Blood Magic by Laken Cane
Chapter Twenty-Three
Because some of his punishment had been taken away—by me—the county master was sentenced to three months in the earth, but his time to be wrapped and buried would not begin for another three days. That would give him time to make plans for his clan. His second—a thin vampire named Novak—would temporarily rule in his absence.
By the time they dragged him away, Frederick Axton was quiet. I was sure that if he thought he could get away with it, he’d push the boundaries again. Someday. Right now he had a few days before spending three months—a mere blip in the long, long life of a vampire—to get his house in order before his forced absence.
“What’s your name?” I asked the man. I didn’t want to keep thinking of him as a vampire’s human slave. I also didn’t want to look at him for too long, because there was just too much bad shit going on inside his head. I didn’t know what his life had been like before Axton had taken him, but his life after Axton would have been only horror.
“Zachariah Keller. Zach.”
He didn’t look at me, just slid down in his seat and stared out the window. He smelled peculiar, like old blood, dusty old attics, and damp basements. I couldn’t help but shudder.
Someone pecked on my window and I jerked around, frowning when I saw Bastien standing outside. He waited, his eyes blank, for me to put down my window.
I didn’t miss the way Zach seemed to fold in on himself with the arrival of the vampire. He was going to need some help for his mental state. He couldn’t run out and get a therapist, but I knew a few supernaturals who could benefit him. My mother, for one.
“Yes?” I asked.
Bastien’s stare went past me and for a few seconds, he looked only at the ravaged man beside me. There was something considering in his gaze, and I didn’t like it. He was a predator and he looked at Zach like he was prey.
“Bastien,” I said, impatient. “What do you want?”
He snapped his stare to mine. “A vampire’s wolf will need a vampire at her back. I wanted to let you know that I will be your…” He shrugged. “Shadow.”
What did I say to that? Thank you? Awesome? I don’t need a damn shadow, Vampire? I sighed. “Just because I dug you up doesn’t mean—”
“Yes,” he interrupted. “It does.”
And almost faster than I could track him, he was gone.
I started the car, then glanced at Zach. “Buckle up.”
He didn’t move.
“Zach. Please. I don’t want to crash and put you through the windshield.”
He looked at me, finally, and I had to fight not to look away. There was too much emotion in the blank canvas of his face, and I didn’t know what to do with it. “I’m free because of you. Maybe I owe you. We’ll see. But don’t mother me.”
I nodded and started to back out of the lot, but just as I put the car into the gear to get the hell out of there, one of Adam Thorne’s goons jumped in front of my car and slammed his palms down on the hood.
“Shit.” I thought seriously about running him over. Then Adam joined him, and another of his goons, and the three of them just stared at me through the windshield. No one else had come out of the church yet, and I knew that Adam had deliberately come out to find me.
Zach straightened. “Give me one of your blades.”
“It’s okay,” I told him. “The asshole is just posturing. He knows not to fuck with me.”
He held out his hand, palm up. He was shirtless, and though I tried not to stare, more than half of his exposed skin—including his wrists and forearms—was scarred. Some of the scars were fresh, some were old. As his master, Axton could easily have wiped away the wounds after he’d fed. He hadn’t.
“Zach, you don’t even have shoes on. Let it go.” Then it occurred to me that he probably wasn’t offering to get out of the car and fight—he just needed a weapon to defend himself. Ashamed of myself for thinking every male was eager to kick ass, I turned and grabbed one of my longer blades from the floorboard behind his seat.
I wanted to tell him not to worry, that I was more than capable of protecting him, but I wasn’t sure he’d appreciate such a sentiment. The poor guy had been—
He shoved open his door, slung his hair out of his face, and did some sort of intricate twirl with his new blade. He didn’t even hesitate.
“Zach!” I fumbled to open my door in my hurry, then jumped from the car.
“Bring it, Blood Bag,” one of the goons taunted Zach. “We’ll do what the fucking council couldn’t and kill your whore ass.”
