Chapter 43
UNEXPECTED BLOOD OFFERINGS
NELSON
The sound of hooves hitting the ground almost destroyed me.
“No!” I shouted as I spun around to see my worst nightmare unfolding before me.
Morgan was galloping straight at one of the armed hunters. My heart felt like it’d fallen out of my body and landed at my feet. Morgan was supposed to be running in the opposite direction. He was supposed to save himself so I could save Violet. He was supposed to fucking trust me to do this.
Horrified, I couldn’t look away. His gorgeous body sparkled under the wintery sun. His horn shone. His hooves glistened.
He was so fucking beautiful, and he was going to get himself killed.
“Morgan! Run!” I waved my arms, but he didn’t even glance at me.
Behind me, Violet was screaming, even though she was gagged, and I knew she wanted him to leave too. He ignored us both.
I needed to get to him. I needed to stop this. I reached for my shadow form, knowing I’d need it to reach him in time. But before my shift could flow over me, pain shot up my arm.
I looked down to see a tranq dart. My shift slipped away from me, leaving me trapped in my human form. So, I did the only thing I could. I ran. I ran toward Morgan. If I could get between him and those guns…
Morgan dipped his head, holding his horn like a bayonet, aiming for one man’s chest.
“Stop!” the man shouted. But Morgan didn’t listen to him any more than he had listened to Violet and me.
Shots rang out. One. Two. Three… Then more. Too many.
Each one blasted through the frozen winter morning. Violet screamed. I saw red. Red everywhere. Red soaking into Morgan’s beautiful white coat.
“No, please…” I begged the universe.
Morgan staggered. He stumbled. But he didn’t slow.
His horn collided with its target. With a flick of Morgan’s head, the man flew over him. Then my unicorn reared up, showing his bloodied torso for all the world to see. His hooves slammed into the next nearest hunter. The man collapsed.
“Stop!” the other hunters shouted.
“I told you I’d kill her…”
Shit. Violet. The gun.
If anything happened to Violet, Morgan would never forgive himself. Except how could I help her when Morgan was bleeding? I reached for my shadow again, and it responded. Slow. Sluggish. But it was there.
My body was burning through the magical tranq. I didn’t know how that was happening, but I welcomed it. Maybe it was a perk of being mated to the Eternal Magic’s offspring.
My shift crawled over me.
“The tranqs aren’t working!” someone shouted.
Then I was in my shadow. I didn’t have eyes in this form, but I could see. There was no front or back or side. But I was everywhere.
I targeted Tammy first. She had her back to the sun, so her front was in shadows. She had no idea how vulnerable that made her, but she was about to find out.
I wrapped my shadow over her face and let it flow into her ears, nose, and mouth. Then I expanded and solidified enough to stab through the soft vulnerable parts usually protected by her skull.
In all my years as an SC operative, I’d never done anything like this. I held myself to a strict ethical code. I’d maimed. I’d killed. But never in such a brutal way. But no one had ever hurt my mate before. I didn’t care what happened to these people. They deserved whatever came next.
She collapsed to the ground.
I didn’t wait to see if she was dead.
I jumped to the shadow of the man holding Violet. For all his bluster about killing her, he hadn’t done anything yet. It was likely a practical decision. Without her, he’d lose his leverage.
He waved his gun around with a trembling hand, moving it between my shadow and Morgan. I needed to stop him before he realized firing a shot at me would be useless and choose Morgan instead.
Thankfully, whatever they’d used as a tranquilizer was gone from my system now.
I moved over the man in the same way as I had Tammy.
He shook his gun erratically, trying to aim at my shadow.
He got off one round. Another. The bullets piercing through my shadow but causing me no harm. I slipped into his head.
Another shot fired.
His body fell to the ground. He’d just shot himself in the head. I was still breathing, so he might make it. I didn’t care one way or the other. Although he might wish he was dead, once the SC finished with him.
Then the only remaining hunter was the older woman. Well, I supposed Gary was there too, but he was still crawling feebly toward the trees, so I didn’t consider him a threat.
She pointed her gun at Morgan, and the slight tremor of her hands was the only sign of her anxiety. She stepped slowly toward Gary’s car. The driver’s side door was still open. The keys were still in the ignition.
