Blood Captive: A Paranormal Vampire Romance (Vampire Huntress Chronicles Book 2)

by Jessica Wayne

  “The bones here, she kept record of them.” He slides his finger down the page, and I read line after line, name after name, until—

  “Oh no,” grief clenches my heart, suffocating me as my stomach fills with dread. Inky black tendrils of pain—panic—slither around me as I read.

  Mellie Astor.

  Steven Astor.

  Delaney Astor.

  “No. No. No.” I back away from the book, feeling the bones around me closing in. They’re here. My family. Trapped here in this place.

  Lonely.

  Unrest.

  “How? I buried them, Elijah.” Tears burn in the corners of my eyes, slipping down my cheeks. “They can’t be here. It’s impossible.”

  “Rainey,” he whispers.

  “I buried them!” I scream, my stomach churning. “I put their souls to rest. They shouldn’t have ended up here.”

  “I’ll have Tarnley check their graves,” Elijah offers.

  “Did she kill them?” I ask aloud.

  “It’s possible,” Cole says. “But based on the others I’m seeing, my guess would be she stole the bodies after they were already dead.”

  “She stole my family.” The edges of my vision begin to fade, black spots covering what I can still see. I suck in a deep breath as rage, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, surges through me. Something sinister creeps beneath my skin, and I drop my phone to run my hands up my arms as I try to rub it away, make it disappear.

  It feels wrong.

  I feel violated.

  Broken.

  And really fucking angry.

  “Rainey?” Elijah’s voice calls to me within the recesses of my mind. The dark place I go when the entire fucking world is falling apart around me.

  I shake my head as hands grip my arms and hold me. Elijah’s fast heart slams in his chest beneath my cheek, and I focus on that sound as I attempt to regain control.

  He is my rock.

  My shield.

  And if need be—my blade.

  Knowing those three truths, I’m able to bring myself back from the brink. One shaky breath after the other, I cling to him.

  My family has been dead for years, this does not change that.

  “We need to give them all a proper burial,” I whisper and pull away from Elijah.

  Cole is still staring down at the book. “I’m so sorry, Del,” he whispers before turning to me. “We will.” He turns the flashlight off on his phone and taps the screen before putting it to his ear. “I need as many as you can spare, Josiah. Fleur’s place. We need two vans, too,” he adds before ending the call.

  “Come on,” Elijah urges, gripping my hand and pulling me toward the ladder. I shake my head.

  “I want to stay.”

  “You’re sure?” He narrows his gaze on my face.

  “This is the closest I’ve been to them since—” My voice cracks beneath the weight of the lump in my throat. “I need to stay until they’re gone.”

  He nods and comes to stand beside me, his hand around my waist as we linger amongst the dead.

  The forgotten.

  The restless.

  How strange it is that I feel just as lost as they are.

  26

  Elijah

  Rainey stands beside me. We’re surrounded by shifters and witches alike. Other than Tarnley and myself, there are no vampires here tonight.

  But we’re selfish bastards, and very few of us mourn our dead.

  By the time they’d loaded all the bodies into the van, there had been thirty-nine dead. Nearly forty souls trapped within the confines of that room for who the fuck knows how long.

  My hope is that some—if not all of them—had already moved on before she got ahold of their bones.

  An owl hoots somewhere in the distance. Our only light is the beams coming from the vehicles parked around us.

  The shifters finish covering the funeral pyre with the bones, stacking them neatly around the sheet-wrapped bodies of the fourteen dead. Then, they step back, and Josiah comes forward.

  “Tonight, we lay these tortured souls to rest. Shifters, witches, vampires, and hunters,” he says, his gaze falling on Rainey. She chokes on a sob and nods.

  I can feel her pain as if it were my own. Hell, it is my own.

  Delaney was my friend, and while I didn’t know Rainey’s parents, I do know they deserved a hell of a lot better than this.

  “They have been trapped—held captive by a dark witch—but tonight, they will be set free. Tonight, we are not separate factions. We are reminded that we come from the same world. A world that’s been at war for far too long.”

