by Michele Hauf
“He put the pack at risk. Your mother wasn’t like other humans.”
“She wasn’t powerless, he means. She had magic and could fight back. If she’d been normal, the wolves wouldn’t have cared. Isn’t that right, alpha?” The vampire tilted his head.
Karl growled.
“So, my mother made the stake. Then what? Where is she now?”
“She killed herself.” Van Bom offered this. “Alfred, your real father, found her. She made the stake, and then she used it on herself. Alfred went crazy. He took the stake and all the other weapons he could find and hid them.” Disgust colored Van Bom’s words.
“And then he used it on himself.” She ran her thumb over the stake’s covering. It had taken both her parents’ lives.
“Did he? How sweet. Like Romeo and Juliet.” The vampire tapped one long nail against the revolver’s trigger guard. “You’ve heard the story. Now choose. Vampire or wolf?”
CeCe lowered the stake so it hung by her side. She could feel Marc below them, listening, encouraging her.
“You still haven’t explained why you think I can handle it.” She couldn’t control the stake. She had tried before. If Marc hadn’t interceded, she would have killed and killed again. She was no more resistant to the stake’s power than anyone else. And more importantly, she didn’t want to handle it. She wanted to fling the thing away, rid herself and the world of it forever. But if she did that now, with the vampires and the wolves here, the fighting would start anew, and this time it might never end.
“Where vampire and werewolf meet, will the stake know defeat,” the vampire quoted. “Your mother’s words. Her curse. She created the most powerful weapon of all time, one she knew both vampire and werewolf would kill to control, then she cursed it so only one being in all the world could—you.”
“Where vampire and werewolf meet.” If everything Van Bom and Karl had told her was true, she was that place.
“A miracle,” the vampire murmured. “That’s what your father called you when he learned of you. Vampires can’t procreate, you know. We can only create.” He waved his hand over his shoulder, where the other vampires waited. “I hear it isn’t the same.”
“A miracle that he left,” she murmured.
Her father, her vampire father, could have chosen to take her instead of the stake.
But he didn’t.
She hated the stake, hated everything about it, and at that moment she hated the vampires and the werewolves too. She could feel her mother’s anger. Felt her own anger, too.
Half werewolf and half vampire, wanted by neither, at least not until they realized they could use her.
“How long did it take you to figure this out?” she asked. She pointed the question at Karl.
“I didn’t know about you or the stake until your father told me.”
And then he’d taken a gamble, accepted her father’s terms in the hopes the story was true and the stake would turn up. And if it hadn’t?
“You never meant to give me that chain, did you?” she asked.
“I gave it to you and you left it behind.”
Not an answer, at least to her question, but she was done with the werewolf. More than done.
She shifted her gaze to the vampire.
He lifted one shoulder. “I’ve always known you existed. I just didn’t know where you were. I even thought perhaps my dear friend Alfred might have―” he sighed “―killed you. But happily he didn’t.” He smiled, but CeCe felt no warmth.
“I realized who you were after speaking to Marc. The signs were there. I’m surprised he missed them.”
“I think I understand.” And she did. She knew what she had to do. She unwrapped the stake.
It glistened at her, called to her. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she understood why Karl had picked it up.
Then she leaned over the edge of the cliff and she dropped it.
Chapter 25
Clinging to the wall, Marc had heard every word of Karl’s and Van Bom’s explanation.
CeCe was half vampire. He should have guessed. The signs had been there: her scent, her choice of sun-blocking clothing despite the heat.
And now both sides wanted her...wanted her to take up the stake and fight on their side.
An obvious choice. She’d been raised as a wolf, shifted like a wolf. How could she choose anything else?
He steeled himself, waiting for her to make her declaration, waiting for her to either walk away or reveal his presence to her alpha.
Instead he heard a noise, something sliding down the rock wall toward him. Instinctively he raised his hand to block its descent, to keep whatever the object was from knocking him from his perch.
Cold metal met his grip.
The stake. CeCe had given him the stake.
He’d no sooner had the thought than the world above him exploded. Yells and hisses.
Van Bom and Karl both realizing what CeCe had done. Both, he knew, now intent on revenge, on getting to her...killing her.
He couldn’t let them. He grabbed the stake and slammed it into the rock. Then slowly, painfully, he used it to pull himself up, an arm’s reach at a time.
* * *
CeCe wasn’t sure why she had dropped the stake. She had just known she had to. As long as she held it, the vampire and Karl were in a standoff, waiting for her choice, but once it was out of play, the lid was popped off.
There was no reason for them to pretend anything, but more importantly there was no reason for them to stay either.
Except it didn’t work that way. They didn’t leave. Instead their anger erupted so loud and violent that it called the other vampires and werewolves into the space with them.
