“I have to find it,” I said by way of answer, not once taking my eyes off the massive tome before me.
Avi placed her gloved hands on the table, forcing me to meet her gaze. Her stunning blue eyes were drained of life, that spark I loved so much about her winking in and out like her heart was stuttering.
“I will find it,” I said, answering her silent plea for me to listen to reason.
“The Night Thistle has taken Alek,” she said, and my heart clenched at her words.
“No,” I said, flipping another page. “I can feel him. Through the bond. He’s there. I know he’s there—”
“You want him to be—”
“Of course, I want him to be!” I hissed, my fangs descending with my anger. Avi’s eyes widened, her brow arching at the display. I quickly retracted them, shaking my head. “He is there.”
“We have to consider the merciful route, Lyric.” Avi blew out a breath, and I swear if she didn’t look so fucking devastated, I would’ve thrown her across the room. As it was, my vision flickered to thermal without my permission, the rage in my blood pumping fire through my veins. “Alek asked for an honorable death at the compound. Benedict told me. And Julian…he’s searching like you, but we don’t have much time. You know how powerful Alek is, and if he were to kill any one of us, he would never rest in his afterlife. Don’t you understand?”
A cold stillness crept over my skin, cooling that rage pounding its fists against my soul. Against our bond, the precious braid of light that connected me to Alek. It flickered, weak as a draining heartbeat, but it was still there.
Guilt gnawed at my stomach, and I paused my search for a second to think. Alek would absolutely not forgive me if I let him harm Avi or Hawke or any of his beloved Assassins. His friends. His family. Me. I clenched my eyes shut, a knife carving up my chest.
Avi had been his sister for much longer than I had been his mate. She’d been vampire longer than me. She knew infinitely more than I did.
Alek’s burning blue gaze.
His strong hands gentle at my waist.
That smile he only showed me, his mate.
The images combated my thoughts of submission. And yes, Avi was older, wiser, and of royal blood. I should bend to her will as she outranked—
Wait.
No.
She didn’t outrank me.
None of them did.
As Alek’s mate, his chosen queen, I outranked them all.
A surge of power and determination crackled across my skin, and I returned to my frenzied search.
“Lyric,” Avi sighed my name like she’d been holding her breath for hope. Like she’d expected me to bow to her wishes.
But I didn’t have to bend or bow to anyone.
Except Alek.
And I would get that chance again.
“Here!” I snapped, my eyes blazing as they caught on the arrangement of letters I’d desperately been searching for.
I read the passage about remediums once. Twice. A third to be absolutely certain.
“What is it?” Avi asked, hope flaring in her eyes. That hope mixed with devastation cooled my fire toward her. She wanted what was best for her brother, and in her eyes, there was no cure.
But if I’d learned anything about this new supernatural world, there was always a cure. A balance to uphold, no matter if that balance was seriously skewed one direction or the next.
I lifted my chin, straightening as I shoved the book toward her.
She spun it around, her eyes eating up the page, but I was already gone.
I sped down the hallways, down the stairs, and only slowed my pace when I rounded the corner that led to my chambers.
Hawke and Lachlan stood guard outside our door, Benedict and Julian and Ransom all pacing the length across from them.
My knees wobbled at seeing Ransom whole, but when his eyes met mine…God, they looked so devoid of life. All of them did. My heart swelled at the love gilded between these Assassins—unbreakable bonds that would no doubt last an eternity regardless of the circumstances.
They had my respect and my love.
But that didn’t stop me from saying, “Move.”
Hawke’s sharp gaze narrowed further at my request.
Lachlan’s look was more pleading. “We’ve chained him to his bed, lass,” he said, his voice softer than I’d ever heard it. “We wanted him to be as comfortable as possible when he—”
His words died in his throat when he saw the look in my eyes—the uncompromising will there.
“Move,” I said, this time with a little more strength behind the word.
Hawke shook his head. “No. We will not lose you too.”
