Nightshade's Bite (Blood Wars)

by Zoe Forward

  “Fine. Then maybe there is one thing you can do, something that doesn’t involve other people’s choices. Give something to Ehlena for me. That’s not going to change anyone’s destiny other than mine and hers.”

  He recoiled as if she’d slapped him. “Me go see Ehlena?”

  She pressed the flash drive into his hand, wishing she’d been able to look at its contents. It had to contain information on Viktor and the virus. “Give this to her. Today is best. She can’t sit on the sidelines forever, not when Viktor has put the entire vampire species at risk.”

  “I can’t force her to participate in vampire bullshit.” He held up the drive to inspect it.

  “I think you can persuade her, Mr. Once-in-a-Lifetime. This is her moment to prove she has a conscience and she’s not afraid to act on the right side of it. If she doesn’t come through for me, then we know she’s not worth one more iota of my time in the future. Time to finish what I started. Guess I’m doing this alone.”

  “Don’t do the exchange and surrender yourself to Viktor,” he yelled as she walked away.

  She paused to glance back. “It’s the right thing. It’s worth dying for. Guess that means you can’t save me.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Who has the cure?” Viktor’s first lieutenant yelled. “Where is it?”

  The vicious meathead swung his fist, nailing Michael’s already broken face. It didn’t hurt as much as the spikes they’d screwed into his shoulders while he’d been unconscious. To get a few millimeters of comfort, he tugged at the cumbersome chains that attached him to the floor. The familiar slow burn of silver moved like acid through his veins.

  The pompous vampire proudly informed him the moment he woke up that the silver spikes would slowly kill him over the next day. The jerkwads didn’t do their research on who they’d captured.

  Surprise. Wouldn’t be dying.

  Another punch snapped his neck back. So uncreative. He could think of fifteen ways to exact torture far more painful with a lot less effort. Kiera escaped hours ago, hours during which he’d been unconscious.

  Although groggy, Michael could fight. If he wasn’t down a few pints of blood from the bullet wounds and weakened by the silver burn, he could easily pull free of the chains, smash the arrogant vampire beating him. Then he’d kill Viktor. Slowly. With a lot of pain.

  But too weak.

  So much for his plans to escape on his timeline.

  He’d chosen Kiera instead of duty to his people, and his reward was to end up in the one situation he’d avoided for the past two centuries: incarcerated by vampires and planning his escape.

  The meathead paused, fist poised for the next hit. He backed away at the sound of footsteps coming toward them.

  “Michael Durand. The Michael. In my home. I’m honored,” boomed Viktor as he strolled into the room. “I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure of seeing each other since the last time you were chained like this.” He executed a small half bow.

  Viktor tapped his finger against his lip as he walked a circle around Michael. “Why are you here? Alone? Where’s the rest of your army? Seems odd for this to be some sort of personal vendetta unless this is about the young one that was stolen away from us. Is it? Was she someone special to you? Related, perhaps?”

  Michael shook his head to get the sweat and blood-soaked hair out of his eyes. He spit blood out of his mouth, aiming for Viktor’s feet.

  Viktor stopped his trek. “I think this is about the Nightshade League. She was here, wasn’t she?”

  Michael flinched at the word she.

  Stupid, stupid, so stupid to give away the answer in such an obvious fashion. He forced out, “I don’t know if their leader is a he or a she.”

  Good recovery, right? But not good enough. Viktor wasn’t buying his surprise.

  He’d fucked up.

  Viktor chuckled. “Everyone thinks Nightshade is male, but I know it’s a she. My Parisian lieutenant reported a bitch in a dress freed you. I’m pretty sure I know who she is as well.” He started tapping his lip again and resumed pacing around Michael. “Before we arrange for that little league’s leader to give herself up for you, you’re going to tell me where I can find the cure your people developed.” Viktor took Michael by the throat in his one good hand, squeezing. “And you’re going to do it now.”

  Michael laughed through the grip, which wasn’t nearly tight enough to truly crush his throat.

