by Lexi Blake
“I shall, mistress,” he vowed. He stopped all of the sudden.
“What’s wrong?” We were standing outside the kitchen doors.
“It’s very quiet,” he said. He breathed in and then he was rushing through the doors.
I could smell it now. Blood. There was blood everywhere.
The brownies had been slaughtered, their tiny bodies lying where they’d fallen. These brownies hadn’t been killed the way Racha had. They’d been murdered in a violent fashion, blood covering the white marble.
My heart threatened to stop. “Lee was in here. I sent him in here for dinner.”
Eddie shook his head. “Master Fen changed again. He thought it was fun to let Master Lee ride on his back. I sent them to their room. They must act like civilized creatures if they wish to eat at the table. Since Master Fen had no more clothes left, I told them I would send them trays and they could stay in their room. They are not here, mistress.”
“But whoever did this will be after them. You have to get to them. You have to get them out of here.”
“I will get to the boys,” Eddie whispered. “We must save the boys.”
We were thinking along the same lines, but we had a lot of boys to save.
Unfortunately, I was weaponless. I didn’t walk around with Gladys strapped to my back, and I’d taken off my gun holster because lying around in bed with my guys went more smoothly without a piece.
I would have to rethink that.
I had to get Eddie to the boys’ room, and I couldn’t take time to equip myself properly. “Where did you put Lord Sloane?”
I followed Eddie because no one knew the place like he did.
“I placed him in the room furthest from Master Gray,” he whispered. “I knew he did not like to be around his father. I thought I could keep them apart.”
“Gray was going to talk to his dad.” I had to pray Meredith wasn’t working with Lord Sloane, but I didn’t hold out much hope. If something walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s usually a demonic fucking duck that will bite us all in the ass. “What would happen to Gray if he died before his contract was up?”
“He would descend, but if it could be proven that Lord Sloane had a part in his death, the contract would be broken,” he explained as we moved through the back of the kitchens. He was taking me through the servants’ entrances. They were the back route to get to the rooms. Eddie had taken a very historical view of how to build a “domicile,” as he put it. Servants were to be as quiet as possible. It was how Racha had gotten into our room that night without waking me. She hadn’t come through the front door. She’d used the small servant’s entrance.
I tried to open my senses, but panic was getting in the way. I would be able to breathe a little better when I knew the boys were safely on their way to Dallas. Being transported by a demon. Yeah, I was going with it. When Lee and Fen were gone and I knew Donovan was on his way, I could start figuring this thing out. I didn’t know where Trent was. I knew where Gray was and that scared the shit out of me. If Lord Sloane was in on this, then I didn’t want Gray anywhere near him. “So if Lord Sloane had Meredith poison Gray and no one can prove it, he would be off the hook and Gray would have a one-way ticket to Hell?”
“Unless we can prove he did it or influenced her to do it,” Eddie said, picking up the pace.
“What if I kill Sloane?”
“The contract is not to Lord Sloane himself. It’s to the House. Whoever is the oldest member of the House with enough demonic blood to have authority over the House would then hold Grayson’s contract.” He put a hand on the door. “I do not know who this is, but it could be Grayson himself. If there is no one with enough power, the House will fall and the contract, all of their contracts, would be void. Kill him if you can, mistress.”
Oh, I had a million reasons to kill him. I just needed some justification. Hell, at this point I didn’t even need that. If Donovan declared me outcast, I would happily take my men and find a beach and raise our freaky-ass kids.
If we survived whatever was happening now.
Eddie opened the door and we walked in. An eerie quiet met us and my heart was suddenly in my throat because Lee was laid out on his bed. He was face down and I nearly tripped trying to get to him. I wasn’t worried about who else was in the damn room with us. In that moment all that mattered was getting to Lee.
Fen stepped in front of me and he had a dart sticking out of his chest. He pulled at it, but his eyes were already glassy.
“Change, Fen.” If I could keep one of them awake…alive…god, please let them be alive…then it would make things easier. “Change for me, baby.”
