The vampire touched the illusion’s back and moaned in delight. “Hearing you scream out while I peeled the flesh from your body is a sound I think of often.”
He touched the illusion’s left shoulder. I knew that he was touching the tattoo there. “I cannot believe you have not had your markings removed. To carry a black wolf on you must be a sad reminder of who never came. He made you a hunted person from the day you were born and he destroyed all that you love, leaving you to live on the streets in fear of us. You are still hunted to the point that you fight daily to live. If you do not die at our hands, you will die from your failing body. Your time is limited, Blessed One. You smell of pending death and you know it. The man who makes your heart beat has so severely damaged your bond to him that your body has been shutting down for years. You know that if you make it until the end of the year, it will be a miracle?”
He really did like the sound of his own voice.
Asshole.
“You still have not answered my questions, Ryan. How does it feel to be weak, helpless, not even a tenth of the weapon and woman you should be all because your mate was fully committed to another, fucking her, loving her and not you?”
Standing, I took a stance against one of the monsters who’d tortured me years ago. It was long overdue. “I’m guessing that’s a rhetorical question.”
Two lycans rushed at me from the side, attempting to lash out at me. I masked myself and place-jumped to the center of the room. Throwing my hand out, I pinned the others in their place with my power.
The vampire spun around, looking wildly at me then back to the illusion. “No.”
With a click of my fingers, the illusion disappeared. “Yes.” I grinned.
“This cannot be. He never claimed you. He took another. You could not have come into your powers.”
Putting my hand up, I released hundreds of tiny butterflies and let them turn into bats a second before they vanished. It showed just how dark and powerful I could be. “And yet I did.”
His eyes widened. The minute I sensed him wanting to leave, I threw wards up, keeping him trapped with me. He faded and reappeared. It was something very few vampires could do. Looking around madly, seeing no escape, he was obviously shocked.
“Oh yeah, buddy, you’re stuck here with me—the poor little helpless girl who could do no more than cry.”
“This is not possible. He never claimed you. He just fucked you.” Desperation leaked from him in waves that couldn’t be missed.
I took a deep breath and laughed. “See, when he decided I wasn’t worth his time and asked another to marry him, he didn’t just weaken me and our bond, he lost rights to me. And he lost his place as the buffer between Eliza and me. When you bastards killed her, you released what she carried for me—the darkness. My darkness. You only have yourselves to blame. You made me what I am.”
“Slayer.” His eyes swirled. He’d fight to the death. So would I. I wouldn’t let this monster get his hands on my son.
“As far as the tattoos go,” I pulled my jeans down more, exposing the one on my right hip, “turns out I’m so much more than just a slayer. I’m a gift from the goddess of the moon, sent with all the gifts she possesses. Sent to mate with the god-like warrior. I’m apparently a fertility goddess, a goddess of the hunt, of the lycan, of sex and desire. And because of you and yours, I have my darkness.
“And I’m not a terrified girl anymore.” I looked around the room, still sensing Porter, to let him know that he gave me courage to believe that. “I no longer think an ass-kickin’ cowboy is going to ride in and save the day. I keep the scars on my back to remind me of what happens when little girls dare to dream, dare to believe what others tell them, dare to listen to lies. I lost so much that day, and every time someone sees the scars or asks about the tattoos, it reminds me that I have no fairytale ending.”
He smiled, but it looked forced. “I can smell death creeping up on you, Blessed One. Your body can no longer survive being separated from your mate.”
I let out a wicked sounding laugh to mask my fear. “Asshole, you aren’t telling me anything new. You aren’t fucking with my mind. I was forced to come to terms with dying already. What you should really be thinking is that you are oh-so fucked because I have nothing to lose.”
Truth was, I was terrified of leaving JP.
I searched the link inside me, desperate to get a message through it. I latched onto it and let the truth of who this vampire was, and exactly how horrific he was, push through what was left of my bond to Cowboy. I showed him things I’d kept hidden from everyone but Porter and Jude. Things that would make him understand how important it was he closed the link if I couldn’t stop the vampire and how he would need to come for someone very special who would need his protection.
