Claiming the Vampire (23 page)

He grew hard instantly, and she wrapped her legs around him. She was so wet he slid inside with one push, and it only took a few strokes before she came, her body pulsing around his as he drank in her essence. And then he exploded inside her as he pressed his mouth to her throat, licking the marks he’d made until they closed.

When their bodies had stilled he rose up on his forearms. “We belong to each other now,” he told her.

She looked like an angel as she gazed up at him.

“Now and forever.”

Chapter Thirteen

The arena was in a sunken courtyard, with tiered seats rising out of it. A hundred or more Fae were already there.

The terrace even with the highest row of seats was dotted with statuary, trees, and gracefully fluted columns, and surrounded on three sides by roofed porticos. As Jessica walked across it, she was glad to see so many hiding places. Maybe Hawk really would be able to…

And then, as she reached the stone steps that led down into the arena, a tingling at her throat sent a bolt of sensation through her.

She didn’t look up or halt her steps, but it was hard not to let her sudden joy show in her face.

Hawk was here.

A cold breeze fluttered the flags on the battlements above them. As Jessica walked down the stairs, she saw Mary standing on one side of the arena between two armed guards.

The eyes of the two women met. Did Mary sense that her brother was here? If so, she had the brains not to show it.

Then Jessica cast another glance at the crowd around them, and her heart sank. Hawk couldn’t fight a hundred Fae.

Which meant that saving his sister was up to her.

Kel and Navril were sitting in elegant chairs at the base of the steps. Courtside seats, Jessica thought whimsically, thinking of the Boston Celtics basketball game Liz had taken her to a few weeks ago. They both looked cool and composed, although she could sense the tension behind Kel’s façade.

The guards escorting her paused in front of the royal seats. Jessica bowed low, and then they led her to a table that held a dozen deadly looking knives, glinting in the bright sunlight on a cloth of red silk.

Edrik was there before her and he chose first, selecting an ancient looking blade of black steel. Then he took two steps back and fixed his eyes on her.

She felt the burn of his gaze as she reached out to select the smallest weapon before her, a slender thing that shone like platinum, with a hilt of delicately wrought silver. She hefted it in her hand to test its balance and knew she’d made the right choice.

“You look different today,” Edrik said abruptly.

She looked up and saw that he was frowning, a look of uncertainty and frustration in his eyes.

Jessica allowed her lips to curve upwards in a secret smile, knowing it would unsettle Edrik even more.

She didn’t just look different. She felt different. Fiercely alive and radiating power.

A shiver went through her as she thought of the marks on her neck, invisible to anyone who didn’t know what to look for. Edrik saw the shiver and his frown deepened.

Yesterday, he thought he’d taken her measure. Today, he wasn’t so sure.

Queen Navril stood, and the crowd fell silent. Dressed in a gown of white velvet with an over tunic of gold, she was almost blinding.

“By the ancient laws of our people, the accuser and the accused’s champion shall do battle until one of you yields or kills the other. If you yield, the victor still has a right to a kill, and may grant mercy or not, as he or she chooses.” She turned to Jessica. “By custom, the accused has an opportunity to thank her champion. You may speak to the vampire now.”

Jessica was very grateful to have a minute with Mary—even if it was under a hundred pairs of eyes.

Mary looked strained to the point of exhaustion as Jessica approached her. Then Jessica raised her hand as though adjusting the neck of her blue tunic and casually drew her fingertips across the mark of Hawk’s fangs.

Mary’s eyes widened. Then she spoke in a voice too low for the guards to hear.

“I thought I felt his presence, but I didn’t dare believe it. He’s here now?”

“Close by,” Jessica reassured her softly. “He’ll be here if you need him. If I fail.”

Mary seized her hands. “You won’t fail. You can’t. You’re my sister now. Oh, Jessica—I’m so glad. For both of you. And you can’t die before I have a chance to know you. Promise me.”

“I promise,” Jessica said gently, as tears gathered in Mary’s eyes.

“Time!” Queen Navril called.

