A Guardians Passion (26 page)

In that moment, chaos erupted. The two vampires manning the computers leaped up from their chairs, Di’Amanda sprang back in surprise, and the other asprega seemed confused, gaping in wonderment at Helena’s sudden revenge.

Furious, Di’Amanda pointed a red-painted talon at the asprega that had been Helena’s guard, still fitting its arm back into place. She waved at the asprega that stood close to her. “Get her! Subdue her now!”

Freya saw the beast start forward, and something in her snapped. That Helena fought, slammed her fist into Emily’s snout in the midst of transformation, held Emily down by the throat with her other hand—Freya felt herself summoned, ensnared by the seduction of battle lust. Two-fisting the chain that held her hostage, Freya jerked the length with all her might, forward, then downward.

It slipped from Birathan’s hold, and before he could reach down to snatch it anew, she was on her feet and gone.

The sum of Freya’s anger and confusion was directed solely at the asprega that had grabbed hold of Helena’s arms. In that moment, her mind had made a poor choice for madness. Rebelling against being next to Birathan for another second more, Freya picked combat. The consequences meant little to her as she charged forth and rammed the beast with the heft of her shoulder.

Her anger at everything that had happened to her returned twofold as she pounced upon the surprised fiend, pinning it to the ground with her right knee on its throat. Helena scrambled back to Emily, preventing the girl from getting up, and grabbed her by the hair.

Freya had her hands full with her own sport. Her target wasn’t as big as Birathan, but it wasn’t the smallest either. The important thing was that its hands weren’t on her chain and she was free.

“Look at my prize. Yes. So fierce,” Birathan hissed, but from afar.

A tick of dread stirred in her breast as she heard Birathan’s voice. Freya feared her recapture but not at the expense of relenting in her own attack. In full wolf form, Freya needed bigger fangs, bigger talons to do the work her incensed state demanded.

Beneath her, the fiend writhed, hooking its claws around her legs, trying to get a grip upon her. Freya didn’t allow him the opportunity. Reaching down, she grabbed hold of his head and twisted it until she heard the crunch of a spinal column breaking away from a skull. The action wasn’t nearly enough to kill the monster, but it was sufficient to distract it from attacking her.

Freya moved to the floor in front of the monster’s angled, shrieking head. She maintained her hold and leaned forward. Bracing the soles of her feet against the beast’s shoulders, she yanked back, attempting to separate the head completely. It had worked pretty well the last time.

The flesh held true as her prisoner thrashed, trying to attack her even while in what had to be excruciating pain. Its claws raked gashes upon her calves and thighs, but it didn’t matter. Her mission was solely to buy time for Helena, who had clamped her fangs down upon Emily’s throat.

“Birathan! Do something,” Di’Amanda cried, taking steps toward Helena but displaying fear at the sight of so much brutality, the rumbling, vicious sound of wolves locked in combat. Throwing up her arms at the asprega prime, she then stamped a foot. “I have no time for this! I’m on a timetable. Command your beasts!”

The prime met Freya’s glance instead, his lascivious glare turning her blood to ice. “What do I care for timetables? My pet is having fun.”

“But we have a deal,” she screamed furiously.

Birathan glared at Di’Amanda as if he wasn’t quite sure who she was raising her voice to, and he frowned. “I’ve already honored my part. You still have yours to honor. Petty aversion to sunlight or no.” His voice was laced with contempt.

“Do you wish to have your females? They were very expensive to breed, and if you allow these two to murder each other, then I will simply subtract one from you. It’ll be a corpse that you get. I mean it.”

Freya noted Birathan thinking over the proposition and panicked. Ramping up her attack, she released the head of the asprega, reaching instead for its wildly flailing arms. She managed to pull one limb from its socket before standing and taking hold of the other. She knew that Birathan was about to call in his troops and would be damned if the one on the ground would join the party just yet. She used her full weight, stepping down on the beast’s chest, and twisted its limb around and then off completely.

As three more of the beasts made their appearance at Birathan’s call, Freya tossed the arm away.

The summoned minions moved toward Helena and Emily. The girl had managed to get her jaws on to Helena’s shoulder, her claws embedded in the meat of Helena’s side. One of the asprega reached for Helena, who still remained on top.