He stared at me. “Why does she have two faces?”
I caught him before he hit the floor. “Who?”
But his eyes had closed. I could feel his heart beating. His pulse was strong. I had to believe the same for Lee. I got to my feet and laid him on the bed.
“I’ll get them to Dallas,” Eddie said.
Of course he said it right before a dart hit his chest. I looked back and Meredith stood next to Celine, both with rifles in their hands.
“No, I’ll take this one,” Meredith said, holding off her friend. “I’ve got the one meant for her. I’m so glad you freaked out the other day or I wouldn’t have known to double your dose. I’m sorry to do this to you, Kelsey. I actually think you’re one of the good ones, but I have a score to settle.”
I felt my arm change and I swear I could feel it wrap around her slender throat. I leapt for her. In that moment I only cared about ripping that bitch apart.
But the dart hit my chest. She got me just above my heart and she was right about the dosage.
I fell to her feet, the world going fuzzy.
“Tell me you didn’t kill the king’s son,” a deep voice said. “We need him.” Yep, there was the Hell lord. He stared down at me. “I hope you’re worth it. I think you need a makeover, dear. If you’re going to be my daughter-in-law, I think I’ll get rid of that wolf. Sleep tight.”
The world went dark but I howled on the inside.
Chapter Eighteen
I came awake to darkness.
“It hurts.”
“I know, sweetie. I’m sorry.”
“You did it to save me. I wish you hadn’t. I think I’m ready to die. The real death this time. I can’t go through this. I can’t…I don’t want her, but I do. I love you. I love you. I’ve never loved anyone but you.”
“I love you, too. I’m sorry, Casey. It’s my fault. I thought you would leave me for a companion. She used her blood to addict you. I swear to god if I live through this I will kill that bitch.”
My head was fuzzy but there was definitely something worse—an emptiness I couldn’t explain. I tried to open my eyes, but the world was blurry.
“Hey,” a gravelly voice said. “Take it easy, Kelsey mine. You took a lot of magic and it’s going to affect you.”
Magic? My mouth was dry. Why did I feel wrong? I couldn’t explain it, but there was something missing. It was like a piece of me was gone, something essential. But I could feel my arms and legs. My head ached so it was on there. I looked up, trying to focus on Gray.
A big hand smoothed back my hair. “Easy. You have to give it a few minutes, but you’ll be okay.”
“Okay?” Liv. Liv was the female voice and she did not sound like a happy camper. “None of us is going to be okay. Not a one of us. Do you understand what your father did to her? What he made me do?”
It was starting to come back to me. It was a little like that moment when you wake up after a drinking binge. The world seems to have changed, and not for the better, and then you realize what happened and that it was all your fault.
I couldn’t move. I could feel my body, but my muscles felt useless. I could cry though. My tears still worked and they flowed from my eyes. “Lee? Trent?”
“She’s awake?” Casey was here, too. “Thank god. I thought she wasn’t going to wake up.”
&
nbsp; “I told you she would, but she’s not the same,” Liv said. “Lee’s alive, Kelsey. I don’t know about Trent. I’m sorry.”
Gray’s hand moved over my hair, stroking me. “Trent’s alive. They need him for the spell. Lee’s going to sleep until morning. I think I’ve pieced together my father’s plan. He doesn’t dare kill Lee, but Lee also won’t have any idea what happened.”
Lee was far smarter than most people gave him credit for, but I wasn’t going to point that out now. I had no idea where we were or who was listening in on us.
“Fen?” I seemed to be able to manage single words.
Something pressed down on me, but I knew it wasn’t anything physical. It was…sorrow. Loss. I hadn’t felt like this since long before I’d met Gray and my world had come alive.
A vision of my wrists opening assaulted me. I’d been sixteen and I’d realized there was no place for me in the world. I was violent and destructive. I was everything my stepfather had said I was. That was the feeling that pressed on my soul. Utter despair.
