Of Blood and Passion (43 page)

She didn’t see the vampire who swept her up, then two seconds later, deposited her on the ground just outside the dome of magic from which Phineas Blackstone had once created his vampire utopia, his vampire death trap. But the magic within had been badly corrupted by Cristoff’s. She’d hoped the dome would have returned to its more placid state once Cristoff left it, but instead, the violent green, gold, and black lightning bolts continued to fly every which way. And they were tearing the dome apart. It was beginning to shrivel!

“Are you really going to walk into that?” Micah asked, apparently the one who’d carried her there.

She glanced back at him. “I’m glad you made it,” she said with heartfelt relief. “Kass?”

“He’s fine.” He glanced worriedly at that dome. “For the moment.”

“I wonder if it will let me in now that I’ve come into my Levenach magic. I guess there’s one way to find out.”

“Be careful, Quinn.”

She threw him a rueful smile. “Since when have I ever been careful? Make sure Turo’s getting blood, please?” With that, she strode forward, her steps slowing as the dome’s energy reached out to her, stinging her flesh, which was nothing new. The Focus had never liked her. She was certain that once more it wouldn’t let her renew the magic without a fight. She just hoped it recognized her as a Blackstone heir, or at least a sorceress, and let her in at all.

She needn’t have worried. The moment she touched the energy of the dome, it grabbed her and yanked her into the heart of its power, right into the middle of a lightning storm. A bolt tore through her like a knife. As a second did the same, Quinn screamed. She couldn’t move! She couldn’t dodge them.

Tesoro!
Arturo shouted in her mind.

“Quinn!” Micah exclaimed. “Quinn, you’ve got to come out.”

But she couldn’t. The energy had immobilized her so completely she couldn’t even draw breath.

Even her heart had stopped beating.

A
rturo tore himself from Sam’s wrist, the blood coursing through his veins once more as he leaped to his feet.

“
Quinn!
” He raced to the dome and tried to dive inside to save her, but the Focus threw him back so fast, so hard, he landed in the middle of one of the last of the battles, between one of Cristoff’s guards and three werewolves. Two, now, since he’d just landed on the third.

“Apologies,” he muttered, pushing himself off the wolf and out of that particular skirmish. There was only one person he knew who might be able to enter the Focus unassaulted.

“Where’s Grant Blackstone?” he yelled.

“Ax!” Micah called.

Arturo turned toward his friend’s voice and saw Grant already carrying Quinn out of the Focus’s lethal dome. By the time Arturo reached them, Quinn was beginning to rouse. Arturo’s heart began to beat again.

“I could have told you that would happen, Quinn,” Grant muttered. “The Focus hated you even before your Levenach magic was free.”

“I had to try.”

Arturo took her from Grant, holding her tight against his heart. The gaze she turned on him was pained, but not from the physical discomfort she’d known far too much of in the past days.

“How can I save them?” she asked, her voice an aching whisper.

Grant scratched his beard, a touch of regret in his voice, for once, as he turned to look out over the battlefield. “You can’t. It’s too late.”

Arturo helped Quinn to her feet, then pulled her against his side. Together they turned and followed Grant’s gaze to where several wolves lay on the ground, breathing heavily, as if unable to pull in enough air. A handful of vampires had already collapsed. Even as he watched, one exploded.

They were dying. The Vamp City world was ending.

And they had no way to stop it.

Chapter 52

Q
uinn watched with shock as the battlefield went deathly silent, as the combatants, one by one, started to collapse. She saw Neo sink to his knees, watched Sam fall unconscious. The wolves, too, were crumpling, one by one, into boneless heaps on the ground.

Not five feet away, one of the Slavas suddenly began to age drastically, his dark hair turning gray, then white, his skin wrinkling, his bones curving in on themselves. When the aging ceased, he’d be dead.

Quinn stared, her mind blazing with the need to do something.

“Octavia.” She whirled on Arturo. “Find me Octavia!”

Arturo simply swept her up and deposited her, seconds later, before the ancient sorceress who, like many of the other vampires trapped by the magic, was already on her knees, her fledgling sorcerers gathered worriedly around her. The only ones unaffected by the dying magic were Arturo and Micah, those humans who were still fully mortal, and the handful of Traders and fae who’d joined the fight.

“Put me down, Turo.”

As he set her on her feet, Zack strode over to her and gave her a quick hug. She squeezed his arm in return, but her gaze was riveted on Octavia.

“How do I save you?” Quinn demanded, kneeling before the ancient woman. “The Focus won’t let me save this world.”

“Create…another.”

Quinn stared at her. “Another world?” Her heart began to thud. “How?” She looked around her. It was like forming a bubble, right? Good grief. No, it wasn’t. Not at all. It was so much more.

“I don’t think I have that kind of power.”

Octavia’s fingers curled around her wrist weakly. “Then harness the others’. You’re connected. Quickly!” Weak fingers slid away. Zack and Jason moved, catching the woman as she collapsed, lowering her to the ground.

Desperate faces turned to Quinn from all directions—the Levenach heirs, Micah, Arturo, a handful of Traders. A few of the vampires and wolves were still conscious, but the rest all lay on the ground now, dead and dying.

“Save them, Sis,” Zack said, voicing the words all were thinking, she could see it in their eyes.

Save them.

Oh, shit. “Okay.”

If Cristoff could create a brand new world, if Octavia believed she could, too, then that was what she had to do. There was no time for doubts, though she was drowning in them.

Taking a deep breath, she started issuing orders. “Form a circle around me.”

“Quinn.” One of the women—Jason’s wife—stepped forward. “Octavia’s been teaching us how to pull power. For just this purpose, I suspect.”