“Let me leave, and I won’t shoot him again,” she said. She didn’t look away from Morgan, but I knew she was talking to me. “I’m a better shot than the others. The only reason he isn’t dead already is because I thought he’d be useful, but I will sacrifice him if I have to.”
Morgan was panting now, his breaths labored and loud. His ears were pinned back. He grunted.
“I can’t let you leave,” I said. She knew too much. If she left, she would only return with more hunters. They were like a fucking cancer. The only way to deal with that shit was to eradicate it.
“You don’t have a choice,” she said as she stepped over Gary.
She fired at Morgan. He screamed, and the sound ripped me in half.
“Look at all that blood. You better get to him. Say your goodbyes before it’s too late,” the hunter said with a grin.
I could shadow jump to her and take her out like I had the others, but what if those precious seconds were the difference between Morgan living or dying?
There was no choice. I had to go to Morgan. The hunter would get her freedom, and I would hopefully keep Morgan alive.
The SC might fault my choice, because I was allowing a hunter to walk away. Hell, the people of Willow Lake might hate me for my choice too, since she’d never leave us alone now that she knew where we were.
But the only person I cared about was Morgan.
I reached Morgan’s side as he toppled to the ground. My shift came quickly. And I thanked the Eternal Magic for her help. I ripped off my jacket and tried to use it to staunch the worst of the bleeding. But the hunter was right. He was losing too much.
Morgan’s chest, so much bigger than when he was in his human form, was a mess of gaping wounds. His coat—his beautiful coat—was saturated with blood. It seeped through my jacket and covered my hands. It pooled under him.
Blood, blood, so much fucking blood…
My stomach heaved. I pushed harder against the two worst wounds. I needed more hands. I was failing. Again.
I failed at everything.
“Don’t leave me,” I choked through my sobs. “Morgan, you can’t leave me. You’re my life. My sweet. My little rainbow. My everything.”
There was no life without him.
I barely registered the sound of Gary’s sports car peeling out of the parking lot. I didn’t notice anything until a gentle hand squeezed my shoulder.
“Let Teague help,” Gage said.
I glanced up through tear-filled eyes to see Teague kneeling on the other side of Morgan’s still body.
“I’ll do everything I can. You know I will,” the death mage promised. He held his mouth in a grim line. I’d known him long enough to understand what that look meant. He didn’t think he could do it. He thought it was already too late. “Let me look.”
I swallowed hard. Then a soft weight pressed against my side. I jerked in surprise and glanced over to find Violet there. Her face was wet, and her eyes were red. Where the gag had been tied, her skin looked raw and sore.
“Let him help. It’s the only way,” she whispered as she wrapped her hands around my arm like I was her lifeline. I wanted to shake her off. But I didn’t. Morgan wouldn’t want me to. Her voice was rough—whether from her earlier screams or her raw emotions, I wasn’t sure.
I pulled my jacket away to reveal the worst of Morgan’s wounds. The others were bad too, but these two in particular…
Blood pumped from them with each sluggish beat of Morgan’s heart. Teague put his hands on Morgan. The ozone scent of his magic rose around us, and all I could do was stare at the wound, willing it to go away.
Violet clung to me.
Sirens shattered the quiet, then faded as the police cars sped past us. Maybe they’d catch the hunter. I hoped they would. They might be human, but the SC had a special way of punishing hunters—and she deserved everything they’d do to her.
Ogden in his dragon form shot across the clear blue sky, following along behind the police. He’d overtake them soon. His dragon was lithe, but powerful. Maybe he’d just fry the hunter in her car. I’d be okay with that too.
I wondered how many humans would be exposed to magic today.
There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. If anyone looked up, they’d see Ogden.
And he couldn’t be mistaken for anything but a dragon.
I’d spent my whole life working for the SC, making sure that the secret world of supes was protected, but now…
Now I just wanted that woman caught. At any cost.
More vehicles arrived.
I was nudged aside so Xander, the local supe doctor, could assist Teague.
He didn’t use magic to heal like Teague, that wasn’t how his sphinx magic worked, but he was a doctor.
And for the first time since seeing Morgan collapse, I felt a tiny sliver of hope.
With both a doctor and a death mage helping him, everything that could be done was being done.
I thought about begging the Eternal Magic for help too, but I didn’t think she’d view death the same way I did. She was all powerful. Timeless. Never-ending. Life and death were not beginnings and endings to her. They just were.
