I peeled open one eyelid and peered around, still holding my breath; the dagger handle clutched in my numb hand. The boat rocked crazily as it recovered from nearly capsizing.
“Zorah!” Guthrie barked. He was on his feet in front of the controls, arms out for balance as the swells buffeted us. “Get down—try to stay behind me!”
But there was no behind. The two Fae boats bracketed us, the three vessels’ hulls thudding together with a hollow noise as they secured our boat between them. Loops of rope fell over cleats mounted on the side of our craft, trapping us in place.
I was still hunkered in the bottom of the boat like a frightened child, useless with shock. The armed Fae in one of the boats held his gun trained on Guthrie, and the other one had his gun pointed at me.
Bullets.
They probably assumed Guthrie was human. Though they’d figure out that he wasn’t if they got close enough to notice his lack of a heartbeat, or if they shot him.
Lead bullets.
Nigellus had told me there was very little that could kill Rans beyond decapitation and silver through the heart. He’d been shot in the head. I’d seen his skull open up like a flower. And I was still alive. Was Rans floating in the water behind us, helpless and insensible with his brains scattered everywhere? Even if he wasn’t dead dead, could a vampire even heal from that?
“Get up, demonkin,” said the Fae who was pointing a gun at me.
I snarled at him, clutching the dagger—reduced to animal reactions. A dumb beast, just as Caspian and the Unseelie had always seen me.
“Zorah,” Guthrie said again, caution in his tone. He was still standing where he had been before, hands held outward to show he wasn’t armed.
“Get up, or we will shoot your remaining companion,” said the Fae. “We have no orders concerning the human—he’s of no importance to us.”
I... should’ve gotten up then. I know I should’ve. Or at least said something... tried to reason with them. Tried to cut some kind of a deal, or... something.
“Yeah, go right ahead, Sunshine,” Guthrie said. “Don’t hold back on my account.”
A bullet tore through Guthrie’s thigh as the second armed Fae apparently took him at his word. He grunted and doubled over, clutching the wound for only a moment before he straightened with a snarl on his face that probably matched mine.
Only his snarl had more fang showing. His eyes glowed a brilliant violet.
“What—” breathed the Fae who was covering me.
Guthrie growled and lunged over the side of the boat to get at the one who’d just shot him, along with his two startled companions. One of the unarmed Fae leapt out of his boat and into ours, avoiding Guthrie’s charge. Guthrie slammed into the one with the gun, sending the weapon arcing into the water. The second pulled a knife and jumped on him as the unexpected attack descended into an ugly two-on-one brawl.
“Guthrie,” I rasped past a throat as dry as sandpaper, staring at the flash of sunlight against the pale blade and praying I was wrong about it being made of silver.
The Fae who’d bailed into my boat stood poised and wary—his attention split between me, and the fight he’d just fled.
“Don’t just stand there gawping like a youngling on his first hunt,” snapped the armed Fae from the other boat, still covering me with the gun. “Get the demon abomination over here and cast us off from the other two vessels. Let the others deal with the second bloodsucker!”
My body finally uncurled itself as the three remaining Fae approached me, and I clambered to unsteady feet. Belatedly, rage surged in, flooding across the shock and unfreezing my brain cells.
“I’m not an abomination—you fucking Fae monsters!” My voice rose with every word until I was practically screaming at them. I jerked the iron dagger free of its sheath. “You can’t have me! I’m not your fucking property to haul around like baggage!”
I had no idea what I looked like, swaying on the deck with my ridiculous sundress and sandals, a dagger clutched in my right hand. But I felt about twenty feet tall—like some vengeful goddess intent on smiting my enemies with the power of my own righteous fury. Towering rage... the term made sense to me now.
Vaguely, I was aware of grunts and the impact of flesh on flesh coming from the other boat, but I couldn’t stop to look. My eyes burned into the four Fae who were focused on me, demanding their acknowledgement of what I was. Insisting on their recognition of my power.
