Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
Am I truly undead? It doesn’t feel like it.
—Lorinne Leroux’s private journal.
ALove Spell?
Winter was so scared she knelt by the queen without a fuss. She swept her teary gaze to West, wishing there was a way to take all of this back. It was too late. He was nude, erect, and already ripping off the queen’s dress with his claws.
Winter had to stop this. “Yield.” The command escaped her without thought.
He halted, his eyes pinned on hers with blood dripping down his chin. They were wild with desire. Then he blinked and it was gone, leaving the type of hurt she’d never unsee.
Shadows erupted from the queen’s fingertips, covering Winter’s shoulders like a thick shawl. “You will yield. What do you think you’re doing? He’s under my spell now.”
West cracked his neck like he was trying to fight it, but lost. He refocused on the queen and licked his lips. “Mine,” he growled, biting her again.
Winter had a choice: cry or finish what she started. There’d been too much death and sacrifice to break down now. “I’m sorry, my queen.” She dropped her head, acquiescing.
The shadow shawl dissolved.
“Then join us.” The queen laid on her obsidian floors, yanking West’s wrist until he followed. He pinned her beneath him with his hips pressed flat against her groin.
Winter didn’t want to be a pet, but did as she was told, nuzzling into the queen’s shoulder. The exposed clavicle gave her a hint of confidence. “Keep biting her, West. Don’t stop.”
His eyes flashed between the man she knew and a total stranger. His skillful mind fought her order, but his body relented. He was a puppet on strings again. If there was anything she knew about her mate, it was how much he valued control. He would never forgive her for this night.
He tugged on the queen’s flesh, grunting his pleasure. Then his hands made their way beneath her tattered gown. The claiming bite sent pleasure both ways—she’d felt that for herself.
Winter held in her whimper, reared her head back, and bit the queen’s other side. Fuck, her blood tasted good. Digging in was instinctual. Winter shredded skin to get a better grip on her vein, puncturing it in a few places.
The queen’s lust quickly filled Winter’s system. With her mate right beside her, covered in pure mage blood, it was impossible not to thread her fingers through his hair.
She fed and watched him feed. A slight pull on his snow-white locks and he looked her way, grinning with desire. These weren’t the eyes of her mate anymore; they were the eyes of a wolf under a spell. But they were beautiful, nonetheless.
Winter decided to put two years of cadaver lab to very good use.
The brachial plexus was a bundle of nerves that supplied the neck, arms, and hands.
When injured, it would cause numbness, when severed, it resulted in paralysis of the arm and hand.
All she had to do was tear it out. The queen’s magic would be rendered useless—including this too-tight serpent necklace.
As the queen reached her orgasm, Winter kissed her through it and released her claws. Adrenaline, she realized, really helped with shifting.
The queen hovered over Winter’s lips, oblivious. “I love my alphas.”
At that, Winter sliced through skin and tissue, ripping the queen’s brachial plexus out in one fell swoop. The bundle of bloodied vessels dangled in Winter’s fisted hand as the queen screamed in terror.
Blood followed.
So, so much blood.
But she only had one side of the queen under control. The other was still in working order, and thoroughly choking her.
“West,” Winter wheezed. “Pull off that arm. Now.” The order wasn’t as loud as the others, but it didn’t seem to matter. He skewered the shoulder girdle and yanked, tearing the limb clean off.
Blood spurted far enough to make Winter twinkle with a little delight. She covered the queen’s mouth, muffling her dying cries. “Shut up, you stupid bitch.”
Winter was prepared to wait for her to bleed out, but West growled low and slow. He eyed her with one promise—death. Perhaps her mate really did love the queen. In an instant, he snatched Winter by her waist and tossed her across the room.
As she flew, she realized his mind and body were too confused. She crashed into the marble wall and passed out on impact.
She awoke to snarling sounds. Winter wasn’t sure how long she’d been out, but it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds—the queen’s chest was still rising and falling.
Considering the entire throne room was awash with royal blood, her majesty should be very dead, very soon.
West had shifted back to his wolf form and hovered over the queen’s dying body. No, he was guarding it.
