Blood Rising

Chapter 21

His eyes glow with a pure radiant golden light, not the golden-white of fae magic, but something else. His teeth, bared to snarl, are the curved daggers of an apex predator, dripping with saliva and razor-sharp, as long as my hand. The claws tipping all four dinner-plate-sized paws are longer yet and dig into the cobblestone of the old alley, crumbling and ripping the stone as if it were mud. His fur is tawny, leonine.

Every fiber of his lean, lupine body ripples with muscle.

He exudes deadly power and fairly shimmers with lethal prowess. If I move, if I bat so much as an eyelid, he”ll pounce, and all my vaer powers will avail me for nothing. He”ll rip my head from my neck before I can so much as blink.

You can”t fight him, Maeve, Alistair”s voice murmurs in my skull. Not in your state. Not with Caspian barely hanging on. Even you”d be hard-pressed to win against a beast like that when fresh and fully powered. You just fought one of the most powerful fae mages in existence. You won”t stand a chance against a shifter in his prime.

Thanks for the vote of confidence,I snap.

He”s right,Fin says. There was a rogue shifter harassing our lines in the Great War. He slaughtered ten vampires before we managed to kill him. My command sent thirty of us to get him. And even that wasn”t enough. He tore through us like paper. Vampires. Blooded, experienced fighters. Shifters keep to themselves and do not often ally with other immortals. This one is…a rarity in that he”s working for someone. That and his size.

I cast my senses out, and feel them. You”re here?

We can”t help you, Maeve. He”ll slaughter us all.Stirling. Alistair and Fin are right. I knew a shifter once. You don”t fuck with them. NOBODY fucks with shifters. They breed the least and thus have the fewest numbers, because they are, arguably, the most powerful. They”re resistant to magic, and vampires can”t stand the taste of their blood. If we went down there to help you, we”d all die. And all this would be for nothing.

So, what? I give up?

For now. You stay alive, and you let us care for Caspian. He”ll live and he”ll recover. And you rust us, and Andreas, to rescue you. If you don’t rescue yourself, first.Alistair”s voice, again. calm. Strong. It”s the only option, love.

The wolf lifts his nose and sniffs the air. Snarls. Takes a prowling step toward me, and the ground quakes with the bass rip of his growl. His paw steps are silent, each movement lethal and smooth as silk.

I haul Caspian backward, but there”s nowhere to go.

When I catch up against the bare brick wall, I clasp Caspian closer to my naked chest. I feel his pulse beneath his softening skin—my blood helped a little, but the cut to my wrist has scabbed over. He needs more.

The wolf sniffs the air again, and then howls, a long, deafening, mournful wail.

His eyes flare, pure amber light swelling, radiating, shining. Blinding me, but only just barely.

I catch a glimpse of limbs contorting in the play of shadows and light, fur retreating, Skull diminishing, paws becoming hands and feet.

The snarl becomes a man”s agonized roar, and the light dims and fades, and I”m faced with a massive human male.

Naked.

Six-four, at least. The term “jacked” comes to mind, and then runs away in shame, unable to encompass the absurd mass of lethal muscle packed on this man”s frame.

Not even steroids can create a physique like his—acres of lean, hard, muscle, dense and thick and sculpted to perfection. Veins pulse. His hair is the same shade as his fur in wolf form, hanging in glossy, tawny waves around his jaw, draped in front of his eyes.

And yes, his dick is as impressive as the rest of him.

Not that he seems to notice his nudity—or my own, for that matter.

In human form, he radiates every bit as much threat and do-not-fuck-with-me lethality as he did as a wolf.

”Maeve Sparrow.” His voice is sepulchral, rough and gravelly and harsh. Slow. Dark. ”I hereby apprehend you in the name of the Immortal Tribunal. Surrender without a fight and no further harm will come to you.” His eyes, still glowing the same golden hue—a wolf”s eyes—fix on Caspian. ”Caspian Taylor. You are of no interest to the Tribunal at this time.” He lifts his chin and sniffs the air, his eyes raking the rooftops, pausing where I feel my coven lurking. ”Alistair, Phineas, and Stirling, you as well. Allow Miss Sparrow to surrender to me and you are free to go. Resist and you will all be executed.”

