Captiva Capitulation (Six Feet Under Vampire Werewolf Menage Series Book Three)

by Scott, Talyn

  She whimpered when he touched her stomach longingly, and he shushed her. “Don’t you find life boring when you sit around and give up? All the while, you’re thinking about possibilities without ever reaching any outcome. Precisely, I see that you agree with me.” He trailed a fingertip down the slope of her hip. “Even considering Sixten’s interference, for the most part, plans are coming along nicely.”

  He cocked his head, watching her as she stilled her hand again. Blythe could feel the hilt of the small dagger, could almost curl her fingers around the very tip. She panted, realizing she was holding her breath. “I can see you’re gulping in air, trying to feed your brain some oxygen, slow down the heart rate a bit. Don’t bother breathing,” Poison said with a dismissive snort. “Bother with thinking.” He tapped her temple with the barest of touches, before bringing his lips against the shell of her ear. “Survival one-o-one says a captor who allows you to see his face and listen in as he explains some of his instrumental vision means that you will never again be a part of your world, only his if he permits you to live.” Lips brushing her skin, he added, “I presumed Sixten’s mate would be smart enough to figure that out by now. Certainly, I’m disappointed.”

  When the flashing behind her eye subsided, she caught his eyes roaming all over her body. “You are beautiful,” he breathed, “a treasure I will find between your open thighs. Normally, your kind does nothing for me. However, I’m shockingly aroused.”

  “Listen to you,” she pleaded, needing another second to grasp the blade. “Listen to your heartlessness!”

  “Yes, Blythe,” he taunted. “Even I hear the heartlessness in my words; however I cannot stop it. Days of sanity are far behind me, and I haven’t the power to bring them back. Still, I’m superior to you and every other creature on this planet. In my true world, your kind would be scurrying roaches. In this world,” he explained, arms swinging outward, “I am a god among men. And now you and your precious daughter are indispensable.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  This was Sixten’s third go around, his third spot he would try before heading back. Even though the Beta and Kash were by his wife’s side, he felt anxious. “I am doing this for my wife and my future daughter,” he coaxed himself to stay on task. Lining his vision with the moon, he then dropped it straight down, observing that glowing spherical again situated about a hundred yards away from him. It had cropped up the minute he took out the scroll, rubbing his hands over the peculiar glass. Looking down at it, he asked his reflection, “Was Amy right? Am I the bastard who’s going to let the rest in the Earth’s realm?” Temporarily pushing that thought aside, Sixten backed up a few paces, sensing that weird calling that always overtook him when he neared Rave’s old labs, and it hit him. Sure, it started with a tingle, but that tingle worked itself into a thrumming vibration until he shook from the overpowering sensation.

  Then it stopped.

  A tear sounded behind him, as though the air literally ripped in half. He wasted no time spinning on his heels, spotting a large portal, its border wavering like an aging mirror. Sixten edged the ripple, peering inside and expecting to find another world. Instead, he met a reflection of himself, only somewhat different. In the next instance, that mirrored imaged tilted wildly to the side, causing his stomach to lurch painfully. A strange distortion followed, twisting his mind, rendering him lightheaded. Placing his hands on bended knees, he lowered himself on his haunches. With closed eyes, he took in calming breaths through his lengthening fangs.

  “I am a Vojak,” he coaxed himself. “I fight insanity. I sort confusion. I protect what is mine, and I no longer live for pain. But I sure as hell can deal with it.”

  “Much pain you’ve endured, my son?”

  One eye opened, Sixten taking in his mirrored image that was still standing. My son? Both eyes popped open in shocking realization. “So Poison didn’t lie about you after all.” Reaching for the scroll, he added, “Or about the means at which to summon you.”

  “Poison?”

  Sixten heard his own voice reflected in his father’s, but the intonation was all wrong. Every syllable exaggerated as though English were uncommon to him. Certainly, it was. However, those ice-green eyes were the same color, yet far more crystalline than his ever were. Deep inside, they held a vast knowledge Sixten could only dream of obtaining. Dear ‘ole Dad didn’t appear to be crazy, not at all. His father stood with clear lucidity, carrying infinite understanding for however long he had lived, without maddening in the least. By the hour, Sixten fought for his own sanity, living in a world that wasn’t made for shifters. For that reason alone, Sixten could hate his father. Whom was he kidding? He did hate his father, every damn day.

