reverberated in my ears as his blood spilled over my tongue. That first tangy taste brought my hunger roaring to life. I gripped his arm with as much strength as my feeble body could muster.
A deep-rooted survival instinct kicked in, and I bit again, needing more. Drawing on his blood and potent wolf essence, I couldn’t get enough. His blood just wouldn’t flow fast enough.
I reached the point where I needed to stop for his sake, but the bloodlust refused to let me. I clung to Shaz, holding tight when he tried to shake me off.
He didn’t panic. Calm and controlled he repeated my name while attempting to free himself without resorting to the smack he probably should’ve thrown.
An icy chill gripped me. “She’s blood crazed,” Arys stated, sounding more relieved than anything. “It happens when we’re at our weakest. I wouldn’t have thought the insanity from last night
would weaken her like this.”
“It didn’t.” Shaz spoke through clenched teeth. “Shya did.”
“Shya?” Alarm now tinged Arys’s voice.
He waved his bloody wrist beneath my nose. Self-inflicted twin punctures oozed the power-charged blood of the undead. I abandoned Shaz’s arm to grab Arys instead, pulling him down on the bed beside us. Fresh from the shower, he wore only a towel around his waist. Tiny beads of water decorated his skin.
I climbed onto his lap, needing to feel his body. Having little energy to do much else, I snuggled into him, finding strength in the closeness of his aura. Shaz had scratched the surface of my hunger for living blood. Arys eased the pain of my craving for power. And yet, my hunger demanded more. It longed for something that had never been human.
I didn’t want to want it.
When I had enough control to release Arys of my own accord, my ears rang and my chest heaved. I flopped back against him, my back to his chest, head on his shoulder. I needed more. More blood. More power. More than they could give me right then. But thanks to my two loves, my flame and my anchor, I no longer felt like the walking dead.
Arys stroked a hand through my hair and kissed my temple. “Tell me about Shya, my love.”
I reached for Shaz who took my hand and scooted closer on the bed. He gave Arys a critical once over. “Couldn’t get dressed first?”
“You couldn’t get undressed?” The rumble of Arys’s laugh warmed me.
Shaz didn’t seem to feel the same way. “You chose the small towel on purpose, didn’t you?”
I had a sneaking suspicion Shaz’s irritation was a result of whatever had taken place between them during Arys’s healing. The incubus vampire’s healing touch tended to leave one thoroughly seduced.
“It was the last towel in there. I suppose you’d prefer that I came out nude, pup?” Arys gave him a playful grin. I couldn’t see it due to the way I sat, but I could feel it, and Shaz’s scowl, try as he might, wasn’t quite convincing.
Interrupting their stare off, I told them in great detail what it had been like in the stone with Shya. I left out the part about Falon. It wasn’t my secret to tell. The more I spoke of the abuse, the more vivid the details became in my memory. It all rushed back until I was quaking in Arys’s arms.
With a deep sigh, Shaz slumped and shook his head, looking ill. “There has to be a way to break the curse.”
I stared at the strange triangular symbol in the center of my palm. I wasn’t sure how many times I could go back there and not come back shattered.
Arys hugged me tight, resting his cheek on the top of my head. “I won’t let you go back there. I promise you, Alexa. We’ll figure something out.”
* * * *
The rest of the day passed much too quickly, curled up between my loves. By the time Shaz left just before sunset, he was vibrating with the need to shift. It took both Arys and I to convince him to go to Doghead. He should be with his new pack on the last moon run of the month. Hanna and Owen needed him.
Not that I didn’t need him of course. But he’d given me all he could without endangering himself. Arys had as well, until he too was fatigued. It took a great deal to exhaust a vampire, especially one of Arys’s caliber.
“Go out and get what you need,” Arys urged me after Shaz left. “I wish I could be the one to revitalize you, but that demon did a real number on you. You need more than I can give.”
“I don’t want to,” I said, searching the kitchen for my shoulder bag. “I’ll be fine. I can get by with a human or two, I’m sure.”
Arys watched me with arms crossed from where he leaned against the island. “For blood maybe. It would take half a dozen, drained dry, to replenish your energy. Shya stripped you down to nothing, Alexa. Do you realize how vulnerable that kind of weakness makes you? You’re an easy target for anyone who wants a piece of you right now. Just go to him. Do what you have to do.”
Go to him. Falon. Arys had waited for Shaz to leave so he could say this. Nothing quite like being instructed by my other half to dirty myself with someone I despised. Could it possibly get any more fucked up than this? Probably best not to ask.
My bag had somehow become buried beneath the blanket on the couch. I dug around inside for my phone, finding several missed calls. From Kale.
Seeing his name on the screen stabbed me in the heart. I dropped the phone back into the bag and grabbed my car keys instead.
“I don’t want to have to rely on him for shit like this. Needing him after every visit to Shya isn’t going to help me break this nasty habit.” It was hard to say Falon’s name. It felt wrong.
