by Michele Hauf
No longer. He would rise above his torment. He’d begun by helping out in the community. And he would continue by opening his heart even more. He could live life without always looking over his shoulder.
With a swift angle of wing, Sim turned them both in the air and forced Blade to ground. His spine and hips landed on the fieldstone staircase before the mansion. Blade felt his bones break, his jaw crack and his brain shudder inside his skull.
Sim clutched the stake, intent on yanking it out. “Time to die, vampire.”
“You first!” A sweep of the halo blade sliced the stake off right at Blade’s chest. It cut his skin, it was so close. But it also shaved off the stake and released Sim’s grip on it. The angel hissed, clutching his hand. Blue blood seeped from a slice on his fingers.
Kesabel landed over Blade and offered him a hand, tugging him up to stand. When the angel lunged for them both, Kesabel shoved the sword hilt into Blade’s grip. “This belongs to you.”
Blade reacted and stabbed, piercing the angel through his glass heart. “Meet you in Beneath, asshole.” Sim yowled the horrifying din of the angels. A blue glow crept out at the sword wound. The tinkling sound of glass shattering preceded Sim’s abrupt silence. The angel dusted to crystal ash and dropped in a mound at Blade’s feet.
“Good riddance,” Kesabel said. “Duplicitous asshole.”
“Zen was his cohort,” Blade said.
“Indeed. Yet I scent a soul in her. She is not the queen for us. I took that from one of your brothers,” Kesabel offered, gesturing to the halo sword. “The werewolf was faring well enough with claws and fangs.”
Blade slapped a hand over his chest. The wooden stake sat flush with his rib cage and little blood seeped out around it. “You saved my life. What was that for?” he asked the demon.
“I figured out how this divinity thing works. And you know, it does repel the angels. Pisses them off, too, which is the sweet part. Thanks.” He clamped a hand on Blade’s shoulder. “We may not have a queen, but the Casipheans will survive now that we know how to protect ourselves from our greatest foe.”
“So you’re going to leave Zen alone?”
Kesabel nodded. “She’s more faery now than anything. I’m not convinced she’d even become demon if she did willingly descend to Daemonia. And if it was all a plot to kill us, well, then...”
“Forgive me for the ranks of Casipheans I’ve killed,” Blade said. “I was doing what I thought right. But now I know it wasn’t.”
“I believe forgiveness is a human weakness,” Kesabel offered. “Survival is a valuable trait to possess, especially for a vampire. No forgiveness is necessary. We will find a fitting queen. Some day. I offer you my friendship and a lifelong alliance, if you will accept.”
“I do.”
“You are a warrior, Blade Saint-Pierre.”
Blade slapped his palm into Kesabel’s and they shook. And as an angel with fiery wings soared in toward Kesabel’s back, Blade leaped over the demon’s head and tangled with the predator. A slice of the halo blade took off the angel’s head. Blade shoved him away quickly to avoid the blue blood that spewed out.
And as he spun in the air, taking in the grounds below, he saw the angels retreating with the Casipheans tight on their wake. Kesabel commanded his few but powerful forces. Below on the ground stood Kelyn, gossamer violet wings spread wide and bow aimed toward the sky. And with her shoulders pressed against Kelyn’s shoulders, Zen held guard at his back. No enemies dared approach the twosome.
Trouble loped across the battlegrounds, sniffing at the fallen dead and dashing his claws through the heaps of angel and demon dust. He did not see the emaciated demon stalking close behind him.
“Ryckt.” Blade soared downward toward his nemesis, catching the demon through the shoulder with his pointed wingtip and lifting him from the ground seconds before he would have landed on Trouble.
The demon struggled but remained pierced through, even as he turned to face Blade. Suspended in the air high above the waning battle below, Blade looked into his enemy’s red eyes for the first time as an aggressor.
And yet, he could not force himself to end the bastard’s life, for his heart had altered.
“She didn’t need to die,” he said. “Octavia. You used her to lure me to your denizen.”
