Laszlo’s black gaze, the color so like Alder’s but colder than hell itself, bored into Beatrix’s mind like frozen talons. His words were a sick caress. “Poor little Levenach—you asked him to make you vampire, but he refused. Didn’t he?”
Beatrix nodded. She seemed unable to do anything but.
“I won’t refuse you, Beatrix,” Laszlo whispered, and now the vampire stood before her, over her, although she hadn’t seen him move. “I will do it…right now, if you wish. Be done with these stupid mortals herded about you. Taste the true meaning of power, eternal power! Then you may chase after Alder the White forever, if you wish…only take my hand and it is done.”
Beatrix looked down and saw Laszlo’s unnaturally long and misshapen palm held open before her. The grotesque image wavered as hot tears filled her eyes. She wanted to scream “nay!” but her throat, her body, were frozen.
Except for her right hand, which was rising toward Laszlo’s, as if of its own accord.
Alder charged Laszlo from the darkness just as Beatrix’s fingertips hovered over the old vampire’s palm, and locked together they flew across the clearing into the dirt with matching screams of rage.
“Feed!” the ancient bloodsucker screamed to his minions as he struggled to throw Alder off.
Laszlo had mesmerized the Levenach, but at Alder’s interruption, she came to her senses and now rallied the Leamhnaigh as the howls of the vampires shook the very forest.
Alder wrapped his hands around Laszlo’s throat and slammed the vampire’s head into the dirt, but a moment later, Alder himself was rolling head over heels, his prey deftly escaped. Alder had barely come to rest against a tree when Laszlo was upon him once more, using his long fingers to scramble up Alder’s chest, a hissing squeal ringing off his fangs.
Alder rammed his palm into Laszlo’s nose and cheek, knocking the old one off balance long enough to throw him to the ground. Their heads lunged and bobbed at each other, mouths open, fangs elongated to battle length, each seeking an opening to rip and feed from his enemy.
Around them, Beatrix led the Leamhnaigh into battle against the other vampires, mortal screams mingling with hungry cries. The smell of blood was everywhere, the air was thick with death and magic and Alder could feel Laszlo’s black blood so close for the taking, could feel the greater storm building around them.
“Your evil ends tonight, Laszlo,” Alder growled, coming close enough to the vampire’s face to rake a gash along one bony cheekbone with his fang.
Laszlo howled in pain, but then drove his fist into Alder’s eye, dazing him for but a second. Alder felt the sting of fangs on his shoulder and rammed his knee into Laszlo’s stomach, sending the black one rolling away.
The ground beneath them began to hum.
“You will never best me, pup,” Laszlo said, staggering to his feet. He crouched down, at once at the ready, and Alder mirrored the pose. The two circled each other.
The ground began to shake, as if a thousand horses raced toward the clearing.
Baying hounds added their whispering song to the cries of both mortal and vampire.
“Do you hear it?” Alder taunted, even while the scar around his neck began to burn. “Does it sound familiar to you, Laszlo? It does to me, for I have had one hundred years as its companion. Its slave.”
Laszlo’s face, already the color of old bones, paled further. “Then you know that sound means your death.” Laszlo glanced around the clearing quickly, and Alder knew he was seeking a way to once more escape.
“After you,” Alder invited and then launched himself at Laszlo once more.
It was clear now that Laszlo was no longer fighting to kill Alder, but to keep his own blood in his veins and escape before the hellish band was upon the clearing. Alder’s fury gave him the strength to contend with the ancient one, and indeed, overpower Laszlo until the black one was facedown in the dirt and scrambling to get away from Alder. Alder opened his mouth wide and let his fangs scrape down Laszlo’s back, shredding his tunic and revealing scored and seeping fish flesh beneath the thick material. Laszlo howled and writhed on the dirt.
And then Alder felt the silver and gold glow of the Hunt’s light strike his face. The deep scar around his neck began to throb, as if crying out to be reunited with that golden tether.
Alder’s time was slipping away.