  “Yes, Poison.” Somehow, Sixten forced his stomach to rights and stood. This man, his father, could kill him for killing Rave. And for the first time, Sixten feared dying, if only because he would never hold his daughter for the first time or his Blythe ever again. “I can’t decide if he’s a brilliant, mad scientist working for Satan, a true representative from your realm, or a simple fungus that one day jumped the confines of its petri dish.”

  “Poison you call venomous?”

  “Is there another earthly language you’re more familiar with other than English or even Habaline?” Sixten asked with as much respect as he could muster, which wasn’t much. He could read most of the Habaline script, could decipher when shapeshifters spoke in their mother tongue, but Sixten was slow in speaking it. He glanced at the growing sphere.... That must be the fucking wormhole. “I’m fluent in most of them.”

  His father’s mouth curved. “I did not expect anything less of you, my son. However, you do not know your homeland language fluently, and for that, I feel shame in myself.”

  For a simple language barrier, his father felt shame. Was anything else of consequence? Easily, he pushed away the discussion of Poison. “Where is your remorse for my mother? You left her to fend with a crazy half-breed bastard. Or did you ever consider what you put my parents through?”

  “Crazy?”

  Latin, maybe? “Rabidus.”

  “Frenzied, you say?”

  “Beyond frenzied,” Sixten ventured. “I drove her bat shit. Now I drive myself bat shit.”

  “The barrier,” he appeared to be talking more to himself then, “between our realms prevents this… rabidus. Crazy.”

  “Does your barrier, this particular realm,” he said, gesturing behind the man that was his father, “not contain iron?” Over the years, Rave had deteriorated, and Sixten couldn’t understand his later behavior. Poison had surpassed Rave’s deterioration into something obscene. The instabilities the werewolves had found in many of the mixed, Habaline breeds they’d captured were staggering. Many truly needed to be put down, the head count unimaginable. Then again, Sixten didn’t need any damned statistics to convince himself his brain wasn’t wired right after years of iron exposure.

  “Yes, in this adjacent realm, we find comfort and health.”

  “I killed Rave.” He put it out there, couldn’t wait any longer, had to get it over with.

  “I sensed his death,” his father said, nodding. “I knew you were the only one who could have killed someone with his power, my power. As a halfling, you are outstanding, nigh unstoppable.”

  That was it? “And you feel…nothing?”

  “Pride in you.” He crossed his arms, his image wavering in and out. “Yes, your strength is a testament of my superior lineage.”

  But Rave had somehow disappointed their father. “You don’t feel pride in me, but in yourself,” Sixten observed, horrific understanding dawning on him. “I heard two stories about you. The original I lived with most of my life. It goes something like…you procreated all over Slovakia, spreading your seed, moving between one female’s open thighs to the next.”

  “Your mother was the only female who grew heavy with child,” he said in a detached, clinical tone.

  “Father, are you certain?”

  “I can sense
my power, my blood. I sent Rave to you, forced him from ruling by my side to oversee your upbringing while I led my people alone. He feared you even then, understood that your power in childhood overreached his in adulthood. In a way, he knew if he one day dropped to dust, it would be by your hand.” He nodded. “And so it was.”

  “Do you want to know the alternative story that I was fed about you, the one my mother seems to believe? When she handed me this”- he wiggled the scroll in his hand - “she was convinced that you had somehow loved her, still do love her. That you sired me with her out of that blinding love because she couldn’t procreate with her Undead mate.” Sixten was another science experiment, though he wasn’t one of the many developed and raised in a cold and unfeeling lab.

  “My gift to her,” he said with that same toneless lilt, “for breeding. I ordered a powerful vampire to weave a tale inside her mind as well as the Undead’s, one she could hold to her feeling heart for all her days.” He cocked his head, his eyes assessing. “I see that you have these feelings, too. That she raised you in her emotional Species ways.”