I took a steadying breath, the bond flaring and thrashing inside me.
“Please, lass—”
“Queen,” I cut Lachlan off, and he immediately straightened his position. Ransom hissed behind me, and Hawke merely…smirked. “It’s Queen,” I said with a bit more softness. Fuck, I hated pulling rank like this, but dammit, they weren’t listening to me. Alek would not die. Not while there was breath in my lungs.
“You are our queen,” Lachlan said, dipping his head slightly. “And we are duty-sworn to protect you. Even from yourself.”
My fangs descended on their own accord, my patience wearing thin. “We don’t have time for a debate. You heard what Genevieve said, yes?”
They all nodded.
“I found it. What she referred to. I’m…” I shook my head. There wasn’t time. “I’m much more complex than any of us suspected. And Alek and I will explain everything after—”
“Alek,” Hawke cut me off. “Has succumbed to his baser side thanks to the fucking Night Thistle—”
“Easy,” I warned, using all the power I felt flowing through my blood to face down the most terrifying vampire I’d ever met. Hawke was ruthless as he was gorgeous, but I would not be delayed.
He clamped his lips shut, a flicker of respect shining through his eyes.
“Let her in,” Ransom said from behind me. “She is our queen. We have to trust her judgment.”
I nearly bowed my shoulders with relief at the support of the general.
“If we lose our king and queen in one night, the nobles will flock to the blood in the water,” Hawke snapped. “And that blood will be Avianna’s. They’ll stop at nothing to—”
“I am the cure,” I hurried to say, wanting to reassure him. “I am, Hawthorne.” Saying his full name, the way I’d heard Alek do on more than one occasion, silenced him. “Please, I know you all haven’t known me that long. I get that. But, I promise, we will have centuries to bond. I will earn your trust, but right now, I need you to give me some blind faith. I will return Alek to you.” I hated the way my voice trembled, the way I knew for a fact I couldn’t best the four Assassins to get through that door. No, they’d have to trust me. And that seemed a much harder feat than overpowering them.
“Hawke, Lachlan,” Benedict said, baring his arms. “She’s telling the truth. Let her pass.”
Fear, actual terror churned in Lachlan’s gaze as he stepped aside. Not any fear from me, but for me.
Hawke moved, that shadow of respect still clinging to his eyes, but his voice was liquid steel as he said, “I go to Avianna. I’ll secure her safety in case Alek rips you to shreds.”
A shiver raced down my spine, but I took the words for what they were—truth. Alek had the capabilities to do more than that. He could shred my mind and my body with a few thoughts. But I was his mate, and I was the cure. An ancient bloodline so buried and secret it gave the Sons a run for their money. My blood was powerful, precious, and dangerous to the wrong people. It was no wonder it had been hidden and glazed over all these centuries. Naturally, only a witch as old and wise as Genevieve would even remember it.
I pushed open the door, the echoes of Alek’s growls leaking into the hallway.
“Lyric,” Ransom called, and I glanced over my shoulder.
“Don’t die,” he said
, his eyes sincere but his lips flashing me that playful smile I’d grown so used to. “You’ve just made things interesting again.”
I forced a smile to my lips, and stepped into our chambers. I sealed the door behind me, the sound of the locking clicking enough to stop Alek’s growls for a few heartbeats.
“Oh, Alek,” I said, my voice a trembling whisper.
His biceps strained against his bonds, the silver chains around his wrist propelling his arms up to where the chains wrapped around the ebony posts. Shirtless, his immaculate chest was peppered with gauze, pink from the blood that continued to seep from his wounds. His leather pants hugged his hips, those V-lines just visible as he arched and thrashed on the bed. The steel dampened his power, his strength. And his eyes? Those burning blues that I loved so much?
They were wholly, incomprehensibly black.
Shivers raced over my skin, the cold penetrating all the way down to my bones.