  His words resonate with me, and glancing around, I see them settle into the minds of every single supernatural in attendance tonight.

  The witches nod even as they cling to themselves, tears streaming down their cheeks.

  The shifters clench their fists at their sides, barely containing their animal forms in their rage—their grief.

  We may be monsters to the humans—but we mourn our losses. We have our traditions, our beliefs, and Fleur shit all over those when she removed the bones from their graves.

  “Be free my friends. Seek your final resting place.”

  Cole—the shifter I met in the attic earlier—hands Josiah a torch, then lights another and walks to one of the witches—a tall brunette. He continues making his way around the circle and stops between Rainey and me.

  We each take an offered torch and step toward the pyre. I reach down and thread the fingers of my free hand with hers, and she glances down at them before turning up to mine.

  Firelight dances over her face, shimmering off the tears slipping down her cheeks. Then, she nods, and we meet Josiah’s gaze. He tosses his torch onto the pyre first, the rest of us following suit and stepping back as flames engulf the dead.

  “How are you?”

  The room is dark around us, not a sound in the world but for our own hearts beating.

  “You mean since I discovered that the bones of my parents and sister were held hostage so a psychotic witch could siphon off the magic left behind?”

  I kiss the top of her head. “It was a lot, Rainey.”

  “You can say that again.” She sits up, the blanket pooling at her waist. “I’ve grieved their deaths,” she tells me. “I’ve cried, screamed, raged—all of it. Hell, after Delaney died, I woke up covered in blood and surrounded by the dead with no clue how I got there.”

  “Your first blackout?” I clarify.

  “Yes. I don’t even remember killing anything, Elijah, but they were all dead.”

  “Supernaturals?”

  “Vampires,” she answers. “I didn’t know it at the time, though. But I checked the gumline of the bodies—the ones I could anyway. They were vampire.”

  “How many did you kill?”

  “Ten.”

  I gape at her. If Rainey was able to take out nearly a dozen vampires alone and in the middle of a fucking blackout—

  “So if I already grieved them,” she interrupts my thoughts. “Why is it hurting so badly now? Like I lost them all over again?”

  I sit up, scooting back against the headboard and running my fingers over her bare back. Her skin is smooth, warm beneath my fingertips. “It re-opened the injury. Picked the scab and revealed the wound beneath.”

  “That’s a disturbing and accurate description.” The ghost of a smile passes over her lips.

  I shrug.

  “I wish Fleur was still alive so I could get my answers and kill her.”

  “If I could bring her back for you, I would.”

  Rainey glances back at me and smiles again. Then, she rotates around so she’s facing me. I drop my hand to her hip. “Piecing together puzzles is literally my job. I solve murders, Elijah. So why the hell am I having so much trouble with all of this? Especially given the information from Aoife? What am I missing? Why did Fleur die? How did she die? With all that power, she should have been a hell of a lot harder to kill.”
/>
  “It’s more difficult because you’re emotionally invested. Looking down on something makes it much easier to see the working parts. But when you’re in the thick of it, searching through the rubble is a hell of a lot more challenging.”

  “We know that Delaney left me that box and the folder. But how do we figure out what’s in the fucking thing if we can’t open it?”

  “I have some more texts to search through tomorrow.”

  “And if the answer isn't there?”

  I sigh. “Then I guess we’re just going to have to take a risk and open the fucking thing.”

  Her face softens. “You will open it?”

  “We will open it. I promised you.” I don’t tell her that I have no intention of letting her open it until I have, that if there’s anything inside, I’d rather it kill me than her. I don’t mention her best friend—or the ties she has with everything we’re currently dealing with. That I already know what’s inside.

  And the lies are poison in my veins.

  “I hope Aoife returns soon.”

  “I hope she has some answers for us,” I reply. And I hope she doesn’t get herself killed looking for them.