Hudson gasped at the very second I felt the slight tickle deep within me, indicating that I had indeed made contact with Cowboy.
I willed my thoughts down our mystical cord. Please don’t hold how you feel against me right now. I’m terrified this vampire will win. I don’t care if he kills me—someone else has been doing that slowly all my life. I care about what I’ll be leaving behind, Cowboy.
I thrust out images of me at various stages of the pregnancy. I showed him all the attacks made on me during those first six months of it. I also showed him Jude and the day he found me, six months pregnant with Cowboy’s child, being attacked by so many vampires that I could do nothing more than try to run. I’d been too weak to get far. I’d also thought Jude would kill me at first—that because he was a vampire he’d want me dead as well.
I kept pushing, showing Cowboy how Jude was with me every step of the way since then. He helped deliver JP. He’d known when he felt me dying during delivery to strip down and make skin-to-skin contact. He gave me his energy, his power to help JP come into this world. Jude also loved and treated JP as if he was his own.
Learn who he is, Cowboy, because I only need you to come long enough to mask JP’s scent while Jude suffers through me dying. And I do mean suffer. The man went against my wishes and began to form a bond between us in such a small way that I didn’t notice it at first. He’ll experience my death—feel what I feel. He’ll need a bit to recover physically from it and then he’ll come for JP. Don’t fight him on it. According to human law, Jude is who JP will go to. He started the adoption process several months back. It’s not done yet but soon it will be.
There’s another, a Guardian sent to help. Don’t keep him away from JP. There’s something about him that JP responds to in a way he never has before. I can’t explain it. I just know my son instantly fell in love with the man. I trust that Hudson will see that JP is safe and back with Jude.
I took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly. There’s one more thing. Something that my Soul-Guardian told me, but I’ve kept hidden even from Jude. I clenched my fists and nodded. No matter what the enemy does to me, Cowboy, I won’t really die. As long as you’re alive and have our link open even a tiny amount, I’ll live. Granted, I’ll appear dead to everyone else around me—supernaturals included. But I won’t be. They’ll bury me, thinking I’m gone and I’ll spend the rest of your life trapped there, knowing what’s going on but unable to get help. Please close the link all the way if they win tonight. And just to be sure that it’s closed all the way—take my heart and burn it. Porter, my Soul-Guardian, says it’s fitting you’d have to be the one to deliver that blow. I never understood him until now.
A lone tear fell down my cheek.
I honestly don’t know what I did to make you hate me, but use that hate to make sure I’m dead. Porter told me to do this—he told me that when I sensed the end approaching to contact you and tell you he can’t take my soul until I’m truly dead.
I rubbed my neck and leveled a hard gaze on the vampire who was still spewing forth his twisted versions of the truth, but I’d tuned him out. I felt Cowboy acknowledging me, hearing all I had to say. I also felt something I refused to believe was true—love,
concern, pain, sorrow. Jerking back from our connection, shocked by his response, I swayed slightly as I tried to get my bearings.
18
Chapter 18
The vampire kept verbally taunting me.
I took a calming breath and pushed the images out of my head and drew on my strength. The strength I didn’t have when I’d first encountered him. Looking up, I smiled. “Are you planning on standing up there like a coward, or facing what you had no problem facing three years ago? Because I hear ya talking about being some big bad general, but so far you’re just like every other back-alley piece of crap that keeps coming for me. See, I’m dying a rather slow and at times extremely painful death at the hands of someone I cared deeply for. I have nothing to lose if you kill me tonight.”
Not true but he didn’t need to know as much.
I seized hold of him with my power and lifted him into the air. “You, however, do. Now, I’ll put you down and let you have a fair go at me. I won’t strike you from behind and use eight vampires to pin you to the ground. See, I’m not a monster—yet. But I’m pretty close. You have yourself to thank for that.”