Doubt threatened to creep in, icy fingers clenching around the hope in my heart.
Remediums possess a muted strain of DNA capable of curing almost any ailment known to supernatural kind. A product of deep experimentation and cross breeding, remediums are rare and often confused with Seers as glamors have no effect on them and their instincts are unapparelled. Faced with extinction due to capture for healing purposes, they all but erased themselves from our histories around the eighteenth century.
I took one confident step toward our bed.
I’d spent my entire life between the pages of a book. Books were my only constant in a sea of unknown. I trusted books more than I trusted most people. And sure, this book was written by an ancient witch who had a passion for history as much as I did, but I’d never not trusted my research, my books.
I would not start now.
Another step.
“Alek,” I whispered as I reached the edge of our bed.
His midnight eyes glittered with unhindered bloodlust. His muscles bunched and flexed as he jerked and yanked on those chains.
“Everything will be all right,” I said and smoothed my hands over his chest.
He stilled under my touch, not due to any recognition, but more like a deadly predator inviting in the prey stupid enough to get this close.
I shifted, straddling his hips, leaning over him slowly.
“I’m yours and you are mine,” I whispered, my entire body shaking as I positioned my neck a breath before his lips. “This life doesn’t make sense without you. Now, feed.”
I held his pitch-black gaze, my neck craned so I could see the shift in him.
One second he was a statue, the next, his features turned absolutely lethal.
His fangs sank into my flesh, the pain instant and searing. This wasn’t like the bites Alek had given me before. This bite was a hundred percent primal. Animal. And it burned.
Pressure tugged on my insides as he sucked and drank, biting me over and over again so much I whimpered through my teeth.
My instincts roared to run, to bite back.
I clamped those down.
The tome didn’t say how much of my blood was needed to heal a poisoned creature, and I wasn’t about to guess. Not with my mate.
He could take all he needed.
As long as he lived.
The iron chains rattled as he drank and drank, the blood gushing out of me and dripping from the corners of his mouth.
Beautiful.
He was hauntingly beautiful. I’d thought that from the moment I first saw him.
I love you.
I sent the words down the bond as the edges of my vision blurred.
My heartbeat slowed, hiccupping as if it couldn’t find its proper rhythm.
My arms fell to my sides, weak and limp.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
Alek ripped his head back, the black in his eyes like pure night. I held his gaze and smiled. “Alek—”
He sank his fangs into the other side of my neck. My body jolted from the force of the bite.
My muscles seized, shaking with each deep pull he sucked from the wounds.
Icy tingles brushed over my skin as the shadows around my eyes pulled in and in.
When had it gotten so cold?
A wet growl skittered along my bones, and a tear raced down my cheek.
“Alek—”
Those shadows bled over my eyes, blanketing everything in darkness.
21
Alek
Blood.
But it wasn’t just any blood roaring down my throat. It was the finest, sweetest, sustenance on the planet. I could live another four hundred years and never taste anything quite this perfect again.
It was somehow familiar, spiced with cinnamon and sugared with honey. It was an intoxicating blend of sex and home and slid across my tongue like wine. It belonged to a female…I wasn’t sure of much, but that I knew.
And it wasn’t just the taste—that would be too simple. Every swallow somehow soothed the snarling, drumming need to destroy and drink. Each sip and pull felt like a hand extended to a rabid beast, a stroke of a kind hand along matted, bloodied fur.
The burn that now lived within me, that had its claws in every molecule, screaming at me to feed harder and take more—it eased just slightly. Cell by cell, the sharp talons of flame simmered, then cooled, then chilled and released. God, drinking this woman was relief.
My fangs bit into the silken skin of her neck again and again, trying to get closer in the only way I could comprehend. I didn’t just want to drain the female—I’d been fed so many bags of stale blood I didn’t even know if there was room in my body for another ounce—I wanted to be within her.
