Immortal Craving (Dark Dynasties) (24 page)

Ty didn’t argue, just spun the vehicle so quick and hard that it dislodged the two vampires clinging to the hood and sent them hurtling into the snow. He fishtailed as he started again, then righted himself and drove back toward where there was now a battle going on between a group of roughly ten Ptolemy and four werewolves. When Bay rose up to look, keeping her arms wrapped around a panting
and whining Grimm, she could already see crimson spattered in the fresh snow.

Lily leaned out the window, and Bay watched in amazement as her friend’s entire form began to glow with white light. It left her fingertips in a rush as she hurled her power at the attacking Ptolemy, over and over, as Ty skidded to a stop nearby.

More figures rushed out of the trees on either side of the road. Ty cursed in Gaelic, then turned his head to look at Bay.

“Don’t move.”

Then he and Lily both slammed out of the car, leaving her alone as all around her deadly lights began to flash.

She struggled to breathe. She’d never been more terrified in her life.

The SUV rocked once, twice as bodies slammed into it. His ears back, Grimm hunkered to the floor with her, and she could feel him shaking. She hung on to his big body, shoved her face into his fur, and wished it were over. The sounds were awful—snarls and hisses, shouted oaths and howls, and cries of pain from both animal and vampire. She didn’t dare stick her head up to look, and didn’t want to anyway. They were vastly outnumbered. All she could do was hope like hell that Lily was as much of a badass warrior queen as she’d always imagined her to be.

Otherwise, her deepest fears about Lily’s involvement with the world of night would be realized. The violence that pulsed through vampire society like lifeblood would destroy them all. Bay squeezed her eyes shut and wished she were home, surrounded by the trappings of the life she loved. And she did love it, Bay realized. She had friends and laughter, light and warmth and joy. Lily might
have embraced her new world, but she’d had no choice. Bay had a choice. Or she would, if she lived through the night.

She knew in that moment that she had not been made for so much darkness. So much death.

This life could never be for her.

In her mind, though she knew it would do no good, she chanted Tasmin’s name over and over like a talisman, hoping that somehow he would figure out she was here, that she and the others desperately needed help.

The door flew open, nearly ripped off its hinges, and a muscular vampire with wild eyes that glowed green in the dark reached in for her, dragging her out into the snow. He moved as lightning fast as all Ptolemy did. Bay was stunned to hear Grimm’s snarl, but caught only a glimpse of him snapping at the air where the Ptolemy’s hand had been before her attacker slammed the door shut again, trapping the dog inside. She could hear his desperate, furious barks as he tried to get out to her.

Her heart ached to hear it. All she could hope was that he stayed trapped in there until help came, because then he’d be safe.

Arms locked, viselike around her, not giving at all when she thrashed.

Bay opened her mouth to scream, echoing the name in her head, trying to reach her any way she could.

“Lily!”

But she heard nothing, only seeing swarms of Ptolemy and, from the corner of her eye, the continuing barrage of white hot energy that meant her friends were still fighting. There was a rush of air, and she was in the trees, still locked in the arms of the unfamiliar vampire.

Alone.

He dumped her on the ground, where she landed in the soft snow. Her bare hands reached to brace herself, sinking into the cold. Bay looked up, drinking in shallow little breaths, trying to propel herself backward. Her legs refused to cooperate the way she wanted, instead flailing clumsily.

The vampire looked down at her with a triumphant smile, fangs glinting in the dark. She could barely see, but she knew he could see her perfectly. In the darkness, his eyes were the color of poison.

“You going to try to run and make it interesting?” he asked.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she whimpered. It was the sort of thing she’d always sworn she wouldn’t say. As it turned out, she thought bitterly, it was the only thing to say. She didn’t want to die. If she was going to die, she didn’t want it to hurt. And she knew she would beg if he wanted. She would do anything.

Her heart beat rapidly in her chest. Bay was aware of every breath she took, every tiny movement of her body. She felt wonderfully, terribly alive, her mind alight with thoughts of her parents, her brother, her friends… her
life
. All of it in the hands of this unforgiving and ancient creature.

When he laughed, she knew he had no mercy in him.

“I have a gift for you,” he said. “From the queen herself. The gift of the gods. You should be honored.”

