Page 20 of Vampire Sins
He looked down at his hold on me with a grimace. “No, I don’t believe it. My son wouldn’t have turned you. He’s plagued by visions of the girl he can never have. He won’t turn anyone else except for her. He can’t. He’s tried before and they always died because he couldn’t accept them, not fully. His heart belongs to a woman he’s never even met.” He squeezed his eyes shut and the ruby glow of his power illuminated his eyelids. “I regret cursing him with such a terrible fate. I’d only intended to teach him how to feel. He’d become so cold and cruel, but the witches didn’t tell me the visions would never go away, never be fulfilled.”
I shivered as Hades revealed the truth. Xavier had tried to turn women before? I couldn’t imagine the guilt he carried with him for those failures, but it was a guilt only I could understand.
“The witches were wrong,” I whispered and Hades’ eyes flung open. “I’m the one from his visions.”
Hades leaned in and furrowed his brows. His lips parted as he inhaled my scent again, this time his tongue flicking as he tasted the air. “It’s impossible,” he whispered, but the shock on his face said he knew that I spoke the truth. “The witches didn’t learn that the visions were a future so utterly unlikely until it was too late. There’s a better chance of...”
I grinned. “Of a succubus being seduced by a vampire?” I wiggled out of his grip that had finally loosened. “Yeah. It happened, believe it or not.” Turning serious, I ripped the veil between us a fraction more. “You have to wake up, Hades. If you don’t, Venice will fall to the Incubus King’s mind control, and so will every vampire in it.”
That got his attention. He growled and my footing wavered. I couldn’t tell if it was from a bomb in the real world, or Hades unfurling his dreams into reality. “I’ll need a fraction of the power you’ve brought with you,” he said. “It’s going to hurt.”
Closing my eyes, I readied myself. “Do it. Rip the band-aid.”
He hesitated, and depending on how long he’d been asleep, maybe he had no idea what a band-aid was, but then a low growl rumbled in his throat. Heat spread across my chest and electricity zapped through my hair. I grimaced when lightning hot flashes seared through me, but I fisted my hands and endured.
I filled my mind with visions of Luke lying in bed with me, smiling, content and happy. I don’t think he’d been able to smile very much in his life. To be able to bring him joy gave me indescribable pleasure and I wasn’t about to leave him to fend for himself on the war-torn streets of Venice.
Hades roared and the pain of his awakening cracked through my ears as his statue shattered.
Unconsciousness threatened to take me, and stubbornly I fought it.
“Luke,” I whispered. “Xavier. Help me find the others.”
The four men in my life. I knew I’d never be able to let any of them go.
“What are you doing?”Nimra shrieked as she entered the sacred chamber where Hades slept.
I was too far gone to fully understand her words or what she wanted. All I recalled was that it had been her duty to protect Luke, yet now she was here, and he was not.
Hades shifted under my touch and came close to his awakening. When I glanced at Nimra through the haze of my agony as Hades drew the power of my Blood Stone for his premature awakening, I noticed that her eyes dusted with a faint red mist that didn’t match her vampiric nature.
“She’s come into contact with Derek’s mind-control fog,” I said through clenched teeth.
Xavier moved to stop her, but it was too late. She snarled and dangerous fangs flashed before she sank her bite into his neck. Xavier groaned as the power of her jaw worked at his tendons and blood spilled down his chest.
“Nimra!” I tried to wiggle free of Hades, but the magic between us kept me locked in place.
As Xavier’s gaze flickered and he crumpled to the floor, she grinned at me with his blood smeared across her face. “You don’t deserve each other,” she growled, then bared her teeth in a hiss before going for me.
I knew what would happen when she touched me. Too far linked with the father of all vampires, only the wielder of a Blood Stone could survive the power coursing between us. Red-hot magic seared through my body and I was barely keeping it together as it was.
When Nimra wrapped her fingers around my throat, her body jolted and her eyes went wide.
I knew it was Derek’s mind-control that was making her do this, but I had a feeling she’d left Luke to fend for himself before she’d become infected.
“Have a nice afterlife, bitch,” I said as Nimra turned to ash.
Allies
Luke
Hades was awake,but something was wrong. My spell should have cast all supernaturals into slumber so that the vampires could pick them off while Hades went after his brother, but something went wrong. The blue aura that overtook the sky rained down fine dust that tasted sweet on my lips.
I watched the horizon, sensing that I had called something to aid us instead. My magic wasn’t a witch’s power, but there were other supernaturals in this world that I’d yet to discover.
A howl sounded and I crouched as my teeth grated at the impossible sound.
Wolves.
