Chosen Mate

by L. J. Red

  A vampire. It had to have been a vampire, no human could steal memories. She clutched the key tightly, cold metal against her palm. Someone had messed with her head. She needed to tell Neal. It didn’t matter that she didn’t want to see him again. This was serious, no vampire should be wandering around stripping memories. And that room, she remembered, it was directly under the main meeting room. So close to the Conclave, and yet so hidden. That must be why the vampire had wanted to get in, and they couldn’t while it was locked, while she had the key.

  May gasped, clutching the key to her chest. Oh, God. The attack, the hunter in the cabin, the way he’d trashed the place. It hadn’t been an attack on Neal, of course, why would a single human on their own try to attack a Shadow? No, it had been to find the key! That was why the place looked trashed. It hadn’t been part of the attack, but it had been part of the search. They hadn’t found the key, and they’d still been looking when Neal and May had returned to the cabin.

  That human had been stopped, but there was no way he could have been working alone. Whoever he had been working for. She had to stop them.

  May rushed to the stairs and stopped at the top, looking down at Isabella. The spark of memory fired up like a lit fuse and exploded across May’s mind and she remembered exactly who had been in the hallway with her.

  “You,” she whispered, her eyes wide.

  Isabella looked up at her, and the sickly-sweet expression of friendliness on her face faded into a cold hatred. “So, you have finally broken the hold on your memories.” Isabella noticed the key in May’s hand, and an expression of sick glee lit up her face. “Oh good,” she said, “you found it, just as I hoped.”

  May rushed backward as Isabella sped up the stairs towards her. There was a vase on the table beside the bed and May sprinted to it and threw it at Isabella’s face. Isabella screeched as the ceramic cracked around her face, knocking her mask loose and exposing a sliver of blackened and scarred flash for a second. May smelled smoke. Isabella recovered quicker than May could move, straightening and launching herself at May. She gripped May around the shoulders and slammed her against the wall so hard that May’s vision exploded into stars, then faded into deep, unrivaled darkness.

  Chapter 26

  Ivy heaved and panted as she dragged the heavy suitcase across the snow. Sure, a suitcase with wheels was a great idea on the pavement, but she should have thought what a pain it would be getting it across the snowy ground in front of the lodge. Still, at least it was helping her work up a sweat and stave off some of the cold.

  Around her the night was quiet and a little creepy, everyone, vassals and vampires, shut up tight in the main lodge building, and she was glad to see the Shadows’ cabins appearing out of the gloom in front of her, and she put on a little burst of speed as she dragged the bag closer to the cabin where May had been staying. The door opened and she rolled her eyes. Honestly, if that was May coming out again… but the woman who appeared in the doorway was much taller than May, and Ivy froze. Who the hell was that? Ivy had a strange feeling of foreboding. Trusting her gut, she dropped the suitcase and quickly crouched down beside it, hoping the night would mask her form.

  The woman definitely wasn’t May, in fact, it wasn’t anyone that she recognized, but the woman wasn’t wearing a coat, so she figured it must be a vampire. Any human wearing that get-up in this weather would very quickly freeze her nipples off.

  The woman in the doorway gestured into the darkness and a man appeared. Ivy recognized him, a vassal. Not just any vassal, but that asshole with the greasy hair who had asked her stupid questions while she had been making soup, way back at the beginning of the Conclave.

  “Are your people in position?” The woman asked him. Her voice carrying on the still night air. He nodded. “Good, did you bring it? Give it here.” He passed a small dark box over to the woman. Ivy couldn’t see it clearly. It might have something sticking out of it, colored string?

  A stray gust of wind blew, snatching their words away, and for a moment Ivy heard nothing. Then it grew still again and what she heard next made her blood run cold.

  “Don’t worry, the explosion will easily bring the place down around them. Just make sure your men are ready in the trees. I don’t want any of the survivors getting out.”