”Who are you?” I ask, gently lowering Caspian to the ground and rising to my feet, facing the giant male. ”Why are you doing this?”

He pierces me with his golden glowing gaze, silently, for a long time. ”I am Caleb. I operate as a bounty hunter for the Tribunal. You are the sole bounty on their books right now, and the reward they offer for your capture, alive and unharmed, is…substantial.”

”So you”re doing this for money.” I spit the words. ”Betraying another immortal for thirty pieces of silver.”

He snarls so viciously I take an involuntary step backward, into the wall. He is distilled violence, and he terrifies me.

“No. Not for money. For a reason you could not fathom, vaer.”

”You know who and what I am, then.”

”I know that I am tasked with delivering you to the Tribunal, alive. And as unharmed as possible.” His gaze goes to Caspian. ”They said nothing about him.” Up, to where my coven lurks. “Or them.”

”No.” Caspian shifts, scrabbles at the rough ground, fights to his feet. Sways, and then takes an unsteady step between me and Caleb. ”You can”t take her.”

I turn him to face me, and he nearly topples, so weak and in so much agony that he can barely keep his feet. ”Cas, stop. We can”t fight him. Not now, not like this. I won”t risk your life or theirs.”

He sobs, a broken sound. ”We”re bloodmated, Mae. We”ll die, if we”re apart for too long.”

”Then you”ll just have to heal and figure out a plan to rescue me.”

He shakes his head, eyes blazing human and wild beneath the mask of blood. ”It”s the Tribunal, Maeve. They”ll never let you go.”

”They won”t have a choice, by the time I’m done with them.” I take his face in my hands and speak to his mind. I have to do this, Cas. I HAVE to. This is part of the war. I have to take the Tribunal down from the inside out. You have to let me go.

I don”t know how, my love.

I kiss him, taste blood, and pain. ”I”ll be okay.”

”We”ll find you,” he growls. ”No matter what. We”ll get you out.”

”No. You won”t. Not where they”re taking her.” An unexpected statement from Caleb.

I turn to him. “Okay, then, I”ll bite. Where are they taking me?”

His jaw grinds, his glowing eyes shifting, thoughtful. ”A secret facility in the Swiss Alps. Impossible for mortals to even find, let alone access, and difficult even for immortals. Guarded by three full phalanxes of fae warriors who make them—” he swipes a hand in the direction of the battle, ”seem like so many terracotta toys. If you could find it, you won”t get in. And if you could get in, you”d never get out alive.”

”Maeve, there”s got to be another way.” Caspian grabs my hands, squeezes. ”There has to be.”

Tears prickle my eyes. ”There isn”t, Cas. This is my journey. I can feel it. My grandfather is there. This is how we win.”

”They didn’t listen. They”ll never listen.”

”Cas, you have to let me go.”

”Not with him,” Caspian snarls. ”A shifter.”

I cup my mate”s face. ”Cas, we have to be the change. You have to see him as more than just a shifter like you see Andreas as more than just a fae.” I turn to glance at Caleb. I see the pain behind the glow of his eyes. ”Don”t you see, Cas? They have something on him—the Tribunal does. That”s why he”s doing this. When he turns me over, you”re going to help him.” I look up, and even though I can”t see them I can sense my coven above me. ”All of you. This is how we win. We are the change we want to see in this world. It”s not a dumb poster, it”s the truth.”

Caspian snarls, but backs away, hands at his sides. ”I trust you, Maeve.”

I feel my heart breaking because I know what”s coming next isn”t going to be fun for any of us.

”I love you, Caspian.” I glance up. ”I love you guys too, Alistair, Fin, And Stirling. My coven. My family.”

Caleb lets out another ripping snarl. ”Time to go.”