“That I did.” Ryckt lashed out his long black tongue and managed to flick it across the wingtip that pierced his shoulder. “You going to crush me now, vampire? This armor is strong and sure.”
“Yeah? But it’s got a weak point. I’m going to do for you what I should have done long ago.”
With a bend of wing, Blade forced the demon toward him and sank his fangs into the thick vein that pulsed on its neck. There was just enough room above the armor to get a good hold. He drank deeply of the horrible blood. His faery writhed with pleasure. But he would take no joy in this win. Spitting upon the wound, he then rubbed it into the open flesh, ensuring his ichor-tainted saliva seeped in.
“No!” Ryckt squirmed and Blade released him, allowing the demon to fall. He didn’t make it to the ground in one piece. The burst of demon ash showered the other piles of ash below.
So his heart hadn’t altered completely. That had been a debt he needed to pay. Now he could move on.
Casting his gaze over the ground below, Blade focused on one figure in particular. Zen looked up and her eyes met his. He slapped a palm over his heart and winced. He’d forgotten about the stake.
* * *
Zen watched as the man who would slay angels for her descended from the sky. His tattered black wings allowed the moonlight to seep through in the holes torn here and there. He looked a dark angel, but he was the furthest thing from a creature from Above.
And she was glad for that.
“All’s well,” Kelyn announced. He’d stood beside her most of the time Blade had not been able to, taking out the enemy with bow and arrow. The faery was swift, to the degree that she hadn’t seen him move most of the time.
Kelyn clasped her hand and the faint violet symbol on his wrist glowed. And in turn, Zen noticed the white marks on her inner elbows glowed.
“Does that mean...?” she said.
“I think you’re sidhe,” Kelyn said. “Only time will tell.” He brushed her cheek and showed her the black smeared on his finger.
“That’s not my blood,” she said.
“Good. You had me worried. There’s Blade.”
The vampire landed on the ground behind them. His wings swept the air, stirring up a pile of crystal angel dust in a flurry.
Zen ran to her lover as he stumbled toward her. Hand clasped over his chest, only then did she remember he’d taken a stake to his heart. How could he be alive? Vampires died when staked through the heart. Had she only moments before he might suddenly be reduced to dust?
“No, please no.”
Just as her arms touched his, he fell to his knees before her. Head wobbling, he managed a weak smile up at her. “Love you,” he muttered. Then he dropped to his side.
“Blade!”
The werewolf shifted down to his four-legged wolf shape and loped over to his vampire brother’s side. He sniffed at the wood stuck in his chest and growled lowly. Kelyn joined Zen and touched Blade’s throat over the carotid artery. “He’s alive.”
“He’s got a stake in his chest.” Zen stated the obvious. “We have to get it out!”
“No.” Kelyn stayed her with a hand to hers. “That’s the worst thing you can do. Pulling the stake out will cause the heart to explode. Right now, it’s the only thing holding him together, so to speak. Have to leave it in and allow it to push out naturally as he heals.”
“That’s crazy. He’s going to die!”
The wolf barked, echoing his brother’s insistence.
“Really?” She touched Blade’s cheek. “He’s cold.”
“He’s going to need blood, and lots of it. I’ll put him in the truck. Trouble, you drive into town and find blood donors. Zen, you go
along with Trouble and he’ll—” The brothers exchanged looks. Trouble nodded agreement to some silent command Kelyn had given him. Then the faery said, “I’ll take him home. And hold vigil.”
Chapter 29
Blade existed in a bleary state of exhaustion and orgasmic high. He was aware of his brothers’ presence. They wandered near the couch where he lay, talking about everyday things such as women and who was going to help Stryke with the construction work. Every so often he would smell a human woman’s perfume, and she would coo over him. One of his brothers would explain to the nameless woman how he was sick, and as a dying man he wanted one last kiss from a beautiful woman.
He knew what they were doing. It was a sneaky method he’d never engage to get blood. But he needed the blood and was too weak to protest the trickery, so he didn’t argue. After about the fifth or sixth woman, he licked the wound on her neck and used his vampiric persuasion to make her believe she’d had a blind date with a man she had liked but wasn’t interested in seeing again, as he’d done with those previously. Kelyn drove her back to town.
