29. Asher
Twenty-Nine
Asher
Without thought or reason, my body is flying across the field we’ve stationed our starting point at. My vampiric claws bursting through my skin, my eyes instantly filling with the red haze of seething fury.
Chloe’s in danger, and it’s completely my fault.
How fucking stupid can I be? How fucking naive was I to think she’d be ready for something like this?
All around me I hear roaring.
Is it me? Is it my children?
No, I can hear it’s different than ours, it’s more guttural.
Deep primal roaring.
Dav and his men have begun their attack.
Even in my raging bloodlust, I have the presence of mind to remember them. They’ll be wearing bright red bands around their waists. I questioned it at first, not wanting them to give themselves away so easily. But after it was explained that it would be us vamps who need the distinction between the two packs, I agreed. They can smell a different pack easily enough it doesn’t matter what they’re wearing.
The distance between me and the bowling alley is quickly covered as I use every ounce of my enhanced abilities to reach Chloe.
Through our bond, I know she’s in there, but she can’t focus on me. It’s like a wall of cotton stands between us, muting everything.
The whole world is falling apart the seconds it takes me to reach the door on the side of the building. It’s the least used out of all the doors. Whether that’s by plan, or just how they’ve holed themselves up inside, we don’t know.
But we’re taking advantage of it.
My body connects with the door before I even think to pull it open.
Metal squeals against metal, the door torn from everything holding it in place, and brick and mortar explode around me as I break through the opening.
A pile of dead bodies and some poor fucking ghoul become the blast victims.
Matthias comes through the door behind me, his unnaturally long, razor-sharp claws extended.
A vampire races through the door opposite of us. He’s clearly not expecting to have his head disconnected from his body as I extend my hand, grabbing him.
Gripping his head between my claws, I twist, freeing it from his neck.
One down.
“I’ll start searching for the soulmarked with Raph,” Andrei murmurs, fading into the shadows.
I feel the rest of my sons racing in around me, their presence settling my nerves.
Pushing out through the bond, I listen for Chloe.
She’s halfway across the alley.
I’m coming for you, my love. Just hold on.
Another vampire and a huge gray wolf come bounding into the backroom we’ve found ourselves in.
It takes everything inside me to wait long enough for Caden and Maddox to leap onto the two enemies. Whirling away in a frenzy of claws and teeth.
If I wasn’t so pressed for time, I’d watch as the twins fall into a deadly rhythmic dance of death. They’ve been fighting together for centuries, and their every move is in perfect sync.
Pushing past them and out into the bowling alley itself, I can already see a few wolves tearing into each other.
Raphael comes racing into the room after me, burning so hot and bright through our connection I can feel him slipping into his berserker madness.
“Raphael!” I roar. “Go find your soulmarked!”
The snarling vampiric beast doesn’t even acknowledge me as he grabs a passing werewolf by the scruff of its neck. Yanking the wolf up to his mouth, he sinks his teeth deep into the wolf’s throat, ripping out its jugular, then flings it away.
Looking around himself, Raphael’s eyes blaze with rage and desperation as he sniffs the air.
Finding whatever he’s searching for, he takes off, racing for the front of the building.
Fuck. I hope he has enough mind left to pay attention to the red bands.
“Nikolaos!” I bellow.
This close to Chloe, I can feel the bond pulling at me. Even though she’s been muted by Nikolaos, our souls are yearning to be reunited again.
My mind slips into a semi-state of consciousness as I move through the long building. My claws slashing into bodies of fur and flesh. I feel as if every single step I take, I’m forced to fend off an attack.
If only I had Chloe’s vanishing ability, I’d be by my beloved’s side at this very moment. Instead, I must use every ounce of my brute strength to throw those around me out of my way.
Blood splatters against me as a ghoul’s body is tossed from a circle of fighting.
Matthias screeching, “No one picks on my baby brother!”
I can only spare a moment to look. I see him throwing himself in front of a wounded Ambrose before I force myself through a gap in the fighting.
She’s close now.
So close I can taste her in the air.
Following the thrumming cord inside me, I let it lead me up to the door of an office.
Kicking in the door, my voice comes out in a growling rasp. “Chloe.”
She doesn’t answer though, and I can instantly see why.
Seated on a wooden chair, she holds a severed arm in her hands.
Dangling from the fingers of the severed arm is a silver necklace.
Nikolaos has forced her into her own little macabre prison.
