Chapter Thirty-Nine #2
Ann doesn’t stop to watch her handiwork. She’s found another body, one I didn’t cause, and she’s raising it. I look around for Bishop.
“Cordelia.”
It’s a woman’s voice. I turn to see one of the witches who’d been with my grandmother. The middle-aged one who’d closed the door behind me.
My aunt? Cousin? A Levine, I’m sure of that.
I lift my hands.
“You’re making a mistake, child,” she says, her voice almost kind. “Your grandmother is furious, but she has a right to the blood debt. And she has a right to claim you.”
“No one has a right to me. I’m not property.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t understand what she’s offering. A return to your family. To the center of it. I saw what you did back there, when you were angry. That’s…” Her breath catches and her eyes glow. “Incredible power. We can help you harness it.”
“Harness it for yourselves, you mean. Since I’m so fucking special.
” I’ve never used that profanity before, but it flies from my lips, the only one that fits.
“My father wanted me for my womb. To breed special grandsons to take his place. And my grandmother wants my power—a witch and a lycan, so very useful.”
“She wants you back, Cordelia. Back in your family.”
“I don’t have a family!” My voice rises with my anger as my eyes prickle. “They’re dead!”
“So now you think you have one here? With werewolves?”
Her voice is soft, the gentle rebuke of an elder to a child, and that infuriates me more than outright mockery.
“I think I have a choice,” I snap. “A choice to say I don’t want whatever my grandmother is offering.
The choice to say she’s wrong about the blood debt, wrong to execute werewolves who did nothing to her because the one who killed her daughters is already dead.
So it’s my choice to help them and tell you to go to hell. ”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Cordelia.”
“Then don’t.” I spit the words. “That’s your choice.”
She lifts a hand, and I prepare, but she casts a blur spell. I see her form, briefly, and then she’s gone.
As I’m looking around, I catch another blur—this one a supernatural lunging at me. Ann hits him into the fray and then marches to me.
“Pay attention,” she says.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She opens her mouth, but a bellow rings out, my name pulled into more syllables than is ever necessary.
“Co-r-de-li-a!”
“Men,” Ann says, rolling her eyes, and then yanks my hand in the air, waving it like I’ve just won a sporting competition.
Bishop barrels through, shoving a man aside almost reflexively. He grabs me and holds me at arm’s length.
“She’s fine,” Ann says. “She can take care of herself.” And that might be the greatest compliment I could get from her.
“I was pulled away,” Bishop says, panting as his chest heaves.
He’s bloodied, with new scratches on his bare torso, the wound from Silas bleeding again.
He catches his breath, still holding me at arm’s length, and then he looks at me, really looks at me.
He pulls a stray curl over my shoulder and looks at my breasts, half exposed in the corset and spattered crimson.
“Not my blood,” I whisper.
“I know.” The words come with a growl that seems partly in warning for anyone who’d hurt me and partly…
His gaze moves from my breasts down over me, clad in my corset and drawers, and I can imagine what I look like, my cheeks flushed, my eyes glittering, my hair escaping its bonds.
His tongue flicks over his teeth, and my gaze trips down him again, his shirt off, chest sheened in sweat and blood, feet bare, trousers torn.
And a definite bulge in the crotch of those trousers.
My gaze rises to his, and my mouth goes dry. Images flash. Bishop fighting, fists and fury and sheer will. He reaches for me and—
“Hey!” Ann says, yanking me back. “Seriously?” She shakes her head. “Werewolves.” A quick look at my expression. “And by that, I mean both of you. If you two want a moment, it’s really going to need to wait.”
I back up, rolling my shoulders. Then I look around. “Are we actually… winning?”
I hate to sound so shocked, but I know what Beryl said about her forces. I also know how tired the wolves were from earlier. But while there are pockets of fights, they all seem to be multiple werewolves on one invader.
“I’m not sure I’d say winning, ” Bishop murmurs, his gaze sweeping the floor.
I follow his gaze, and my heart stops. “Oh!” My hand flies to my mouth. “Oh!”
At least a half-dozen werewolves lie dead on the floor.
They’re surrounded by even more dead invaders, but that doesn’t matter.
These are men I’d come to know, watched fighting and playing, heard laughing and cursing.
Wolves who’d been too shy to look at me, and wolves who’d looked at me far too boldly.
Those who’d spoken to me, and those who hadn’t. Dead.
Bishop grips my arm. “We’ll mourn them later. For now, we need to save the rest. Ann?”
“I’m running out of steam, but I can raise a few more. You kill ’em, I bring ’em back.”
“Then let’s finish this.”