I wanted to crawl inside and make a home that smelled like vanilla and cinnamon. To breathe when she breathed and sleep when she slept. This woman contained my entire reality within her body and I couldn’t get enough. I wanted her peace, her calm, her love to live within me, to cancel out whatever I’d become.
I released her neck and she rose above me in waves of red, thermal energy that were chilling in places. Why couldn’t I see her? Why was my vision locked into predator thermals when the woman above me posed no threat and my need for blood was sated?
“Alek,” she whispered, her voice somehow simultaneously calming my errant heartbeat while stirring my cock with a different need. That voice was equally the sound of heaven and the temptations of sin.
Mine.
The burn resumed control, flickering over my brain like a million electrical impulses, shocking my system with hunger so acute I nearly cried out from it.
I latched onto the other side of the woman’s neck, striking deep and sucking hard, taking in the sweet relief with gulps like it was holy water from the tap.
“Alek,” she whispered, weaker this time.
Her heart stuttered.
But this blood…it was somehow more…potent, rushing through my system in waves, washing out the tendrils of fire and drowning them until they were nothing but fizzling embers.
My vision normalized as the woman above me went limp, her eyes fluttering open just long enough for me to see emerald orbs that didn’t widen in horror or fear. No, there was love there. Acceptance. Giving.
“Let me in!” Someone shouted from beyond the door.
She loved me. This woman loved me.
Lyric. Oh God, Lyric.
“They’ll both die if you don’t let me in there!” the voice shouted again. It was a voice I recognized. A voice I trusted.
I opened the chamber door with a single thought, then licked a line up the woman’s throat, savoring every drop of her blood on my tongue as her heartbeat grew sluggish and slow, uneven. The chains that bound my wrists and ankles rattled like children’s toys as I yanked against my bonds.
“My lord? Lyric?” an older male called out.
I growled, locking eyes with the male and sinking my fangs into Lyric’s neck, making it clear that she was my mate, my love, my Lyric.
“Jesus,” a b
igger male said from the doorway. Warrior caste. Powerful. Threat. “We have to get her out of here, he’s killing her.”
“Get out, you’re making it worse!” the other male shouted.
I shut the door in the hulking Scot’s face, then blinked as another mouthful of sweet relief poured down my throat. How had I known the other was a Scot?
“Alek,” the male said quietly. “Your eyes are blue, but there are still streaks of black blood vessels.”
So. Fucking. What.
I drank again, but the ravenous, tearing need was…gone. I was sated.
Lyric. I was killing Lyric. My mate.
I wrenched my fangs from her neck, turning my head away. “Lyric? My love?” The chains rattled but didn’t give, just like her breath shuddered, but she didn’t move. “Lyric!”
“My lord. Do you know me?” the male asked, coming forward slowly, making himself appear as small as possible.
“Julian.” Recognition slammed me in the face. I was Alek, king of the vampires, and Lyric was my queen and mate. Julian had been our most trusted scholar for hundreds of years.
“Yes, my lord.” His shoulders dipped as he sighed.
“Release me,” I ordered, pulling the chains. “She’s dying.”
“I know.” He pressed his lips in a line. “My lord, you were shot with Night Thistle.”
Pain exploding in my abdomen. Fire licking through my veins, seizing control of my brain. Begging for death.
“She’s dying!” I roared, feeling every stumbling heartbeat in Lyric’s chest as her heart struggled to push blood through her body that wasn’t there…because I’d taken it. I’d drained her.
“She’s a remedium,” Julian whispered. “She is the cure.”
Her blood dripped over my lips. I needed to seal the cuts. All of the cuts. Fuck, how many times did I bite her? Her neck was ravaged. “I don’t give a shit what she is as long as she’s alive,” I snarled.
“The blood of a remedium can heal almost any wound, my lord, but the graver the injury, the graver the sacrifice. The blood closest to her last heartbeat is what will cleanse the remaining Night Thistle from your blood.”
Crimson Covenant Page 24
