Immortal Craving (Dark Dynasties) (34 page)

“He’s bloody poisoned on top of everything else,” Jaden muttered.

A woman’s scream spiraled up, slicing the air.

They slammed through the doors so hard that one of them bounced against the wall. Bay completely forgot caution, rushing forward into a chamber that was filled with flickering light. She skidded to a stop just in time. There was a horrified shout.

“Bay, no!”

Her breath caught in her throat as she tried to take in the scene before her.

They had come into a low, circular chamber, where
the only light came from flaming sconces bolted into the stone. An altar sat at the far side of the room near the wall, a slab of shining obsidian carved with unfamiliar symbols and covered with a variety of golden implements.

The floor was etched deep with concentric circles and more unusual symbols. The entirety of one circle, encompassing a space roughly ten feet in diameter, was alight with flickering blue flame. The flames rose almost to the ceiling, dancing and shimmering as they formed a wall. It was that which Bay had almost run into.

And beyond the wall, encircled by the strange flames, were Tasmin and Arsinöe.

“Tasmin!” Bay shouted his name, but he didn’t turn. All she saw was his bare back, the muscles tense. She was amazed he was still standing. Blood streamed from multiple wounds, staining the stone at his feet. As she watched, he swayed a little. But when the woman across from him hooked her fingers into claws and went for his eyes in a blur of movement, he caught her hand in midair. Then he squeezed, crushing her wrist as though it were nothing.

Arsinöe screamed again, pain mingled with outrage, and Bay had her first real look at the Ptolemy queen.

She was stunningly beautiful. Or rather, she had been before she’d been burned. Arsinöe was dressed in a simple, elegant shift made of what looked like red silk. It skimmed a body of sleek curves and wiry muscle, and the black ankh of her people was bared proudly at her collarbone. Her hair was a riot of ebony waves that cascaded around her shoulders, framing a face dominated by a pair of dark, haunting eyes.

But her golden skin was a mess. One cheek was blackened
and charred, still smoking. Her neck was a cracked and smoldering wasteland. And the same sorts of patches existed all over her exposed skin. When she turned her head to look at them all, Bay could see that an entire section of hair on the side of her head had been burned away.

“You!” she shouted in a voice that had commanded armies to do terrible things. “Get me out of here, and you will be rewarded! I’ll give you anything you want! This man is mad!”

“Unbind us!” Tasmin cried, in a voice that was both his and not his. “I am not yours to chain, Ptolemy bitch!”

“He dragged her down here through the sunlight,” Lyra muttered. “She’ll be weaker until the sun sets, but after that she may be able to get out of there.”

“I told you, this is not how it’s done, demon! We must call your master first! He needs to be here to see, to understand what I can give him!” Arsinöe’s voice was stronger than her looks would suggest. Still, there was a note of desperation in her voice.

“No! Separate us first! Whatever business you have with my master will be done only then, bitch!” The voice was foul, a childish shriek dragged through gravel. “The Rakshasa has agreed to die for it. You know how to do this! I can make it hurt so much more for you if you refuse again!”

“I saved you!” Arsinöe cried. “I spared you the wrath of the Grigori who hunt your kind! You threaten the only vampire who would protect you!”

Bay could hear Arsinöe’s bewilderment as clearly as she could her fury. The Ptolemy queen had truly expected some sort of loyalty from this dark thing. The rest of the world of night had moved cautiously around her for far
too long. Arsinöe no longer understood that even
she
had limits.

“Destroy it, Arsinöe!” Bay shouted, in a voice stronger and clearer than she’d thought herself capable of using. “You can’t control it. If you knew how to catch and bind it, you know how to kill it! Spare the Rakshasa and we’ll let you live.”

Arsinöe’s eyes flashed, and Bay knew she was looking into the face of an evil far more ancient and capable than anything she ought to be dealing with. Still, she had no choice. Her only consolation was that there was a flaming wall currently between them.

“And what are you supposed to be?” Arsinöe sneered, looking more closely. Then she smiled, a terrible thing. “Ah. The beast has been busy while he’s been out. Charming.”

“End this, Arsinöe,” Jaden said, and when Arsinöe looked at him, all her dark amusement vanished to be replaced by pure, white-hot hatred.

