by Michele Hauf
“A bit,” she said as her heels clicked down the hallway. “But it’s worth the sacrifice.”
She punched in the security code but found the arsenal dark. Walking inside, she traced her fingers over the monstrous pistol’s cold metal barrel.
With a glance she took in the assorted weaponry. Wooden bullets and holy water and gold crosses. A mace, a few swords and dozens of pistols and rifles.
She wondered what weapons the vampires would use against a werewolf. Silver, surely. Probably a silver dagger to pierce the organs and poison the blood.
Another tear dropped onto her thumb and slid cleanly over the pistol’s barrel. “Please let us be safe,” she whispered.
Something clanked against the steel door.
Bella gripped the handle of the pistol.
He strode across the hilltop that paralleled his land and plunged into the valley. Land was at a premium here in northern Minnesota, but he wouldn’t give his estate up for a sweet little apartment in Paris or a penthouse in New York. He belonged to the land and didn’t believe he could survive in a big city for long.
He had been born into this world the minority and was of a species forced to hide and protect itself from discovery. He accepted that. He’d learned to walk amid the shadows and keep to himself. The wilderness, freedom—and Bella—meant happiness.
And now his happiness had been threatened. If Elvira targeted Bella, that would be akin to ripping out his heart and slamming it against a wall.
He would protect his own.
Thinking about shifting to wolf form, he decided against it. He’d been out long enough. Bella was due from the city, and he missed her when he could not scent her nearby.
The air had changed as he’d tracked the boundaries of his property. The world was not right.
Standing upon the pinnacle that looked over his land, Severo stretched out his arms and tilted back his head. Sniffing, he took it all in.
The air touched his fingertips, cheeks and nose, imbuing his senses with a catalog of the now. Nearby a jackrabbit darted for an underground burrow thick with her younglings. Tree roots that stretched dozens of feet underground stirred minutely beneath his boots.
The acrid odor of gasoline, which he rarely sensed so far from the city, now made him turn toward the house. All was quiet. The sun had just set, so he could make out a few lights, one in the kitchen, the other illuminating the recessed window high on the basement-laundry-room wall.
Perhaps Bella hadn’t yet returned.
He clasped a hand over his heart and smiled. That he had been given this gift of love did not cease to humble him. When he’d thought he could make a go of it with Aby, he had always known that that was not the direction their relationship was meant to take. Still hurt like hell.
And yet, someone new had laid a bandage over that hurt, and he’d peeled it away to find the wound almost gone. He was ready to forget what might have been and to accept what he already had.
“Love,” he murmured and smirked. It was grand.
Starting down the hill, he used the incline to hasten his steps into a run. Halfway across the valley, a force hit Severo on the back of his left shoulder.
He spun. There in the shadows emerged half a dozen vampires.
She pulled the trigger and the heavy pistol kicked, forcing Bella backward against the steel counter. She grunted at the impact. The steel edge dug into her hip.
The hulk of a vampire who filled the arsenal doorway took the wooden bullet in the heart. He clawed at it, but the bullet had penetrated deeply, as intended, and could not be drawn out. One hand ripped the front of his dark shirt. Clawing at his exposed, bleeding flesh, he staggered.
Her thoughts honing, Bella remembered what Severo had said about the bullets. They’d slow a vampire down but would not kill him.
She eyed the wooden stakes, which hung in militant rows; each stake was twelve inches long and as thick as a chair leg. She reached for one, then another and another. The titanium syringe filled with holy water lay on the table, but her hands were full.
Racing forward, she didn’t care that she was a dancer whose greatest achievement was the double golpe with spin, or that the first time she’d touched a weapon, she’d almost cried.
Somehow a vampire had breached Severo’s protection wards.
“And the freaking security codes,” she barked out. How had anyone managed to decipher those?
The vampire struggled with the bullet in his chest and didn’t expect a skinny mortal woman to leap at him with a stake held at the ready.