  Viktor put his face in front of Michael’s “Why the secrecy? The cure is worth millions to humans. So many around the world affected by the virus. Even if it doesn’t kill the humans, your people could still fund their war and then some if they sold it to humans to cure the anemia it causes.”

  The asshole still didn’t know the cure only worked on wolves? He’d been present when they experimented giving his blood to infected humans. Didn’t do anything other than cause a severe allergic reaction at his blood being administered intravenously.

  Michael waited for the grip to release. When it did, he spat again, this time missing Viktor’s mouth by millimeters. How he wished to give Viktor a taste of the cure he sought. He’d enjoy watching him choke on his own blood when the toxicity hit. “I’m not a big talker.”

  “We can break you. I have people who would enjoy doing it.”

  “Can’t wait.”

  Viktor hit palm open with a crack so powerful against Michael’s cheek that he lost vision for a moment. “I will make you wish you’d never been born and then kill you.”

  Michael barked out a laugh. “Finally, someone volunteers to step up and grant me my wish. I’ve been begging my people to kill me for at least three decades. They’re too scared because I’m fucked in the head, thanks to your father and his cronies shoving poison down my throat. It’d be a relief if you can kill me.” Total lie, but always helpful to propagate the insanity rumor.

  Viktor stared at him as if he’d grown three heads, all of which traveled to Looneyville at the same moment. Snapping out of his shock, Viktor reiterated, “Where’s the cure being housed?”

  Right here, asshole. “You mean the cure to the pestilence you released?” Give Viktor a cookie for not taking the bait. “Any smart mad scientist about to release a plague has the antidote to save himself before he detonates it on the world. So where’s your smart scientist?”

  Viktor scowled.

  “Got himself killed by the virus, perhaps? Or did you accidentally kill him?” Michael shook his head, chuckling. “Karma’s a bitch. Do you have the balls to execute me, DiFalco?” He jumped as far forward as the chains allowed, the sudden movement causing a loud rattle. Bolts of fire shot through his shoulders, but he refused to let that show.

  Viktor hopped backward, eyes wide. He whirled, stalked to his lieutenant, grabbed the handgun from his lackey’s shoulder holster, and shot Michael in the stomach. The pain drove him to his knees, which he resented. The new sting signaled more silver.

  Escape slipped further toward not-a-chance-in-hell.

  Viktor sliced Michael’s forearm and gripped it to hinder movement as he captured the stream of blood in a large-sized blood tube. “You know what I’m going to do to her when she turns herself in to free you?”

  She wouldn’t give herself up. Michael tried to believe the words. But he knew better. He fully expected them to drag Kiera in here at any moment.

  Viktor waved his hand in signal. The door opened. He smelled vampire. The body was in shadows, but he could make out female curves. Air wouldn’t move through his chest.

  Relief sweet and terrible swept through him when it wasn’t Kiera. It was Viktor’s wife. She thrashed in the grip of the guy holding her.

  Viktor caught her neck in his grip and forced eye contact. “We will punish her in the manner we do all traitors in this war.”

  Viktor picked up the gun Michael had brought off a side tab
le and emptied bullets from its magazine and chamber. He removed a specially designed bullet from his pants pocket, one Michael recognized as the kind used to detonate liquid silver inside werewolf victims. Viktor loaded Michael’s blood inside the bullet before putting the bullet into the gun and chambering it to be active.

  “No,” his wife beseeched. “Please, Viktor. Fifty-nine years we’ve been married. I gave you three children. Think of the kids.”

  “I am thinking of my children.” He shot her in the chest. “Such a pity to have your blood in their veins.”

  The vampires holding her upright dropped her.

  She gripped her chest, coughing. One bullet, itself, was nothing to a vampire. One loaded with werewolf blood, though, was lethal.

  “May you rot in hell. Your time is coming.” She wiped her bloody nose, the first sign of werewolf blood toxicity. It led to bleeding out of every orifice. It’s why they died. The blood refused to stay inside the vessels and exited the body. Then organs died in a corrosive manner, including the brain, which ended the body. Total, unrecoverable annihilation.

