Blood Twist (The Erris Coven Series) (22 page)

“Stay,” Riley declared bursting through the door.

Liz struggled to make sense of what happened next, it was too fast. Braden barreled forward,
knocking Garrick to the groun
d,
catching the leader by surprise.
Riley grabbed hold of the Dr. Phil’s twin and was tearing his head off, while Strix hissed and kicked at any of the vampires trying to get in on the raucous.

W
hile most
draugar
stayed down, unconcerned about the power struggle on the floor
, others clambered over to Maze and began tearing at her flesh.
Huddling around her, females and males alike began eating what was left of her remains.

It was supposed to be
me
. Garrick was killing me.

Liz bent over and threw up. Maze wasn’t her friend, but the vampire offered her
help,
a way out. She couldn’t have known it
was going to go down like that.

My God, this can’t be happening.

Braden’s scream shattered back into her consciousness.
Clambering
back
to
her feet, Liz tried to locate him between the blurry lines of the vampires moving faster than her eyes could process.

Garrick was on top of Braden, but the damphyr refused
to give up. While the draugr tried using his teeth to tear out his
throat, Braden freed his hands and delivered a hea
d-butt to Garrick’s
face.

Riley, finished beheading the bald vamp, jumped onto Garrick, giving Braden a chance to back out from beneath the
crushing weight
. Pulling a
concealed
knife from insi
de his waistband, Braden’s
arm swung up and slashed at Garrick’s throat.

Although he made contact,
Ga
rrick’s wound wasn’t lethal.
Reach
ing around, he swiped the knife from Braden’s grip, and tried plunging it into the teen’s chest. Riley’s hand shot out, stopping Garrick’s. After the three moved apart,
it was Riley who bested the leader
. Straddling the older vampire, he slammed the knife deep into Garrick’
s chest, piercing his chest
while Braden lay next to him, gasping for air.

Liz couldn’t stand another moment of doing nothing. With her fingers pressed against the cool metal, she was about to push the door open, when she paused. The draugar on the floor were now pulling apart what was left of Garrick and Dr.
Phil
, seemingly uncaring about
the fate of their master. Moving among them across the floor,
Strix,
reached Riley and helped him to stand
.

Holding
Riley’
s hand in the air,
Strix
said something
in his crumbly voice
Liz couldn’t
quite
hear.

Suddenly a bunch of heads popped up and high pitched
shrieking
filled the room.
Riley looked around cautiously, before reaching down to Braden.
Once he got his brother on his feet, he
tossed him the keys to the Porsche and
p
ointed to where Li
z was
waiting and
motioned
for
his brother to get moving.

As soon as Braden’s blue eyes connected with Liz’s, she
could no longer stop herself from moving. Pushing her way through the swinging door, she dove into his arms, crying.

“It’s okay,” he soothed.

Braden’s body felt as hard as marble.
Stepping back, she touched
his face, chest an
d arms, needing
to en
sure he was safe.

“I’m so sorry.
We should have left before,” she said.

Braden looked around them. On the floor, the demons hissed as they fought back and forth over
what was left of the
dead
draugar
.

“We need to go,” he said urgently.
“Now.”

“What just happened? What did Strix say?”

“Ril
ey just killed Garrick. That makes him
in charge of the nest.
With that feeding frenzy in there, h
e may get challenged
. He wants us to go before that happens.
”

“Why?”

“In case he loses.”

27

BRADEN

As they
raced down Robson Street in the direction of the Thunderbird Motel,
Braden breathed in the pine scented air. Although Vancouver was a relative urban forest with all of the different types
of trees growing everywhere
,
it was
the
black spruce
that
reminded him of home.

Liz’
s small hand still gripped
his own
.
Even as they put distance behind them, her heartbeat
pounded with adrenaline.

“What do we do now?”

“We get you somewhere safe.”

“Me? What about you?”

“I have to go back,” he said simply.

“What?” Liz said, confused. “You barely got out of there with your life.
A fact that I hold myself one hundred percent accountable for.
Going back is just crazy.”

“When I was locked up, Riley told me something about my father. Somethi
ng about his death
didn’t
occur to me at the time.
If I don’
t ask him now, I may never get the chance to again.”

Liz sat motionless in her seat. She could see why he needed to know. The
mystery hurt his entire coven. The pain would live with him forever, but answers could make it bearable.

“Okay, but I’m coming with you.”

Braden gave her a side long look. “That didn’t work out so well last time.”

“I know, but, I swear Braden, if I had to stay somewhere knowing you were back there, I
would die. At least let me wait out by
the car. Besides, Riley told me things too.”

“Like?”

“Lots of things.
Like what the cure is.”

