[excerpt] (23 page)

“Ducky, technically I was dead three days. You want dead? Look at your lover. He’s dead. I’ll have his heart before I leave this time.”

“You pompous corpse. Over my dead body.” Serina spat on him.

Jasper licked her saliva from his cheek. “Ducky, that’s already been arranged. I think I’ll miss you. You’re a spry one.”

“When I’m done with you Jasper, you’ll wish you never met me.”

“Did your mother teach you naught? Your spells do not work upon the undead. I am invincible. Sticks and stones won’t break my bones and your word shan’t ever hurt me.”

In a bitter tone, Serina turned her head and asked the wolf, “Why would you do to us that which was done to you? Was your life not taken in such vile circumstance?”

“My life is none of your damn business.” Jonah knotted his fist in her hair and twisted her head back in Jasper’s direction. He crooked her arm back behind her so she couldn’t struggle without injuring herself and then he mirrored Jasper, licking her neck in slow strokes up to her cheek.

Serina’s rage boiled. Despite the pain from her hair being ripped out, she turned and chomped down hard, severing his tongue. She spat the still-twitching chunk of meat onto the ground. The wolf attempted to scream, but it came out jumbled. And honestly? She didn’t care what he had to say.

Jonah cranked her neck back to face Jasper.

Serina watched horrified, as Jasper’s jaw stretched open like a boa constrictor’s so wide. Was he going to devour him whole? In a panicked state, Serina screamed, “Take this rotted creature without a soul, and place him heartless in a six-foot hole. Remove his head. Render the bastard dead, dead, dead.”

“I’m all ready dead, Ducky, but ’twas a valiant attempt.” A second later his teeth disappeared. Lucian never knew what bit him.

Serina felt Lucian’s heart skipping beats, missing many altogether. Her heart followed the same path. Serina corralled her energy and pictured a bullet piercing Jasper’s heart. In front of Jasper and Lucian an explosion detonated, never reaching the vampire.

Jasper paused, looked up and smiled. “Good try, Ducky. Invincible!” He wasted no time ripping two new holes in Lucian’s throat.

Again, she allowed her spirit to join Lucian. In him, she tried fiercely to keep his blood circulating by softly pumping his heart. The exact opposite of what she’d done to the wolf. She knew as long as Lucian had a pulse, he had a prayer. Serina had one last hope. Maybe the Gods, all of them from every religion and cult, would hear her pleas and help her.

“Papa Legba, great Lord, please open the gate so that I may speak with Baron Samedi, Lord of death. Hear me. Help me. God, you out there? Anubis? Atum? Isis? Ra? Some assistance, please? Do not allow Lucian St. James passage through to you. His destiny has yet to be fulfilled. He sits now at the crossroads. Return him to me.” Serina turned her focus back to her husband and through waves of tears she decreed, “You will not die, Lucian. Do you understand me? Lucian, you are my life, as I am yours. I am your lifeline. You are mine, Lucian. Mine. Hold onto me, to us. Lucian, whatever you do, do not follow the light. No bright lights, m’lord! Follow my voice, my heart, our love. I’m so sorry I can’t stop him from doing this to you. Please don’t leave me…”

From within Lucian’s body, Serina witnessed his heart quiver then stop. That’s when the burning, crushing pain consumed her. She couldn’t breathe, could barely form a coherent thought. She numbly asked the wolf, “Please just allow me to touch him. I have to touch him.” Oddly, Jonah obliged and set her down.

Jasper cast an estranged eye at Serina and his wolf lending his allegiance elsewhere. He swung his free hand through the air and began to orchestrate an unforeseen peril.

Before Serina could say anything exceptionally unladylike, charcoal-colored vines with glistening thorns pushed their way through the earth. Each gnarly root wrapped around and pierced Jonah’s feet into the ground.

Hearing a high-pitched clicking noise coming from behind her, Serina whipped her head around and saw blood-red beetles the size of mice with fangs and needle-sharp pinchers headed for her. They reminded her of ladybugs with lobster claws, two of her favorite things she’d never ever look at the same way again. “What in the name of God are those?”

Jonah answered, his voice quickened. “Just what they appear to be—blood beetles. They’ll skin the flesh from a carcass in no time. Get up here.”

Serina found herself back in Jonah’s arms after he yanked her from the ground. Jonah held her easily in one arm, while he swatted the insects with his free arm, crushing some with his bare hand.

In a low voice Jonah said, “We have to get away from this,” he yanked the vine-like garrote from his foot and calculated each step, trying his best to avoid the beetles and vines. One of the barbed roots filleted a large area of his flesh down to the bone.

Jasper erected himself. “Do not take that siren, Jonah; I want the witch’s essence.” He tossed Lucian to the ground as a child bored of his toy does, and stepped towards Jonah and Serina.

“It’ll be a cold day in hell before you sink your rotted fangs into me, you giant louse,” Serina screamed.