“Release me!” Laszlo begged over his shoulder. “The pair of us might yet escape! Let the Hunt take the rest—you and I will build a vampire empire elsewhere! We have the power—join with me!”
“I may join you, Laszlo,” Alder conceded and he stared down into those ancient, black eyes as the screaming, winged horses stirred the blood-scented air in the clearing. “But it will only be after I have sent you on to hell!”
Alder dropped his mouth to the back of Laszlo’s neck as the vampire raised his face in a final howl. Alder’s fangs crunched into that decrepit old neck, and he drank his revenge to its long-delayed fill.
Chapter Ten
The vampires were retreating.
Beatrix heard the stomach-churning cry of Laszlo le Morte, tangled in battle with Alder somewhere beyond the loopy ring of torchlight, but she could not see them. And, one by one, the lesser bloodsuckers sprang from their toes into the sky, some taking prey with them, others delaying flight to finish their meal hastily on the ground.
Was Laszlo’s scream one of triumph? Had he killed Alder, and was he now calling his minions away?
Beatrix’s breath caught in her chest at the thought of Alder lying dead on Leamhan ground.
“Alder!” she cried, her eyes straining against the glare of the—nay, ’twas not only the dancing flames that lit the clearing now, but a cleaner light, both silver and gold at once, coming in rolling waves from the forest. The ground vibrated beneath her feet and the screams of horses rent the heavy air, now scented with perfumed smoke and the misplaced odor of wet iron.
The Leamhnaigh were shouting, running about the clearing with no real purpose, trying to gather up the bodies of the fallen, crying out names of those who had disappeared.
“It’s hell coming! It’s hell! It’s come!” a woman shrieked from her place on her knees in the dirt, her fingers raking her cheeks.
Beatrix stood in the midst of it all, unmoved.
Sharp baying of hounds chased a rushing wind down the path, bending the thick trunks of the closest trees with woody screams. And then with a trumpet blast that sounded as if it came from the body of some beast, the gold and silver light exploded fully into the clearing.
And on that wave of light arrived a band of riders and monsters, the likes of which Beatrix could have never conjured in her worst vampire nightmare. Behind her, the Leamhnaigh fell prostrate to the dirt and were at last silent, only weak, muffled sobs breaking their terrified stillness.
Black dogs, some as large as foals, led the charge, loping and circling with their red eyes like beacons beneath the horses’ hooves. But those fantastic creatures could only politely be called horses as they appeared only partially equine, with elongated heads like fabled sea creatures, their long, scaly legs churning the air above the ground, their glinting hooves only touching the dirt as the band came to a halt.
The horrors astride the horse-beasts were worse. The leader seemed the height and breadth of two men, matching the impossible size of his unnatural steed. His chestnut hair was long, thick, and fell down his back onto the horse’s rump. He wore no shirt save a chain-mail vest, and carried a broadsword that looked as though it could fell a tree with one swing. The leader’s eyes fell upon Beatrix and she winced, brought up one palm as if to ward off his penetrating and too-bright gaze. It seemed his eyes pierced her soul like a blade, and Beatrix felt naked before him, her faults, her misdeeds, written plainly in the rippling, golden air that hung between her and the massive creature.
In the shadow of her hand, she could make out the leader’s companions: a menagerie of demons and corpse-like human monsters so vile that Beatrix felt dizzy.
The reanimated dead rode with beasts from hell’s darkest legends, bloody and wounded, with horn and scale and claw where human appendage should have sprouted.
The leader’s horse snorted, danced, jarring the dirt and bringing Beatrix’s attention back to the commander of legion. His broadsword was sheathed now, and in its place in his palm was a coil of sparkling, golden rope.
“Beatrix Levenach,” the leader said, his voice like two boulders rubbing together, and Beatrix gasped that the giant knew her name. “I have come for the wolf. Where is he?”
“I doona know,” Beatrix said, her voice breathy and dazed to her own ears. “He battled a vampire. I doona—”
“Alder is a vampire.” He looked her up and down. “My vampire. And I want him returned to me. You of all people should be of little mind to protect the thing who once ravaged your ancestors.”