“Don’t you fucking touch her,” Freya warned, starting forward only to be yanked back. She had forgotten about the collar and chain, but Birathan had not, and he had materialized right beside her to take up the length anew.

“Come back, my pretty pet. You had your playtime.”

“No! Fuck-to-the-hell no.” Insane with the need for freedom, she tried once more to get loose. No manner of pulling or twisting helped as Birathan coiled the links double, triple around his hand and shortened whatever slack Freya thought she could take advantage of.

Of all the times when she could have used her whips, her grenades, her guns even. She closed her eyes and prayed, needing her mates more than she could have ever believed was possible. No, she could not do without them, not being so vulnerable, she admitted. Keeping herself safe wouldn’t have been a concern, but Bun deserved more, far more than the horrors Birathan’s eyes promised with every glance.

“Birathan!”

A horrid cry and a loud gasp drew Freya from her reverie. Opening her eyes, she saw the cause for alarm immediately. Emily was standing, back in human form and gazing downward. Her eyes were wide, her face blanched in shock.

Helena was lying upon the ground, her body covered by two of Birathan’s minions. Her belly was laid open, entrails hanging out while they feasted. Helena was convulsing, choking as she attempted to fight.

Then one of the asprega rose with bloody lips and grabbed her by the head. With a sickening crunch, he twisted. And the Sohon matriarch fought no more.

Freya went cold as the feast went on, her head pounding with the strain of trying to process what she had just witnessed. Her eyes ached, lids refusing to close on what surely had to be some sort of illusion.

Di’Amanda looked to be on the verge of fainting, her jade gaze moving slowly to Birathan as if wondering how he could have allowed such an act. “I…” She drew in a deep breath before continuing, but it did nothing to quell the sudden explosion of anger that came from her. “I wanted her subdued! Now look at what they’ve done,” she shrieked. “Her death will cost you. You could have stopped them, but no! Playing with that hellhound, you were absolutely oblivious—”

Di’Amanda didn’t have the opportunity to complete her sentence as Birathan released his hold on Freya’s leash and vanished. He reappeared before the vampiress with a contemptuous glance. “How about I return all the wolves?” he asked. “That would cost
you
, I think, both the respect and security of your peers. Or I could just deliver a few of you to the wolves?”

Freya would have smiled, if she could, at seeing Di’Amanda appear like the fool in over her head that she was. Instead Freya stood a prisoner to her own disbelief.

Di’Amanda’s predicament looked to be no better as she stared at the carnage.

“Cross me, worm. I dare you,” Birathan sneered. “I will keep my gift, but if you so much as raise your voice again, see how quickly we pull back all of our gifts. And if you think to threaten me with the females, know that I can coerce you into giving them to us anyway.”

Freya sank to the floor. Seated upon the cold tiles, eyeing the length of chain trailing from her collar, she tried to gather her senses about her. She knew that she should have been preparing an escape plan, formulating some attack, but her limbs simply would not lift her, and Bun was not content. Her cub pressed against her bladder, pushed fitfully against her womb, as if he wanted a crack at Birathan and everyone else in the room.

Closing a protective palm over her belly, Freya swore to her unborn cub for the hundredth time:
Your fathers will come. You won’t have shit to worry about. Fen and Rayne will come for us. Tear these motherfuckers to pieces, baby. Everything will be fine.

“Your auction has ended,” Birathan declared, gesturing to the two nervous vampires manning the computer consoles. “Put away your machines and be done. You have achieved the night, and it is nearing your bedtime.”

Di’Amanda snorted as if she was offended at being the one receiving the commands rather than giving them. Cautiously, she stepped away from the giant and turned her attention to her own kind. Di’Amanda immediately began issuing orders to the green-tinged vampires who were just as frightened by Birathan as she.

The asprega prime turned to catch Freya staring.

Somewhere between trying to reaffirm to her child that help was coming and attempts at staving off a blackout, Freya had ceased to even note that her chain was lying upon the floor unbound. She could have fled—not far, but it would have at least been a fucking attempt.

Come on, girl. What the fuck is wrong with you? Fight, damn it. To the death if need be
. Shame and pride could be conquered. Anguish was not so easy to ignore, and Freya truly wasn’t certain what she’d do if anything happened to the life she carried.