“Jaden. Filthy gutter cat traitor. I’ll have you ripped to pieces.”

His smile was knifelike. “You’ve tried that, remember?”

“Finish what you started, bitch,” the demon snarled with Tasmin’s mouth. “I will call my master once I’m free, and then we’ll see how impressed he is with your
protection
of me, his faithful servant. The ritual circle is cast. The symbols have been carved into my flesh.
Do it now!
”

His hand shot out and he gripped her by the throat, lifting her off the ground. In her weakened state, all Arsinöe could do was gasp and gag and struggle as her toes brushed against the floor.

“Don’t—” she rasped.

He let her fall to the floor, where she collapsed, holding her hand to her throat and coughing. She glared up at him, liquid eyes narrowed.

Then, slowly, she picked up a small curved ritual knife from the floor beside her feet, one which had likely been used to make whatever cuts already existed in Tasmin’s chest. She staggered upright, then began to chant, touching the tip of the dagger to the center of Tasmin’s forehead, his throat, his chest. Then she handed the blade to Tasmin, and the triumphant hatred in her eyes as she looked at the group beyond the circle told Bay all she needed to know.

“No!” Bay screamed.

Tasmin lifted his arm above his head, and crying several words in an ancient tongue, he plunged the dagger deep into his own chest.

Bay’s tormented scream echoed in her ears as the floor began to shake and Tasmin’s body crumpled. The outline of his body began to blur and twist as something dark pulled itself up and out of him. Arsinöe looked down impassively and pushed Tasmin’s body over with a toe. He fell onto his back, and Bay saw the wound in Tasmin’s chest open wide, gaping as something like smoke poured forth.

“Shit, the sun’s setting,” Lyra hissed. “Look at her! We need to do something, or get the hell out of here!”

As they stared, Arsinöe’s skin began to knit itself back together, turning charred skin golden and smooth, regenerating the burned-off section of hair.

“No,” Bay said, feeling everything inside go still and calm at once. She looked at Tasmin, his chest unmoving,
the obsidian hilt jutting unnaturally from it. And she remembered his smile as he’d tried to teach her the art of illusion, the sense of humor that lurked beneath his too often serious exterior. He’d been sweet, and patient… despite the fact that he’d been used terribly. He was still capable of love, and what he’d had, he’d given to her. She knew that, even if he’d never given her the words. Everything he’d done, he’d done to protect her.

The least she could do was finish what he’d started here and take him, or what was left, home.

Even if it was too late, she wouldn’t leave him here with these monsters.

She stared at Arsinöe and remembered what Tasmin had said that night at Mabon. The Ptolemy queen turned, sensing the intense stare fixed on her. Her eyes narrowed as they locked with Bay’s.

Bay called up the only image she had in her mind that was fully formed, the one Tasmin had left her with. It was a bright, sunny day in a meadow.

For just an instant, Bay was there, seeing the meadow again, feeling the sunlight on her skin. Believing it. Then she pushed the image out of herself, feeling it leave her, and gave it to Arsinöe knowing the effect would be very different.

You’re burning.

The shriek was immediate, and terrible. When Bay opened her eyes, Arsinöe covered her face with her hands and continued screaming. She writhed, trying to cover exposed skin from a sun that didn’t exist anywhere but in her own head. She stumbled through the fire of the ritual circle blindly, and then she really did catch. The circle vanished, but Arsinöe’s hair, her skin, everything was in
flames. She flailed blindly, then headed straight for Bay, her hands reaching, her face the most horrific thing she’d ever seen.

All Bay had time to do was throw her arms up in front of her face, the banshee’s scream echoing in her ears.

Then she was gone in a sudden rush of air as a figure slammed into her from the side, hurling her away from Bay and into the wall, where she exploded in a burst of blue flame. Bay slowly pulled her arms away from her face and stared—first at the black stain on the wall where Arsinöe had hit, then at the desperately wounded man who stood before her, back hunched, gulping in air as the final tendrils of smoke poured from his tattered chest. In his hand he gripped the dagger, which he’d pulled free. As she stared at him, he let go, and it clattered to the floor.

“Tasmin,” Bay sobbed out, stumbling to where he was and throwing her arms around him, feeling him sag against her.