  Emotions? Was he saying Habalines weren’t capable of love? “I hated my mother most of my life. In fact, I thought she was a whore.” Sixten needed to go on bended knee, begging her forgiveness if he lived through this night, although he didn’t deserve her understanding.

  “None of that matters now, my son. This night is a celebration,” he said. “You created a daughter to gift to your people. A female of royal blood is worth a hundred thousand female peasants. Her power will be infinite. When more of our people come through” - he gestured toward the widening sphere, growing by the second - “we will have enough for an upheaval, making this world our own, eliminating anything which harms us.”

  “All those lies Rave and Poison told about Habalines assimilating with humans. Coexisting." Sixten shook his head. "Tonight, you need my power. And from then on? My daughter’s power, you will need?” Sixten asked, sensing sweat trickling his temples. His father didn’t answer, his imaging flickered out as the sphere brightened and widened. Disappearing without another word spoken between them, he left Sixten with the knowledge that he was taking his daughter in a way of service to his race. “You fueled these labs, Father,” he said through clenched teeth. “Blood of my blood caused this destruction, the torture among females, the life given and held underground, where mixed blood creatures were treated like the lowest life forms. My daughter will never be a part of that!”

  Crushing the scroll into fine powder and kicking it into the sand, Sixten misted toward the sphere faster than he’d ever flown. “I will cut your throats!” he screamed into the overwhelming light, its power burning his sensitive Species retinas. He knew how to stop it, knew that if he were to transverse the wormhole the opposite way, it would collapse, since it couldn’t sustain a bilateral highway. "Never forget that I loved you, Blythe." A sacrifice, if this was all he could do to save his child and his wife from the unspeakable, than he would do it now.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Blythe’s fingers burned, her hold shaky and slippery, but she had a decent grip on the dagger. Brush moved behind Poison. Faraway, booted feet crushed small gravel and seashells. When Blythe didn’t know what was coming next, that whoever turned the corner might help Poison take her underground for good, this was her only chance. Poison’s head moved a fraction to the left, sensing their impending company. Then Blythe swung out from the right and Sixten’s dagger sliced through her palm, the blade coated in her fresh blood. Inhaling deeply, she drove the blade into his stomach, right beneath his rib cage, pushing upward into flesh not bone. It was a sickening feeling, spearing the flesh of another creature, but she held firm, not releasing her hold.

  Poison’s glittery eyes widened into pure horror, his hands gripped hers soundly, pulling. Blythe’s hands were bloody, but she managed to circle the blade somewhat, pressing it further. His mouth opened but no words came out, only a sound of fury. His own blood stained his fine white shirt in a circling pattern around the hilt. “I will take pleasure in torturing every mate you hold dear,” Poison said in a demonic whisper, “as you watch me do it.” He blinked deliberately, and Blythe saw that his eyes darkened, the gold, silver and bronze fading away.

  Kicking out with her legs, Blythe erupted from the ground, and whacked solidly against the hilt of Sixten’s blade. A large crack sounded. On the left side, Poison’s ribs seemed to have caved in. Only then did he stagger back, as though he couldn’t breathe. “That’s for Sixten!” She then brought her knee up, delivering an uppercut to his chin, snapping his neck to the side. Blythe knew her blows weren’t anything to an immortal, but that blade was working him over, poisoning Poison’s system. “How does it feel to be powerless, like all those women you lorded over, Raven Warrior?”

  Already, she was racing down the side property, jumping over fallen limbs and tracing around two large sand dunes. Her feet were as bloody as her hand was, and her legs trembled in fear. However, Blythe concentrated on the baby nestled inside her, that thought fueling her every move. She ran swiftly across her and Sixten’s property, in and out of trees, so another hunter would have difficulty swooping in and capturing her.