Braden hadn’t forgotten about Ruby, but he did think the promise of a cure was a ruse to get him there. What else did he say? Did he tell her they would have been together if he hadn’t changed? His brother’s scent was all over her. Pushing the thought from his mind, he considered his options.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “If that had been you instead of Maze, you would be dead now. I don’t know what I would have done.”

“
That’s how I feel about you going back there alone,”
Liz
said,
s
queezing
his hand.
“The sun is coming up. They’ll probably be sleeping in the basement again. You can sneak in, check the place out. If it’s all clear, you can wake Riley
, find out what you need from him
and then we’ll leave.”

“And if it isn’t all clear?”

“Riley’s the leader and he told us to go. They aren’t going to expect us back. If they give you a hassle, I’ll throw a rock through the window and let the sunshine in.”

Braden smiled
. She was a tenacious creature and perfectly impossible to tell no. Whipping the car around in an illegal u turn – he headed back in the direction of hell.

Please let this not be a
mistake.

After parking under the trees, Barden knew something had changed. A quiet stillness had settled beneath the bloated sky.
The sounds, the smells – everything a
bout the old nursing home felt
different.
As he approached the entrance, the charcoaled remains of a dead draugr caught his attention.

“Why would he have come out after dawn?” Liz asked, close on his heels.

“Maybe the sun didn
’t kill him,” Braden replied. “M
aybe another draugr did after we left.”

Heading into the building, he motioned for Liz to wait by the door. Two more corpses were crumpl
ed in the foyer, a third lay dismembered
in the hall. Their blood was everywhere, sprayed across the walls, flooring and furnishings. A quick glance into the dini
ng room confirmed what his senses already knew
. Calling out
to Liz, he didn’t think it was necessary to leave her alone out in
the lot.

When she came in, Liz’s confusion echoed his.
The room was littered with crumpled bodies. Gasping for breath beside him, Liz just shook her head,
baffled
with what she saw. “They’re dead. But how?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who?” she said, looking around.
“There’s so much blood. I can’t tell
where one body starts and another one ends
.”

“I know
.” Working his way through the room, he stepped carefully as he went. Some of the draugar were slumped
over in tangled heaps, while others
had been left
flung oddly against the wall. A few he couldn’t identify at all – only muscle and sinew clinging to bones remained.

“I don’t understand,” Liz said from the doorway. “I saw them when they star
t
ed eating Maze, and Garrick too, did they just
start
eat
ing and not stop?
Wait…” her eyes flashed with panic. W
hat about Riley?”

Braden looked at
the lifeless creatures.
Other than the four bodies completely unidentifiable, the rest were either staked or had their hearts torn out the way Maze did.

Someone cleaned house.
But why?

“Did they kill him?” Liz’s voice cracked.

“I don’
t see him, but it’s pretty gruesome.” Braden glanced up and met Liz’s pained expression.
“One of these half eaten bodies could be his.”

The moment he said it, he knew how stupid he sounded.

Another jerky guy saying stupid crap at the wrong moment – good job.

Tears rolled down Liz’s cheeks.
Suddenly she stared up at him, her mouth gaped open.

“I didn’t
mean to say it like that.”

“No, you don’t
have to apologize. I just thought of something
.”
Turning her back, she ran
straight for the stairs
.

With his speed it wasn’t di
fficult to reach her
, he just wished she’d let him know what she was thinking.
Although the
vampires
all seemed dead, he didn’t
trust the nest to be empty.

Once on the third floor, Liz headed straight
for the room she had spent
time in.

“It’s here. He left it,” she said excitedly, holding up a small red vile.

“It’s blood.” Braden finally understood.
“His blood.”

“Riley said if I became a vampire, I could save anyone
I wanted. Don’t you get it? V
ampire blood is a cure. When he asked me if I wanted to run away with him, I told him I didn’t want to, that I needed to be with you.” Liz suddenly slowed down, and looked at him nervously. “
It was my choice to stay. So he left this for me. He must have known I would come back for it.
All we have to do is give it to her.”

Stepping closer, Braden ran his hand down the side of her face.  “Thank you.”

“For what?” she said
, holding still
.

“For staying, for coming with me, for everything.”
He answered.
The gold flecks in her eyes caught him then, pulling him in until he could do nothing but kiss her.

Pulling her into his arms, B
raden trailed a line of kisses over her eyelids, cheeks and
the
bridge of her nose until his lips met hers.
Breathing her in, tasting her lips – he wanted nothing more than to freeze the moment in time.
After a while
, a slight sigh escaped her
. Pressing
her face into his chest
, he enjoyed just holding her to him, knowing she was safe
.

“I’m guessing we better get going,” she said softly.

“Back to reality,” he agreed.
“I just wish I had fou
nd Riley.
I didn’t think it would end like this.
”