Caspian weeps bloodtears, and I can feel his rage and desperation through the bond. I try to offer him comfort, but for all my confidence that this is the only way and the right way, I”m terrified, too.

I block it out. Turn to Caleb. ”Lead on, then.”

His eyes flash like sunlit amber, refracting and shimmering, and I see the body of the man twist and contort painfully, grotesquely, into the body of a horse-sized wolf.

The light fades, and the wolf remains.

He prowls to the mouth of the alley and looks back at me, waiting.

Night has fallen, at some point. Shadows breathe and silence deafens—New York is huddled in their homes, hiding from…

Me.

From Caspian, and the fae, and this giant wolf padding silently beside me.

They may not know what”s happening, but they know something dangerous lurks beyond their doors.

I follow Caleb for miles, block after block.

”Where are we going?” I ask him.

He glances at me, and barks, once.

”What, you can’t talk?” The eye roll he gives me is all the answer I need—he’s a wolf, of course he can”t talk.

I reach out with my mind, and I feel his animal soul, but there”s a hard shell around his mind, and I can”t gain access. I could force my way in, maybe, but…

He stops, rumbling low in his chest—a sound like a subway train underfoot. Bares his teeth at me, lip curling.

Got it, no funny business.

”They have some kind of hold on you, don”t they?” I ask. He just looks at me and then away, huge ears twisting, rotating, pricked up and listening, nose scenting. ”You don”t have to tell me. I can feel it. I can see it.”

He pauses, looks back the way we came, and then glares at me. I feel them—my coven, following me.

You can”t follow me,I tell them. He knows. And he doesn’t like it.

Their presence fades as they fall back.

Caleb stalks onward.

His fur looks so soft, and some idiot part of me wants to bury my hand in that tawny thicket of fur. Scratch his ears. hug his huge body. I could ride him, if he were to let me.

His glare says everything: if I want to keep my hand, I’ll keep it to myself.

“You can sense things, can”t you?”

He barks. It feels like a yes, to me.

”I wasn”t raised as an immortal, you know. I was raised mortal. So I don”t know anything about shifters.”

He ignores me, padding silently onward, but there”s a new facet to the silence. I feel him thinking, considering.

He seems to know exactly where we”re going, turning this way and that. I”ve all but forgotten the fact that I”m as naked as the day I was born—only an occasional sidelong glance from my gargantuan lupine companion reminds me.

An occasional sidelong glance which is, most definitively, not an animal thing, but a man thing. it”s the way he looks, the way those glowing golden eyes flick at the female parts of my anatomy and then guiltily away.

”You could have provided me with clothes, you know.” I hold his gaze for a few paces. ”I have a mate. And a coven. Just because I”m going along with you without a fight, for now, doesn”t mean I”ll tolerate being ogled.”

He somehow manages to arch an eyebrow at me, reminding me that I did, in fact, ogle him, too, however briefly.

”A truce then,” I say.

He huffs, a canine sound of amused agreement. He may not be able to talk, but he can sure communicate.

”This is all rather anticlimactic,” I say. ”Force me away from my bloodmate and my coven, and then make me walk, naked, in the dark, across Manhattan or wherever we are, for miles?”

He huffs again and pauses beside a dark storefront; it”s a diner, with the menu posted in the window, featuring a Jersey City address.

”Fine. Jersey City. Whatever. The point is, I’ve had kind of a hard day. Could we get where we”re going already?”

He gives a quiet ”rrrruffff,” with a lift of his chin. Ahead, I see a parking garage, dark, mostly deserted. Moonlight glints off of a few windshields on the side facing us.

A few minutes later, we”ve ascended the rising concentric ring of ramps to the very top floor, where two cars wait, parked on opposite sides.

One, a long, low, expensive sports car in a lush fire engine red, parked across three spaces, beckons.

The other, an old white panel van, the kind plumbers and electricians use, does not beckon.

I glance at my…companion. ”Please tell me we”re taking the nice car.”

He ruffs again, amused, and lopes toward the panel van.