“He came here for his own revenge,” Beatrix argued, even though her voice cracked. “He fought the vampire who—”
“I well know Laszlo le Morte,” the leader interrupted. “And why Alder escaped his servitude to seek the bloodsucker.” Beatrix’s knees grew watery under the leviathan’s weighty gaze. “He has come for you as well, Levenach. You know this, yes?”
Beatrix nodded. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Hmm,” the leader said thoughtfully. His head swung away and where his gaze went, also went the brilliant light that surrounded him.
Beatrix dragged her eyes from the man’s fierce countenance to that which he sought, and in that moment, she saw Alder.
He stood over a pile of glistening clothing, and Beatrix knew at once that Laszlo le Morte was dead. Alder’s mouth as well as all his face from the nose down and onto his shirt was tarry black with vampire blood. His arms hung limp at his sides and his eyes were…resigned. He stared at the great leader with no fear.
“Most holy Michael,” Alder said, his voice flat, and then he stepped over Laszlo’s slimy, rotting remains and fell to his knees. “Have mercy on me.”
Beatrix’s eyes flashed up to the archangel. “Doona harm him,” she whispered. “And doona take him. Please. He was trying to make it right. He saved my life, and Laszlo is dead.”
But Michael behaved as if she’d not even spoken.
“Alder the White, you have broken your covenant.” Michael swung the coil of rope over his head once, and then let it fly. A perfect loop snaked across the clearing and landed around Alder’s bowed head, sealing itself over the deep scar circling his throat. “You will take your place in the Hunt once more.”
“Nay!” Beatrix cried.
Alder raised his head to look at Michael. “I made no covenant with you, holy one.”
“Indeed, I took you as my hunter rather than send you on to the hell you so deserved in your mortal life. That was our covenant.” Michael paused. “But now that Laszlo le Morte is dead, I suppose you may choose your fate. Join with me again, or meet your final eternity.”
“Nay!” Beatrix cried again and, heedless to the danger she put herself in, ran toward the archangel.
“Beatrix, stay back!” Alder shouted.
Rather than dance away nervously at her approach, the horse turned toward her aggressively, but Beatrix did not stop until her palms pressed against the horse’s burning side, near Michael’s calf. She hissed as her hands made contact and then screamed as Michael reached down and seized the back of her gown with one fist and pulled her from the ground.
He held her before his face, as a man might dangle a mouse by its tail.
“You try my patience, Levenach,” Michael said pleasantly.
“Please doona take him,” Beatrix pleaded, her fear causing her to shake in the grip of the angel. She could feel his power like the sun, penetrating her clothes, her skin, her very being. “I love him.”
“You would love a damned creature?” Michael challenged. “One who helped destroy your entire family and even now needs you for his own selfish desires?”
“He need not stay damned,” Beatrix said. “I know the price that must be paid for the return of his soul.”
“And you are willing to pay that price,” Michael observed.
“No!” Alder shouted and Beatrix heard his approaching footfalls. “I will not do it, Levenach.”
Beatrix was afraid to look away from the archangel. Keeping her gaze steady, she nodded.
Michael gave the rope in his other hand a jerk and Beatrix heard Alder’s strangled cry.
“Approach me not, wolf,” the archangel warned. His next words were for Beatrix, still suspended before him in his tireless grasp. “Are you certain you understand what must be done?” he asked. “You cannot swear it and then leave it unfinished. I will not allow the wolf to exist in his present form.”
“I know that Alder must partake of the Levenach’s lifeblood, and I swear to you that I will see it done.” Her voice was steady now with her vow.
“If you fail in this”—Michael’s eyes flicked over Beatrix’s shoulder—“I will return and kill you both. Evil begets evil. He will not be allowed to exist, and neither will you should you aid him in his depravity.”
“Before the night has found its end,” Beatrix promised on a whisper, “he will be whole once more.”
“Beatrix, you know not what you vow,” Alder choked.
“Very well.” Michael lowered Beatrix to the ground.