Jessica went to the center of the arena and faced Edrik. She was wearing soft pants and a simple tunic, dark blue and close-fitting. Her feet were bare. Edrik was dressed in black and silver and his feet were bare, too.

The two combatants faced each other.

“Let the duel commence!”

“There will be no mercy from me, Your Highness.”

Jessica ignored his words, focusing instead on the man. She wasn’t interested in trading barbs with her opponent. She let her knife roll from her palm to the ends of her fingers, feeling its weight, its motion.
A weapon is an extension of your power.

Edrik moved to one side and Jessica moved with him, the two of them circling each other slowly. Jessica reached out with her senses, letting past and future fall away until only the present moment existed.

Her world was balanced on a knife’s edge. She was no longer thinking about Hawk, or Mary, or anything except the feel of the stone beneath her bare feet, the cold weight of the blade in her hand, the scent of death on the air.

She feinted forward, and his slight hesitation in blocking her meant she actually grazed his arm with the point of her knife, when she had meant only to test his speed and reflexes on defense.

She backed away again, every nerve ending on alert, watching him wince slightly as he wiped the trickle of blood on his tunic.

She frowned. Something was wrong. It had been too easy, as if—

A trick. He knew she was gauging his responses, as he was gauging hers, and he had deliberately slowed his defensive reactions.

Defense was almost purely instinctual. If he had enough self-control to alter his response to an attack…

Unless she was wrong, and he simply lacked skill or quickness…

She snaked forward and he met her, and then their knife hands were tangling, the hilts of their blades locked together. A spark flew. All Jessica’s strength was concentrated there, in the point of contact, and she wasn’t ready for the blow to her stomach that knocked the breath out of her. She doubled over, and used her position to head butt him in the gut, returning the favor. She danced back out of reach as he fought to recover his breath.

She might have gone in for the kill there, but she didn’t trust him, didn’t trust his reactions. He could easily be exaggerating his loss of breath. She sidestepped slowly, waiting and watching.

A moment later Edrik was upright again, mirroring her movements, and for long seconds they circled warily, silently, both of them with bare feet on the cold stone.

Edrik began closing the space between them, his knife held low, casually, and when he darted in it was with blinding speed. Jessica spun away from the hand that held the knife only to meet the knife itself, which Edrik had tossed to his other hand as he attacked. It got a taste of her shoulder, cleaving an inch or more into her flesh, and the shock of pain made her dizzy for just a moment even as she dodged out his reach and fell back into her crouch.

She didn’t bother to wipe away the blood that dripped down her arm. At least it’s not my knife hand, she thought grimly, and in the instant the thought was formed she knew how she was going to win this fight.

Again they circled, probing for weakness, and again Edrik leaped forward, attacking in a blur of speed. Jessica parried, fell back, and let herself falter slightly as he had done, as though her own reactions were dulled by pain or fear.

And now he pressed the attack as he scented victory, and Jessica fell back, and back, waiting with every muscle ready until she saw an opening. Then it was her turn to switch knife hands, from her dominant arm to the wounded arm, where he would never expect danger.

He saw it happen, but it was too late. His momentum was carrying him towards the victory he had been assured was his, and his right side was exposed. He couldn’t stop himself as she drove forward, burying her knife in his side, below the ribs.

In a frozen moment of time she saw his look of surprise, and then his knees crumpled and he fell, his hand to the hurt place at his side.

She took a step back.

He was on his knees, upright. She hadn’t killed him. But how badly was he injured? Would he continue the fight with her knife in his side?

She heard the rasp of his breath, watched as he pulled the knife out, slowly and carefully, a brief gush of blood following the blade from his body. He handed it to her hilt first.

“Finish it,” he said.

She stared down at him. “You want me to kill you?”

“If I yielded, you would kill me just the same.”

Thoughts whirled in her mind. She’d never killed a Fae before, and she’d never killed an unarmed opponent like this, in cold blood.

She reminded herself that if anyone deserved such a death, it was Edrik. If she left him alive, he would go back to plotting and conniving against Kel, or anyone he envied or hated.