  “I’ll head over to the B&B tomorrow morning and see if she’s back yet. She needs to know about the thirteen.”

  There’s no need for my reply. Rainey knows I agree. And if Aoife can figure out what the hell is going on, it’ll remove a lot of stress off our plates. I trail my fingers up her back and twirl them in the silky strands of her dark hair. “I care for you, Rainey,” I tell her. “I hope you can see how much.”

  “I care for you, too. And it terrifies me,” she adds, her eyes brimming with tears when she glances back at me.

  “Why?”

  “I’ve lost so much, Elijah. My parents, my grandmother, my sister. They’re all dead—everyone I ever loved. What if this world claims you too?”

  It’s not me I’m worried about. I reach up and cup her face. She leans into my touch, closing her eyes for just a moment before meeting my gaze in the soft moonlight sneaking in through the window.

  “I am damned old,” I tell her. “Creatures have tried to kill me for centuries. Some have nearly succeeded—but I’m still here.”

  “You bound yourself to me, Elijah. What’s going to happen if they kill me? Will you survive? Be able to move on?”

  She voices my worst fear. I swallow hard and shake my head. “There’s not a chance in hell,” I tell her honestly.

  “And that’s what I’m afraid of. I didn’t mind dying before. I was the only member of my family left, and honestly? There was a time I didn’t want to keep breathing. But then I met you, and knowing you won’t survive if I don’t—that terrifies me even more than the reaper himself.”

  “Then live for me, Rainey. You are everything to me now, my reason for being, and for you, I would move Heaven and Earth. I would stroll into the deepest pits of Hell if it meant never having to say goodbye. You are my light even as you call to the darkest parts of me. Promise me that you’ll keep breathing, that your heart will keep beating. Swear to me that you won’t give in, that you will live—even if it’s just for me.”

  A tear slips down her cheek, and she nods. “I promise.”

  I pull her toward me, claiming her lips with mine and sealing the oath. There’s not a future without Rainey in it.

  And if we must leave Billings—if we have to disappear until Halloween passes and the threat to her life abates, there’s not a damn place I won’t go.

  27

  Rainey

  Thankfully, Jane’s coffee shop is slow this morning. I managed to talk Elijah into grabbing breakfast with me. A slice of normal in the abnormal. And after the last twenty-four hours I’ve had? I need some sustenance and some fucking normalcy.

  Thirteen dead witches.

  One dead shifter.

  Countless dead supernaturals, including three of the most important people in my life.

  And that’s not even taking into consideration the multiple crime scenes I’m dealing with in my professional life and the five additional dead witches.

  What’s even worse? There’s not a single lead between them.

  I know why Elijah doesn’t want to open that box, especially since All Hallows Eve is tomorrow and there’s no telling what the contents have to do with the Lunar Divide, but shit, we may not have an option.

  If it started it, chances are there’s something in there that can stop it.

  Or just make it all worse.

  I lead Elijah further into the restaurant, and we take seats at the end of the counter. Minnie smiles and waves at us as she takes the order from two women sitting at a table in the far corner.

  Jane comes out of the kitchen, her eyes widening slightly when she sees Elijah and me. Her surprise disappears quickly though, and soon she’s smiling and setting two mugs in front of us. “Hey, guys. Surprised to see you this morning. Shouldn’t you be at work?” she asks me with a narrowed gaze.

  I wish I could tell her everything.

  That I cremated three members of my family last night.

  That their ashes are floating in the Montana breeze, settling somewhere I’ll never be able to visit even if I wanted to.

  Instead, I force a smile. “We had a late morning.”

  “Breakfast?” she asks us, and I nod.

  “Surprise me.”

  “You’ve got it.” Her gaze drifts to Elijah. “You?”

  “No, thank you. Coffee is fine for me.”

  Jane turns to leave, and Elijah lifts his mug. I glance over at Minnie, who’s grinning from ear to ear as she stares at me.

  He’s so hot! She mouths, and I can’t help but smile. There’s my slice of normalcy. My human friend commenting on how hot my boyfriend is. Can it get any more normal than that?