The knife I was holding clattered to the deck. An iron dagger wasn’t the weapon I needed to punish these creatures who’d hounded me across oceans and hurt the people I loved. I didn’t need a blade to hack their souls free of their bodies. Because despite themselves... despite their avowed disgust for my very existence, these Fae desired me. It swirled around them like mist, like a secret that only I could see.
“You don’t control me,” I snarled, grabbing every invisible trail of want that licked at my aura... and pulling against them with all of my strength.
EIGHTEEN
THE ENERGY THAT flowed into me was vile. Fae animus burned like acid through my veins, just as it had on the two other occasions I’d unintentionally pulled it into my magical core. The first time, I’d only just learned what I was. I’d panicked when Albigard captured Rans and me, not knowing that the whole thing had been a ruse. Drawing animus from him as a defense had been sheer instinct, nothing more.
The second time, Caspian and one of his henchmen had been torturing me when I was a prisoner in Dhuinne. I was already weakened from hunger and exhaustion, unsure of my own powers and delirious with fear. In both cases, my attack had lasted only seconds before the connection to my victims had snapped.
I’d been much less powerful, back then.
Now, I felt like an angry, ravenous beast. I hated the life-force I was drawing from the four Fae, but rather than stopping me, that hatred only made me more furious. The closest Fae cried out and dropped to the deck a step away from me, clawing at his own stomach. Gunfire rang out and a bullet whizzed past my shoulder; the hand that had fired it too unsteady to successfully make the shot.
Another of the three unarmed Fae groaned and collapsed in front of me, convulsing. I stared down at the jerking body, watching with detachment as blood trickled from its nose and mouth. Nausea that had nothing to do with the gruesome sight of the two dying Fae at my feet roiled through me, and beads of clammy sweat broke out across my body. Dizziness threatened to make me stumble as the boat rocked gently beneath me.
“Foul hellion!” cursed the Fae with the gun. He and his remaining companion staggered back, putting as much distance between us as the tethered boats would allow.
A concentrated flash of that much-hated Fae magic seared against my magical core. The connection I held to the two living Fae snapped in a burst of agony, sending me to my knees with dark spots dancing in my vision. My arms cradled my belly, trying to hold back the tide of wrongness sloshing around inside.
“You will pay for that, vile creature,” the gun-toting Fae snarled. He steadied his aim, green eyes snapping fire. “My orders were to capture you if possible, or to kill you if not. I know which I’d prefer at this point.”
The boat shifted and I sagged backward, landing on my ass. I barely caught myself with both hands behind me, or I would have ended up flat on my back.
“Orders from who?” I croaked... as though I couldn’t guess.
“From my General, of course,” he said, and shot me in the gut.
I cried out, my body slumping sideways as the bullet tore into me. That was a mistake on both counts, since the force of my cry and the impact of my shoulder against the deck combined to nearly make me pass out from the pain.
“No!” cried another voice, sounding oddly attenuated. I was pretty sure it was Guthrie. That was good, I supposed. It meant Guthrie was still alive, at least.
“Bring her here,” said the Fae who’d shot me, presumably speaking to the other one I hadn’t managed to suck dry.
My vi
sion was still acting weirdly. A blond figure haloed by sunspots loomed over me. I bared my teeth at it, scrabbling for the knife I’d dropped earlier without knowing exactly where it was. You can’t have me, I tried to say, but only garbled nonsense emerged.
The figure reached for me, my mind turning it into every monster from every childhood nightmare I’d ever had. I tried to scream, to roar—but I could barely breathe. The air choked me, catching in my throat.
Just before that repulsive hand touched me, a second figure swirled into existence out of nothingness. I blinked, trying to get my eyes to work properly as arms closed around that blond head from behind, and wrenched. The monster’s neck crunched, and the body fell with a thump—dead weight.
“Zorah, no—” The voice was familiar, so familiar, but I’d never heard it sound like that before. I’d never heard it sound so... afraid.
“Rans?” I croaked, the word barely louder than the breath behind it.
Hands I’d know anywhere lifted me with gentle strength, cradling me against a body wet with saltwater.
An unwelcome voice intruded on the moment, reminding me of the danger still waiting beyond the protective circle of Rans’ embrace.
