Hot Blooded (Jessica McClain)

chapter 25





One of Aunt Tally’s darts, the orange one specifically, stuck straight out of Selene’s forehead.

She had collapsed on impact. It was a sleeper. And it had worked.

Then Naomi was before me. “We need to work quickly. That spell won’t hold her for long.” Dried blood matted her face and hairline. Cuts and contusions covered her skin, mending quickly, along with a weird mark peeking out on her shoulder where her shirt had torn. “Come,” Naomi urged. “We need to kill her once and for all. Let’s disassemble her body to begin. It might not be enough, but we must try.”

Tyler jumped, landing easily next to us. “I need to check on Danny,” he said. “He was turning back to human last I saw.”

“I’m right here, mate.” Danny strode toward us. He had a remnant piece of one of Selene’s sheets tied around his waist. He looked awful, pale and exhausted, but I was happy to see him alive. “Let’s get on with taking her apart, then. I’m ready to be done with this. Not quite the adventure I had hoped for, but I’ll take it as a win.”

“Are you completely healed from her spell?” I asked, scanning his body to make sure.

“Only thanks to your power and my wolf,” he said grimly. “Without it I would’ve been a goner. That Goddess packs a serious punch. It made the goat spell seem like a bloody tummy ache.”

I nodded. I could feel his relief in my blood. I was relieved too. “Before we do this, I need to check on Rourke,” I said. “He’s healing, but he’s too vulnerable. Then I will kill her personally. If for some reason we fail, I can’t leave him”—I won’t leave him—“at her mercy again.”

Naomi’s hand found my arm. “Go to him. I will start on Selene. I have waited years for my revenge and it starts now.” Her face hardened as she turned to the boys. “We will take her head first.” She glanced at me. “In the end we will need your power to kill her, no matter what we do here first.”

My eyes met hers, flashing violet. “It won’t take me long.”

She nodded.

I ran to Rourke. He was still unconscious, but his chest had knit together more, which was a welcome sight. Why isn’t he awake? My wolf growled and snapped her jaws. We broke the spell and he was moving. He should be awake by now.

Something was wrong.

“Wait!” I called over my shoulder. “He should’ve woken up by now. Something isn’t right.” Naomi met my stare across the room. She looked feral, her eyes a gleaming mercury in the pale candlelight. Whatever pain she endured once Eamon brought her here must have been immense. “I already crushed Selene’s spell out of his body. Why isn’t he awake?”

“I do not know,” Naomi replied. “Search for another reason. I will wait, but we have only a few minutes at most.” Killing Selene before we knew what she’d done to Rourke could be dangerous. Most spells vanished once the maker was dead, but someone as powerful as Selene could find a way do damage after her death. There was no question. She could have feasibly inserted something into his system only she could reverse and I wasn’t willing to take that chance.

I crouched down, placing my fingers on his forearm. Electricity jumped between us and his arm twitched in response. I ran my hands up to his hair as I gathered power to me, pulling hard on my resources. Then I placed both my hands on his shoulders and threw my senses into his body, testing for another reason why he wasn’t waking.

There it is! My wolf snapped her jaws.

It was barely detectable and it felt rough, like a prickly beard running along my mind. My head shot up quickly when I felt its ugly intent. “There’s something vile here! But it’s masked very well. It doesn’t even feel like her signature. Whatever it is, I think it’s preventing him from fully waking. I’m going to try and break it.” Naomi stood up and reached for something in Tyler’s outstretched hand.

“Be careful, Jess,” Tyler said. “Her spells are tricky.”

“We will wait to see if he wakes before we behead Selene,” Naomi said. “But in the meantime, I will give her another reason to stay asleep.” She crouched next to the Goddess, plunging another dart of Tally’s into Selene’s stomach. Selene’s body gave a gigantic lurch, but she stayed immobile. “We will not take undue risks.”

“Remind me not to get on your bad side,” Danny muttered to Naomi, shaking his head. “I think that dart went all the way through and lodged in the rocks below.”

“Oui,” Naomi said. “And it did not give her the pain she deserves, but it will have to do for now.” She turned to me, urging, “Hurry. We must not let her wake.”

There was no way I was arguing with Naomi. I worked fast. In one powerful thrust I shot my power into Rourke’s body, the gold of my essence covering the spell I’d found. It floated along the lines in his body, coating it like glue, but these spell lines were curiously blue, not Selene’s color at all. But they were definitely mingled with her essence. Tricky witch.