  The man ran off towards the tree line and the female vampire turned and picked something up. At first, Ivy couldn’t work out what she was seeing, then it came clear and she had to hold back a groan of horror. A body, she’d just picked up a body and slung it over her shoulder. The woman lifted the body with ease, walked out of the cabin, and disappeared around the back.

  May, that was May’s body. Ivy trembled on the ground for a second, frozen with terror. That hadn’t been colored string on the box. They were wires. Wires sticking out of a goddamn bomb. The reason that vassal was so terrible at his job was because he wasn’t a vassal at all, he was HUNT, and now he and that woman were going to attack the Conclave.

  Ivy knew she had no hope of stopping them by herself, but she knew who could. She scrambled upright and sprinted towards the Conclave building where the Shadows would be.

  Chapter 27

  Neal couldn’t concentrate. He knew he was supposed to be paying attention to the meeting. He needed to be listening and making a mental record to report back to Lucian once he returned to Chicago. More than that, he ought to be alert, keeping an awareness of the location of every vampire in the room, but instead he found his thoughts returning over and over to May. He kept seeing her face, her eyes filling up with tears, out in the cold, shivering without her coat. He had wanted to wrap her up in his arms, and he’d had to apply iron self-control to keep his distance. She’d made her opinion of him very clear. He had to stop thinking about her. It was better this way. Enough mistakes. He had to focus on his duty as a Shadow. This was exactly what he had been afraid of. That his feelings for May would get in the way of his duty.

  Only, now he was finding it harder to concentrate than ever. He’d made the right choice, he was sure. So why did he feel so broken inside? The bond that led to May felt frayed, muffled and confused. He must have been mistaken; it was no soulmate bond after all. For a second, a flash of fear shot through him. But that wasn’t possible. He couldn’t be feeling May. What reason could she have to be afraid—she was probably tucked in the back room with her vassal friend, happy she’d escaped staying with him for one more night.

  Enough. He needed to focus on what was in front of him. The very real threat Roman posed to the Shadows and to the Conclave itself.

  Neal raised his gaze away from the window where he had been staring out into the darkness and focused on the vampires within the room. He searched the space for Roman and realized to his horror that the vampire was missing. Where was he? He should be here. He had no reason to miss this meeting. He should be here spouting his poison and yet he was nowhere to be seen. Neal scanned the space frantically.

  Rune and Talon caught the edge of his tension and came towards him.

  “Where’s Roman?” he asked them, but before they could reply there was a commotion at the doorway and May’s little redhead friend broke through the crowd. She scanned the room, caught sight of Neal and rushed towards him. An icy hand gripped his heart at the look in her eyes.

  “Someone has taken May,” Ivy said as soon as she got close enough.

  Neal’s heart stopped in his chest. He swayed with the force of his shock.

  “Where? he growled, his eyes pinning Ivy in place. She stopped stock still, her eyes wide.

  “I was helping her pack—”

  “Pack?” Neal snarled. “Where was she going?”

  Ivy raised her hands as if to ward him off. “She wasn’t going anywhere, she just wanted to move out of the cabin.”

  Neal growled again, a possessive instinct rushing through him that he couldn’t deny, but Ivy kept talking. “I went to get her a suitcase, and when I got back, I saw someone coming out of your cabin. A woman and she had May over
her shoulder.” Tears appears in Ivy’s eyes. “I don’t know if she’s still alive.”

  A yawning emptiness opened at Neal’s feet. His mind slipped, terror churning through him. May dead? No.

  “There’s more.” Ivy was still speaking. “The woman, she met with a man before she left the cabin. I recognized him, he was a vassal, only…” she shook her head, “he wasn’t a vassal, I mean he was pretending to be a vassal—”

  “Talk sense,” Talon snapped.

  Neal heard them talking as if from the end of a long tunnel. He couldn’t hold onto the words, couldn’t hold onto anything. May couldn’t be gone. She couldn’t. A black wave of misery crashed down on him.

  “I mean he was pretending to be a vassal, just like that man who broke into May’s cabin. They’re both HUNT, and they’ve infiltrated the Conclave,” Ivy shouted.