Zach killed him. He charged almost gracefully toward him, whirled, and nearly decapitated the wolf. In three seconds.
But even as the first goon fell dead to the pavement, the remaining goon began to shift. Zach had been able to surprise them, but they wouldn’t let that happen again.
Adam’s wolves should have known better than to shift in public. If that had been Jared’s wolf, he would have been punished for such a thing. But Adam Thorne was a bully and a careless asshole, and his goons weren’t exactly circumspect. So the goon shifted, but I would fight as a human, because I would never shift in public.
It was okay. I wouldn’t need to shift. My demon blade was in my hand, and my wolf’s rage roared over me. I saw the goon rush a smiling Zach, and then I concentrated on the alpha who wanted not to kill me, but to own me—and I agreed with Zach. Some things were worse than death.
The eagerness for blood and violence shook my entire body. I’d never considered that I was a sociopath, but when the need to fight and to kill took me over, I was just that. Nothing had ever felt better to me, and I was sure nothing ever would.
Adam didn’t shift either. It would have been too much for his pride to become his wolf against a knife-wielding girl. He didn’t even pull a blade. He balled his fists and came to meet me, but fuck him. There was fear in his eyes. I had cut him before, and his wolf hadn’t been able to heal him. Yeah, he was scared.
I ducked under his fist and when I came up, I raked the tip of my blade from his ribs to just over his heart, and I swear I saw steam rising from the wound before he punched me in the face and sent me flying backward.
It was nothing to be ashamed of. He was an alpha. His punches were going to hurt me—but I had also given him some damage. Getting so much as a single cut made me proud.
I shook off the pain and sprang up from the pavement, then sprinted back toward him. He hit his bloody chest with his fist like a barbarian and urged me on. We’d drawn a crowd as those inside the church slipped out to watch us, but no one made a sound.
I caught a brief glimpse of my alpha, grim and still. He’d warned Adam not to come for me, but Adam had ignored him. They’d fight, but first, Jared would let me do what I needed to do. He wouldn’t interfere—unless I was dying, maybe—but afterward…
The strip I’d cut into Adam’s flesh had poured blood but just as quickly stopped, but like the cut on his face, it would scar. And I’d be happy to give him a whole bunch of those gifts, because he wouldn’t leave me alone. He deserved whatever pain I brought him.
He punched me again, and that time, my blade didn’t touch him. If I hadn’t been a wolf and maybe a little bit more, that blow would have killed me. But I leaped up, wobbled only a little, and rushed him. God, I was just so fucking mad.
I wanted revenge, as I’d always wanted revenge, not just because he’d killed my father, but because he’d killed my mother’s love. Because he’d forced her from the pack. Because he’d hobbled my wolf for so very long. Because he scared me. Yes, maybe more than anything else, that rage was because he scared me.
I wanted to shift. My wolf wanted to rip her way from my puny human body and devour him, to taste his blood, but I had to fight him as Kait.
He seemed content to stand there and watch me come, to punch me in the face, and if I hadn’t known him I would have had no clue that he was afraid of me. It satisfied me, that fear, and it energized me.
I ran at him, feinted to the side, ducked, and sliced him from knee to hip, then turned, dragging the knife across his lower belly. As I continued to turn from that slice, he grabbed me by my long hair.
His breath was full of pain.
“Why won’t you leave me alone?” I cried, as he yanked me back against his bloody body, and finally, he pulled his own blade.
He surprised me by answering. “Because I can’t.” He lowered his nose to the side of my throat and brought his blade from my stomach to my chest, and I felt the hot line of blood he drew. “I can’t be your wolf, Kait. I am Alpha.”
I didn’t know what that meant.
Suddenly Zach was in front of us, his body loose and limber, his blade in his fist, a little wild as he stared at us through his hair. And my alpha was beside him.
Bastien stood behind them, waiting to see if I would need his help.
“I won’t let you kill her,” Jared said.
“Jared,” I murmured. “I won’t let him kill me.”