  Blood exploded from her mouth and the corners of her eyes. Within seconds, full body convulsions hit and then the choking. A few more strong convulsions, a few gasps, and she stopped breathing. This was game over, as in not an injury that vampire night sleep could heal.

  They never used their blood against vampires in this way, never loaded it into bullets. In his opinion, they should’ve long ago. Guaranteed, this entire asinine conflict would’ve ended. Their king prohibited it because he didn’t believe in chemical warfare, a justice no vampire recognized. But Michael had once used his blood to win a fight in battle without a twinge of guilt. Not with bullets, but he’d forced his blood into a vampire. Lexan tore into him afterward, but Michael shrugged and said it was kill or be killed in those situations.

  The female twitched once more. Blood pooled around her. Dead.

  He couldn’t watch Kiera die this way.

  “Dart him,” Viktor ordered.

  He felt a sting in his neck, and then the world went hazy for Michael again.

  …

  Michael sucked in air when he jolted from a world of dreamless sleep to being wide-awake. Like someone doused him in an ice bath, only he wasn’t wet. Disoriented, he blinked to adjust his eyes to the darkness around him.

  “Wakey-wakey,” said a male voice.

  Michael pushed up off the concrete floor onto his elbows. His attention narrowed until his entire consciousness fixated on the one other being in the room with him. The visitor remained shadowed.

  Michael didn’t smell a vampire, werewolf, or human. He squinted to adjust to the light source that now pierced the dark, two small green lights from the wall-mounted cameras. Usually, it’d be enough, but he couldn’t see the male who’d spoken. Michael sensed the person moving, but he remained a mystery as if he somehow commanded the shadows themselves.

  Michael didn’t trust his voice not to betray weakness, although he wanted to demand the being identify himself.

  Flexing his arms and legs, he cursed the damn silver from the spikes drilled into his shoulder blades. In addition to the drug, the bolts put his strength at an all-time low.

  His joints were stiff from lying on the floor face down for however long, but the pain didn’t matter. Death might be inevitable, but even so, no one would take him out without a fight.

  A face came into his line of sight, one with raised tattoos along one side of his jawline and neck. Druid. Michael went on instant alert. Druids were highly unpredictable and not worthy of an ounce of trust. Even if he’d met this one before.

  The druid wasn’t dressed in medical scrubs this time, but in some sort of dark outfit with weighty swords crisscrossed behind his back.

  Isaac here made no sense. Maybe this was the next level of deluded reality due to being tranquilized over and over.

  “You find me amusing?” Isaac asked in a flat tone.

  Had he been smiling? Maybe he had. Hell, he didn’t know if this was real or in his head.

  “I must be hallucinating. Even if you say you’re real, how do I know I’m not imagining all this and having a conversation with a figure in my head?” A fit of hysterics hit him. “You have to be in my mind. No one walks around with seventeenth-century swords on their back unless he’s the star of a cheesy superhero movie or maybe a middle-grade TV fantasy series.”

  Isaac threw a knife at Michael, which hit Michael’s shoulder handle first and clattered loudly onto the concrete floor. “I’m not here to rescue you or entertain you.”

  Michael massaged his shoulder. He memorized the location of the knife should he need it. “Are you here to torture me for Viktor? If so, you can go fuck yourself.”

  “I work for no vampire.” The druid crossed his arms. “You must scare them for them to keep you chained to the floor and drugged.”

  “If you’re not with them, are you going to deal with the cameras recording everything in here? You do know this is one of Viktor’s high-security torture facilities?” He nodded his chin toward the cameras mounted on the walls.

  “They’re off.”

  “Green light’s still on at least one of them.” When Isaac didn’t reply, he figured the cranky druid must’ve done something magical to cripple the recording devices.

  Michael rocked to a sit and stretched his shoulders against the weight of the chains pulling his back toward the floor. “Did Kiera send you to help me?”