“I would have let you live to spare the treaty, bloodsucker,” snapped the Fae with the gun, still standing safely in the other boat. “But you’ve signed your own death warrants by killing my men. As it is, I’ll take great pleasure in putting a bullet through that creature’s brain and finishing you both.”
The arms around me tightened, and Rans let out a hiss of warning. The noise was feral; there was nothing human about it. Had I been able to see him clearly, I knew his eyes would be glowing, fangs bared in lethal menace. We were about to perish, and I hadn’t even gotten a chance to fully appreciate his return from what would have been certain death for a human.
My vision wavered briefly into focus, centering on the Fae who was poised to end my life. Our lives. The gun barrel steadied, and Rans curled around me protectively just as a large form barreled past us at inhuman speed. With a roar, it slammed into the Fae at the same instant the gun went off. Rans jerked under the impact of a bullet meant for me, and the two grappling figures toppled out of the Fae boat, disappearing into the water below.
“Hold on, Zorah. Hold on,” Rans’ voice still held that awful fear.
“S-sorry,” I rasped, not even sure what I was apologizing for—just that Rans was upset and somehow it was my fault.
“Shh, don’t talk, just swallow this—you have to swallow my blood, love.”
His wrist pressed against my lips, the seawater still clinging to his skin tasting even saltier than the slow trickle of his blood. I tried to do as he said, swallowing weakly, but the thick liquid made me gag and cough it out as my body rejected it.
“No, no no...” Rans lowered me carefully to the deck. “Come on, love, you need to stay with me...” He tore into his own flesh again, this time letting his blood drip directly into the ragged hole in my gut. “Come on, Zorah—keep fighting. Don’t you give up on me—”
Vampire healing power tingled inside the wound, forcing my flesh to knit whether it wanted to or not. I choked on the pain, rolling to the side and retching until a thin stream of red spilled from my mouth—the rest of the blood he’d tried to feed me, perhaps... or maybe my own. I wasn’t sure. Everything inside me felt like it was fighting everything else.
“Guthrie?” I whispered weakly, once the intense pain of accelerated healing had faded to a duller ache. “Is he—?”
Rans checked the wound and gave an audible sigh of relief at whatever he found. He helped me sit up, though it made my head spin so badly I thought I’d pass out. I clung to the side of the boat, blinking my vision into some sort of working order.
“He went overboard with the last Fae,” Rans said grimly, scooping up the iron dagger I’d dropped. “Stay here for a minute.”
I almost scoffed. I could barely hold my damned head up, and I still felt like my body was about to rupture like a pricked water balloon, spilling blood and guts everywhere. Where was I going to go? With something less than his usual grace, Rans jumped into the boat where Guthrie had been fighting two Fae earlier. I craned my neck until I could see two blond-haired figures lying in a heap on the deck. As I watched, one of them stirred weakly.
Rans plunged the iron dagger into the heart of first one Fae, and then the other, twisting the blade each time before yanking it out. Despite all the violence I’d seen—and done—in recent days, my gorge rose again, and I dry-heaved weakly.
In no time, Rans was back at my side. I waved him off, even though the dark splotches in my vision were back, growing larger than ever.
“Find—” I croaked, and paused to cough. “Find Guthrie.”
His hand tightened on my shoulder, and he nodded, stone-faced. He was up and over the stern of the boat in an instant, disappearing with a splash. I crawled on hands and knees until I could clutch the edge of the hull, looking down at the area where Guthrie and the Fae had fallen into the depths.
My stomach lurched as I took in the swirls of red mixed in with the blue-green water. Blood. A lot of it. Trying not to panic, I forced myself to stay upright and focused despite the acid still burning its way through my veins. Vampires can’t drown. I repeated the words like a mantra. Hell, Rans had recovered from having his freakin’ brains blown out before being dumped in the ocean. Guthrie would be fine.
Minutes passed, and panic became harder to keep at bay. I was losing ground in my battle to stay conscious when the water behind the boat heaved, and Rans burst to the surface, Guthrie held against his chest in a classic lifeguard’s carry.