Trouble was off in the kitchen making something that smelled awful. Meat. Blade did hate the smell of cooked meat.
“Where’s Zen?”
“You up and at ’em, bro?” Trouble’s head appeared from over the back of the couch. He was chewing on something Blade didn’t want to know about. “Hungry?”
“Not for that crap.”
“How you feeling?”
“Alive.” He patted his chest. Had the stake moved out of his body about a quarter of an inch? He was sure when Kesabel had sliced it off it had been shaved even with his chest, so much so he’d been skinned. The skin had healed. “How many days has it been?”
“Three. You’re holding on, though. Getting stronger with every neck you tap. Kelyn was right. We just keep feeding you blood and your body will heal. Soon enough it’ll push that stake right out.”
Blade shuffled up to a half sitting position. A dizzy wave washed through his skull. “Where is she?”
Trouble’s jaw pulsed. “Uh, I told Zen to leave you be.”
“She left?”
Trouble shrugged. “It’s best for the both of you, bro. Sure you don’t want something? I made deer sausage and kraut.”
Blade had to forcibly keep from gagging. “I need Zen. She wouldn’t have left town.”
“She didn’t leave town. Hey! Sit down. You have to rest.”
Blade stood, wobbled and caught a hand on the back of the couch. This infirmity was for the birds. He needed to move, to finish what he’d started. “I need to find Zen.”
“Dude.” Trouble pulled off a pink ruffled apron—where he’d found that, Blade had no idea—and tossed it aside. “Fine. But tell me one thing. Do you love that chick? The one who doesn’t know what she is? The one who brought a war between the angels and the demons to your doorstep?”
“Hell yes.”
Trouble’s smile preceded his feisty punch of fists before him. “Yes! Then let’s go find her.”
“Just me.”
“I don’t think so, man. You’re wobbly at best. You’re going to need more blood. I can hook you up with this chick—”
Blade clutched Trouble’s shirt and jerked him to a stunning silence. “Just. Me,” he muttered. “You get that nasty smell of meat out of my house before I return.”
“Dude, you are no fun when you’re dying.”
“I’m not dying,” he muttered as he wandered down the hallway to clean up.
* * *
Zen had denied the Casiphean crown in favor of choosing him. It was the right choice. The only choice. But Blade did not forget the promise he’d made Zen. After showering, he dressed and headed in to Tangle Lake, to Zen’s favorite clothing store. It took some fast-talking and a little flirting, but he accomplished his mission.
Now with a black velvet bag in hand, he plodded through the forest, thick with undergrowth and few worn paths. The paths had been tromped down by his father and siblings when they went out for a run in wolf shape.
After Trouble had come clean about Zen’s whereabouts he’d revealed he had suggested Zen go to his parents to stay while Blade recovered. And Kelyn had taken her there.
Blade couldn’t believe she’d agreed to it. And then he knew Trouble could be persuasive, if not intimidating. But the last thing he needed right now was distance from the one vital being who gave him life. He was suffering. The stake would take another week or two to completely push out, and that meant lots of blood to invoke the healing process.
It hurt like hell, but he was thankful that Simaseel hadn’t ripped it out of his chest. The demon Kesabel had saved him. Guess not all demons were worthy of death. For without the demon’s quick action he wouldn’t be wandering through the woods, stumbling here and there because he wasn’t at full strength, in search of a woman.
Not just any woman. The one woman who made him believe he could do better.
The gurgle of the falls signaled he was near his destination. Behind the falls was a cove of rocks where he and his brothers often rested after swimming up the stream. The water was always cool but refreshing. He was compelled to strip and plunge in, but that could wait. He had to find Zen.
A scurry of rabbits bounced to his right. Overhead, a dazzle of dragonflies, their iridescent wings catching the sun through the tree canopy, bobbled in the air, flying the same direction he was headed. The hiss of a snake clued him in on one slithering beneath the fallen leaves and grasses. And a doe leaped into view before him, glanced his way, then dashed onward, but not as if she needed to flee.