Standing in front of Chloe, his fingers wrapped around her neck, Nikolaos digs his claws into her skin.
“You took her from me, Asher,” Nikolaos hisses, bloody spittle flying everywhere. “You took her!”
Carefully I push the bloodlust aside, my brute strength will do nothing good here. I can’t attack Nikolaos yet. Not with the way he’s threatening Chloe… poised and ready to tear her head from her neck.
Words. I need to find the words to get those fucking claws away from her throat.
I push hard into the bond Chloe and I share. She has to break out of the fascination.
Wake, Chloe! For fuck’s sake, wake!
“You took her from me!” Nikolaos snarls, his eyes flashing with murder.
“She was not your soulmarked,” I say quietly. “You know this. You would have turned her into a ghoul. No better than the dying girl beside you.”
“You don’t know that!” Nikolaos howls and shakes his head. “She could have been mine! But you ruined her!”
“This isn’t the way, Nikolaos,” I growl, slowly moving towards them.
The time for words is coming close to an end.
“It will be soon enough,” he spits back. “I’ll turn the other one as soon as I’m finished here with you two.”
Wake up! I scream into the bond. All my fears, all my pain and suffering, all the love I’ve ever held for her, pushing against that wall.
Time stops as Nikolaos digs his fingers into her throat, his feral eyes lighting up as he sees the desperation in me.
Chloe suddenly blinks and swats at the claws digging bloody holes into her neck.
Nikolaos stares down at her in utter shock. Swatted away, he tries to grab her again, only to be stopped by hand.
My words come out like venom. “She was never meant for you.”
Holding onto the hand that was reaching for Chloe with one hand, I snatch his other hand out of the air when he swings at me.
Stopping the claws aimed at my face.
“She’s mine, now and eternally!” I scream, clenching my hands around his own.
I can feel the bones in his hands grating against each other, ready to snap.
All vampires are strong, of course, but none can match my strength.
Squeezing down on his hands with all my might, I laugh as he slams his forehead into my face.
Not caring when my nose shatters in a spray of blood.
Roaring out with glee, I spit the blood running into my mouth into his eyes. “You should have ran, Nikolaos! You should have never let me get my hands on you!”
Unintelligible squeals pour from his lips as he feels the bones in both of his hands crushing into dust.
Chloe.
My soulmarked.
My other half.
Those are the words that pummel through my veins as I yank him to me.
My fangs hitting the air, I take a deep breath of the fear I smell pouring out of him.
“You fucked up, Nikolaos. You touched her. ”
“Stop this,” Nikolaos whines, his voice turning nasally. “I’m not feeling well.”
Dropping his now useless hands, I lift him up by the throat and shake him. I want him to be tormented. I want him to feel all the torture I felt when I couldn’t reach my beloved.
Throwing him across the office, I watch as his body slams into the concrete wall and slides down to the floor. In an instant I’m back on him, my fists raining blows down on his head.
A flash of raw emotion stops me cold though.
Somewhere I feel Raphael’s beast finally break free from its chains.
He’s found her.
But something is very wrong.
His rage isn’t penetrable. Even his brothers waging war around him can’t bring him back to a place of peace.
Fuck.
Looking down at Nikolaos, I see that his body is quickly healing.
While I do enjoy the fact that I get to punish him some more, after sensing what Raphael is going through, it doesn’t quite have the same satisfaction.
Andrei appears by my side as I begin to drag Nikolaos to the middle of the room.
“What’s going on with Raphael?” I ask, tossing Nikolaos onto the manager’s desk.
“Matthias is in pursuit,” Andrei says, looking from me to the bloodied pile of shit.
“Chloe,” I say and turn to her, “are you okay?”
Nodding her head, Chloe looks up at me, kneeling beside the armless ghoul bleeding out on the floor.
While ghouls share many of our powers when we create them, they’re unable to heal.
Lips trembling, Chloe slowly rises and comes to my side. “Is there anything we can do for her?”
“No,” I answer quietly. “I’m sorry, my love.”
Turning back to Nikolaos, who’s slowly coming back to reality, I grit my teeth. “But there is always payback.”
Eyes suddenly going wide, Nikolaos’s pupils shrink to pinpoints.
Letting out a rib-rattling gasp, he starts to convulse on top of the desk like he’s having a seizure.
“Father!” Andrei exclaims in shock.
Her voice full of awe, Chloe asks, “Is he connecting?”
We wait in stunned silence for Nikolaos to return from wherever fate has taken him.