Once I coated the spell, I yanked my power back in a rush, pulling hard.

The spell snapped apart instantly, withering and evaporating like a flower dying on a vine.

Rourke shot awake instantly. “Jessica, Jessica,” he cried, his hands grabbing on to my arms, sweet energy rushing through me. “You have to get out of here right now. You don’t know she’s capable of now—”

“Shh.” I lowered my face to his, inhaling his rich scent. “I’m not leaving until you’re fully healed, so you can forget that right now.” His smell brought all the hairs on my body to a delicious peak. His body began to thrum with a current of power that hadn’t been there a moment before. Whatever Selene had spelled him with had inhibited most of his power, but it was gleefully returning. “But first I need to take care of Selene.” Before I could stand and go to Naomi, Rourke grabbed on to my face, pulling me down quickly, his lips hitting mine, hot and frantic. I didn’t have time to register it until his tongue entered my mouth.

Emotion raced through me, the taste of him overpowering anything else in the room. I moaned into his lips, gripping his shoulders with both hands, pulling myself closer to him. He snarled into my mouth. Our bond rang through me, his body and soul pouring into mine. My arms and legs began to shake.

He broke away from me slowly and I stifled a cry. “Jessica,” he said roughly. “Please tell me this is not a dream.” His beautiful clear green eyes blazed as he ran his hands along my arms and face.

“It’s me,” I said. “I’m here and Selene is down, but only for a moment. I have to finish this before we can finally go home.”

“No.” He shook his head emphatically. “Listen to me: you have to ignore her and get out. Go now. There’s no reasoning with her any longer.” There was a time you could reason with her? “She’s sold her soul. There’s no stopping her. Nothing we can do can defeat her. You need to leave here as quickly as possible and I’ll be right behind you.” He angled his body upward, a grimace of pain on his face.

“We have to try.” I rested my hands on his shoulders and tried to calm him. “I’m not leaving here unless I try. I refuse to look over my shoulder for her once we leave here. She will hound us to the death. She will never give up.” I pressed him gently back to the ground, hovering over him with concern. “Naomi just hit her with another spell. If I can’t kill her, we can at the very least incapacitate her for a very long time. I’m thinking fire might work if we disassemble her first.”

“It won’t work,” he said urgently, his face intent, his hands closing tightly over my forearms. “Jessica, please, you have to listen to me.” When he said my name it made my insides tingle. I pushed it out of my mind. I needed to stay focused. “She can’t be killed or even be incapacitated for long. I’ve tried. Once I got here, I broke her spells and managed to hold her down until the demons came. They did something to her, and everything changed. She must’ve struck a deal, because her essence morphed. Once that happened, she was able to secure me easily. I want you to get out before she wakes. I will follow you as soon as I can.”

“There’s no way I’m leaving you,” I said. “If she’s as strong as you’re saying, she’ll be after us as soon as she heals. It won’t matter where we run.” I glanced at Selene’s body, still inert. “If Tally’s spell can knock her out, she’s clearly not invincible. I’m betting we can do some damage.”

Naomi murmured her agreement. “Oui. The only thing that can bring a demon down is a powerful witch. The spells of blood and earth are natural agents against each other. If this is true, what he is saying, and Selene’s blood is now tainted with demon, this is likely the only reason she has been out this long. We’ve been lucky and nothing else.”

“And that was the last bloody spell we had.” Danny nodded toward the dart still lodged in her stomach. “If she’s full of demon essence, once she slakes this bit off, it will be impossible to secure her for long.”

I stood. “Then we take her apart now. There has to be a way.” I walked over to Selene, laser focused. She would not win. “The demons want her soul as soon as they can get it, so there has to be a way for her to die on this plane or they never would’ve struck a bargain—as in, if she can’t revive herself within minutes here they are free to pick her up.” I didn’t know much about demons, but I did know they collected on their debts immediately. A debt like Selene’s had to be something to celebrate in the Underworld. It’s not every day you landed a goddess. I glanced around to the group, my face hard. “Getting her a ticket to the Underworld will have to suffice. How long do you think she’ll be bound there?” I asked Naomi.

“I think nothing short of a millennium,” Naomi replied. “Selling a part of your soul is a steep payment.”

“That sounds good to me,” Tyler said as he grabbed a pickax off the wall. Who had a pickax handy, dangling on a wall?

A deranged goddess, that’s who.