They were—all of them—headed somewhere. Together.
And then Blade felt it, the distinctive vibrations that scurried over his skin and hummed in his veins. His faery alighted within and his furled wings shivered. For moments he forgot the pain of the stake in his heart. A gorgeous perfume lured him forward, near the stream’s edge, where, lying on a wet stone, he spied the halo.
She stood there, arms spread out and head tilted back. Facing him, he saw her eyes were closed as she communed with nature. Calling out to all the creatures that arrived the same time as he did. The doe walked up to Zen and sniffed at her fingers. She opened her eyes, and without startling the deer, smiled and whispered something he couldn’t hear.
Clad in a floaty white dress that was so sheer he could see her dark nipples, with a start, she noticed him. The doe didn’t dash away; instead, it stepped to the stream’s edge for a drink.
“Blade.”
Dropping the velvet sack near the halo, he approached cautiously, so as not to frighten any of the animals that surrounded Zen as if she was a Disney princess and they were waiting for her to break into song. But once close enough, he rushed into her arms and pulled her in for a hug.
“I needed you,” he whispered aside her ear. “Had to find you.”
“You’ve found me.”
“What are you doing out here?”
“Your brothers told me to stay away while you healed.”
“So you did?” He pulled back and studied her eyes. They were violet, like Kelyn’s eyes. And the markings on her arms were bright white. He traced the curving lines inside her elbow. She was faery. “I would have you stay with me. Always.”
“I didn’t want to interfere in the healing process. And Trouble said there would be women. Lots of them.”
Good ole Trouble. Never as much help as he thought he was.
“There weren’t that many,” he offered. “And I only drank their blood. Needed it to heal.”
“And it worked?”
He tugged up his shirt and she pushed it higher to reveal the end of the severed stake sticking out of his chest. “Still more to go.”
“You should be home. Resting. Drinking blood.”
“Zen, seeing you makes me stronger. Don’t ask me to leave.” He twined his fingers in hers. “Please, let me stay and look at you.”
“Look at me?”
“You are gorgeo
us. You’ve become, haven’t you?”
She nodded. “Yes. Full faery now. You like?”
“I like you no matter what.”
“I’m still waiting for a kiss. It has been days. I should think—”
He kissed her. Soundly. Firmly. Deeply. He kissed her so she would know that she was his and he hers. He kissed her to let her feel his pulse and know he was alive. He kissed her to taste her sweetness and know her strength. For she was strong and powerful.
And she was his.
“That’s better. I won’t ask you to leave. Ever,” she said. “In fact, I want to show you something. But only if you promise to sit down on that rock there by the bunny. You are more pale than usual and you’re swaying.”
“Fair enough.” When he landed on the rock, Blade realized he needed the rest more than he could have imagined because his head swam, as did his brain. Yeah, more blood was a necessity. He should have found a donor before searching for Zen. “What do you want to show me?”
“I’ve been spending my days out here in the forest just sort of...becoming.”
He lifted a brow. “And?”
“This is what I’ve become.”
Bowing her head, the breeze listed through her copper hair. The rabbit sitting next to Blade sat up on its hind legs, as did the pair of squirrels on the other side of him. A red fox poked its nose through a frond of greenery and sniffed the air. A lush scent of flowers filled the atmosphere, accompanied by the ozone aroma of rain. It was a heady scent that seeped into Blade’s being. Zen’s innate perfume. He placed a hand over his heart. The wound had stopped aching.
With a sweep, her wings unfurled behind her. They were quartered as if a dragonfly’s wings, and though clear they shimmered a coppery sheen to match her hair. They fluttered and then snapped out behind her and began to flap, lifting Zen from the ground.
Legs bending, then straightening as if a ballerina doing a plié, she giggled and clasped her hands to her mouth as she looked down at him. “Aren’t they cool?”
He stood, following her as she floated up about ten feet from the ground. “You are the most gorgeous woman I’ve laid eyes on, Zen. And you sparkle.”