She wanted to tell him to go to hell. She wanted to fly at him and go down fighting. But she couldn’t seem to make herself move, or speak in a way that revealed anything but the abject terror coursing through her system.
Rational thought flitted maddeningly through her head, so close, but impossible to catch. Her body felt weighted down with lead.

“I don’t want anything,” she heard herself saying, a rapid patter of words that were no more than a reflexive plea. “Please. I don’t want—”

“Ignorant bitch,” he snapped. “I don’t care what you
want
. You’re a mortal, a weakling child compared to me. And you’ll take a message back to your demon-tainted, cat-loving friend for my queen.”

Hope, though fragile, flickered to life deep within her.

Slowly, Bay nodded, ashamed of the tears that sprang to her eyes. “I—I can take a message.” She wished she were home in bed, dreaming. But she was so cold.

The vampire smirked. “How sweet. Beautiful
and
accommodating. Come here, then. You can go… just as soon as I give you a kiss.”

She realized what he meant to do a split second before he was on her. A short, sharp scream escaped her before his hand was clamped over her mouth, his big body pinning her down into the snow. Then she felt his fangs, like an animal’s, in her throat.

Bay couldn’t move, the air squeezed out of her from his weight. There was a sharp pain as her skin was pierced, and then he began to drink from her in long, greedy pulls. She was light-headed quickly from the lack of air, and the sensation intensified as her lifeblood was stolen from her. Her fingers flexed convulsively, digging at the ground beneath the snow as though she could somehow get away from him.

She could smell him, an unfamiliar and heavy cologne that only intensified the feeling of being violated. The
skin of his palm was rough against her mouth, the body pressed so snugly against hers a stranger’s. In the distance she could hear the sounds of the fight, and as her mind began to untether from her body, she could smell the cold air, the snow, the beloved piney bite of the woods.

With that untethering came a surprising calm. It was easier to drift this way, to stop caring. She just wanted to stay in the woods, to sleep…

The world was beginning to go dark by the time the vampire tore his mouth from her neck. She looked dully at him, his mouth bright crimson even in the dark. Bay didn’t make a sound. She was no longer capable.

“Now,” he said, shoving up the sleeve of his coat and raking his own fang across his flesh. “Your gift. And you can tell Lily that everything she holds dear will belong to the queen of the Ptolemy. Everyone she loves will be branded with the mark of the one true queen—or they will burn. And she will watch both before she dies.”

Bay could only watch as the wrist dripping blood loomed closer. Her heart fluttered weakly in her chest. She was dying.

That was when she heard a sound, a distant roar like a freight train bearing down on them, closer and closer, until her ears were ringing with it. The vampire’s head snapped up, and she could see the horror in his eyes. He opened his mouth to scream, but if he made a noise it was consumed by the one already rippling the air.

Bay’s eyes slipped shut, her head full of nothing but that anguished, inhuman sound that seemed to shake the earth itself.
For me?
she thought. The idea was vaguely interesting… but she was slipping. And the darkness was warm and welcoming.

She had the faint impression of being lifted, gathered together and against when she longed to be adrift and apart. Then there were only whispers.

Only whispers in the dark.

He held her dying body under the stars and cursed the gods.

Tasmin had no idea where Anura was. He barely knew where
he
was. All he had done was follow Bailey’s voice, calling his name over and over until it became a scream. Anura’s shouts hadn’t held him. He’d known, with the kind of soul-deep certainty that he had nearly forgotten how to feel, that Bailey was in danger.

His rage had sparked when he’d smelled the Ptolemy, and when he’d seen the vampire on top of her, he’d snapped. The tattered remains of her attacker littered the ground not far away, his mouth still befouled with the taste of Ptolemy blood. He hadn’t gotten enough in his mouth to affect his mark; the Ptolemy ankh wouldn’t befoul the lion’s paw. Still, the metallic taste of it lingered, despite a mouthful of snow he’d tried to use to deaden it.

And now Bailey was limp in his arms, her life rapidly leaving her. He had wasted precious time on the kill, but with so much rage, his rational mind refused to clear for long. Even now, he struggled with what clawed at his consciousness.