Quinn nodded. “Good. Do that. Follow…”

“Heather.”

“Follow Heather.” Panic threatened to choke Quinn, a performance anxiety that put all others to shame. But she closed her eyes and almost at once sensed connections flying out from her to all those around her, energetic cords she’d either never had before, or never noticed. Two of them were stronger, by far, than the others, and she immediately recognized them as her connections to Arturo and Zack. Interestingly, of all of the energetic powers she sensed around her, Zack’s was by far the strongest. A Levenach sorcerer, indeed, little brother.

“Make Zack your focal point,” Quinn told them. “Him alone. He’s the strongest of you, by far, and the one best connected to me.” As she said the words, she opened her eyes and met Zack’s gaze. She hadn’t taken a good look at him until that moment and realized, with a bit of shock, that his face had returned to its natural color. His fever was gone! In the steady gaze of green eyes the same shade as her own, in the small smile that lifted his mouth, she saw a confidence she’d never seen before. Belatedly, she realized he was splattered with blood. He’d fought today, and won. And while he might have become a sorcerer, in battle he’d claimed the most potent power of all, that of a confident man.

She glanced outside the circle to where the smattering of others stood. “Join us please. Anyone who can still stand. Micah, you too.”

The Traders and fae threw her surprised or questioning looks, but all did as she asked. She was running on instinct, now, uncertain where any of this was leading.

Above, the sky cracked open. As the golden light of sunset poured down, Quinn threw up a powerful shield to protect those within her charge. And knew it worked.

They’re mine, dammit! You’re not taking them.

She found Arturo with her gaze and held out her hand to him. “I need you.”

The look he gave her melted her heart all over again. “I am yours,
amore mio
. Tell me what to do.”

“I’m going to focus my power through you again.”

“You have power of your own now.”

“Yes, as do you. But just as I magnified your power, I need you to magnify mine. Don’t ask me how I know that, I just do.”

“Don’t we all need to hold hands or something?” one of the young sorceresses asked.

“Only if you want to.” Arturo’s hand was the only one she needed. As she reached for him, as his strong fingers curled around hers, she closed her eyes and opened her heart and mind to the power swirling through her, a power now infused with Arturo’s love and the sunlight and warmth that always bloomed when they came together. It filled her heart with joy and might have made her smile if not for the keening cry of the earth as another crack tore through the ground.

She felt, rather than saw, one of the downed vampires explode. And another.

Terror that she was going to be too late to save any of them tore through her heart and mind even as words began to flow from her lips, words she’d never heard before. Power raced into her from two sources—Zack and Arturo, funneling the energy of all those gathered, all still standing. The power welled up inside of her, an energy pulsing with life, with love, and with a brilliant, glowing sunlight. A thrumming, swelling pressure filled her chest, brimming with hope, with joy, amidst the despair.

She continued to whisper the words, focusing only on that glowing light, growing, pressing against the walls of her chest, demanding to be set free just as her feelings for Arturo had. Demanding to be born.

The pressure grew and grew, but there was no pain, only an indescribable joy. Arturo’s hand gripped hers hard as if he felt it, too, as if he experienced this same excruciating anticipation.

She thought of what Octavia had said before.
Let it go.

And what would happen if she did?

It didn’t matter. There was no alternative.

With her will alone, she set that energy free, expelling it in a powerful, raw, immensely satisfying explosion that felt as if it came right out of her heart.

As she watched in horror, the red sky above her shattered, disintegrating the shield she’d formed to protect her vampires. Golden sunlight poured, unimpeded over all those she’d claimed as her own.

Deadly, deadly sunlight.

Chapter 53

A
rturo froze as the sky shattered, as raw sunlight blanketed them all.

A few voices cried out, but most who were still conscious merely stared in stunned silence, meeting their deaths with stoic acceptance. They’d done all they could.

Arturo waited in agonizing dread for the burn of sunlight on his flesh, for his body to erupt into flame. For death.

But seconds passed. Nothing happened.

A couple of vampires sat up, looking at one another in confusion.

Arturo’s own brows drew down. He felt no fire, no burn. Just warmth. Quinn’s loving warmth.

His eyes widened and he turned to her, his gaze slamming into hers. He saw the moment she, too, understood—the leap of joy, the catch of her breath.

“I did it.” Her words were little more than a whisper followed by a gasp. “I did it!”

Still, the others looked at one another and Quinn, utterly perplexed.

With a laugh that erupted from deep in his belly, a euphoric shout, Arturo swept her into his arms and twirled her around, then caught her mouth with his. As her arms caught around his neck, he kissed her, thanking her, rejoicing with her, loving her.

All around them, voices began to murmur.

“What happened?”

“What does this mean?”

“Are we safe?”

“Did she renew Blackstone’s magic?”

“No, of course not. Look around you. This is not Blackstone’s world. This is the Healer’s.”

“But…
the sun?
”

Arturo pulled away, kissing Quinn’s hair. “We must see how many we can save.”

Her euphoria immediately doused, Quinn nodded, worry flooding her eyes. But as Arturo released her and looked around, he found the wolves pushing to their feet. And most of the vampires, Slavas, and fae, as well—Kassius and Neo. Lukas and Sam. Fabian and Grant.

Many had died, he knew that, both in the battle and the failing magic. But from a quick scan, he would guess more than half of their army had survived.

Fabian strode forward, then turned to address the others. “Blackstone gave us a world of darkness,” he shouted, quieting the throng. “The Healer has given us back the light!”

Silence blanketed the crowd.

“How?” someone asked.

Fabian laughed. “How do you think? Magic!”

Micah came to stand beside Arturo and Quinn. “Cristoff stabbed himself,” he said with wonder.