Soon the battle they had left briefly behind raged as loud and large as ever. A werewolf in wolf form rushed a vampire and pinned him to the wall with his jaws. A vampire dropped from an overhang onto another wolf’s back. As he bent forward, toward the animal’s neck, CeCe caught a flash of silver.
They were going to destroy themselves. And over what? A stake that no longer existed.
Van Bom turned to her, his gun again pointed at her chest. “You are like your father—stupid.”
She smiled. “My father, for his mistakes, seems to be the only being in your little tale with any sense, any desire to save what he loved.”
“Your mother? She was already gone.”
“No, you and them. He gave up everything to save you from yourselves and you are too stupid to appreciate his sacrifice.”
Done with the vampire, done with all of them, she returned to the edge of the cliff.
She couldn’t wait for the vampires and werewolves to leave, not any longer. She had to save Marc.
When she’d seen him, he’d been at least twenty feet below ground level. Too far for her to grab him. She needed a rope, but she couldn’t risk leaving the cave to get one.
She would have to use something else.
A naked werewolf grappled with a vampire, knocking a gun from his hand and kicking it into the void.
Naked.
The werewolves had arrived wearing clothes, but as they shifted, they dropped them.
CeCe jogged to the nearest pile and gathered it up. Then she ran to the next. Her arms full, she rushed back to her spot and began tying jeans to shirts and shirts to jeans.
“What are you doing?” Karl stared down at her.
“Go away,” she replied. “You have no use for me now.”
“You’re still a genetic wolf.”
Oh yes, her other great value for the pack.
“You’re making a rope.” The alpha glanced at the pit to their side. “I told you, he’s gone.”
“Either help me tie or get out of my way.”
He stared at her, his gaze flat. Then he picked up her pile and tossed it over the side. “He’s gone and he’s going to stay that way.”
She leaped to her feet.
“Don’t count on it.” The stake appeared over the edge with Marc’s hand wrapped around it.
“Marc.” Karl forgotten, CeCe lunged forward, but the alpha was there. He held her by the waist.
“He’s a vampire, CeCe, and he has the stake.” He threw her to the side and stalked forward. He grabbed Marc by the wrist and shook, tried to shake free his hold on the stake.
“No!” CeCe jumped onto the alpha’s back and sank her teeth into his neck. With a curse, he reached over his shoulder and jerked her over his head.
She landed hard; spots drifted in front of her eyes. The alpha moved again, his foot flying out as he tried to kick the stake free of the earth.
CeCe flipped over and propelled her body forward. With her bare hand, she grabbed the stake and forced it deeper into the ground. Her fingers touched cold metal, but her hand also touched Marc’s. It gave her hope.
With her free hand she reached for him and their hands met again.
Their arms formed a circle. For a moment they just lay there.
Relief poured through CeCe. She had him. He was safe, or would be as soon as they pulled him onto solid ground. Marc’s head appeared over the edge, then his elbows and upper body. He smiled at her and she leaned forward, ready to press a kiss to his lips.
Behind her Karl snarled. He kicked, aiming for Marc’s head.
Power shot through her—magic. It electrified her. Her hair rose and her body tingled. She looked at Marc and saw the same shock on his face that she knew was visible on her own.
Karl’s foot froze mid-kick, seemed to hit some kind of barrier and bounced off. He fell backward onto the ground.
A gun fired. CeCe couldn’t see by whom, but it didn’t matter. The bullet met the same barrier as Karl’s foot—froze, then fell.
Marc flipped his body onto the cave floor. Then he pulled her down, so her body lay across his.
He raised their intertwined hands. A blue light blazed around them. “See, you are magic,” he murmured.
She shook her head. “Not me. Us.”
“Where vampire and werewolf meet, my life will be complete,” he murmured.
“That isn’t the quote.” Her words were soft. She was afraid to speak too loudly, afraid all of this would go away.
“But it is true.” Then he rolled over and captured her lips with his.
* * *
After witnessing the protection the stake gave CeCe and Marc, it wasn’t hard for Marc to convince the vampires and the werewolves that it was in their best interest to give up the fight.
He’d allowed himself one more kiss with his wolf before pulling her to her feet and turning to face them. Van Bom had tried to play hero, claiming he had been holding off the wolves so CeCe and Marc could save themselves, but it was wasted breath.
CeCe glowed with new power. Her magic was now on the outside for all to see. He watched her as she spoke to the werewolves, told them to be on their way—that they had no claim to anything inside this cavern. Even the alpha didn’t question her. He simply motioned for his wolves to gather their clothes and leave.
Van Bom waited for Marc.
“We have the stake now.”