”Of course. March me naked halfway across New Fucking Jersey after the fight of my life, without my mate or my coven, to my certain torture if not death, and you”re gonna make me ride in a rape-mobile.”

He shifts, and I decide the previous two shifts were a performance for my benefit because this shift is so fast I almost miss it—a quick flash of light like a camera going off and he”s a man, transitioning between one loping wolf step and the next. A huge, imposing, scary, naked—and, it must be said, extremely attractive—male.

”It”s not a rape-mobile.” His voice, fuck, it shivers the very shadows…and my spine. ”It”s a nondescript and practical vehicle.”

He yanks open the rear doors, snagging a pair of faded, ripped jeans which he tugs on with ruthless efficiency, commando. I feel no little amount of relief when he tucks and zips his admittedly mind-bogglingly-proportioned man-tackle away.

It”s fucking distracting.

And I have to focus on staying alive.

He doesn”t bother with a shirt or shoes, for reasons I can”t guess.

I don”t have to guess—he tosses me a huge white V-neck T-shirt, which smells, somehow, like dog and man at once. A weird but not unpleasant smell.

I pull it on—the sleeves come to my forearms, and the hem past my thighs, yet I have no doubt it would fit him like a second skin.

He reaches into the van once more and produces a set of black rings connected by a silver chain—a strange kind of shackles if I had to guess.

I don”t have to guess, again—he approaches me with them.

”No.” I back away. ”I won”t be shackled.”

He growls, a wolf sound from a male chest. ”You”ve cooperated so far. Don”t make me hurt you.”

”Why? Because you”ll lose your reward?”

He stops, chewing on the inside of his lip. ”Because I don”t want to hurt you. I don”t want to be doing this bullshit at all.”

”So why are you doing this bullshit?”

”It”s complicated.” He gestures with the shackles. ”This doesn”t have to be.”

”I”m feeling pretty good right now,” I say, flexing a little, letting what I”ve decided to call mage flame sprout from my fingertips and lick up my hands and forearms. ”I could make things really complicated.”

He snarls. ”Don”t.” He takes a step toward me, cuffs dangling from one finger. He towers over me, broad as a cliff face and as hard as one. ”Don”t waste it.”

”Waste what?”

”Yourself. Your life.”

”You seem awfully cocky, Caleb. My coven seems to think I shouldn”t fuck with you. But I don”t know—I took out Calliope. I figure I can take you.”

His eyes flare. ”You can”t.”

”Again, you seem awfully sure of that. You don”t know what I can do, though.”

”Maeve Sparrow, I am not your enemy. I”m…an unwilling messenger.” He snarls, a sound that would put the fear of God, Death, and everything in between into any sane person.

But then, I”m not sure how sane I am.

Not after today.

Not after Calliope.

I haven”t processed what happened—I can”t.

It”s the only reason I can be so calm, so blase.

”Unwilling messenger?” I hold up my palm, let a globe of mage flame hover. ”I”ll trade you.”

“You”re in no position to barter.”

I can kind of see past the complication of fur and flesh into the heart of his magical being. I could hurt him.

”Caleb, I”m tired. I”m scared. And most of all, I”m really, really pissed off. You want to get those cuffs on me without a fight? All you have to do is tell me what the Tribunal has on you that”s forcing you to kidnap an innocent teenage girl.”

He growls. ”Innocent? Last I heard, you”ve slaughtered hundreds of fae—irreplaceable immortal lives.”

”I don”t know about hundreds, and they came after me. Self-defense is a thing in immortal culture, is it not?”

He doesn”t respond. ”Cuffs. Then story time. While we travel.”

”Give me your word.”

He hesitates. ”The word of a shifter is a sacred thing. A magical thing. It bonds—permanently.”

”Then perhaps I”ll save that particular card for a more dire scenario, and settle for a regular old promise. You seem like the type to take even a non-magical promise quite seriously.”

”Yes.”

”Then promise.”