And I did what I’d been refusing to do. I shifted.
But just a little. Only my hands, and maybe, from Jared and Zach’s expressions of horror and shock and something else I couldn’t identify, my face. Just enough to give me a boost of power equal to Adam’s. I exploded from his grip, grabbed him by the throat, and rode him to the ground.
I could have killed him then. I could have ripped his out throat with my wolf’s teeth. I could have torn his heart from his chest. But I only stared down at him, and I let him live. “I can’t kill you. I don’t want to kill you. Let me go, Adam.”
I wanted his death. Truly, I wanted his death. But I couldn’t kill him. I didn’t understand it. I wanted to kill him. I didn’t want to kill him.
And even as his eyes widened, I threw myself off him and started to stride back to my car, my heart full of fury and tears and questions.
Jared shot out a hand to stop me. “Kait.”
I couldn’t look at him. “I don’t know, Jared. I don’t know anything right now.”
He tossed a look at Adam. “I’ll come for you.”
Adam stood, and though I didn’t look at him, I heard the effort in his voice. “I’ll be waiting.”
Jared put his arm around my shoulders. “I’m driving you home.”
I was too spent to argue. “And Zach.”
“Yes.” His voice gentled. “Kait.”
“Don’t do that,” I whispered. Pity would make me cry, and I absolutely did not want to cry.
After I got into my car—passenger side—he leaned in through the open doorway and put his forehead against mine. “It’s okay that you couldn’t kill him. He’s an alpha, and you are not a killer.”
I’m an alpha, I wanted to snarl. And I am a killer when I want to be. But I said nothing. I felt as though I’d betrayed my father by not ending his murderer when I had the chance. And maybe that made me…weak.
He pulled back, just a little. “If you’d killed him, you would have been responsible for his pack. Every wolf there would have come to challenge you. Every alpha from across the country would come to kill you and take your people. That would be your life, and it would change you, honey.” His voice changed then, became fierce and angry. “And it is not your fucking duty to avenge your father’s death or your mother’s banishment. It never was.”
“All these years,” I told him, “I’ve been waiting. I needed to get strong enough to take out Adam Thorne. All this time. And when I had a chance, slight though it was, I couldn’t do it.” I looked at him, finally. “I told him, Jared. I told him I didn’t want to kill him.” I frowned, confused. “Why would I do that?”
Zach must have taken out the other goon while I’d been occupied with Thorne, and though he was bloody, I didn’t think all of it, or even most of it, was his blood. Lingering power from the magic of his master? I didn’t know.
He hadn’t gotten into the car. He leaned against the hood, watching the slowly dispersing crowd, giving me and my alpha a moment.
My ex-alpha.
Which reminded me—and while I was being honest and open I might as well go ahead and say the rest. “I’m upset that I finally got you, that I got a decent alpha, and then I rejected you.” I wet my lips. “The two constant things I dreamed about when I was hobbled—killing my old alpha and gaining a proper one.” I laughed. “I failed at both of those things even when they were handed to me.”
He leaned against the open door and crossed his arms. “The wolf in you wants those things, Kait, but you are more than your wolf. I’ll be your wolf’s alpha. I’ll be your friend. I’ll be whatever you need me to be. You haven’t lost me.” His stare pierced right through to my soul. “You will never lose me.”
I bit my trembling lip, unwilling to cry. I nodded.
He squeezed my shoulder then jogged around the car to get into the driver’s side. And as he waited for the new guy to get into the back seat, he told me, “Don’t fuck yourself up over Thorne. You know that if you need to save your life or the lives of any person you love, you will absolutely kill him.” He waited until I looked at him. “You know that.”
And suddenly, I did know that. That was the truth. If it came down to it, I would kill to protect my people. I just would. I nodded, then smiled, and it was a real smile. “You’re right. I would.”
As he pulled from the parking lot, I saw a dejected spirit walking along the street, but I was too tired to care. I needed to go home, see my dog, and eat.
The night had been strange, even for me.