And still she couldn’t do it.

But she couldn’t let the Dark Fae know that. They respected strength, not weakness.

She turned her back on Edrik and walked towards Navril.

“My anger towards this princeling has been assuaged in combat. It is enough that I have denied him his victory, and the execution of the vampire. Therefore, I choose not to shed royal blood. Please accept my decision as a mark of my regard for the house of Andon.”

The arena was so quiet she could hear the cry of a hawk high up in the sky. Cheering had erupted when Edrik had handed her his knife, but now the excited buzz of conversation fell into silence.

Navril rose to her feet. But before she could say a word, her expression changed from cool regality to sudden shock.

Instinct made Jessica spin around and dodge to her left, but she was too late to evade Edrik completely. He tackled her to the ground and pinned her arms to her sides with his knees, getting his hands around her throat and squeezing.

Her head swam and her vision went black. In another second she’d be unconscious.

She heard a howl of rage through the roaring in her ears. And then, thank God, Edrik was off of her. She coughed and gasped for breath as her eyes opened, and she was in time to see Hawk drive a knife through Edrik’s heart.

He was in vamp face, his expression utterly feral as he withdrew the knife and watched Edrik collapse slowly to the ground.

Then he pulled her to her feet. “There’s only one portal stone left. Liz has it. We have to hang on until she can reach us.”

“A vampire is in our midst!” Navril cried out in a voice like thunder. “Treachery!”

Hawk handed her a knife. “Back to back,” he said, as if they’d been fighting together forever.

She turned to face whatever was coming, feeling a fierce joy in the knowledge that Hawk was behind her, ready to face it with her. Then she got another shock.

Liz was coming towards them through the crowd, cutting a swath through the Dark Fae as she fought to get to Hawk and Jessica. With her were half a dozen other Green Fae warriors, men Jessica had fought beside all her life.

She didn’t have time to wonder what they could be doing here. Because the first of the Dark Fae was upon her now, and she had her hands full.

She cut down the first man to face her, and then pressed the attack to her next opponent.

She heard Hawk snarl, and the warrior he was fighting gave a scream. The clash of metal blades and the grunts and shouts of battle were all around them.

And then she saw a Dark Fae warrior drive a sword into one of the Green Fae. Jessica cried out as she watched him stagger.

“We can’t keep this up for long. We’re too badly outnumbered. Liz has to go without us.”

“She’ll never do that. But you can try telling her.”

Jessica parried a blow from her opponent and then kicked upwards, into his groin. He doubled over and she shouted, “Liz! Get the hell out of here!”

And then another voice was calling out over the crowd. “Jessica!”

It was Kel. She turned her head and saw him standing at the top of the stairs, above the fray, with something in his hand. Mary was beside him. “Catch!” he cried out, and she reached up her hand in time to intercept the object he threw at her.

A portal stone.

“Liz!” she shouted as she delivered another kick to her opponent, this one to his head. “Liz, go! We have a portal!”

She couldn’t tell if Liz had heard her or not. But Liz could see her. If they teleported, Liz would know it was okay for them to go, too.

They couldn’t leave without Mary. But how could they get to her when it was all they could do just to hold their ground?

“Go!” Kel shouted down to her, and she noticed for the first time that he had another stone in his hand. In the next instant he and Mary disappeared.

There was nothing more to wait for. Jessica spun around and grabbed Hawk’s arm. Then she touched the portal stone, and they were gone.

Once again the journey left her dizzy and disoriented, but this time the feeling only lasted a few seconds. And during those seconds, Hawk wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight.

She could have stayed like that forever.

Chapter Fourteen

When she felt the world coalesce around them again, she lifted her head from Hawk’s shoulder to see where they were.

They were in her mother’s bedroom, and it was full of people.

Celia was kneeling on the floor beside a spellcaster’s bier. She looked pale and exhausted. Evan was standing beside her, one hand on her shoulder. Herbs were smoking, and the scent of fennel and anise hung in the air.

The scent of absinthe.