“It’s gone,” he said, his voice barely a sigh. She felt every ounce of tension leave his body. Then she felt the life leaving it too as he slumped in her arms.

“No,” she said as the inky blackness that had been inside of Tasmin for so long coalesced into a single shifting shadow in the center of where the circle had been. It almost looked like the figure of a large, winged man for a moment, but then it was again nothing but smoke.

Bay sank to the floor with Tasmin, his grip on her slackening. She sensed the other wolves moving around her, heard their voices, but none of the words registered.

“Sun’s setting…”

“Have to get out of here…”

“I’ll carry him, let’s go…”

All she could see were Tasmin’s eyes, half-open, the bright gold of them dull as they looked at her without really seeing.

“Please,” she said softly. “Don’t leave me. I love you.”

“Love you,” Tasmin said, a whispered echo of her words.

The shadowy demon that was Hunger began to leave, a rolling, inky mist that drifted across the floor. But it stopped when Tasmin whispered to her, curving around. Bay could see no eyes, but she had the distinct impression it was staring at her. Speculating. She would never truly be sure of what.

After a moment, its deep, thick voice coiled through the air like smoke.

“A gift for the bitch’s death. Blood heals all wounds, pretty. Even mine.”

Then it turned and simply vanished with the vaguest impression of a flapping wing and a mocking whisper.

“Until we meet again.”

Jaden looked at her, and looked at the doors. “If you’re going to try it, do it now, Bay. I can feel the sun setting. We’ve just killed their queen. I don’t think they’re going to want to sit and talk about it.”

Without another word, Bay screwed up her courage, sliced open her wrist with a delicately extended claw, and pressed it to Tasmin’s mouth. Bay held her breath as she waited, watching for any sign of movement. And finally, slowly, she felt the faintest bit of pressure and saw him swallow. After a couple more shallow pulls at her wrist, Jaden, who was pacing like a caged animal, couldn’t wait any longer.

“That’ll have to do for now. You can get back at it in
the car. If it’s going to work, that’ll be enough to hold him until we can get the hell out of here.”

Eric reached down and picked Tasmin up as though he weighed nothing, tossing him over one shoulder into a fireman’s carry. Bay got to her feet and took a final look around the room. It felt strangely empty.

But then, Bay supposed many places would without the fierce Ptolemy queen. She felt a moment of pity for the ones who would be caught in any battle for ascension to the throne, and then brushed it aside. The Ptolemy were no longer her problem, and she was happy to have it stay that way.

It was time to go home.

W
HEN HE AWAKENED
, it was to the most tender kisses.

They were light at first, languid, the kisses of a lover who’d been longing for you while you were away. Then they grew more persistent, covering his face, insisting he reciprocate.

He had no idea where or who he was, he thought groggily, but
something
good must have happened for him to be earning this kind of attention.

Tasmin smiled, opened his eyes.

And was greeted by an enormous tongue planted directly up his left nostril.

“Gah!” he cried, and flailed his arms, which sent blankets flying everywhere. Encouraged, his admirer leapt up on the bed, pinned him between massive paws, and drenched his face.

It was a hell of a way to realize you were alive—but he’d gladly take it.

“Grimm! Damn it, how did you get in here? Hey, you’re smothering him, get off!”

For a few moments, he couldn’t see anything but a big wet nose and a pair of dark, overjoyed eyes. Then Grimm was being hauled off of him, admonished to behave himself, and forcibly escorted out the door. He caught a glimpse of a massive bone being tossed, heard a loud
thunk
as it hit the floor, watched Grimm’s tail go flying out… and then Bay shut the bedroom door, leaning back against it with wide eyes.
Her
bedroom door. They were back in Tipton, and for the moment, Tasmin couldn’t think of a single place he’d rather be.

Bay looked traumatized.

“Oh my God, that dog. So, so much dog.”

When he started laughing, she turned her gaze on him, startled at first, and then filling with a warmth he’d been worried he would never see again. Along with the rest of her.

“You’re awake,” she said, crossing the room quickly. She perched lightly on the side of the bed, close but not close enough for him to reach her. He started to wonder why she acted like he might break if she got too close, but as pieces of memory began to trickle back, his questions vanished. All, that is, save one.