  She comes toward me and stops in front of us. “Hey, Rainey.”

  “Minnie, this is Elijah. Elijah, this is Minnie.”

  Elijah reaches across the counter and offers her a hand. Minnie stiffens—her ex-boyfriend’s abuse no doubt behind the fear reflected in her eyes. Elijah’s patient though, and she recovers soon, reaching across. His large hand engulfs hers, and she relaxes. “So lovely to meet you, Minnie,” he says with a smile.

  “You too. I’ve heard quite a bit about you.”

  Elijah flashes a grin at me, and I feel heat rush to my cheeks. Another normalcy I can be grateful for. Apparently, I can still get mildly embarrassed. “I hope it was all good things.”

  “Definitely good things.”

  Elijah releases Minnie’s hand, and she turns as the bell over the door dings. “Excuse me.”

  As soon as she’s out of earshot, Elijah turns to me. “She’s had a rough life.”

  “Abusive ex. Jack and I took care of him though.”

  “Two hunters took out a human?”

  “Not like that. But Jack volunteered to get sucker-punched for the greater good.”

  “So you arrested him, then?”

  “I did. He’s out now, but I made damned sure to let him know just how unhappy I was that he put his hands on Minnie.”

  Elijah grins at me. “You’re a wonderful person.”

  My chest tightens painfully. “Thanks.” Not wanting to bring attention to myself, I resist the urge to rub my palm against the knot.

  “Here you go.” Jane sets a plate down in front of me. A croissant with egg, bacon, and cheese. Something I normally would love that’s now making my stomach churn. Saliva pools in my gut as the hair on the back of my neck stands on end.

  The bell over the door dings, and I’m slammed with dread so potent that it nearly knocks me off my seat. I turn my head and meet the nearly black eyes of a man wearing black leather pants and a shirt to match. His gaze is trained on me, so there’s no mistaking why he’s here.

  “Get everyone out,” I tell Jane.

  “What’s wr—” her gaze follows mine toward the new patron. I get to my feet, and Elijah follows suit, coming to sta
nd beside me.

  “Hi!” Minnie greets. “What can I get you?”

  The stranger tilts his head to the side and studies her with the intensity of a scientist looking at a parasite through a microscope. Then, he lifts his hand, and Minnie flies backward into the coffee machine.

  People scream.

  They run.

  He turns his attention on me. I don’t have my gun, so I reach into my boot and withdraw my blade. “Warlock,” I growl.

  “Hunter,” he replies. “You’re going to make me rich.”

  “I don’t think so,” Elijah growls and rushes toward him.

  With the fling of his palm, the ancient vampire flies backward, past me and into a wall. But instead of falling, he remains suspended, fighting against an invisible hold.

  “Jane, run!” I roar.

  Minnie groans and pulls the warlock’s attention just long enough that I lunge for him. Dropping my shoulder, I nearly reach him, but I’m a second too late. He turns back to me in time to send me flying backward. I slam into the wall beside Elijah. Teeth bite down on my tongue, and I spit out blood as I stand.

  “I’m going to kill you,” I growl, the voice not entirely my own.

  He cocks his head to the side, confused, and I have to wonder if he hadn’t tried to pin me with power like he did Elijah.

  I spin and fling the dagger I’ve somehow managed to hold on to while being thrown around like a rag doll. End over end, it flies, but he moves to the side just in time to avoid being impaled.

  No big deal though since I wasn’t counting on the dagger hitting him. I use this new distraction to charge. I drop my shoulder and slam into him, sending us both skidding backward over the floor. Before he can recover, I ball up my fist and ram it down into his jaw.

  “Come on, Minnie! Get up!” Jane calls, though I don’t turn my attention to either of them as I pin the warlock to the ground, hand at his throat. He growls.

  “Rainey!” Elijah roars as pain explodes in my side. I glance over and see the hilt of a blade sticking out of my abdomen.