Five guards dressed in burgundy livery had arrived at some point and were attempting to subdue him.
It appeared to be a stand-off, but West was the one with a hostage.
His position, so close to the queen, made it impossible for them to teleport him away.
Vampires loved attacking mid-teleportation to gain an advantage, however, the queen would be swept away during any attempt.
Spinning around in space would certainly cause her to lose every last drop of blood.
The centripetal force couldn’t help limp and severed bodies.
The five vampires held little leverage if they wanted their queen to remain alive.
No one had been paying any mind to Winter, as if they thought she was still asleep.
She used the adrenaline coursing through her system to pull off an epic shift.
Within a minute or less, she had all her parts in their wolf form.
She might be powerless as a witch, but she was an alpha, and a fast one.
Winter leapt across the throne room and smashed into two vampires at once. They hit the marble floor at the same point her claws slashed their throats. Cold blood splattered on her face. Winter didn’t think much more about that before she removed their tracheas simultaneously and ate them.
The other three guards surrounded her and hissed.
Meanwhile, West took to licking the queen’s shoulders.
Fucking Hell.
Winter smacked into another vampire before it could teleport, knocking it off its feet, but the other two vanished and reappeared on top of her. One was riding her like a horse and the other latched onto her hind leg. Soon, her jockey leaned forward and plunged fangs into the side of her neck.
Winter bucked in pain. Her wail was choked by another vampire latching onto her flank.
Three mouths fed on her at once. Their bites burned, leaking into every crevice of her body.
They didn’t have to release their venom—they wanted to.
She let out a painful cry before collapsing.
They can’t turn another immortal, but they can torture them.
It'd been foolish of her to try and take on all five vampires without a hair of training, and asinine to assume the queen’s personal guard would want her dead. Making matters worse, West’s obsession with the queen lingered and would continue until she was dead. It couldn’t be much longer now …
Had it been so stupidly na?ve to have hoped their bond would be stronger than a Love Spell?
It appeared so.
The vampire on her neck must’ve tapped into a major artery. She knew this because she was slipping away, back to that dark and familiar place. Perhaps this was deserved. By forcing West’s hand, she’d behaved no better than the evil queen.
Then light began to battle her darkness. She blinked, realizing it wasn’t heaven clashing with hell or fire blazing over shadow. It was her mate, fighting his way back to her.
The queen must finally be dead, freeing him from her spell. Minutes had felt like hours.
White fur, painted in bright scarlet, ate up the distance. The jockey on her back was quickly torn in two—evident by the torso flying across the room. The waistcoat was extra-wrinkled.
She recognized Fredrick, even split in half. His head was still attached to her until West bit it off and slung it against the stone wall.
Between bloodlust and locked jaws, the other two continued to feed and weren’t fighting back.
Carlisle was ripped off quickly, a chunk of her flesh going with him. West snapped his neck, back, and legs, then dropped him like a broken stick.
From the corner of her eye she saw the remaining vampire—a female with hair so blue and eyes so beady, she looked like she belonged under the sea.
She was freakishly shaking her head while anchoring her nails into Winter’s flank.
West snatched her off and spun her around to face him.
He growled so loud the room shook, then smashed her against the marble floor until her face was mush.
The crack of so many bones was a lullaby singing her to sleep.
Winter was so tired, so very tired. She’d lost a lot of blood.
West dropped the vampire’s remains and prowled around the room. He visited one vampire corpse at a time, shredding uniforms and splaying rib cages open. Then he gathered each and every cold heart, using his snout to roll them towards her.
He made his way to the queen’s dead body last. Instead of tearing her open, he dragged her over to Winter.
It was obvious why he didn’t fetch the queen’s heart—he didn’t want it.
Winter noted the monarch’s pale, motionless face and thought if one thing were true, the queen was the fairest in all the land.
There wasn’t a lick of color to her cheeks.
A moment later, West lifted his paw and crushed her skull with a single stomp.
A smile hinted at Winter’s lips. If he’d wanted to convey that he loved her and her alone, there would’ve been no better way. If only she could reciprocate. Her eyelids fluttered as the world began to dim.