No. I wouldn’t turn to the Eternal Magic. I couldn’t trust her not to take my mate away from me.
“We need him to shift,” Xander muttered. “We can’t get him to the hospital like this.”
“I know,” Teague said between clenched teeth.
All around us people were moving. Isaac and Adrian were checking the building and the abandoned vehicles. Davie and Edie were cuffing the hunters. I suspected a couple of them were dead, but the duo still cuffed them. No one trusted a hunter, not even a dead one.
They’d also cuffed Gary.
Violet didn’t question his arrest. I hoped that meant she hadn’t colluded with him. I didn’t think she would put Morgan in danger, but I didn’t know the woman. If she’d knowingly brought the hunters to Morgan or our town, we’d find out. Then she’d face an even worse fate than the human hunters.
But for now, everyone let her stay at my side. And I found I didn’t mind her being there. She and the others were here for Morgan, but also to support me. It was an unexpected realization. My gloom would have abandoned me, more concerned with their own selfish interests than anything else.
Suddenly, Xander and Teague’s movements grew more frantic.
“No…” I whispered. “Morgan…”
They were losing him. I was losing him. Losing my mate only days after meeting him. How could the Eternal Magic be so cruel?
I grabbed his hoof, needing to feel him, wishing he’d shift so I could feel his hand in mine.
Then an unfamiliar SUV with blacked out windows rolled into the parking lot. Everyone but Teague and Xander tracked its approach. Edie pulled out a wicked-looking dagger from a sheath at her hip.
The vehicle stopped just a few feet from where we crowded around Morgan’s oh-so-still body. The rear window closest to us rolled down, and the vampire—Keenan—peered out at us from the safety of his dark interior.
“Let me help,” he said without preamble.
“Go back to whatever rock you’ve crawled out from,” Teague shouted, not looking up from what he was doing to Morgan.
“You know I can help, mage,” the vampire insisted.
Xander glanced at Teague. “What’s he talking about?”
Teague’s nostrils flared.
“He won’t make it otherwise. You know this.” The vampire sounded calm, but sure.
“He won’t…” Violet dug her fingernails into my arm. “No. He can’t die…”
“Teague?” Xander prodded. “We need to do something. He’s lost too much blood. I…”
Violet was sobbing now. I just felt numb. I wasn’t crying. I felt like I was looking at the world through a distorted chunk of broken glass. I couldn’t make sense of what was happening.
I’d never truly believed the oracle’s vision showed Morgan’s death. Until now.
Teague’s gaze caught on mine. I don’t know what he saw on my face, but in the next moment he was moving.
“Fuck!” he shouted as he rocked away from Morgan’s prone body. The magic pouring from his fingers was mere wisps now. Barely there. He’d obviously expended everything he had. He stomped toward the vampire. “This better be a fucking gift.”
“I wouldn’t have offered it otherwise,” Keenan said. His fangs had dropped, giving a lisp-like quality to what he was saying. Then he tore into his own wrist. Blood sprayed out from the wound, hitting the interior roof of the vehicle. He quickly placed a red plastic cup under his wound.
“A disposable party cup? Not your usual style,” Teague said.
“It was all the shop on the edge of town had on its shelves.” The vampire grinned then. “But I love that you remember me so well.”
The mage just grunted. When the blood stopped flowing, the vampire offered the cup to Teague, careful to keep his hand out of the sunlight.
He trudged back to Morgan with the vampire’s bloody offering.
Without another word, the window came up again, blocking the vampire from view. Then the SUV drove away.
“Will this make him a vampire?” I asked.
I wasn’t sure it mattered, not if it saved Morgan. But would he even want a life in the shadows? I might thrive there, but rainbows needed light. They couldn’t exist without it.
“No,” Teague muttered. “Not with me to guide the process.”
“Are you sure this is safe?” Xander asked, glancing over his shoulder at the vampire’s departing vehicle. “The ambulance is coming… I can hear them now. If we can get him shifted… If he can make it to the hospital…”
If… That’s all I heard.
If, if, if…
“Do it,” I said.
I was too selfish to dismiss anything that could help. Consequences be damned.
Teague thought it would work, and I trusted him. The death mage dropped to his knees beside Morgan and poured the dark red blood onto Morgan’s chest wounds.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t look away.
If this didn’t work…