“I’m sorry,” Gray was saying. “My father is going to give Fen over to Lupus Solum. They’re going to execute him. The coven will use Fen’s life-force to power the spell they will use to suppress my soul.”
I couldn’t stay lying down. It hurt like hell but I forced myself to sit up. I blinked to clear my vision. “Eddie?”
I was going down a list.
“He’s dead,” Casey said. “I think I would be, too, but they needed me to make Liv do their dirty work. Can I just say that silver chains are horrible and this is the suckiest part of being a vampire?”
I blinked a couple of times and Casey came into focus. He looked haggard, a word I never used for Casey. But then of course he wasn’t usually slumped in a corner, his body wrapped in chains that smoked where they touched his flesh.
Liv was chained to the wall across from him. Someone had done a number on my best friend. Her right eye was swollen and there was blood across her cheek.
Gray was completely free, but he didn’t stand up. He merely sat with his back to the wall. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?”
“Like we were completely and utterly betrayed.” I took a deep breath, trying to banish the panicked feeling threatening to overwhelm me. Eddie was dead? All the brownies were gone. “Where are we?”
“The witches have a coven house. A cabin, really. We’re in the great room. They’re preparing a space outside for the ceremonies,” Liv explained.
I’d gotten my ass handed to me by a freaking companion. I was never going to live it down. The good news was, they’d left me perfectly free to move around, and it was time to take this thing to stage two.
“Where are they holding Trent?” I needed to get a lay of the land. Whatever Meredith had hit me with had done a bang-up job. I could tell it was hours later. The window told the tale. It was pure night outside, only the silvery moonlight illuminating the room we were in.
“Lupus Solum has him,” Gray said grimly, and I wondered why he wasn’t up and moving. We needed to get Casey out of those chains, set Liv free. I needed my team up and ready to go. “They’ve got Fen, too, though from what I heard they’re not planning on punishing him. They’re simply going to murder him at midnight.”
I got to my feet. I was so weak. Weak and aching inside.
And then I heard the most horrible howl. It was a howl of pain, of physical agony.
It was Trent.
“What the hell are they doing to him?”
Gray held up a hand. “They’re not going to kill him. Apparently we need a lot of blood to do what my father has planned for me. They intend to sacrifice Trent along with Fen. Casey won’t work.”
“Well, forgive me for not being able to be used as a sacrificial lamb,” Casey groused. “I don’t have enough life-force. Believe me the way I feel right now, I might not mind.”
“Hush,” Liv chided. “Don’t talk like that. You’ll get through it.”
There was another long howl.
“I think they’re softening Trent up,” Gray continued. “He mainlined king’s blood last night. It’s still in his system. They weren’t counting on that. Meredith said if they tortured him enough, they should be able to counteract the effects.”
The blood would leave his system faster if he had to heal major injuries, one after another. And Tanner would get to watch his brother bleed. Yeah, I needed to stop that.
And I would when I could get my legs to work. I could make them move, but I felt awkward and gangly.
“Please sit down, Kels,” Liv pleaded.
The door opened and there was the bitch who’d shot me. Meredith stood in the doorway, a sour look on her face. “God, you really are a freak. You should have been out for long after the ceremony. I would have thought pulling the she-wolf off your soul would have tired you out longer.”
“What?” I stumbled trying to get to her. She’d made a mistake walking in here. I would change my arm and then I’d show her how a Hunter fights.
A chuckle came from behind Meredith. My stepfather walked in. He carried a rifle in his hands.
“Kelsey, get over here,” Gray barked.
“Why?” John Atwood asked. “What are you going to do about it, demon? Your legs don’t work, do they? That’s what happens when Daddy breaks your spine in two.”
“What?” I kept saying that one word. Panic was welling up again. I needed my she-wolf to take over. I reached down deep inside and realized what was missing. “What did you do to me?”
She wasn’t there. There was an empty place in my soul, a place I’d just come to love. I’d made my peace with her and she was gone. She was the strongest part of me. I hit my knees, the horror washing over me.
