“Boss!”
Warin stopped. He looked our way. And when he saw me…
He dropped Kevin to the ground. A new pain bloomed in my tailbone as he connected with the pile of bodies at Warin’s feet, but at least I could breathe again, and I was so relieved about that I too crumpled to the floor.
“Liv!” Warin roared, and as our eyes met again, I saw a spark of humanity return to his gaze.
Just before Dennis, half-shifted, leaped into the air, and landed upon Warin’s back with his lupine jaws in his neck.
Despite the rawness of my throat, I screamed. “No!”
Warin stumbled forward, then twisted, trying to throw Dennis off, but Kevin surged forward at the same instant, tackling Warin around his knees with a roar. My knees threatened to buckle again as the pain of Kevin’s exertion filled me, but I had to stand up. I had to do something, or Warin—
He went down hard, on his side, with a wolf tearing at his shoulder, and Kevin began his full shift.
No!
I saw those powerful jaws snap around Warin, and I didn’t pause to think.
Tethering myself to Roy for strength, I got my feet beneath me, and with a cry summoned from the deepest well of my being, held my hands before me and called to my magic—to what had been inside me all along, the weapon and the miracle which had always had the power to save me.
Verdant energy crackled between my fingers, snapping and hissing, trying to strike a spark. I poured everything I had behind it, thinking of Warin’s eyes when he smiled, his lips when he kissed me, the way he’d gazed so adoringly at my sunset painting… and later, at me.
Tears scalded my face and copper bit my tongue as all my love, all my rage, burst from my palms and across the hall, one torrent striking Dennis, the other Kevin. Dennis caught air in a spin as the green enveloped him, turning him in seconds to a whirlwind of ash that crashed over the other vampires like a tidal wave, while Kevin arched, howled, and disintegrated in a white-hot flash, atoms dividing so violently it painted the wall with a nuclear shadow.
Warin gaped at me, but I couldn’t hold his gaze. He’d seen. They’d all seen.
The light flickered, then faded as I started to go down again, Roy’s embrace the only thing that kept me from meeting the floor head-on. The pain from the curse linking me to Kevin no longer pulsed through my body, and even my split lip had stopped bleeding, but the energy expenditure had taken its toll.
I clung to Roy’s arm as I stared at the carnage. Warin and his Guard were busy dispatching of the rest of the skinwalkers with indiscriminate fury, but I saw the glances they threw in my direction. His court knew I was a witch. A witch who’d drank of Ancient blood.
As Warin stood over one of the skinwalkers, using his Compulsion to extract what he needed to know, Aleric met my eyes. There was a distant respect somewhere in his expression, far-off though it may have been, but mostly, what I saw there was disgust. Rage.
He had told me what would happen if anyone found out. He had warned me of my fate, and worse, of Warin’s.
I couldn’t let those awful things happen to him. I had saved his life, and maybe that would be enough to spare him in the court’s eyes—if I turned tail and ran, right now.
Again. Right after I’d promised that I wouldn’t.
The skinwalker Warin had tried to Compel slumped, skull cracking against the floor, eyes rolling back as blood-flecked foam gathered at the corners of his mouth. Warin huffed, kicking his corpse.
“Fuck!”
Aleric came to his side, but Warin waved him off. “Nothing. We’ve got nothing. The damn thing couldn’t talk.”
“You pushed too hard,” Aleric observed carefully.
Snarling, Warin rounded on him. “I’m tired of being in the dark on this! I am done reacting to the skinwalkers’ and witches’ attacks. We must get ahead of them. We cannot continue on like this.”
Raising his hands, Aleric offered an emphatic nod. “I hear you, brother. But we need to regroup first. We have…” His gaze slid to focus on me. “...other matters to discuss.”
Before Warin’s eyes could find me too, I turned from them both, extracting myself from Roy’s grip. I had to get out of there, before it was too late. Before my magic doomed the man I loved.
31
I made it to the car Roy had driven us in, Warin’s silver Lexus, and hauled myself into the driver’s seat. Thankfully, Roy had left the keys in the ignition, and I twisted it and slammed the car into reverse, pulling away from the slaughterhouse as fast as I could.
I didn’t think as I barreled down the deserted road leading away from the industrial estate—all I knew was that I had to get away, had to keep Warin safe. They’d all seen me—his Guard, Carina… Warin. They knew what I was, and what I was was a danger to the man I loved.
I’d only made it maybe two hundred yards down the road when, out of nowhere, a figure dropped from the sky ahead of my car, landing in the middle of my path like an unmovable boulder.
I screamed and slammed on the brakes, my seatbelt cutting into my shoulder as I lurched forward from the sudden stop. The car skidded to a halt inches from the figure.
I wheezed as I caught my breath—and finally saw who had dropped from the sky.
He was covered in blood, dark eyes flaming with feral fury in the Lexus’ headlights.
Warin.
He looked… wild. Like an animal, as he stared me down. Not moving. Not even blinking.
The hairs at the back of my nape stood on end, an instinctive response to being faced with a primeval being. He was my lover, the only man I would ever trust—but right then, he was also the monster he’d warned me about so many times.
Slowly, so to not make any sudden movements or perturb my arm further, I undid my seatbelt and opened the door.
Warin’s eyes followed me as I crawled out of the Lexus and held out my hands in a calming gesture.
“Warin,” I whispered. “Warin, I have to go. I’m a danger to you, my love. You have to let me go.”
“No.”
“Please, just listen—“
In the blink of an eye, he was in front of me, and then his hand snatched my jaw in a firm grip. He pushed me backward, making me stumble a few steps until the hood of the car pressed into my hamstrings. He kept pressing my head back, until my throat was exposed to him.
“Warin,” I croaked.
“Submit.” It was a low hiss that had goosebumps crawling down my arms, and a not entirely unpleasant shiver traveled up the length of my spine.
“Love—“ I stopped speaking when his hand constricted ever so slightly around the top of my throat. A clear warning.