“CeCe has the stake.” She did too, shoved in her back pocket like a forgotten comb.
“Her vampire half came through.”
“Her strength came through.”
Van Bom tilted his head as if they were one and the same. “The human had no idea what he’d found.”
“What do you know of Porter?”
“Nothing.”
A quick response, too quick. “What did you do to him, Van Bom?”
“Nothing.”
Marc’s fingers crackled with power. He had kept his hand closed, hiding the new development from others and himself. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the energy that had zipped through him and now, even without contact with the stake, seemed determined to stay.
However, despite his own unease, he spread his fingers wide so Van Bom could see the web of magic weaving around them.
“Tell me.”
The show of power seemed to have the desired effect. The senior vampire’s lips thinned. “I talked to him.”
Marc flexed his fingers; power popped.
“When I heard you had been sent to find the treasure, I followed. I saw you leave that bar through a window. I went in after you.”
“And found Porter.”
“He was a mess.”
Marc couldn’t argue the statement. It is why he had been unable to get worthwhile information from the treasure hunter.
“I put him in thrall. He didn’t come out.”
“You killed him.”
Van Bom waved his fingers in the air. “Not intentionally, and perhaps not at all. He was drunk and, from human reports, had a bad heart. There was no way for me to know that.”
“And if you had?”
Van Bom’s expression didn’t waver.
“I’ll have to tell the Fringe.” Van Bom’s actions with Porter were irresponsible, and his intentions―getting CeCe to man the stake for his benefit―unforgivable.
“Try.”
“Andre is dead, isn’t he?” It hadn’t occurred to Marc before this that Van Bom would have gone that far, but of course, he would have, and based on his expression, had.
“I predict the current leader of the Fringe will be difficult to locate.”
“Then a new leader will be found.”
“You?”
Marc hadn’t seen himself as the leader of the Fringe, but it made sense. It would allow him to lead the vampires in a new direction, one where they worked against century-old prejudices. Vampires and werewolves had more alike than they had different. They should work together.
“Perhaps.”
A look passed between the two, a look that perhaps told Van Bom too much about what Marc would do if he became leader of the Fringe.
Done with the werewolves, CeCe walked up.
Van Bom sprung toward her and jerked the stake from her pocket. He held it above his head, laughing. “Who has the power now?”
CeCe moved as if to take the stake back, but Marc wrapped his fingers around her arm. “Wait.”
The stake, he’d decided, was more than just a cursed hunk of metal.
Van Bom listed side to side, his steps uneven and his attention locked onto the stake. With a laugh, he spun and careered toward the cavern’s edge.
Marc vaulted forward, tried to grab the old vampire by the back of his shirt, but it was too late. Van Bom toppled over the edge.
As he fell, his laughter floated back up toward them.
“He’s gone.” Clinging to Marc’s side, CeCe stared into the pit. “Will he survive?”
“Maybe, if the stake doesn’t kill him.”
Her nails scraped over his shirt. “Will it come back?”
Marc pulled her tight against his side. “Not if we don’t give it a reason to.”
“You think—”
He tipped her face up to his. “I think your mother was smarter than anyone gave her credit, and your father was braver, and together they created the most magical creation of all time.”
“The stake? But my father—”
“No. You.” He pulled her flush against his body. Magic wound around them, warming his skin and his soul.
He would never be cold again, and CeCe would never be alone. They had each other, forever.
For once, the stake had done good.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE VAMPIRE HUNTER by Miche
le Hauf.
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Prologue
The thing came at him so quickly, Kaspar had little time to react beyond putting up his arms to block the crazy long teeth that gnashed for his neck.
He’d been minding his own business, digging in the garbage behind Madame du Monde’s dance studio. He’d found a broken chair and had screwed off one of the wooden legs. If he whittled down the serrated edge he might use it as a weapon. Call it a sixteenth-birthday present. Living on the streets a guy needed all the protection he could get.
But after nearly two years of street life, he’d usually seen the attack coming. This maniac had lunged at him from out of nowhere, and it was as if he were on drugs because he growled and shoved Kaz to the winter-wet tarmac, then jumped on top of his chest, compressing his thin rib cage with a hard knee.
Twice as big as Kaz and dressed all in black, the attacker snarled, revealing teeth that belonged on a monster. Kaz yelped and swung the chair leg before him. The man batted it away.
“No way!” Kaz yelled. Using all his strength, he managed to kick the crazy guy off him, leaped to his feet and swung the weapon wildly. “Get away from me, you creep!”
“A tasty little boy,” the guy muttered like some kind of menacing villain a person only saw in the movies. “I can smell your blood. Starved for sustenance as you are, I’ll squeeze a few drops from your skinny neck.”