He draws a deep breath and lets it out in a quick huff. ”If you accept the mage cuffs without a fight, I promise I will explain to you why I am doing this intensely distasteful job for that pack of jackals that calls themselves the Tribunal.”

”Wait…mage cuffs?”

”You”re at least part fae. Look at them.”

I do—and I”m appalled. The magic in them is a spiky, twisted, awful bit of glamourwork. They”ll suppress my magic, bind it up, tangle it up. Painfully.

What it will do to my vampire self, I don”t know.

But…I”m not without tricks.

I don”t know what he can see, magically, so I act slowly, and carefully. I delve inward, conjuring yet again the glass dome. This time, I make it huge. Thick. Impenetrable.

I place it over my ocean of power—it rebels, that ocean. It doesn”t like it. It knows what I’m doing, and it wants no part of it.

But, I must, if I”m to have any chance.

I”m intentionally sloppy, though. I leave a few little tiny beads of magic pooled on the ragged seafloor, shining golden-white, a sad little pond. Just enough for the magic in the bonds to adhere to, to think they”ve done their job.

I compress the dome. Force it smaller, harder, denser, until it”s a volatile marble of angry, raging, potent destruction, super-dense and boiling with outraged fury.

Yes, my magic definitely has a mind of its own, to some degree.

Then there”s the matter of my vampire self. I can”t contain that the way I can my magic. It”s intrinsic to me. I can”t separate myself from it, and I don”t have the time or power or knowledge to do what Mom did when I was a baby.

So, I do the only thing I can think of: I give the marble of my power to my vampire.

She doesn”t like it. She wants to be let loose, not play babysitter for this…thing.

But she takes it.

I have no idea how I”ll undo what I”ve done, locking away the bulk of my power this way. I hope I can.

It”s all I have, now—hope.

”What are you doing?” Caleb grumbles.

I point at the cuffs. ”Those don”t look fun.” I heave a not-at-all-fake sigh of dread. ”I”m talking myself into cooperating rather than ripping your throat out and drinking your blood.”

”You wouldn”t like it, even if you could get it.” He lifts the cuffs.

”So I”ve heard. You never know till you try it, though. And besides—I”m no ordinary vampire.”

”So I”ve heard.” His eyes Narrow. ”Truthfully—what did you just do? You did something. You look…different.”

”Even if I had done something, which I haven”t, why would I tell you? You”re kidnapping me.”

”I”m not kidnapping you,” he growls, impatient and annoyed. ”You”re a bounty. I”m a bounty hunter.” He moves like lighting, snapping the cuffs onto my wrists. ”And because I’m not your enemy.”

”You keep saying that, but so far I have no proof—FUCK!”

When Calliope set my magic on fire, I thought I”d experienced the worst pain a body could endure.

I was wrong.

This feels like someone is ripping my veins out of my body through my pores. I hit my knees, screaming, writhing, and then I can”t even scream, and I feel rough concrete under my cheek, and the agony continues. Now that they”ve ripped my veins out, they decide to set my nerves and synapses on fire, one at a time.

Stars wink and blink overhead. Clouds scud, nearly invisible against the black sky.

I turn my attention, such as it is, inward—the glamour is a parasite, red and evil and incandescent, a curling coiling striking serpent slithering through my inner being, seeking out magic and wrapping around it like a constrictor, choking it, devouring.

It knows there”s more, but it can”t find it, and it”s angry.

Hungry.

Whoever designed these cuffs was an evil, sadistic bastard.

It knows, the glamour in the cuffs, that there”s a vampire inside me, but it can”t get a grip on it. A vampire”s magic is subtle and intrinsic. It”s sewn into the very fibers of a vampire’s being—if the magic in the mage cuffs could seize the magic in the vampire, it would likely destroy the being in the process, nullifying the need for cuffs.

Lucky me.

Slowly, the pain fades to a sharp but distant ache—in my skull, in my belly, in my veins. I open my eyes, which feel like they have sand in them.

