The other vampires froze.
"Who"s next?" Iona challenged.
Bones crunched behind her. More shifting wolves. She turned and saw a big, gray wolf rushing toward her.
A shot thundered out.
The wolf fell, a silver bullet embedded in his spine. There was a shout then, and Iona saw Sean jump down from his position on the wall. He attacked, fighting the wolves that had come for him.
He was fighting-and winning his battle.
Iona"s gaze darted to the right. Jamie and Latham weren"t in human form any longer. Two big, fierce black wolves were fighting, tangled in claws and teeth and blood. The wolves-they looked just alike to her. She wasn"t sure which wolf was winning the battle...or which wolf was Jamie.
"I"m next!" A woman"s voice shouted. "And I"m not afraid of that b.i.t.c.h!"
You should be.
The line of vamps parted. A woman rushed forward. A small woman with long, curly, brown hair. She smirked at Iona and fire rose above the woman"s delicate palm. "See? I can do it, too."
Ah, so this was the new witch that Latham had picked up. Being right felt so good. "I"m not drugged this time." Iona felt she should point out that little fact.
The witch frowned.
"That"s how Latham"s first witch got the advantage. The drugs in my system slowed me down..." Iona threw her flames at the woman. The witch"s hair caught fire, and the woman screamed as she stumbled back. "I"m not slow now...and lady, I"m a h.e.l.l of a lot stronger than you!"
The witch-minus a whole lot of hair-ran away, shrieking. Easy enough. Too easy. Must be slim-pickings when it came to magic power these days.
Iona lifted her hands into the air. It was time to send a message to the paranormals out there. She didn"t want to be looking over her shoulder, worried that others would come and hunt her.
They needed to be too afraid to even whisper her name.
Blood Queen. She could be her, again, in order to be free.
"Run," she ordered the fools still around her. "Or die." Then she called up the magic inside, letting it whip through her and form a circle of fire, a bright ring that closed around her and the two black wolves that fought a life-or-death battle. Everyone else was on the outside, and the fire snapped out at those vampires and werewolves, attacking with greedy tendrils of flame that ignited flesh and sent shrieks into the night.
Most ran. They would be the ones to spread the new story of the Blood Queen"s rebirth.
As for the ones who didn"t run? The slow? The idiots who still thought they could kill her?
They died.
And then there was only Iona...in the circle with her wolves.
She could kill them both with a thought. Send the fire ripping at them but...
Iona didn"t want Jamie to die. Which wolf?
She needed to see their eyes. Their scents were too linked then-they were too close to each other. There was too much blood. If she could just look into the wolves" eyes, she"d know her lover.
The claws of one wolf shoved into his opponent"s stomach. A long, mournful howl filled the night. The injured beast heaved on his side and slowly, slowly began to transform.
The fur melted from his body. Familiar, golden flesh emerged once more. She knew the strong line of that jaw. Knew the heavy slash of those cheeks.
The other beast snarled into the air, a cry of fury and dominance. Then the beast turned to face Iona.
Not Jamie"s eyes. But then, she"d already known her lover was the one bleeding out on the ground.
She lifted her hands and tossed as much fire as she could at Latham. She wanted that b.a.s.t.a.r.d to burn.
Only, he didn"t burn. The flames just sank into his thick fur and disappeared. Tendrils of smoke drifted into the air.
The snap and crunch of his bones reached her ears. He shifted before her, a fast, brutal shift.
She couldn"t see Jamie"s body behind him. Was Jamie still alive? And why did it feel like someone had ripped out her heart?
"I"ve got so much of your blood pumping in me," Latham snarled as he closed in on Iona and grabbed her wrists. His hold was rough, too strong, so painful it felt like he was about to break her bones. "Thanks to all that blood, your magic can"t hurt me, Iona. Nothing can anymore."
The fire sure couldn"t. But she wasn"t about to give up yet. "Then let"s just see what my teeth can do..." And she sank her fangs into his throat.
His blood burned her, going down as hot as acid on her tongue, but she didn"t let him go. She"d drain him, if that was her only way and- He screamed and pulled away from her.
No, he didn"t pull away. Jamie had s.n.a.t.c.hed Latham back. Because her Jamie wasn"t dead. He was on his feet and he"d spun Latham around to face him...spun him around and, as she watched, Jamie shoved his claws into his brother"s chest.
"She was the distraction," Jamie whispered as he let his brother stagger away from him. "You should have made sure I was dead."
Latham"s head swung toward her. He shook his head even as blood pumped from his chest. "I"m...immortal."
"Not anymore you"re not," Iona told him. Jamie had been right. Latham was still too fixated on her. Fixated enough to make a fatal mistake.
He"d turned his back on a werewolf who wanted his blood.
Latham"s teeth snapped together. "You won"t...live...without...me!" He rushed toward Iona.
And Jamie"s claws slashed over his brother"s throat even as the thunder of a gun echoed and a bullet slammed into Latham"s chest.
Sean...doing his job and avenging his parents. Overkill could be a good thing.
Iona slowly walked around Latham"s body. Jamie stood over his brother, chest heaving, and with blood dripping from his claws.
"Looks like I"m still living just fine," Iona murmured to the dead werewolf. She was living, and Latham had finally gotten just what he deserved.