  Silence rippled out as the vampires around them stilled in shock at that statement.

  “They said something about an explosion,” Ivy said breathlessly into the silence and Neal’s heart stopped.

  “We have to get everyone out,” Rune said grimly.

  “The woman said something about taking up positions,” Ivy said.

  Neal looked at Rune, sudden realization ripping through him. “The woods,” he said. He half-turned towards the windows surrounding the room, shouting, “Get down!”

  But it was too late. The windows shattered as a hail of bullets thundered into the room. There were screams as vampires and humans alike were hit. Neal leaped, grabbing Ivy and protecting her with his body as he rolled them toward the wall. The room exploded into chaos. Screams and the thick scent of blood painted the air as bullets shot through the crowd.

  “We can’t evacuate in this,” Talon shouted, hunched over across from Neal. Neal looked out at terrified faces. The humans would be gunned down, even the vampires couldn’t outrun bullets and it only took one wooden shot to the heart and they were done for.

  “We need to take out their positions,” Neal said, but as he spoke, he felt a tugging in his chest. He couldn’t leave May to whoever had kidnapped her. He couldn’t think about evacuating the vampires and the vassals and leaving May. But where was she? Who had taken her? How could he find her? The thought of losing her filled Neal with ice.

  “Rune,” he said, a battle-hardened cold coming over him, “take the North. Talon, the South. Find their positions and take them out. I have to find her.” He said his voice full of ice. “I have to find May.”

  “But what about—” Rune started. Neal cut him off gruffly. “I don’t care. She is the only thing that matters to me. Do you understand? The only thing.” His duty to the Shadows, protecting the other vampires, all of it paled in comparison. He was a fool to have thought he could care more about his life as a Shadow than May. She was his life, and he would sacrifice every damn person at the Conclave to keep her safe.

  “She is your soulmate.” Talon was looking at him with steady, dark eyes. “Just like Lucian and Dana. You found her.” There was a wealth of longing in Talon’s voice that Neal did not expect. “Go,” Talon said, his voice hoarse. “Go. We’ll protect the Conclave.”

  He turned to the window. “We will slaughter the enemies that seek to disrupt our peace.” The echo of longing disappearing from his voice and the rage that forever lay within him rising instead. Neal felt an echo of that rage shudder down the Bloodline bond between them.

  Under the haze of gunfire and shattered glass, Talon and Rune sped towards the doors, slipping out like two shadows in the night. He only hoped they could find the shooters in time.

  He needed to find May. There would be no point living if she was caught in the explosion. But how could he find her? She could be anywhere. He didn’t even know if she was out in the woods or inside. Wait. Did he? Could he tell where she was? He knew that soulmates were supposed to have a bond that transcended time and space. A bond so similar to the bond of Bloodline, but stronger, deeper. Could he use that to find her? That same bond that he had been pushing away the whole time they had been at the Conclave. Hell, ever since he met her. The bond he had been denying to himself. Could that be the key to finding her? Neal stepped away from the vampires still huddled and screaming under the rain of gunfire.

  He closed his eyes, growing still, sending his consciousness deep inside himself to where that spark resided that was not his Bloodline, not his brothers, but May, so close to his own heart it almost seemed like part of himself. The spark that he had felt fade, that he had felt muffle in terror, not because their bond wasn’t true. But because she had been knocked unconscious, he realized with keen insight. Neal centered himself and reached for May with every fiber of his being. He had to find her before it was too late.

  Chapter 28

  Talon sprinted for the tree line, bending low and keeping to the shadows. He sensed more than saw Rune following behind him, not one step out of sync, keeping pace as the world around them blurred into smears of light and dark.

  Bullets whistled over their heads, and the screams from the vampires and humans within the building faded behind him. People were dying. People he had sworn to protect. The thought enraged him, and the wildfire of his anger caught light. He would destroy these humans. Hunt them down like the hunters they called themselves.