“Let’s start with her hands,” Danny said. “If she has no fingers, she can’t shoot a spell. Right?” He looked around hopefully. His bare chest was massive in comparison to the tiny piece of fabric that covered him. He radiated strength, even though his brown hair was tousled, as usual, and this journey had clearly taken its toll on him.

Naomi stared at Danny, slightly openmouthed, but she averted her eyes quickly. Not before I noticed, however. “Um, oui, that might work. Let’s start with her hands.”

I bent over Selene’s body. “Hand me a shovel instead.”

Tyler went to retrieve the shovel, which hung next to the pickax, and brought it back. There was literally a plethora of torture devices lining the walls within easy reach. If the shovel tip didn’t work for the job, we had other options.

“Jessica.” Rourke’s strong voice echoed around the cavern. “I beheaded Selene already since I’ve been here. This is not going to work. She slips back together like a ghost.”

I glanced at Rourke, who stood, looking magnificent and almost fully healed. “You beheaded her here? Already?” I peered down at Selene. Jesus. If she could recover from a beheading that quickly we were in deep shit.

Rourke was naked from the waist up, but instead of a sheet he still had his jeans on. They were crusted in blood. “Of course I beheaded her,” he growled as he paced forward. “And I took her heart out. She would never have been able to keep me had she not called the demons. She’s never been as strong as I am. It required everything she had to keep me here, knowing you were in danger. She was losing, so she dialed up her new backup squad and spelled me with something different. It knocked me out until I heard your voice.”

“That’s what the blue lines were then,” I said, contemplating. “Blue must be her demon essence.” My eyes locked on him as he approached. My wolf growled, full of lust. I shook my head to clear her. I couldn’t let anything distract me from my goal. “But I broke her demon spell in you, so maybe—”

He angled his head at me, his irises sparking. “You think you can break it in her,” he finished.

“How would I do that?” I asked, glancing down at her body again. My only choice would be to throw my power in and hope it was enough. I looked up at him. “If it works, and I can break something inside of her, do you think it will be enough to send her to the Underworld?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But it sounds like the best chance we’ve got, even though I don’t like it.” His voice held a growl. “But cutting her up will give us only a temporary fix, however satisfying it might be.”

I turned to Naomi. “Where’s your cross?” We were wasting time. “We can use it to null her while she’s out and I can try to break the demon-bond or kill the essence inside her. Then we take her head off and hope it’s enough to get her a ticket to the Underworld.”

A dark look passed over Naomi’s face. “Eamon took it from me as I tried to use it against Selene. I assume it is still in his possession. He’s never understood its worth and thinks I am too partial to it, but I will kill him for the betrayal.”

“He’s over against the far end of the cavern.” I nodded my head in that direction. I hated to break the news to her like this, but there was no good way. “I broke his neck before you were fully healed. I’m sorry, Naomi, but it needed to be done.”

Naomi stood. “I am not sorry. He broke our kin-bond and he betrayed me in the worst way he could. This would have ensured his death at my hands. He chose his side and he lost.” She flew off to find the cross.

I knelt down by Selene again. My brother and Danny came in close, Rourke right behind me; his heat calmed me. It was good to feel it again. I didn’t want to wait for Naomi, but I couldn’t risk waking Selene without it. If I put my hands on her, there would be a reaction. It might be enough to trigger her to wake.

Naomi’s voice echoed loudly a minute later. “Eamon is not here.”

I jumped up. “What are you talking about? I killed him ten minutes ago.” Had only ten minutes passed? It felt like a lifetime ago.

She flew to the top of the dais, landing on the scattered debris. “He is not here.”

“I broke his neck,” I said, almost accusingly. “Severing the connection is enough for a wolf. He fell to the ground like he was dead.”

“It’s not always enough for a vampire.” Naomi shook her head. “The spinal column must be separated fully from the body. Our bodies are already dead, while your body lives. You require communication to survive; we need no such thing. We can fuse it back together, but cannot live without a head. This information is not widely known, so it is not your fault, Ma Reine, but I must find him. There are tunnels here.”

“Dammit all to hell.” I realized I hadn’t seen or heard from Ray in too long. My face dropped. “Naomi, he took Ray. He had to have taken him. He needed blood to heal.”

Before she could answer, Selene gave a huge gasp and with one hand ripped the spell dart out of her body, her irises bright red. “Now you all will die.”

Then she popped out of existence.