“As you wish, Ducky,” Jasper retorted. Again he waved his hand to the heavens and commanded the sky. “You’re going to be sorry you didn’t wear your coat and galoshes, Ducky.” With a quick snap of his fingers and a rolling wave, Jasper pointed to the heavens.

As ice-cold winds surrounded her, Serina buried her face in Jonah’s furry chest. Blizzard-like conditions turned the mountainside a blinding white within minutes.

Then a loud rumbling shook the earth as ice bolts penetrated the hard ground.

The wolf tried to dodge the daggers, but it was of no use, Jasper’s expertise triumphed and the icy spears impaled him.

Although he bled profusely, Serina wasn’t too much worried for him after seeing how quickly he healed.

His tongue had already regenerated.

Her husband on the other hand…

Chapter Twelve

Blanketed in a snowy grave, ice chips clung to Lucian’s eyelids and lashes, and his perfect pouty lips turned a non-kissable shade of ebony.

Serina wanted to die with him. She had no idea what real pain felt like until she saw the man she’d given her heart, her soul, and her dreams to, dead. She couldn’t breathe, and she didn’t care if ever she did again. She looked to the wolf and with quivering lips begged, “Kill me, Jonah. Please?”

“I can not, Serina. I shall attempt to protect you from Jasper, but he has proven his strength and powers. He may just keep you around to see if you’d be of any use to him. I know for a fact he does not care for women, so it would not be sex he craves. I wanted that,” Jonah admitted. “There are givers in a relationship and there are receivers. Jasper likes being on the receiving end, if you understand me.”

Could this conversation honestly be any more bizarre? Serina’s new outlook on reality took an unbelievable twist. In the arms of a half man/half wolf, and having a conversation with him about the sexual preferences of a vampire no less, made her wonder if straight jackets came in her size.

What’s left of my life has become stranger than fiction.

At least all the remaining beetles lay frozen under the snow for the time being.

I found the silver lining
.
Too bad I can’t decipher the bloody color once again.
She laughed hysterically knowing shock would be a blissful welcome.

“How sweet, Jonah, you protecting our little Ducky. How quickly you forget she just tried to knock out your manhood, bite off your tongue and—oh, try to rip out your heart. There must be something sweet running in her veins. Bring her to me, Jonah. Now!”

Jonah closed the distance carrying Serina to him, apologizing with a pathetic excuse with each step.

Futilely, she kicked, screamed and bit her way through the wolf’s fur, spitting out chunks of it, getting some strands still stuck between her teeth. Anything...She could handle anything, but that vile, noxious creature touching her. She fought twice as hard when Jasper had her arm behind her back, and pinned her face-first up against a tree.

“Jasper, may my blood solidify in your veins, and leave behind permanent stains. I’ll see you disintegrate into a pile of ash, to be disposed of with the trash. May holy water boil away your rotted skin, ridding us of your evil sins. I can only pray someone takes you apart limb by limb.”

“Oh, like I’ve never heard that before! That’s a thought out anathema, Serina. Pity it shan’t work. You’re persistent if nothing else.” Jasper knocked Serina’s head with one powerful blow into the solid bark and then ravaged her neck. Blood splattered and covered both men when he tore open her jugular vein.

Trapped, just as her husband had been only moments ago, Serina felt as if she’d ingested Laudanum. Nothing seemed real. Hallucinogenic thoughts and feelings flooded her as the vampire fed, sickening emotions she couldn’t understand and sure as hell didn’t want.

Serina knew the tales, read the books about a vampire’s bite being so erotic that people would do anything for the next encounter, becoming a wanton creature of habit, even from the most heinous beings. And now, trapped firmly in his grasp she understood. The damned tales held truths. Her slovenly body deceived her—rejoiced as he drained her life. Confusion and guilt ripped a larger hole in her heart.

She wanted him to continue, and on the flipside of the coin, she wanted to rip out his blackened clump of flesh he had the nerve to call a heart. If this wasn’t the epitome of a love-hate relationship! She tried to scream his name belligerently, “
Jas-per
…” Instead, languorous little syllables slipped softly from her lips. She cried out the last bits and pieces of her withered soul.

Serina fought the orgasmic convulsions, except struggling intensified them. The hot, wet sensation between her thighs clawed its way up to gnash at her nipples. She vomited.

The wolf coughed and distracted Jasper. When the vamp looked at him, he asked, “Good to the last drop?”

Jasper rolled his eyes towards the wolf, and as fear rapidly replaced arrogance, he dropped Serina on top of her husband’s lifeless shell.

Not quite himself, Jasper cried, “What has she done to me, Jonah? Incantations don’t work on the dead.” Jasper looked up to see the wolf looking like the picture of health, and knew he’d made a fatal error. “How?” he screamed, as smoke flowed from his mouth. “Witch!”