Gripping the one stake firmly while she clutched the other two in her left hand, Bella planted the thick piece of wood in the vampire’s chest. It slid in easily. She didn’t have to push hard to make it go in up to her curled fist.
The vampire spasmed. Hissing steam escaped from around the stake. The awful smell of burning blood entered her nostrils. Bella scrambled backward, into the open doorway, securing a stake in both fists.
The creature’s agonizing yowl filled her ears. She bit her lip and almost called out, “I’m sorry.” Jelly legs quivering, she sunk to her knees.
“Please,” she begged. The thing staggered and spouted smoke. It clawed the air, growling. “Just die. Don’t come back to life. Where is he? Severo!”
A burst of ash dust filled the air. The vampire disintegrated into a human-shaped heap of gray ash. The stake rolled from the ash over to her knee, blood staining her white slacks.
“I did it,” she said, amazed. Was she supposed to be horrified? The dread feeling didn’t emerge. Instead, adrenaline pushed her to stand and pump her fist in triumph. “Yes!”
“Think you’re quite the slayer, eh, pretty?”
Stake held at the ready for another attack, Bella let out a throaty squeak as she spied the three vampires who blocked off the hallway and any chance of escape.
Chapter 17
S ix unarmed vampires? No challenge to him. They’d been going at it for a bit. One vampire would charge, and Severo would strike at his shoulder or deliver a roundhouse and thrust him off him.
He was rolling on the ground now with a snarling beast of a longtooth, its long fangs bared. A bite from a vampire would piss Severo off, but it couldn’t change him.
On the other hand, he’d never experienced a vampire bite. It would leave a permanent mark. And that was the last thing Severo wanted on his body. A vamp bite was a stigma he’d never bear.
The longtooth twisted Severo’s arm around behind his back and yanked sharply, tearing the muscles. Severo could endure it. He needed a moment to flip and…yes. On his back, he struck his opponent in the chest with his heels and sent him flying.
Darkness had fallen, and the trees were silhouetted against the gray sky. Now two vamps charged him.
“Have at me,” Severo muttered.
He could take them. For now. But the werewolf was beginning to rage. Then the stupid bastards had better run.
Surprisingly, none had tried to bite him yet. Odd. It was the vampires’ best defense, weakening their opponent through blood loss.
What kind of idiots had Elvira sent after him?
And only six? Perhaps she wanted to toy with him. Give him a preview of the war yet to come.
Or maybe she needed to wear him down. The obvious reason was she wanted him alive for something.
He caught a charging vamp about the neck with a vertebra-crunching swing of his own. The vamp yowled, but his partner knocked Severo off balance by kicking his ankles. He hit the ground with a growl. Spitting blood from his mouth, he rolled to all fours and decided the werewolf had been kept at bay long enough.
Three more vampires had been destroyed in the arsenal. Bella couldn’t think clearly about how she’d done it. But she now knew that holy water to the eyes was no way to go. The vamp’s face had peeled away.
Kicking off her high heels, she ran out as fast as she could, though she had no idea what to do, where to go. Adrenaline sharpened her senses. In the garage, the
odor of gasoline seemed to hang in the air. In the house, the smell of the wax Heloise used on the floor rose in invisible waves. And her perfume seemed far too strong.
As she checked the front door, her hands shook and she dropped the stakes twice. It was locked, completely secure. She stepped back and scanned the three-story foyer. The huge skylight windows lining the upper story were unbroken.
Where had the vampires gotten in? If not through the front door or the garage…
“Heloise.” Bella hadn’t heard the housekeeper, and surely the commotion would have alerted her. Heloise insisted on using the servants’ entrance near the laundry room, much as Severo wished she’d come through the front door. “Heloise!”
She ran for the laundry room, praying the housekeeper had had the sense to hightail it to safety at the first sniff of vampire. Or at least hide.
Bella had no idea if faeries could defeat a vampire, but if they possessed any skill against the threat, she doubted that squat and kind Heloise had the ability to keep back anything larger than a dragonfly.