“There won’t be anymore visits to Shya.” Cold as ice, Arys seethed. “We will break that curse. I promise you, I’ll find a way. In the meantime, Falon is a means to an end. You and I both know it.”
My temper flared, and I whirled to pin Arys with a glare. “Can you please just stop being ok with this? I get it. You fucked your way through three centuries because that’s what we do. We feast on sex and power. It doesn’t matter who has it; we want it. But where do we draw the line? At what point do we stop feeding these horrible hungers before they destroy those we love?”
He pushed away from the island and pulled me in for a hug, ignoring how stiff I grew against him. “You’re worried about Shaz. I get it. But you shouldn’t be. His devotion knows no bounds. He belongs with us and he knows it.”
I peered up at Arys, searching his deep blue eyes. “Did he tell you that?”
“He didn’t have to.” He brought his lips to mine. His kiss reached to the depths of my soul. “Harley used to have a harem of vampires and humans constantly at his beck and call. This is the way of the incubus and succubus. One lover is never enough. You shouldn’t be so concerned with having a mere three.”
Harley. Again I got that feeling there was something there trying to break through. It had been quite some time since I’d given Arys’s sire any thought. He’d been dead for a year now.
Not quite the pep talk I’d prefer from my other half. I studied him, seeking truth in his eyes. “What about you? You have only one currently. Does it not bother you that I have more?”
“I have two. The lack of a physical relationship with Shaz doesn’t make him any less my lover. Our bond is far more intimate and powerful than sex alone.” Arys quirked a brow and gave me a flirty, fang-revealing grin. “In all honesty, I’d prefer you don’t collect a large harem of lovers. And I refuse to share your heart with anyone other than Shaz. But you must stop living in guilt for things not within your control.”
“I’m afraid I’m forming an addiction to him, Arys.” I still refused to say the fallen angel’s name. “Didn’t you say once that I’d be the one most likely to form addictive tendencies?”
He scoffed but didn’t entirely dismiss my concern. “Alexa, have you been paying attention? We’re all fucking addicted to each other. I never had such a taste for wolves before you and Shaz. And he’s a real bite junkie himself. The difference is you seem to be the only one worried about it.”
“Shouldn’t somebody be?” I laughed in disbelief.
Couldn’t argue with him. We were all addicted to one another. Falon as well. Why else would he still be answering my unspoken calls to come scratch my itch? We liked to think we were above humanity, unhindered by the growing need to numb out our reality. But were we really any better? Rather than drugs and alcohol, our addiction was blood and power. So much fucking power.
“We’ll take care of each other, ok?” Voice soft as velvet, Arys gently touched my face where a faint bruise still remained. “You stepped in when I got out of control. I’ll do the same for you. Always.”
The tenderness in his touch made me quiver. I couldn’t have chosen anyone better than Arys to be joined with. “You are aware that going a matter of nights or weeks without terrorizing the city doesn’t make either of us in control, per se.”
Not so long ago, Arys had hunted the Doghead wolves, and I’d run
amok with Kale. So fast things changed, and yet they didn’t. Those urges were still within us, and they would rear their ugly heads again.
“One night at a time, my love. Besides, control is overrated. We are what we are, and we should make no apology.” That was my vampire, unapologetic as fuck and hot as hell regardless.
“Being the most powerful vampires in the city doesn’t mean we can run amok, Arys.” I shook my head when he laughed me off, trying not to laugh with him. Damn mischievous vampire. “If anything, a higher standard of conduct is required of us. Especially if we want to be taken seriously as leaders. And from what I’m seeing, the others are starting to come around. Thanks to Agent Winston.”
There were no easy solutions, not even rewards for good behavior, just plenty of consequences for bad ones. Weaker than I’d been since my rising, I had to do whatever it took to be the Hound of God, to be the so called vampire queen everyone either loved or loathed.
Before we parted ways for the evening, I paused at the door. “Hey, Arys. Harley was a twin flame too, wasn’t he?”
My dark vampire, who always came off as calm and strong, looked like I’d dealt him a blow he hadn’t been ready for. “He was. Why do you ask?”
I shrugged. “When Shaz said you’d healed him, it just got me thinking. Did you know his other half?”
I’d be willing to bet that Harley had been the dark half. He’d never felt like anything but darkness to me.
“No. She’s dead. I don’t know how he even survived it. That’s why he latched onto all of us the way he did. He was so desperate to replace her, but he never could.” Thin lipped, expression tight, it was apparent Arys didn’t want to discuss his sire. “Losing her made him crazy. You saw it. He might as well have died with her.”
As we went our separate ways, physically apart but always joined at the soul, I pondered this. We knew only a few others like us. I couldn’t help but wonder about the woman who’d been joined to Harley. No wonder he’d fought so hard to keep Arys and I apart. Selfish jealousy could drive a person to terrible places.