  Isaac’s face flashed irritation. “She’s going to do something foolish to rescue you and try to fix the perverse evil that grips her species.”

  “There’s no redemption for most of her species.”

  “She’s willing to allow them to execute her to gain your freedom. They’ve asked for an exchange.”

  “I’m here to ensure she’s free. Finn promised he’d get her somewhere safe. She’s not supposed to come back.”

  “You may not have known her long, but come on. You think she’s going to sit on her ass while they kill you and her sister? You choosing to be here forced her hand. Does that still make you feel your act was selfless, werewolf?”

  He really hated this guy.

  “If you help me escape right now, then she doesn’t have to risk her life coming back.”

  For endless moments, Isaac did nothing. Said nothing. All he did was stand as still as a freaky stone statue. Silence deafened the room around them.

  Michael shifted against the burn in his shoulders, annoyed that the chains forced him to convey even that small vulnerability.

  Without warning, Isaac moved into his personal space.

  The druid pulled each spike out of Michael’s back. What should’ve been agony—one he remembered well from the few times he’d pulled them out himself to escape centuries ago—caused no sensation. Loss of their weight pitched him forward so fast, he had to catch himself before he landed on his face. He pushed himself upright and rolled his freed shoulders, which were pain-free, meaning the silver was gone from his system.

  “Where’s your amulet?” Isaac demanded.

  “I gave it to Kiera.”

  “Of course you did.” He blew out a long hiss of air. “That amulet was given to your ancestor and passed to you. I believe it a gift from Iamblichus. Your skills evolved while relying on its power, and now…you’re naked without it.” He pulled the amulet off his own neck and draped it around Michael’s. “These aren’t toys. They take one of us a long time to build the magic. This one is twice as powerful. I’m making it yours. Let me reiterate. It’s yours. No one else’s unless you pass it to your son or daughter.”

  “I’ll be fine without it.”

  “Like you’ve been fine since you got rid of yours? You’ll keep this amulet around your neck.” Isaac grabbed the front of his bloodied shirt, twisting the material in his hand, and yanking him upright
to his height. He pulled him face-to-face with a strength that sent a shiver of alarm through Michael. “Because she chose you.”

  As fast as he’d stepped close, Isaac released him and moved away.

  Michael’s heart pounded hard. She told Isaac she chose him? Damn if that wasn’t joy spreading through him…for about ten seconds. Then the feeling was clobbered by fear of what she was about to do.

  She’d do whatever they wanted, if they promised to free him. He’d do the same for her, which meant he’d ensured her execution.

  Michael rose to his knees. The woozy side effects of the drug had returned, which, when compounded with weakness, spun his mind. Why would the druid leave the drug in his system yet remove the spikes? He tugged against the heavy cuffs still anchoring his wrists to the floor, too weak to pull them off.

  “They won’t be able to replace your shoulder restraints. I put a protective spell on you that deters them from thinking of it, and if they try it won’t take.” The shadows swallowed Isaac as he backed away. “You don’t deserve the spikes. That level of pain is uncalled for, but I can’t set you free. She asked me to get you out, but there are rules that prevent me from messing with the timeline.”

  “What kind of rules?” Michael yanked against the cuffs. “Damn it, undo these so I can stop her! If you care about her at all, get these off.”

  “It’s not my place to stop what you put in motion.”

  “Don’t let her die,” Michael pleaded. “Please…”

  “I’m not sure what I can do to stop her. I’m going to try. But Michael…” A silent pause rested between them. “My amulet and the spell ensure you’ll survive this. What happens next may not be pleasant, but if you hang on, you’ll live. I guarantee it. It’s all I can do.”

  Crack.

  Isaac was gone.

  Kiera would come. And then she’d die.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Kiera gave her people the slip at the airport, although Andrew caught her trail several hours later. His efforts seemed somewhat clumsy and obvious for the first twenty miles, as if he wanted her to know he followed, which was weird. If there was one thing Andrew excelled at, it was incognito tailing.