I didn’t have her strength. My senses were my own again. I was just me and it wasn’t enough.
I was awkward because I’d spent years with her bolstering me. I was weak because I’d come to rely on her in every way.
“I’m sorry, Kelsey,” Liv said. “They made me do it.”
“She did it to save me,” Casey insisted. “Don’t blame her.”
Meredith stepped around me, obviously completely unafraid. She had a vial in her hand, steam coming from the top. “Open up, Gray. I want to get this asshole out of me as soon as possible. He’s quite hard to live with.”
Why does she have two faces?
That was the question Fen had asked. Had Fen been able to see what we couldn’t?
I reached for her. She wasn’t going to poison Gray in front of me. My stepfather batted my hand away and pain flared through me. God, how much pain had my she-wolf taken for me? Hours before I wouldn’t have noticed it at all, but now it felt like he’d nearly broken my arm.
“Stay down, bitch,” John growled at me.
In the distance, I could hear my wolf howling in pain, but it was softer now, as if he couldn’t work up the will to be loud anymore.
“You stay the fuck away from her,” Gray shouted.
“You’re still a feisty one.” Meredith moved around to his right side and I realized only one of his arms was working. The other hung limply. “I need you to drink this. It will put that dragon to sleep long enough for us to slip another soul into your body. He’s getting stronger. He’ll take me over soon, and I don’t want that to happen. Neither does your father. We need him housed in your soul with all of your powers.”
“Nemcox?” There was only one soul Lord Sloane would put into Gray’s body. Only one I could think of who would do Lord Sloane’s bidding.
Meredith smiled, but it was a nasty thing. “I made a deal a few years ago to hold a piece of Nemcox’s soul inside mine. Apparently one of Gray’s prophecies made Nemcox suspicious that he would be destroyed before something he called the Reckoning. No idea what he means, but it’s a big deal to him. After Trent killed him, that piece I hold of him flared to life and he’s given me hell ever since. He can’t actually talk or tell me anything, but he can manipulate me. Fucker. Open up, Gray. This is
the last of it.”
“He’s not drinking that.” I started to get up but my stepfather shoved me down. Again, the pain flashed through me as my knees banged against the floor. Instinctively I reached for her, but she wasn’t there.
Gray held out a hand. “Of course I am, Kelsey mine. I’m not stupid. There’s a reason your asshole stepfather is here. Give it to me.”
“No one said you were a dummy, demon.” John had the rifle pointed at my head.
“Baby, they’re going to kill me anyway.” I couldn’t let him walk into this on his own. We had to fight.
But they’d pulled the fight out of me.
Gray hoisted the vial with his good hand, a gallows toast. “Until you’re dead, I’ll protect you. Even beyond. And don’t count Trent out. He’ll save us. I believe it. Now that I know it’s my brother influencing me, it’s easier to turn it aside. Fuck you, Nemcox.”
He shot the potion in one go.
Meredith put a hand to her head. “Damn it. That hurts him.”
Gray passed the vial back. “He should understand that I will find a way to destroy him utterly. He can take my body but unless you expel my soul, I’ll fight him forever. He won’t have a moment’s peace, and if you kill Kelsey, I’ll find a way to come back and I will eat your soul. I vow this on all that is holy and unholy, on my honor as a dark prophet. I will make it so you never existed. And I’ll find a way to kill my father, too.”
“I’m sure you will,” Meredith said.
There were a couple of things no one was taking into account. “Gray is a dark prophet. Do you honestly think you can just shove some tiny piece of Nemcox inside him and he’ll take over?”
“Well, if it doesn’t work, I suspect Lord Sloane will murder us all to cover it up, so let’s hope I know what I’m doing,” Meredith replied. “The witches are going to use the wolves life-force to grow Nemcox. By the time we’re done, he’ll be more than capable of taking over his brother’s body and his powers. Then Lord Sloane will have what he wants and I’ll get what I want.”
I could guess. “The king’s head on a platter?”