As soon as she was freed, she felt Alder rush past her toward the archangel.
“Take me with you,” Alder demanded. “Or send me on to hell. Only don’t leave me here with her. I won’t take her lifeblood.”
Michael snapped the golden rope and it came over Alder’s head, untethering him. “Should you not do as the Levenach promises, I’ll return and I will kill her for her lie,” Michael said simply and then coiled the rope with a flick of his wrist. “You are beholden to her vow—I make no covenants with vampires.” The archangel smiled slyly.
Beatrix approached Alder’s back, reached out a hand to touch him.
He spun and flung her hand away and Beatrix was horrified at the anger coming from him, almost as much as the tears in his black eyes.
“You don’t know what you’ve done, Levenach,” he choked. “You will destroy us both.”
Beatrix shook her head. “Trust me,” she begged. “Alder, you must trust me. ’Tis the only way.”
Michael’s horse-beast pranced again as the keening trumpet blasted through the clearing. The band of monsters that followed the archangel began a chorus of agonized screeching, as if eager to be away, but Michael had more to say to Beatrix.
“You have done well, Levenach, in caring for your charges, and I pray you succeed with this one as well,” he said, gesturing to Alder. He looked over the clearing before the White Wolf Inn, at the bodies, living and dead, scattered on the ground. “Once I depart, the Leamhnaigh will return to their homes. They will have no recollection of the events of this night, the dead attributed only to sickness. Do I not return to kill you, it will be your duty to protect the people from Laszlo’s leavings. Do you understand?”
“I do,” Beatrix choked.
“So be it,” Michael intoned. As the words left his mouth, a mighty gale rushed through the clearing, and Beatrix saw for the first time the massive span of wings unfold from the archangel’s back. The hounds took up their mournful cries once more as Michael tilted his head back and commanded, “Hunt!”
The gust from his departure from the ground knocked both Beatrix and Alder to the dirt, and the band swooped into the black forest with a deafening roar. In a moment, the clearing was nearly pitch, the forest folk’s torches and Beatrix’s witch fire having long since suffocated in the dirt.
They watched as the Leamhnaigh began to stir. They paid Alder and the Levenach no heed, but only gained their feet as if in a deep sleep, some working together to take up the bodies of the dead, and slowly dissolved into the night of the forest path, in the opposite direction of Michael and his Wild Hunt.
Now alone, Beatrix lo
oked to Alder and found him studying her with barely concealed rage on his drawn and bloodstained face. He did not attempt to hide his fangs when he spoke.
“You’ve damned the pair of us.”
“Nay,” Beatrix insisted, her voice still aquiver from the night’s events. She rolled to her feet and held out a hand to Alder, trying to give him a smile.
Alder ignored her hand, gaining his feet on his own. He stood before Beatrix for a long, silent moment before walking toward the inn alone, his shoulders hunched, his head bowed.
Beatrix wondered if, when it was all over, he would leave her forever.
Chapter Eleven
Alder stood in the smoke-ravaged kitchen of the White Wolf Inn, the darkness not inhibiting his wicked sight, and he waited for the Levenach to follow, as surely she foolishly would.
The stupid woman. Stupid and foolish and…
I love him, she’d said to Michael. To the most powerful and deadly of all of God’s justifiers, Beatrix Levenach, witch of the Leamhan, had defended Alder the White, a vampire, and for him had wagered her life and her soul.
Alder’s eyes squeezed shut, as if denying himself of his sense of sight might lessen the burden of anguish he felt. It did not. His chest and throat tightened painfully, sensations he’d not felt in more than a century, and the cold fire of vampire tears leaked onto his cheeks and cut the black muck that was all that remained of Laszlo le Morte.
He could not damn her, would not. Should he take just enough of her blood to redeem his own wrecked soul, Beatrix Levenach would turn from huntress to hunted, with a depraved thirst that would last an eternity, or until someone drove a stake through her heart. Her pure, magical heart that now held mortal love for an unclean creature such as Alder.
Highland Hunger Bundle with Yours for Eternity & Highland Beast Page 71