”Fuck you very much,” I grit out, stumbling to my knees and then my feet. ”I suppose this is where you throw off the guise of being halfway decent and reveal your true, rapey nature. Or at least, refuse to keep your promise.”

He glares at me, a distinctly canine look of reproach. ”No.”He slams the doors of the van closed and nudges me with a huge, hot hand toward the passenger door. ”Get in.”

Handcuffed, magic-less, naked but for a man”s XXXXL T-shirt, I decide discretion is currently the better part of valor and get in.

He reaches in, straps the seatbelt over me and clicks into place. I almost snicker—I”m fully vampire, right now, so I’d do more damage to the car and the road than it would to me.

But I suppose I appreciate the gesture.

A moment later, the engine is idling noisily, and he buckles himself in.

He waits until we”re on a freeway rumbling away from Jersey City to speak. ”They have my pack.”

”Your pack?”

He glances at me. ”I”m a wolf. A shifter. I have a pack. You have a coven, I have a pack.”

”Oh.”

”And they have them. If I didn”t do this—bring you in, alive, unharmed—they”d harm them. Kill them, probably.”

“How did the Tribunal manage to capture a whole pack of shifters?”

”Sheer numbers along with fae magic and vampire strength. It cost them dearly, but they managed it. Just like they would have gotten you, eventually. But they were tired of losing lives, so they decided to use me. When I wouldn”t cooperate, they took my pack and used them to coerce me.”

”Why wouldn”t you cooperate?”

”Because they weren”t telling the truth and I knew it. They”re threatened by you.” He glances at me. ”And you”re right. Everything you said back there—you”re right.”

”Fat lot of good it did me.”

”They”re scared. Of you, yes, but of the Tribunal more.”

”So once they have me, they”ll let your pack go?”

He shrugs. ”So they say. I don”t believe them.”

”So drop me off, and then go find my coven. They”ll help you.” I hold his gaze. ”You help them, and they”ll help you.”

”It”s not that simple.”

”Sure it is. Not easy, maybe, but it”s exactly that simple.”

He shakes his head. ”Those cuffs…onced they”re on…”

”I know.” I grin at him—I don”t feel it, but he needs to see it. ”But I”m not an ordinary immortal, Caleb.”

”No one has ever escaped mage cuffs.”

”There”s never been anyone like me.”

He eyes me. ”I”m getting that.” He nods. ”I like you. You”ve got balls.”

I laugh. ”I”ll take the compliment, even though you”ve seen for a fact that I definitely do not have balls.”

”Where you”re going, Maeve Sparrow…you”ll need them.”

”I know.”

”Can you hear your mate?”

I test the bloodlink—I feel him. My Caspian.

Fin. Stirling.

Alistair.

Faint, but there.

”Yes. A little.”

“You”re lucky, then.” He looks…sad, and angry. Very, very angry. ”I can”t hear my pack.”

He squeezes the steering wheel until it creaks, and he shakes his hand loose—leaving finger-shaped dents.

”I forgive you, Caleb.”

His head whips around. ”What?”

”I said, I forgive you. For this.” I lift the cuffs. ”And I”ll help you. My coven will help you.”

”Vampires and shifters, working together? What is this world coming to?”

”Something new, Caleb. That”s what this is all about.”

He nods. ”I think you”re right, Maeve.” He glances at me again. ”Your grandfather…he”s not what you think.”

“How do you know what I think he is?”

He shakes his head. ”All I can say is, he”s no more your enemy than I am. He”s in just as impossible a position as me, as well. So…listen. And wait—wait until the time is right—you’ll know when that is.”

”What does that mean?”

He won”t answer.

He doesn’t answer, doesn”t say another word. He ignores me.

For hours.

To a jet on an airstrip in the middle of a field.

On that jet across the Atlantic.

He broods and is silent.

Inside, I feel a ticking.

Not of a clock…

but of a bomb.

Me.

My magic.

My bloodbond.

My mate.

My coven.

My entire immortal culture.

It”s all one big bomb, and it”s only a matter of time till it explodes.

THE END…FOR NOW