Page 60 of Secret of the Vampire
“How did she do that?” Then I waved my hand in the air and shook my head. “No. Know what? I don’t even care.”
But she answered me anyway. “She’s a powerful witch. It totally freaks out Luukas when she uses her magic, though.”
“Luukas?”
“Luukas Kreek. Master vampire of the Pacific Northwest. And her mate,” she added.
“Why does it freak him out?”
“That’s a long story for another time. But let’s just say he’s been through a lot, so when you meet him, don’t let him scare you. He’s a good male. Just…he’s been through a lot,” she repeated.
An orange flash lit up the sky, and I think we both stopped breathing.
Chapter 23
Alex
Ifelt the bones break in my back as I hit the tree. With a grunt of pain I fell to the ground, my face smacking off of one of the exposed roots.
I was going to die here. I knew this now. My own power was nothing at all compared to the djinn’s. He threw me around like a rag doll with nothing but a wave of his hand, playing with me, and knocking aside anything I threw at him.
I was fucking exhausted. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that I was giving Kenya time to escape and get to The Purple Fang. Hopefully, the ward I’d put around the building would be enough to keep Marcus out until my coven could figure something out, until it gradually faded away with my death. Maybe they could even figure out a way to keep her alive once I was gone. But I was wondering now if the djinn had only been fucking with us that first night. If my spell would keep him out at all.
In any case, I wasn’t going to last much longer. Weakening the binding spell for Kenya had taken more out of me than I’d expected. Maybe she’d been right and the blood loss was a part of it, too. I didn’t know. A sense of foreboding filled me. A foreshadowing of my own death. I’d overestimated his need for me. Gotten too puffed up with my own importance to him. Too cocky. The truth of it was he didn’t give that much of a shit about anyone. He only cared about what he wanted. His own power. Family or not, he was going to kill me.
I’m so sorry, Kenya.
His boots appeared in front of my eyes. “Get up,” he told me. “And go get the vampire. Ineedher.” He nudged me with his toe, and I bit back a yelp of pain. Guess my spinal cord was still intact after all, because it hurt like fuck. “Come on, Alex. What kind of warlock are you? Heal yourself, boy. Stop this foolishness and do as I say.”
I don’t know what he thought I was, but I couldn’t heal myself. Only a certain kind of witch was able to heal themselves, and sometimes others if they were particularly strong.
I was not one of those witches.
And even if I were, I wouldn’t do it, just to piss him off. Pushing myself slowly and painfully to my side, I waited until he looked me in the eye before I spoke. “Fuck. You.” Blood filled my mouth, and I spit it out, aiming for his feet. I managed to splatter one shiny shoe, but not the other.
Good enough.
I watched as his eyes faded completely to black. My head began to ache, the pain increasing until I felt like worms were digging through my brain matter. I clenched my teeth, refusing to give him the satisfaction of hearing my suffering, but I couldn’t stop myself from clamping my hands to either side of my head. My eyes bulged, and I closed them tight in an attempt to keep them in their sockets. Clenching my jaw against the scream that welled in my throat, I knew that at any moment my head was going to explode, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Something screeched above our heads, and the pressure in my skull let up a fraction as Marcus frowned, looking up into the night sky. Fighting the blackness that threatened to overwhelm me, I tried to see what had distracted him from my death.
A raven, black as the sky above it, circled above our heads.
“Hello, Father.”
Marcus whipped around, releasing me from my torture. My head hit the ground as my vision went in and out. I tried to lift it, to see what was happening, but the world moved around me in slow motion, going in and out of focus until I finally lost the battle and my face sank into the wet ground.
Breathing in an out of my mouth, I fought to stay conscious. When I thought I could handle it, I gritted my teeth and pushed with one arm, rolling onto my back. My vision went white, and then black, and then finally cleared.
A creature with glowing yellow eyes in a flowing, black robe stood about twenty feet away, its face hidden by the large hood. As I watched, the raven swooped down, batting Marcus in the face with her wing before landing on the creature’s shoulder.
I closed my eyes.
Sweet darkness swallowed me.
When I opened them again, Marcus was talking.
“…son. How did you find…”
