The Druid Series 9: Baird (A Druid Novel) (12 page)

Baird has given her weapons, and she uses them.

However, she does not use them in the way the enemy anticipates. She fillets the Faction as she moves. She wounds to incapacitate, not to kill.

It gains time, and she finds her magick seeks her sisters.

Her swirling energy is both dark and light, tentative and bold as it cascades away from Siana, searching for the resonating sameness.

When that seeking supernatural heat makes contact, it surges back to Siana like water flowing over her body. Her lips part with it.

Druids.

Siana runs, a Faction close behind.

She spins, striking blindly, and nicks the artery in his throat. He grabs his neck, eyes bulging as her foot connects with his torso, and he staggers backward.

She turns again, running full tilt toward the pulsating energy that beckons her.

The search is almost over. She will reunite with the coven of witches she has grown to love.

And who better to protect them than an Exotic who is both Druid and vampire?

A trench dug six feet down and wide greets Siana. She braces before she throws herself across, landing on the balls of her feet.

Her arms whip around for balance as there is only enough room underneath her feet to stand as though on a tightrope.

A door is in front of her, and she slams her palms against it.

It gives, swinging inward. She looks around while stumbling inside.

Faction guard the women.

Ten strong.

Siana despairs, scooping resolve out of herself like the guts of a jack-o-lantern on Halloween.

She attacks without warning.

Spinning, she cuts two of the Faction down as they come for her.

Three land in front of Siana. She jerks her fisted right hand into the underside of a Faction's jaw, driving the knife through his mouth and spearing his nose.

She does not take the time to pull out the knife. Instead, she turns and smashes her palm into the nose of the next.

Shards of cartilage pierce his brain, and he slumps, flailing on the floor. Siana hops over his convulsing body toward the next six. Siana moves through two more, and they fall like cut trees.

Weapons gone, she bares her teeth, hissing.

The last three wrestle Siana to the floor. Two lay on her legs, and one holds her arms above her head.

“Fuck her!” the one at her head screams at the Faction who hold her legs.

Siana releases her magick in a panic, no time to wonder where Titus, Baird, and Carrig might be.

Their holds loosen.

Siana concentrates harder, a horrible thing to accomplish when adrenaline courses through her body and her emotions reign supreme.

Siana redoubles her efforts.

Instead of raping her, the Faction have been barely controlled. The one on her legs leans forward, taking her mouth in a ravishing press of lips so brutal she feels his fangs through the kiss.

Siana lets him.

The other two take their cocks out of their breeches.

Siana feels the Druids move closer, their energy feeding into hers.

She cranes her neck, looking through the nest of legs and dicks to see the eyes of her sisters.

She siphons off the Faction’s energy in a gulping feed of psychic panic and pushes their violence to lust.

The three Faction turn on her sisters, leaving her alone.

Siana has enough time to collect weapons again.

Her Druid sisters scream, and Siana flies up from her spot on the floor, swaying from the rough handling she’s received.

Moving behind a Faction ready to plunge himself into her sister, Siana stabs him with her found knife.

He howls, spinning off Marquette. Her wide eyes thank Siana, though Siana does not pay attention. She has all she can handle with the wounded Faction who is so mixed, Siana doesn't know what he is.

He flies at her, the hilt of the only knife she could find sticking out of his back like an exclamation point.

She pinwheels backward. Baird’s blood and the magick from the other females is at a dangerously low ebb inside her.

Siana's strength begins to leave her at the worst possible moment.

The other Faction are busying themselves with raping her sisters.

She cannot lose in the ninth hour. She must have something left.

Then he is on her, tearing her blouse from neck to waist with a finger sporting a long talon.

Siana's breaths come hard and fast. She smashes a fist into the side of his head, and her wrist is captured.

He breaks it cleanly, and Siana howls.

The pain spears her consciousness, moving her primal reactions to the front of her mind and body.

Lack of fuel is set aside as she bucks him off her.

He grabs her hair and jerks her back.

A noise alerts Siana to someone entering through the door.

Her eyes meet Baird's.

His gaze shifts for one second to her wrist before he launches himself across the room.

Siana's head hits the ground as Baird tackles the Faction to the floor.

She hears the rendering of what was his throat being torn out of him.

The other two rapists are killed shortly after.

Their blood makes a noise like paint splatter against the stone of the walls in the temple.

Siana rests quietly.

She is beyond numb from pain and exhaustion.

“Siana,” Baird says, brushing her hair away from her face.

“
My wrist,” she whispers. “Set it to rights—please.”

His face becomes pained.

The Druid females assemble around him. Marquette is whole and serious behind him. Siana closes her eyes, grateful she was able to save her from the abuse the Faction would mete out.

“
Here, let me help with the healing,” Marquette says, not looking at Baird.

Baird takes her wrist, and Siana bites her lip.

“No, Siana,” he says.

A belt is inserted where her lip just was.

She bites down.

When Baird sets the bones in her wrist with a twist she shrieks.

Then the gentle hands of her sisters are upon her. One in particular stirs a warmth deep in Siana’s marrow, and the knitting of her bone begins.

Marquette's eyes widen.

Siana sees when Marquette understands there is more than a broken bone to deal with.

There is also a new pregnancy.

It should be a joyous knowledge, yet all Siana sees in Marquette's deep eyes is an abiding anxiousness.