When he finally stirs, I’m almost on top of him, ready to finish what I started.
Eyes focusing on me, Nikolaos smiles.
Nearly swooning off the desk, he slurs, “I’ve found her. My soulmarked…”
“Will live a long and happy human life without you.” I sneer and grab him by the neck.
My hands squeeze every single bone and muscle inside his throat to mush.
Blood, skin, and tissue squish through the spaces between my fingers and leak down my arms.
When the bloody flow slows, I rip my claws through the gooey mess that’s left like I’m carving through the wet innards of a pumpkin.
Freeing his head.
Grabbing his ugly face before it hits the floor, I launch it across the room.
Nikolaos’s skull cracks against the wall, the force of my throw causing it to crack and split open.
There’s a long moment of silence as both Chloe and Andrei process what I just did.
I feel no guilt.
And certainly no fucking regret.
He not only fucked with my family, he tried to take Chloe from me again.
Andrei breaks the silence by saying, “I’ll make sure the fight is cleaned up. You make sure Mother gets home safely.”
I nod, suddenly eager to check on my other children.
Walking over to Chloe, I say gently, “My love, it’s time to leave.”
Pulling her close to me, I help her step over the dying ghoul.
Tucking her head into my chest, Chloe asks, “What… What do we do about Charity?”
“Andrei,” I say and turn my head toward him. “Is the battle done with?”
“It is,” he says, staring at me with eyes I can’t quite read.
“Send them off,” I order, and move through the door.
Behind me, I hear Andrei start to hum a tune about being a Firestarter.
While in front of me, scattered all over the bowling alley, I see countless dead bodies.
Dav slowly makes his way over to me. Blood is splattered all over his hairy bare chest. He’s picked up a slight limp but otherwise seems whole. He really should have been born a werebear, but I doubt I should tell him that.
Sticking my hand out to meet his, I ask the question that fills me with dread. “How do you and your pack fair?”
“We lost two,” he says, gripping my hand. “But we knew the risks coming into this.”
“I’m devastated for your loss,” I say, and don’t let go of his hand. “Is there anything we can do to help you?”
He shakes his head. “Later, when we’re rooting out the rest of Gentleman Jack’s pack, I could use some backup.”
He said I , not we.
That’s his way of telling me it’s a personal matter, and he would like me, specifically, to assist him.
“I’ll be there,” I say. “We’ll be sending all the fallen to the hereafter with fire.”
“I’ll be taking mine with me,” he says grimly and releases my hand. “I saw Raphael running with a young lady in his arms. He’s got the berserker in him, doesn’t he?”
Nodding my head, I say, “He’s found his soulmarked.”
“Good. I set my second on his tail. He’s the fastest one in the city. We’ll keep his scent and make sure he’s got cover if needed.”
That takes me back for a moment, but I can feel the genuine care in his words.
I pull Chloe tight against me. “Dav, I can’t thank you enough for that.”
Nodding his head, Dav turns towards a couple of his guys. The wolves have bodies slung over their shoulders—their dead.
“We’re heading out, Asher. I’ll call if there are any updates.”
“One thing,” I say before he can walk off. “What do you know about witches?”
Dav freezes instantly.
Slowly turning back to me, he says, “If there’s a witch alive in this city, I’d rather be on the other side of the planet. Do we need to relocate?”
“I don’t know.” I motion to the surrounding mess. “But we’ve been getting a bad vibe.”
“Keep me up to date,” he says then sharply shakes his head. “I need beer and red meat.”
I look to Chloe once he walks off and growl, “The Order is next. Their fucking days are numbered. They will pay for all of this shit.”
Chloe frowns, her eyes full of worry. “What about what Dav said? Is it safe to stay here? Shouldn’t we leave?”
“No,” I say. “This is my city now, and I’ll be damned if anyone fucks with it.”
Chloe stares at me, almost in the same way Andrei did, then she nods her head. “Okay. I trust you.”
Leaning down to kiss her, I immediately notice something is… off.
This close, she smells different…
Pushing my nose into her hair, I take deep breath after deep breath.
Filling my lungs with her essence.
Then I jerk back and stare at her in wonder.
“What?” she asks, her eyes filling with alarm. “What is it?”
It takes me a few seconds to answer her, my mind nearly stunned by the sheer joy I feel just thinking the words .
“You’re pregnant.”
Out of all the miracles to come out of this shitty city, this is one I never expected.