Blood Magic by Laken Cane

Chapter Thirty-Three

So far, this whole council thing was not doing me any good. What was the purpose of them putting me into place if their backing didn’t help me? Axton didn’t care that I was the councils’ wolf. His people resisted me, trying their best to delay me as I fought desperately to find Rick Moreno.

Vampires were pouring into the room even as the humans screamed and ran away. Some of them might have made it out, I couldn’t be sure. I was too busy trying to keep vampire fangs out of my flesh.

My wolf roared to the surface, fighting with me but not changing my body, not completely. I still held my demon blade, and though I had no time to take their heads, slicing their hearts was enough to take them out of commission—for a while. And a while was all I needed.

I lost sight of both Remy and Bastien, but I believed I heard Axton’s laughter booming through the sound system as he watched the battle. That was good. As long as he was glued to his screen, he wouldn’t be focusing on Rick.

I could not wait to get my hands on the county master.

Bastien appeared suddenly, streaked with blood and steaming cuts, his face a mask of grim joy. I imagined my own face looked similar. “Bastien,” I yelled, then threw him my demon blade. He caught it, dropped it into his pocket, and then immediately whirled to slice another vampire across the throat with his claws.

And I did what I had resisted doing. With my blade safe and my allies and I becoming quickly overwhelmed, I shifted.

The vampires were simply too many, too strong, and too fast.

But I became my wolf, and the release was overwhelming. Her power was breathtaking, her energy unimaginable. And as I did every single time I shifted, I wanted to stay my wolf forever.

The scents in the vast room flooded my wolf’s brain, stronger and sharper, the sights more vivid, the sounds chaotic. My wolf felt, saw, and smelled everything. Teeth flashing, she tore into the vampires like a wild tornado with fangs and fur and claws. And even as the human part of me cringed in horror, the wolf bit chunks of flesh from their bodies and eagerly tasted their blood, and once again, something changed inside me.

They hurt me, but even the pain felt good. I embraced it all. The death, the life, the blood, the emotions. But I was inside a room, and I did not like that. I needed out in the open air. I needed to run across the ground and howl at the moon. Inside the room was only death, not freedom.

But I was not afraid. And despite the fact that I wanted out of that room, there was something I wanted even more. The detective. He was my target, my duty, my purpose, my goal. I would find him and I would take him from the enemy, because he was mine.

Halfway through the crushing number of vampires, I began to feel something strange—the need to be my human. My wolf fought it ferociously, because she was clearly the superior fighter. But deep inside, I knew time was running out for the detective, and something had grown inside my human. Something powerful.

I had ingested vampire blood, and I knew. Suddenly, I knew.

“Blood magic. Activate it, Wolf, and you will know power. You will be ours.”

I no longer saw Remy or Bastien. My allies were gone, likely dead, and my wolf, though she ripped through the dense crowd of vampires, was being dragged down by sheer numbers and blood loss and injuries that were so numerous and serious that she could die before she could heal. And without Bastien, she might find the detective, but it would take too long and he would die.

I shifted back to my human form with a scream of rage.

They fell upon my small form immediately, vampire after vampire leaping atop me, bearing me to the floor, then smothering me, crushing me beneath their weight. I could see it as though I floated above myself watching—the human buried and lost beneath a mountainous pile of vampires, bones breaking, lungs collapsing, crushed, broken, killed.

And I had lost. I was done. Destroyed.

I could not defeat the vampires. They were simply too many and too powerful. I was embarrassed at my weakness, even though I believed I was dying.

But the words of the elder would not leave my mind, echoing over and over, demanding I understand, that I believe, that I use my power.

“Blood magic. Activate it, Wolf, and you will know power...”

I had activated it. Now all I had to do was use it.

Trampled and crushed beneath the bodies of dozens of vampires as they clawed and bit and growled, I pulled every ounce of rage up from where it had lived for so long with a hobbled wolf, and I ignited the blood magic placed inside me by the elder.

Rage, and magic. That was all I needed.

It exploded into me, out of me, around me. I screamed as I blasted the pile of vampires off me like so many dried stacks of firewood, splintering them into bits and shards of bone and splats of blood, and I burst free.

I stood among those vampires, bloody, naked, and utterly mad, intent upon only one thing. The Goal.

And that was the detective. Both the woman and the wolf wanted him, and the creature activated by the council would get him. The creature would kill Axton, because to a lesser extent, he was also The Goal.

Finally, I saw Bastien, and I noted the look on his face as he, along with the other still living vampires, recoiled. But when I pointed at him, he slid toward me even though he looked as though he wanted to run the other way.

He didn’t get too close as he led me through the now silent, injured vampires. Some of them would heal. Some of them wouldn’t. I cared about none of them. And even when a vampire was too slow to move out of my way and I shoved my palm against him, I could only watch with slight curiosity as he melted before my eyes, then fell to the floor, dead. Irreversibly dead.

The other vampires dropped to their knees and bowed their heads, cringing, crying, terrified. I was the councils’ hand, and their immense, ancient power flowed inside me.

But for how long? I couldn’t know that for sure, but even as I strode through the room, following Bastien, I felt it wane.

Perhaps it was a one-time thing, put in place to show what I could do. It would keep the vampires in line, even if that power never grew inside me again. The threat of it would be enough.

For a while.

I believed that was correct. Along with their power, I believed I had some of the council’s knowledge. But it burned through me quickly, and suddenly the psychopathic creature was gone, and I was once more exactly as I had been. A woman, a wolf, and a person who wanted only to save the life of a friend.

But Axton had seen, and he now understood—or thought he did—what I was. When I flung the doors open and rushed into his dungeon, he was already gone. He’d fled, because he knew that I was bringing his death, and suddenly, three months in the ground seemed more like protection from me than punishment from the council.

Too bad for him that I wasn’t going to let it go at that. If I had to, I would dig him up to kill him. Bastien would be County Master, and he would be a good one. Axton’s time was over.

But none of that mattered overly much. Not right now. Now, all that mattered was the man, the human man, lying on that table.

Bastion had not managed to grab my clothes in the melee, so I turned at the door and pointed at one of the vampires. “Give me your jacket.”

He didn’t hesitate. He shrugged off his long coat and tossed it to me, unwilling to get too close. I put it on, then turned to Bastien and held out my hand. After a long, searching look, he slapped my blade into my palm, then broke the unconscious detective’s bonds, scooped him off the table, and draped him over his shoulder.

“Follow me,” he said.

Maybe it was my imagination, but to my sensitive ears, he sounded just a little less friendly. “Wait,” I told him. “I need to get Remy.”

I went back to the doorway, then yelled, “Remy, where are you?” I got no reply, but I couldn’t believe that he was dead. No. He was Remy Simon, and he was legendary. He wasn’t going to die in a roomful of vampires. “Where is he?” I asked the vampires. Many of them had already dispersed and left the room, but a few remained. The humans had disappeared not long after the fighting had begun.

“He went back out the way you came in,” one of the vampires told me reluctantly. She was a tall brunette, and she didn’t look me in the eye as she spoke. “He was injured.”

“Kait,” Bastien called, impatient. “This man will not last much longer.”

I gave one more sweeping look around the room, but finally, I jogged after Bastien. It was only when he let me take the lead and I found myself in a dimly lit tunnel that I remembered what was waiting.

The fight wasn’t over yet.

We still had the trolls to get through.