Her heart stopped as Birathan walked over and leaned down to take hold of the chain, but before he could close his hands around the thick links, a thunderous crash rang through the entire structure. Something had exploded in another part of the mansion. It sounded as if a truck had crashed through a wall.

Di’Amanda, who had gone to Emily’s side and had a hand upon the traitorous wolf’s shoulders, looked to her staff for an answer. “What was that?”

A roar that was enough to curl even Birathan’s brow with worry, one that caused the vampires to tremble and the mansion to shake, still seemed to puzzle the vampiress. To Freya, however, the sound was the voice of God.

“What the hell is that? Birathan? Emily?”

Emily didn’t know, gaping at her chosen mistress. The other vampires didn’t seem to care what was inside the building, scrambling to secure their equipment even faster, as if they could have ever hoped to have enough time to flee.

As it became clearer that whatever it was that had made it into the mansion was progressing violently and quickly through the building, the vampires left off their packing, pleading with Di’Amanda for answers, looking to Birathan for help.

Confusion was displayed upon Birathan’s features but not a trace of fear, certainly not like the others. Straightening, he abandoned the notion of Freya’s leash, instead looking down the portal of the open hall and its dark length. Whatever it was that had broken into the mansion, it would undoubtedly have to use that hallway to approach, and Birathan was more intrigued than apprehensive. “It’s just a bit of sport, that’s all,” he said.

“She knows!”

Freya couldn’t help herself. Her lips were stretched in a manic grin, heart beating hard and swift. She was so happy that crying felt like joy. She nodded affirmatively at Di’Amanda’s claim.

Birathan turned to look at her and scowled. Whereas the idea of competition might have set well with him, he furiously stomped over to grab hold of the chain attached to Freya’s collar.

“What beast have you attracted besides me, pet?”

Freya spat in Birathan’s face. It was her only answer as the sound of her alpha’s heavy footfalls came bounding closer.

“Birathan, we must leave. Now,” Di’Amanda cried, panic thick in her voice at the sound of Fenris’s strong, menacing roar.

With his prehensile tongue, Birathan wiped away the moisture covering his face. “Take them,” he informed his men, “before they turn into dried husks. Get them out of here.”

Watching as one of the asprega took hold of Di’Amanda and Emily while another grabbed hold of the techie vamps, Freya wondered about the computers until the sparks began flaring. The hard drives were soon smoking, as if set to self-destruct by their fleeing operators.

“You should go with them. Before a real fucking monster shows up.” Freya laughed, reveling in true, if tainted, humor for the first time in hours.

Birathan wound the length of chain around his fist, yanking Freya forward. Smashing his thin lips against hers, hot, foul breath stinging her nostrils, he seemed almost ecstatic. Freya reared back with her fist and punched the grinning fiend in the face, targeting his left eye with everything she had in an effort to distract him.

Birathan grasped her by the waist and threw her down on the ground, pinning her chest there with his foot just as a flash of pale fur appeared in the corridor on the far side of the hall. The asprega prime gazed upon the hulk easily filling the breadth and width of the corridor and grinned. The lethal look of Fenris’s horns, tusks, fangs, and claws did not seem to deter him in the slightest. To Freya’s horror, he was actually hard, his turgid cock curving up as he returned his gaze to Freya. “Oh, but you make me want to excel, puppy. You have a Luna for a mate.” He smirked. “I knew I picked well when I chose you. You’re familiar with true beasts between your legs. You will love me.”

Freya felt ill again, terrified of what would happen should the asprega win. Surely Fenris had to tear Birathan apart. She simply could not and would not imagine any other outcome.

Although gazing at her and not at the giant leaping toward him, a white inferno of rage, Birathan reached out and fastened his claws around Fenris’s throat, catching her alpha in midair. Birathan tossed Fenris to the floor with the help of his own momentum. “Yes. I am monster too,” he added before vanishing to appear behind Fenris, locking her lover in a choke hold.

Chapter Sixteen

Fenris spared no mercy, attacking Birathan with a viciousness that Freya herself had never seen. Of course she knew what her mate was capable of, but was thankful that in all her days as a bounty hunter, she herself had never encountered such ferocity. Yet Birathan gave back as good as he got. Just as quickly as Fenris could open up a deep gash in Birathan’s side, the asprega would heal and return the gashes.