Marquette touches Siana's lids, and Siana shakes her head.

“Yes,” Marquette says, though the word comes from a distance. “You need rest more than consciousness, my sister.”

Marquette's hand is in Siana's as her mind whispers away into soundless darkness.

Baird

Titus runs beside Baird, and Baird puts up with his closeness for Titus fought well against his own kind. Not that Faction can be categorized. They are many of the vampire race, stuck together through a mix of genetics which do not conform strictly to either Reaper or
rogue.

Shortly they will return to the Reaper fortress, and Carrig will heal from his wounds from battle.

It is Siana who Baird worries over, she and the ten Druid females they rescued from the Faction. The females travel more slowly, in part because of the trappings of their wardrobe. A skirt's movement is laborious, confining, and slow.

Baird slows as he sees Carrig holding a piano's keys worth of broken ribs, pain all over his face.

“Hurting, my brother?” Baird asks with a smirk.

“
I am, as you are well aware. Broken ribs will not heal whilst running and with no blood to fuel the heal.” Carrig’s eyebrows rise to his hairline, his Reaper coloring all shadow in the dying night. The moon vaguely reflects on his eyes of palest silver.

Baird chuckles, shifting Siana's weight, and she groans softly. She’s not exactly conscious but not strictly out.

Titusʼs eyes flick to her form, and Baird lets a growl break the seal of his lips.

“
Stop, Reaper,” Titus says. “You must concede her pregnant and unmated as of yet. I have done all I can to prove my worth and lack of Faction loyalty.”

“
And how quickly you let it go for a prick of Druid pussy, my friend.” Carrig watches Titus, his eyes narrowing.

Baird gives a tired exhale. “We will rest. Then we will come to the Reaper fortress. We will determine your fate at that time.”

“You will not kill Titus,” Siana says from Baird's arms. Her voice is raw from disuse.

Baird focuses on the bruises around her throat from Faction hands. Not disuse, but abuse. The voicebox always suffers when one is strangled.

“I did not say we would kill Titus,” Baird says, feeling a frown form as he utters the words.

“
Yet you did not say you would not.”

“
Siana is right,” a voice says from behind them. “We must rest, then when we are safely ensconced, we can make our way within a new order.”

All eyes move to Marquette. Baird takes her in as a female and Druid.

Like many of the Druid females, she is small, her dark hair like a raven's wing, and her eyes are either green or blue. Some have an unusual seawater color, as though the eyes cannot decide the shade.

Marquette is one who does.

She uses those luminous eyes to her advantage now. She pleads, though Baird feels there is no need. “I wish to make haste to whatever place is safe and free of Faction and other marauders.” Her eyes flick to Titus, who heals from the minimal damage he sustained earlier. “He is not a concern. Who Siana beds is not relevant at present. She is pregnant, starving—as we all are in various states of the same.”

Baird looks at the remaining nine breeders and admits they are a ragged bunch.

He nods. “Lead on, Carrig. We will move at a slower pace.”

“
Not too slow.” Carrig looks at the sky. “You of Exotic blood might be fortunate enough to shadow skip, but I will fry like an egg in the sun.”

Baird sighs. Carrig needs to feed. Baird’s gaze moves to the females.

They look back.

“
I will,” Marquette says, interpreting his expression.

Carrig frowns. “Imogen will be awaiting my return. I can sustain myself until then.”

Marquette frowns. “Speed is critical.”

She moves to him as Baird holds Siana, who watches and says nothing.

Carrig does not move, letting the Druid approach him.

When she draws near him, his breaths come hard and fast in anticipation. Her hand moves to his chest. Carrig winces, and she snatches her hand away.

Carrig grabs it.

“
Whatever you do, do it quickly,” Titus says, his eyes on the paling horizon.

Carrig ignores him, drawing the Druid against him gently. “I am sorry. I hunger, and it is not your body that I love, that I crave.”

“She knows,” Siana says softly. “She but tries to ease you, warrior.”

Carrig lets his forehead fall upon Marquette’s. Their flesh presses together. 

“Use me, Carrig the brave.”

His breath hitches once, twice.

Carrig's head dips, his lips brushing across hers. When the thud of her pulse can be seen beneath his lips, he does not move his head.

Fangs punch from inside him, piercing her skin.

“Ah! Hurts,” Marquette whispers.

Titus moves around the pair. “Give me your eyes, Druid.”

Marquette's wide eyes seek Titus, and Carrig tightens his hold on her small body.

Titus stares at the Druid as Carrig suckles at her throat.

A talon elongates from Titus’s index finger.

Baird knows what will happen, but not if the Druid desires it.

“She is not in her right mind,” Baird says.

It is Siana who says, “Let her have pleasure during a painful feeding.”

Titus nods. With his left hand, he plucks her skirt high, inserting the talon on his right hand gently into her pussy. With small strokes, Titus distracts Marquette enough from the pain of the feed.

Marquette's eyes widen, her breathing becoming ragged. “Yes.”

Carrig pulls a final bit of blood from her throat as Titus gives a last stroke high and deep inside her now-slick channel.

Marquette cries out once, the whole of her vibrating from a release so powerful, it leaves her body limp. Carrig catches her, sealing the points of his entry.

Titus removes his talon.

“
You have the pleasure nub,” Carrig says, surprise lighting his expression. He eyes the talon that melts back to be hidden by a plain fingertip.