Let me taste her, let me have her, she’s dead anyway… I want what is MINE.

“No,” he growled aloud. With shaking hands, he unbuttoned her coat to get a better look at what had been done to her neck. Immediately he saw the two puncture wounds, slowly oozing more blood down her neck. The
bastard hadn’t even bothered to seal the wound. Tasmin pulled down the neck of her sweater and saw that the faint outline of the Ptolemy ankh had already begun to form on her skin. The venom from the vampire’s fangs, one half of what was needed to complete her siring, was doing its work.

For that to have appeared meant she was too far gone for anything but death or vampirism. He would not let her die. But someone would have to put their teeth in her again to override the Ptolemy toxin now loose in her blood.

And then… the rest.

Tasmin threw his head back and gave another furious roar, his voice that of the lion. His hatred of the Ptolemy was a living thing, snakes beneath his skin. They had taken everything from him. Now they had taken Bailey’s human life, and again he was powerless to stop it. All he could do was erase whatever claim they might have on her.

Except he might very well kill her himself in the process.

Desperate, he looked in the direction where he could still hear Lily, Ty, and the wolves battling a horde of Ptolemy. If he could turn the fight for them quickly enough—

There was a pause in her heartbeat. Then a longer one.

There was no time.

Tasmin bent to her neck, inhaling the sweet scent that haunted even his dreams, and sank his teeth into her flesh as gently as he could. Even as near death as she was, Bailey made a soft, pained sound that tore at his heart. This, all of this, was his fault. He hadn’t been able to protect his
brothers, hadn’t been able to protect her—he’d only made her more of a target.

Shaking, he took only a single sip of her precious blood. It hit his tongue with the taste of sunlight, of ripe berries and summer fields, and the hunger crashed over him in a wave. Tasmin’s body jerked, his hands clenched, bunching her clothing where he held her. His jaw tried to close, to dig in deeper and drain what was left.

It was what he’d feared… but so much worse, because it was her.

Tasmin struggled to maintain control, nearly choking in his effort not to pull any more blood from her fragile neck. And for the first time, he addressed what lived inside of him as what it was.

Demon, let her live. Let me turn her. I’ll give you anything—just let go, this once.

He could actually feel it pause and consider, feel the stillness inside. Then he heard it in his mind, the foul voice that had whispered to him since the beginning.

Anything?

All of his hopes died at the calculating hunger in that voice. He knew then that there would be no ritual to remove the demon, no future he might share with Bailey. But if that was what he had to give up so she kept breathing, so be it.

He would not lose one more person because he was too weak to hold them.

Anything
, he promised.

Then hear this, Rakshasa. I will spare her in return for two simple things. First, you will stop this ploy with the Empusa, Anura, to cast me out. We’re bound, you
and me. My release is not for you to attempt. We will be unbound when I say, and not before.

Done
, Tasmin thought. It was a promise easily given, though he had no hope that the demon’s method of unbinding, if it ever happened, would end with both of them alive. A small price. His life was worth little. He had no illusions.

Good.
The demon’s voice, a hiss echoing up from the darkness, was unmistakably smug.
That brings us to the other. I will have a life from you. One of my choosing, at the time of my choosing. You will take this life without a complaint, without question. If I choose to… assist you… you will not struggle. This is my price. Do you agree?

Tasmin hesitated, shaking as he tried to stop himself from savaging her. What kind of deal was this? If he saved Bailey just to have to kill her later—

Not her, you fool. It will be another. She is nearly gone, Rakshasa. Make your choice.

But of course, there really was no choice. There never had been. Tasmin felt a surprising amount of relief as he accepted his fate. Somehow, he knew he wasn’t going to make it out of this alive. But Bay would. He could give her that.

You have my word. My promise. As long as I can save her.

The hunger receded until it was nothing, leaving only a lingering sense of dark amusement he knew wasn’t his—along with the knowledge that this retreat constituted a sealed bargain. Gently, his jaw aching with the effort it had taken him to keep from snapping her neck, Tasmin withdrew his fangs. Then, as quickly as he could manage,
he extended a single short, sharp claw from his index finger and opened a shallow cut in his wrist with it. He didn’t hesitate, pressing it to Bailey’s mouth, willing her to drink.