Hugging the pistol, which was loaded with three wooden bullets, to her chest, she skidded up to the laundry room doorway. And fell to her knees in horror.
A clear, thick substance pooled about Heloise’s head. Her throat had been torn out, and it leaked more clear liquid. An unfolded bedsheet, still clenched in her hand, soaked up the stuff.
Reaching out and squelching the need to scream, Bella bent over and gripped her gut. “Don’t do this. Be strong.”
She examined the brownie’s neck. The clear liquid must be faerie blood, because it sparkled. Had to be. “Those bastards. She was an innocent.”
Standing, her back skidding across the wall, she hugged the pistol to her chest and checked both ways down the hallway. It was clear.
“I have to get to Severo.”
Nodding, because nothing else made sense at the moment, Bella ran upstairs to the living room.
Where three vampires waited.
“She’s mine,” growled the tallest, sporting a black Mohawk. A fang glinted brightly at the corner of his mouth. “Secure her!”
Bella fired, but the wooden bullet went astray, missing the vampires and ricocheting against the wall. The picture of Severo and Aby cracked and dropped to the floor.
Two vampires charged, and before she could again squeeze the trigger, the pistol was pulled from her hand. Her shoulders stretched painfully as, one to each side of her, they wrenched her arms behind her back.
“Nice,” the Mohawked leader said as he approached. “And brave.”
Bella spat at the vampire. In punishment she took a knee to her spine. Pain shot through her skeleton and she yowled.
“Gentle, boys,” said the leader. The dark vampire’s eyes were pale blue, and the pupils large.
Bella thought, for an odd moment, that his eyes appealed to her. She stopped struggling as he reached out and stroked her hair.
“Severo’s mate,” he drawled. “She smells like dog, doesn’t she?”
The two vampires grunted.
“Let me go, and I won’t sic my dog on you,” she warned.
“I’m not at all frightened, green eyes,” replied the leader.
The vampire loomed over her, his face close to hers, as if to sniff her, as Severo often did. And yet he maintained the stare that Bella could not look away from. Something in his eyes…provocative. Sensual.
“That’s right. Look all you like. What do you see in my eyes? Freedom? Pleasure?”
Her mouth dropping open, Bella felt her eyelids flicker. Part of her wanted to kick the vampire in the nuts. He was in the right position. But a bigger part of her wanted to melt, to succumb.
“No, no, don’t look away. It’s only going to get better, pretty one.”
Brilliant white fangs descended over the vampire’s lower lip. So pretty. And long. They would sink deeply into her flesh.
And she wanted it.
As he began to shift, and his shoulder bones stretched and his flesh thickened and grew, the whip’s icy lash of cold steel wrapped about Severo’s biceps. The rigid yet flexible steel locked tightly, scraping the leather jacket. A jerk of the whip brought him to his knees, stopping the shift to werewolf before his human features began to fade.
He gripped the steel lash. It burned, eating through his palm. With a hiss, Severo dropped it. Not steel, but silver. In a flexible whip?
He struggled, but the silver drained his energy. Heaving himself forward, he was thankful for the leather jacket. It kept the silver from touching his flesh, but the whip was sharply edged, so he knew soon it would cut through the jacket.
If he didn’t struggle, he could survive this.
The air darkened. Vampires crowded about him. He could not see who held the whip, holding him captive. There were more than a dozen now. All men. Their scents made him want to retch, and he was fast losing strength. Longtooths wielded daggers and pistols, but they weren’t pointed at him.
Bella’s gorgeous smile flickered in his thoughts. He jerked a look toward the house. More lights were on. She was home? He must hold back these vampires and keep them from her.
Unless they had already gotten to her?
“Severo.” The gang of vamps parted and Evie strode through the grass. A feat, surely, considering the open-toed spike heels peeking out at the bottom of her black gown. “We meet again.”
“You think this will hold me back?” he growled.
“Appears to be doing the trick. Ian Grim stole it from the Highwayman for me. Nice, isn’t it?”