  He sped into the forest, cloaked by the darkness between the trees and pulled to a silent stop. He caught Rune’s eyes, directing him to his right with swift movements. Then he stalked quietly through the wood, the snow crunching faintly underfoot as he advanced into the darkness. His vampiric senses were alight, enhancing the world around him, throwing edges into sharp relief. He could pick out individual pine needles, smell the crushed scent of them beneath his boots, and there, he smelled it, gunmetal and plastic. The faint bitter scent of hatred. He smiled but there was no humor in it. He tracked the scent closer, picking out the thrum of a heartbeat until finally, Talon saw him. The hunter was crouched on the ground, his rifle in front of him, his back exposed.

  Talon lunged. The human didn’t even have a chance to turn before Talon was on him, kicking the gun away and flinging the human back against one of the trees. The human hit it with a sickening thud, snow and pine needles cascading around them as Talon leaped again, his fangs out, and sank them deep into the hunter’s throat. Blood poured on the snow, hot, salt, and black in the moonlight. Talon reveled in the taste; a righteous kill tasted so much better than little sips from willing donors. The thrill of the fight drowned him, and Talon lost himself to it, striking again and again. He left the man a ruined wreck, blood still gushing from his wounds and landing, steaming, in the snow.

  The next human was twitchy, afraid, staring into the darkness, but Talon came upon him before he could do more than let out a muffled scream. He sank his teeth into the man’s neck and drank him down, sending nothing but pain through the bite. Wanting the man to suffer as he died, like all the humans and vampires in the Conclave were suffering. The man struggled beneath him, but Talon gripped harder, hard enough to hear the man’s bones creak until he went still.

  With the body still warm under him, Talon sprung forward for the next one, only to rock back as a bullet impacted in his back, burning through his flesh. The impact spun him around and Talon struggled to keep his balance, diving for cover behind a tree.

  He peeked quickly out and ducked back as another bullet thunked into the tree trunk where his head had been, sending a chunk of bark flying. A hunter. Clearly, he had left his post and decided to try and take Talon out instead. Talon grinned into the darkness. Good. He wanted them fighting him, not shooting at the Conclave.

  In fact, as he panted behind the tree, he realized the shooting had stopped. Faintly he heard the sound of a fight coming from the trees behind him. Rune must be dealing with the last of the shooters on his side, leaving only this man left for Talon.

  Talon glanced about himself. There was nothing he could use to distract the man, just the silent sweep of snow. He snarled. There had to be someth
ing. He could just rush him, sure he might take a couple of bullets, but it would only be a couple of seconds. Of course, if one of those bullets hit him in the heart, it would be over. Part of him didn’t care. He wanted to do it anyway. To die in battle was the only way he could imagine dying. But what if he died and the hunter still lived? What if the hunter turned his gun on the Conclave once more? Talon wouldn’t allow any more innocents to die.

  The moon came out from behind a cloud, and silvery moonlight coated the ground. Talon looked up, struck with inspiration. He bent his knees, tensing, and then leaped, beating his feet against the tree trunk as he launched himself upward, high into the branches. The pine tree was thick with needles, and he less climbed than skimmed the bulk of the tree, powered by his inhuman speed, up and over, skidding past branches. Snow and needles rained down around him as he launched himself in the direction of the hunter.

  Like an apparition, he fell out of the sky on top of the man. He landed on the hunter’s back hard enough that he felt something crack and the man cried out in pain, collapsing to the side, swinging the gun around with him. Talon grappled, clenching the barrel tightly and twisting it away. His grip was tight enough that the metal of the gun buckled under his grip.

  The man stared up at him in mute terror, and for a second Talon saw himself reflected in the man’s eyes. Blood and darkness, the flash of fang and the shine of madness. Then he lunged forwards, and all he knew for the next few moments was the glorious taste of hot blood and the satisfaction of destroying his enemies.

  “Talon, Talon!”

  The sound of his name gradually filtered into his consciousness and Talon pulled back. He had blood down his front and the man beneath him was definitely dead. The gaping bloody void where his neck should be kind of gave it away.