His eyes were wide open. His face twisted in horrified disbelief. He truly hadn"t thought that he"d die.
He"d been wrong.
She stared down into his eyes. She could still see the madness there. Even in death. "I went to Latham..." It seemed like another life. Maybe because it was. "Because I wanted to form a truce between the vampires and the werewolves. I didn"t want more bloodshed."
When blood was all they had around them.
She looked away from Latham. Stared up at Jamie. "I wish you"d been in the pack when I came calling."
"So do I."
Her head tilted as she studied him. "What would you have done?"
"Loved you from the start."
She blinked and shook her head. "No, you-"
"I know you don"t love me, Iona."
They were standing over his brother"s body. It wasn"t a place to talk about love. Not the right place. Not the right time. There was too much death here. Too many memories.
And she wouldn"t lie. "I don"t know what I feel for you." At that moment, she just felt...relieved. One less monster to face.
Finally, she was free. Latham would never hurt her again. Free.
Jamie"s gaze held her own. "Do you think," he asked her softly, "that one day, you might?"
Her eyes wanted to sting with tears. Tears, from the Blood Queen? What had happened to her? Maybe it was the place. The echoes of pain and sadness. Get away. She couldn"t be there any longer.
Or maybe...maybe it was Jamie. He was asking for things that she wasn"t sure that she could give to him. Fifteen years...gone. She wanted to see the world again. See what had changed. Learn how she"d changed.
She couldn"t talk to him about love then. She needed her freedom.
A freedom that their bond had taken away.
Iona spun around, giving him her back. Then she began to walk away, from Latham and from Jamie. Every step that she took tore at her heart.
What was she supposed to feel for Jamie? Everything had happened too soon. Love couldn"t come this way for her.
She needed time. Time was stolen from me. Now I have to learn to live again.
Good thing that she was a vampire. Time was on her side. Always.
"Iona!" Jamie"s cry stopped her. Not because he yelled after her with fury or desperation. But because he said her name with...love. Maybe he"d been saying it that way for a while now, and she just hadn"t noticed.
He"d stopped calling me "baby" and he"d been calling me "love."" Her throat ached. She glanced back at him. He hadn"t moved. He wasn"t trying to stop her from leaving him. Maybe because Jamie knew that she"d have to come back to him, sooner or later.
The blood would always bind them.
"Do you think you ever might?" Jamie said the words softly, with blood on his flesh, with his claws out, and with his eyes so fierce and bright.
She needed to give him an answer. Iona just wasn"t sure what to say. So she didn"t speak, but, almost helplessly, she found herself nodding. It was a small movement, and she wasn"t even sure he noticed it. Then she saw the hope on his face and knew that he had.
"But I can"t stay with you because we have to be together." She"d come to hate him then, just as he"d hate her if she forced him to stay at her side. "It should be...we should be together because that"s what we want. Because anything else is unthinkable to us." That was why she had to get away then. Latham was dead. The battle over. Now she had to figure out what the h.e.l.l she wanted. What she needed.
So with her head up and her back straight, she began walking once more. She pa.s.sed by the dead. Pa.s.sed a silent Sean. She didn"t let her tears fall. After all, she truly was the daughter of a king, and she wouldn"t let anyone see her break. Not Sean. And not even the one man who"d managed to touch a heart she"d long thought was ice-cold.
Chapter Eight.
"Are you sure that you"re ready for this?" The witch stood over Jamie, a silver knife gripped in his hand.
The tip of that knife burned molten.
"It"s going to hurt like a b.i.t.c.h," the witch warned then the guy gave a long whistle. "I sure as h.e.l.l hope the woman is worth it."
Jamie gritted his teeth. Ray was a smart-a.s.s, some witch that Sean had literally dug up from a hole in Mexico, but the guy knew his magic.
Well, his dark magic anyway.
And he knew how to break the bond that locked Jamie"s blood to Iona"s.
Two months. Two long f.u.c.king months had pa.s.sed since she"d walked away from him in LA.
He knew where she was, of course, because it wasn"t easy to overlook a woman like her.
He"d sent his blood to her. Werewolf take-out. But he hadn"t gone to her, because he couldn"t offer her the one thing that she needed.
Choice.
He"d taken that from Iona when he gave her his blood.
I can"t stay with you because we have to be together. Her voice haunted his nights. And his days. It should be...we should be together because that"s what we want. Because anything else is unthinkable to us.
Anything else was unthinkable to him, and without her, he was going insane. Slowly, moment-by-brittle-moment insane.
He needed her. He wanted her. And, h.e.l.l, yeah, he"d get his heart cut out for her. Not because you have to be with me. Once the spell was broken, she could stay because that was what she wanted to do.
"You have to sever the bond to free your vampire." Ray looked a little too comfortable holding that knife three inches above Jamie"s chest.
Sean stood in the background muttering once more about bad ideas and wrong choices. The same song he"d been singing when they first went to wake up Iona.
"Am I gonna live through this?" Jamie asked the witch.
Ray frowned at that. "You expect to live?" He seemed surprised. "I thought it was just about her living." He began to lower the knife. "I can"t make any guarantees for you."
Sean lunged forward and grabbed Ray"s wrist. "Guarantee it." Lethally soft.
Ray swallowed.