I dropped him to the floor with a thud. “That sounded like it hurt.”
His face twisted as he charged at me. I made another carbon copy of myself and place-jumped a second before he slammed into the illusion. He then struck the illusion’s neck fast.
“Ooo, glad that’s not me. That doesn’t look like it feels so good.”
He stopped and turned slowly. I clicked my fingers, the illusion vanished and he fell into the wall. In a flash, he was charging at me. I clicked my fingers again right before he touched me and disappeared.
Stopping, he turned and looked around. “Where are you? I am not falling for your tricks again. Without your magik, you are nothing but a scared little girl. Your mate never taught you how to defend yourself. He never taught you to control your gifts. He only taught you what it was like to be his whore for a night.”
I reappeared behind him, and licked my lower lip. From a crouch, I sprang up and into the air. Spinning fast, I extended my leg as I turned. Whistling, I caught his attention, causing him to turn and look at me at the exact moment my boot struck the side of his head. His head twisted violently. I landed on my feet and delivered a wicked kick to his groin, lifting him off the ground. He levitated and dove to attack me. He struck, hitting me hard and throwing me into the path of two other vampires. One pushed his hand through my chest. It was a direct heart hit. White-hot pain tore through my body as we struck the wall first and then the floor.
“Ryan!” Shona screamed.
“No, baby, no! Ry-Mack!”
The pain was so intense that I had to take a moment to catch my bearings. The vampires were ripped from me fast. Hudson appeared above me, slicing through the line of bad guys swarming towards me as though they were nothing. Dropping down next to me, he reached out to touch me and stopped.
“Ryan,” he whispered with so much emotion that I almost cried. “No, baby. Don’t go.”
Reaching out, I touched his hand and held it. I wanted him to know it was okay, but I couldn’t talk yet. Hudson locked gazes with me and shook his head. “I won’t let you go. I love you.”
The tiniest of tugs started inside my body. The power was familiar, and it touched the spot reserved for only two people, James-Porter and my mate. It was hot energy, which eliminated JP because his was cooler. I thought for sure Cowboy was going to close the link. Closing my eyes, I readied myself for what I actually hoped would come. I was so tired. Too tired to keep fighting.
To my surprise, the opposite happened. Cowboy tugged gently on me, opening the link between us a tiny bit, letting energy through. It was a small amount, but my starved body jerked. Hudson held my hand and touched my forehead as Cowboy continued to feed a tiny, steady stream of power through our link.
I knew the second he had me up to my normal, best-day working order, which wasn’t saying much, because I felt my wounds closing over fast. “Hudson,” I said, launching up and into his arms.
“Ryan?” He held me close to him, gave me a tight squeeze before drawing back a bit and staring at my chest. He ran his hand over the unmarred spot above my heart. It was completely healed. “How? Those were fatal.”
Shaking out of fear and from receiving energy that I hadn’t gotten in years, I clung to him. “He’s opening the…link.”
Hudson looked upwards and sighed. “I wasn’t sure I understood how. Thank you, Porter. Thank you for making her contact me when she thought it was the end. She left a mystical trail. Thank you.”
Cowboy instantly began to open the link more. His essence, his life force, stronger than I’d ever known, rushed towards me.
“No,” I said quickly as my body shook more. It hurt as much as being shut off from him.
“What’s wrong, Ryan?”
“Too much, too fast. Hurts.”
Hudson laid me down gently and spun, killing two vampires without even getting up. At the same time, Cowboy stopped trying to push energy through and just left the link where it was.
“Is that better?” asked Hudson. “Am I opening the link to you enough but not too much?”
“You?” At the same time I asked the question, the dull ache that had been in my head lifted. As it did, the full memories of my one-night stand with Cowboy flooded back to me at such a rate that I gasped. As I saw his face clearly and realized who he was, I gasped again.
Hudson!