Jonah noticed where Serina’s blood sprayed Jasper, more holes bore through his carcass. Jonah just needed a clean set of clothes. “How did that saying go? ‘Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.’” Jonah laughed and clapped his paw-like hands together as flames exploded from Jasper’s nose, ears, and mouth. “It wasn’t her words, Jasper. It was her blood. Serina, you’ve turned him into a fire-breathing dragon. Jolly good show. Unless, of course, he doesn’t disintegrate.”

Serina teetered between lunacy and lucidity. Coming in and out of her dark shadows she witnessed Jasper bend over, holding his stomach and groaning as he smoldered. She prayed the images were true as the overbearing weight of her eyelids stifled her view.

With his clothes melted to him, Jasper rolled around in the snow, and left once pure, white, sparkling flakes, charred, and unsightly. He grabbed handfuls of the frozen crystals and stuffed them into his mouth, only to have the smoke effuse thicker. He coughed and choked up actual lumps of coal. Gingerly, he picked one up, looked at it, and took flight, headed toward the falls. Behind him, a dark polluted trail spoiled the skyline.

Jonah watched the vampire turn mid-air and plunge headfirst into the water. Bubbles of steaming vapor erupted, and boiled the vamp’s skin. He covered his ears from Jasper’s heinous bellows as they echoed into the night.

“Holy mother of God, all her wishes are taking place,” Jonah noted.

At the water’s edge, Jasper yelled, “I am going to kill the witch, you, and then your family.” Defiant, he glared at the wolf, before he shifted into the form of a black raven and took to the sky. Circling the area once, Jasper plummeted towards Jonah, turned and disappeared.

Jonah headed toward Serina. The snow crunched under foot with each step he took. He bent over and brushed the remaining flakes from her face. Moving slowly down her body he removed the snow from her chest and allowed himself the stolen luxury to feel the fullness of her bosom, and the firmness of her nipples under her shirt. Ashamed, he stopped, picked her up and walked away, leaving Lucian alone, to rot. He couldn’t help what happened to him. But he could do something about Serina. Just what, remained to be seen.

****

A feeling deep within Serina tugged her from a dark wasteland. Drained didn’t touch the way she felt. All she wanted to do was close her eyes and dream of Lucian, yet something dragged her back from the black abandonment where she hid. Her eyes fluttered a few times before she was able to focus on her surroundings. Back in the arms of the wolf she felt safe, until she realized he carried her away from Lucian.

“Put me down. You cannot take me away from my husband. We cannot leave him here like this, please,” Serina whispered. She didn’t have much strength left, and she wasn’t about to waste it screaming. “Please, please do this for me. He deserves so much more than this.”

“Your husband is dead, Serina. He has neither a pulse nor blood to bind him to this earth.”

She cried, “He has me.” Then grief got the best of her, and her world darkened.

Jonah covered much of the mountain’s rugged terrain easily as if he were out for his evening constitutional. He found them shelter inside a cave. He knew he had a few days of safety until Jasper would come looking for them and he would come. Of that, there was no doubt. Jasper stole Serina’s blood, which almost killed him, and the bloodsucker would want revenge. Jonah also knew the blood-bond between Jasper, Serina and him made them an easier target than pickpockets working the London Tower on the tourists.

Unconscious for hours, he didn’t know if Serina would wake up wanting blood in the same manner as a vampire, or if she would be an indentured servant as he was. With no medical background Jonah had no idea how to replace blood loss, but his only option was to give her his blood and with that came the question of how to and how much to give? He gave up thinking about what-ifs, and pulled a pocketknife from his satchel. With one quick flick of his knife, he sliced his wrist open, pressed it to Serina’s mouth, and watched as his blood flowed from his wound and ran down the front of her neck, and saturated her shirt. The what-ifs he wondered about were about to come back and bite him in the arse, because seeing all the blood on her tickled his senses, and subsequently enticed his own hungers and desires with a murderous intensity. He fought the urges even as his fur stiffened and stood on end. Other areas of his anatomy became aroused as well. He looked down at his tattered trousers, and saw a giant bulge protrude that threatened to shred the last threads that held his pants together. To say the least, he couldn’t think, his heads hurt so, both. The one on top his shoulders felt as if he had a vice grip around him, squeezing the daylights from him. The one beneath the trousers wanted a vice grip on him squeezing him...period.

His good intentions backfired when Serina’s soft lips lapped at the fluid. Her mouth covered his skin like a warm blanket with each sweep of the tongue. Oh, what he wouldn’t give to have her mouth elsewhere on his body, sucking on him as she was now.

Getting a little tipsy, Jonah stepped back, his arm very much caught between her teeth like a bear in a trap.

Exquisite!

He hadn’t suffered pain like this in years. Just how far gone was he to enjoy this torture. He knew he always enjoyed sex rough, but even this pushed the envelope. This snapped him out of his ethical dilemma, whether to let her finish her snack before he had his—her, or wait like a gentleman. After prying his wrist from her mouth, it resembled a dog’s chew toy, a mangled mess of torn flesh and bone. For once he was grateful of the powers that came with being a werewolf. He stood and watched his arm rejuvenate itself before his eyes.