The Highwayman? Christ, that was Aby’s husband. Had they harmed him? What of Aby?
He fought against the powerful silver. The bladed edge of the whip cut leather. He’d once trusted Ian Grim. Until he’d learned the man was a nasty witch who should be labeled a warlock for his crimes against the faith he claimed.
“Careful, dear. Wouldn’t want to bring on your death as you kneel, humbled, before a crew of vampires,” the vampiress hissed.
A few longtooth assholes chuckled.
Humbled, yes. But never defeated.
“I thank you for the show,” she said. Ruby blood glinted at Elvira’s throat, a thick droplet that seemed suspended there without a chain. “I could have watched my boys go at you all night. You can’t be put back, can you?”
“So you came to watch me perform, is that it? A carnival freak show for the biggest freak of them all? Bring out your weapons. I’ll match them all.”
“Oh, so brave and proud, my bruised little puppy dog.”
He snarled and snapped at her. A seam of his jacket tore but the silver did not touch his skin.
With the silver containing him, he could not complete the transformation. Instead, he was suspended in midshift. His shoulders and neck had thickened, as had his legs and torso, but the bones had not yet changed. Nor had he the weaponlike talons, which could cut the whip as if it were made of ribbon.
She leaned forward, coming face-to-face with him. The foul scent of her tweaked at Severo’s senses. And yet he’d once remembered her scent as the perfume of his savior when he’d been held captive by her parents.
“I could remove you from this earth right now.” She glanced aside to one of the vampires who’d eagerly stepped forward. “Back, all of you. He’s mine.”
“He’s mine.” Severo chuckled lowly and shook his head. “It’s been so long since I’ve heard that from you, Evie.”
“Yes.” She stroked his brow, and he nudged her away, but she persisted, placing her fingers to his cheek. The edges of her nails were as sharp as a blade. His flesh opened and blood trickled down to his beard. “You know I was the only reason you were never bitten while my family owned you.”
Yes, he knew that. Evie had been the one to plead with her father to save the young werewolf for her. She had wanted him. And her father had given him that lecherous sneer and had bent to his daughter’s whim.
“So will you finally have that bite you’ve been dying fo
r?” he asked.
For a werewolf, the stigma of a vampire bite was great. For while the bite would not turn the werewolf into some sort of vamp/wolf hybrid, it would increase the werewolf’s blood hunger immeasurably. He would crave blood, which usually resulted in hunting humans to satisfy the need for a fix. Other werewolves could smell the taint on the inflicted wolf and would sooner kill the bastard than suffer his pitiful disgrace.
“Go ahead,” Severo said in defiance. “I will wear your bite with pride, knowing I have made your family pay for the travesties visited upon my own.”
She crossed her arms under her breasts and sighed. Taking in the surroundings, she twisted her head about and then said, “I understand what you did was just.”
“Do you? Then why this war now?”
“Because you know revenge never ends.” Splaying her fingers before her, Evie observed the blood on her nails. “One man takes revenge for the sins against his family, which then breeds new revenge, to be enacted upon his own. It continues on endlessly, Severo.” With the tip of her tongue, she licked the blood from her nails. She had a discerning look on her face. Obviously it wasn’t enough blood to serve any need. “You’re not so foolish that you believe this can ever be finished?”
“It will end when one of us dies,” he said briskly.
“Just so. You want to kill me now?”
He swallowed and jutted his chin. Were the silver whip not about him, he could swipe her with a taloned paw and take her head from her body. But it didn’t feel right.
Truly, revenge only spawned further violence.
“Do it, then,” he said, tilting his head aside to expose his neck. “Mark me, and take leave knowing you have the satisfaction of this gauntlet.”
“Brave werewolf.”
She leaned into his neck. The warmth of her nose slid down his tense muscles. The pass of her finger along the jugular tickled. Would she murder him?
“Over the years you’ve walked a wide path around me when you could have easily slain me,” she whispered, so others would not hear. “I offer you the same regard.”