Hudson was Cowboy!
Everything suddenly made sense. I thought harder about everything that had happened in the short span I’d known him. About how familiar he felt to me. How quickly I’d given myself to him again. How he was related to Porter, how JP called him daddy nonstop and how he made me feel. Everything clicked and the next thing I knew I slapped him across the face. I had a lot of repressed anger, so he was lucky I didn’t stake him.
He didn’t budge. Instead, a sheepish grin spread over his face. “I take it you’re feeling better.”
“You! You’re Cowboy!”
He twisted for a moment and killed a bad guy before moving his attention back to me. “Guilty, Ry-Mack.”
I wanted to shout at him, hit him again, something, anything, but that wasn’t what happened. He was ripped backwards from me and I screamed, scrambling to my feet to get to him as several of the enemy piled upon him. He vanished under a group of them and I charged in his direction, wanting to help him, my heart in my throat.
I wasn’t needed.
Stumbling backwards, I got out of the way as Hudson sent several of the bad guys spinning in different directions, some with their heads still attached, some without. The next I knew Shona was standing by my side, winded. She held a stake in one hand and a disembodied arm in the other.
I stared at her.
She shrugged and turned, using the arm to hit a vampire before dropping it and staking him. She faced me and then Hudson, her eyes widening. “Holy shit, did he just…oh, that had to hurt.”
I’d thought seeing him fight at slayer training was awe inspiring. I hadn’t seen anything. This was amazing. Unable to look away, I simply stared at the scene as he cut through the enemy sometimes three at a time. He should have been tiring.
“Is it me or is he getting stronger as he goes?” I asked.
Shona twirled the stake in her hand, leaning against me. “Your mate has the best ass.”
I groaned.
“What? It is a great ass.”
I blushed. “It is.”
“We should help him,” she said.
I bit my lower lip. “Everything in me is telling me he needs this.”
“You’re right,” said Porter from behind me. “He does.”
Shona spun. “Holy-hot-guy-overload. Your mate can place jump too?”
“What?” I twisted and shock coursed through my veins at the sight of Hudson there. I was about to question how he’d done it when I realized the man before me now wasn’t Hudson.
He grinned. “Yep.”
“Oh, your mate is a twin?” asked Shona. “The Powers have got to be kidding. Doubling the hot man meat? My lady parts are very happy.”
Porter lifted a brow and took a small step backwards as if Shona might bite. He reached out and pulled Shona to one side as half of a vampire came flying by in the exact spot she’d been standing in.
Grinning, she touched Porter’s t-shirt covered chest. “Oh, ghosts are ripped.”
He righted her and took her hand from his chest. “I’m not a ghost. I’m a Soul-Guardian.”
Shona’s smile widened. “You say tomato. I say—”
I glanced over my shoulder to check on Hudson, who had things well in hand. My attention went back to Porter. “Why can I see you now? And how can Shona?”
He quirked his lips. “Gabriel thought it best I not show myself to you. He was concerned that since I started looking after you when you were little that you might see Hudson as a brother of sorts when you were presented with him.”
I slapped him a good one too. “If the keeper of the nymphs told you to jump off a bridge, would you?”
“Probably.” He grunted. “Oh, and I always could show myself to anyone I wanted.”
I slapped him again.
“You lying piece of shit!” yelled Hudson, drawing my attention to him. Twisting, I found him there, the dark general before him. Hudson’s hands were around the vampire’s neck. “I wanted her. I’ve always wanted her. You filled her head with lies.”
“Brother,” said Porter. “There is more. He and the others with him learned of the prophecy. The one that spoke of your union with Ryan. They figured out what day it was to come to be, and they attacked her two days prior. The same night Maddy was attacked. Do you remember how you had the overwhelming urge to leave Maddy’s side after the attack? How you found yourself on a plane, headed east, with no real purpose? How you then found yourself near a college campus, but you didn’t know why?”
Crossing Hudson Page 17