  In her side vision, she could see Poison coming after her, his front bleeding profusely. He was slower than he should be, wasn’t misting, either, but she would be a fool to think he couldn’t still catch her in his weakened state. Snarling, he launched himself at her with Sixten’s bloodstained blade clutched in his right hand. Blythe ducked and turned just as Oycher jumped on Poison’s back. Both hit the ground, tumbling. Catching a seriously enfeebled Poison in the throat with his fangs, Oycher sank his teeth into him. The Vojak ripped from side to side so quickly, all Blythe saw was blood and mahogany flying everywhere.

  Abruptly, the two stopped flailing, as if the whole fight never happened. Blythe thought she was suddenly observing everything in slow motion, or more than likely, she was in shock. Oycher stood up, walked over to her, swinging Poison’s decapitated head by the hair. Carefully, he placed it at her feet like an offering. Blythe felt herself licking her dry lips, standing frozen with a bleeding hand, and words wouldn’t surface.

  “It’s alright,” Oycher said gently, reigning in his Species and wiping his bloody face on his leather encased arm. “But you hit your wrist in the worst way, and you’re bleeding out, going into shock. Sixten will devour the world if anything happens to you.” When he reached for her hand, she couldn’t lift it. “May I?”

  “Poison said Sixten was dead,” she heard herself say. “Kash was attacked…and I don’t know where Rock is.”

  Licking her hand and wrist, muscles seemed to pump along Oycher’s jaw, him fighting not to bite her. “Grim got ahold of Kash.” He shook his head a couple of times, snapping himself out of it. “As we speak, they're misting him to the Sanctuary. He’s in pain but otherwise fine. I spotted Sixten on the North side five minutes before I misted on your property. He’s far from dead, how about I take you to him?” At that, her legs dropped, taking her body with it. Oycher caught her in a sure grip, pressing his hand against her lower back. “You are not fearless, but show me someone who is.” He continued licking her in vampiric speed, sealing her up until she only saw faint pink lines. “But if given a choice,” he continued, “I’d rather be brave than fearless. It keeps things in the right perspective and you don’t get so full of yourself.”

  She laughed at that. It was a shaky laugh, barely there, but it counted for something. Oycher and Blythe always had a communal of unnamed sorts. It wasn’t exactly a friendship, and yet she didn’t know what else to call it. “Thank you, Oycher.”

  “He was half gone, Blythe,” he said, his beads rattling as his head moved. “You did that, you know. Like I said, you are not fearless, but I find you brave.”

  “Are you going to bite me now?” she teased. It was their inside joke.

  Hissing in the way of vampires, he brushed his still bloodied mouth against her throat. “I
think you want me to bite you, Blythe.” Then his breath left him, an exhale hitting the side of her next, his extraordinary ocher eyes, his namesake, rolling up before shuttering. As he dropped to the ground, Blythe backed away to find Qudir standing over him with a Stavz, just as the hunter had done with Kash.

  “What did you do?” she screamed.

  “Stunned him!” he snarled back, his midnight eyes flashing. “He was at your throat, talking about biting you, the scent of your blood leaving his mouth. Would you rather I allowed Oycher to ravage you? He fights the call of your Donor blood every time he’s around you!”

  “He wasn’t attacking me, but saving me.” Blythe dropped to her knees, cradling Oycher’s head in her lap, stroking his forehead. Blood seeped from his eyes, his jaw clenched so tight that his fangs pierced his chin. “He’s in pain and you did this!”

  However, Qudir wasn’t listening. “You killed him, or did Oycher?” With his booted toe, he nudged Poison’s head.

  “It was a joint effort, but I’ll give Oycher the entire credit. I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t come along.” Poison wouldn’t have killed her, but she would be underground somewhere in one of his freaky labs, suffering unjustly. Cupping Oycher’s chin, she said, “We’ll get you some help.”

  “You fucking bitch!”

  Out of nowhere, Qudir backhanded her, her own blood filling her mouth. When she righted herself, bracing her hands flat against the earth, Blythe stared up into darkened eyes glossed over with rage. Slowly, she stood again, backing away several paces with her hand circling her stomach. Blythe knew without uncertainty that her baby was strong and deep-seated inside her womb. Even so, she didn’t need to go the distance with yet another angry immortal tonight.

  Quickly Qudir was in front of her, biting through his wrist. “Drink!”