I gasped at the same moment Guthrie did, though mine was a gasp of relief. Water spewed from Guthrie’s nose and mouth, followed by a series of choking coughs—proof that while lungs full of water might not be fatal to a vampire, they apparently weren’t much fun, either.
My body sagged with the sudden release of tension as Rans heaved Guthrie partway over the low hull of the nearest Fae boat, and Guthrie scrambled the rest of the way aboard. Rans followed a moment later. From there, they both rejoined me on our boat. I would have stumbled over to them and thrown my arms around both of them at once, if I hadn’t been fairly sure I’d fall on my face after attempting a single step.
“Guthrie,” I managed—my voice a weak and reedy thing. “You saved us.”
Guthrie waved off the words as though they irritated him. He had one arm clamped around his ribs, I noticed belatedly, and his clothes were still bloodstained even after a dip in the ocean.
“First things first, mate,” Rans said. “I didn’t see the Fae down there. Did you manage to kill him?”
Guthrie looked gray under his dark complexion, and he had to cough several more times before he could speak. “Yeah. Drowned the motherfucker.”
Rans nodded. “Hmm. Well, it’s not ideal, but I suppose there’s no one out here to resuscitate him with magic, and he’s not likely to manage it on his own under these circumstances. All right. Let me see the wound you’re hiding.”
He nudged Guthrie’s arm out of the way, and my head swam as I noticed the dagger hilt sticking out from between his ribs. Guthrie clamped his jaw tightly, and Rans sighed.
“Next time, pull it out the second you get a chance,” he said, grabbing hold of the weapon and yanking it out in a single quick pull. Guthrie yelped and clapped his arm over the wound again. “I’ve told you, human rules don’t apply anymore, mate. It was the silver weakening you, not the wound itself. It’ll be all right in a few minutes, now that the blade’s out.”
With Guthrie seen to, Rans was back at my side in a heartbeat.
“Hey again,” I rasped, trying to play it off as though I weren’t on the verge of passing out.
A cool hand smoothed my damp hair away from my face, and I pressed into the contact. My eyes slipped closed as I soaked up the tiny point of relief, when everything else was burning.
“She doesn’t look so good
, Rans,” Guthrie said uncertainly.
“Yes, thank you. I’d noticed,” Rans shot back, a hint of sharpness in his voice. His tone softened as his focus returned to me. “Open your eyes for me, love. We need to get more of my blood into you.”
I forced them open, staring into concerned pools of blue. “’Kay...” I managed weakly.
His skin pressed against my lips, blood flowing for a moment or two where he’d scored himself with his fangs. I tried to do as he’d asked, knowing his blood would heal me. But again, my stomach rejected it. I heaved helplessly, spewing red down the front of my dress.
“Something’s wrong,” I gasped when I could breathe again. “It’s not the bullet. It started before that.”
My throat burned, even though the small amount of vampire blood that had gone down—and come back up—should have healed it instantly. I was still overcome by the feeling of my body fighting itself. My blood felt like a column of angry fire ants marching through my veins and arteries.
Rans stroked my face again, worry twisting his expression. “What happened before it started?” he asked, keeping his tone soothing.
I swallowed, trying to wet my lips. My eyes drifted to the dead Fae in the middle of the boat. “I... killed them.”
His gaze followed mine, and his frown deepened. “You pulled animus from them? How many?”
I blinked, trying to keep my brain on track. “Four. Killed... two.”
Rans was silent for a moment, staring at the dead Fae. “Right,” he said eventually. “Well, we know Fae magic has never sat well with you, and you’ve just pulled a massive amount of it at one time. Let’s... focus on getting to St. John’s as fast as possible. We’ll have more resources at our disposal there.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Guthrie said, still peering at me with a worried expression. “What are we going to do with... uh, the bodies?” His tone sounded uncertain. Distantly, I wondered if he’d ever killed anyone before.
“Dump them overboard,” Rans said absently, his attention still fixed on me. “They may wash up somewhere eventually, but it’ll take a while. Do you have any blood bags left?”
The Last Vampire- Complete series Box Set Page 84
