Blood and Redemption (Cassandra Myles Witch Series) (2 page)

“Lucius, I’m sorry. This is my fault. I’ll fix this. I promise.”

He threw his head back and laughed. When he looked at me again, his eyes were glowing and his fangs were down.

“Fix what?” Licking his lips, he took a step towards me. My hands went to my throat.

“We’ll find a cure for what’s wrong with you. I promise you.” I
shrank as far as I could into my pillows as he leaned in over the bed and smiled at me.

“Maybe I don’t want to be cured. I used to feel guilty for wanting you. I tried to fight the desire I felt every time you walked in a room. I don’t any more. I just look at you and I thirst and my cock goes hard. I want your blood and your body.
Do you have any idea how good I could make you feel?” His large hand rested on my upper thigh.

“
Lucius, don’t do this.”

My heart was pounding in my ears. I knew he was still speaking, but I couldn’t hear him. His mouth went to my neck, but before I could scream, he turned and left. I felt unstable for a few minutes, like I might fall through the floor. Things were out of balance and I was going to fix them. I wouldn’t rest until Mab was dead and Lucius was back to normal.

Chapter Two

For two days, I let Quintus fuss over me like a mother hen. He made it his full time job to get me back to full strength. We went for short walks, he made me eat all my veggies, and he insisted that I take naps. Part of me wanted to tell him where he could put his naps, but I was feeling better than I had in a long time and you couldn’t argue with results. He wouldn’t talk about Mab or Lucius. He said I needed to save my energy for healing.

He even offered to have a small ceremony for Declan. I was touched, but I refused. I was the only one I knew who had loved him. Declan wouldn’t want me to mourn him with the very men he hated. I would see about burying my mate when Mab was dead. I didn’t even know if werewolves buried their dead. It made me sad how little I knew about him.

By the third day, I knew I was back. All the coddling was now getting on my nerves. I was ready to face whatever had to be done so we could get on with the task ahead. I didn’t care if their world did wither away to nothing; I wasn’t letting that kind of evil into ours. I wasn’t going to waste any more time. I stopped walking and turned to face Quintus.

“We are going to talk about Mab and Lucius tonight. I feel fine. In fact, thanks to those nasty shakes you’ve been making me drink, I feel better than fine.”

“Then let’s talk.” We sat on one of the many benches that were strategically placed around the garden.

That was way too easy. I thought he would tell me I needed more time to heal. I
squinted my eyes, trying to see if this was some sort of a trick, but all I got back from Quintus was a tired smile.

“Okay, why is Lucius avoiding me?
I’ve tried a couple times to talk to him and he doesn’t even let me get near him.” He took my hand and held it on his lap. He looked down at our interwoven hands so long I was about to ask if he was okay, when he finally answered me.

“He doesn’t want to hurt you. The day I found him in your room was terrible. He wanted to take his life. Lucius has always been in control. Even as a young vampire, he had more control than most. He could go days without drinking. I thought maybe part of it was because he was my son. He had been given very old blood.”

He stopped and brushed the hair from my eyes. His cool hands cupped my face and he laid a chaste kiss on my forehead. He stared into my eyes, then shook his head and continued.

“That was just ego. It was Lucius all the way. Now all his control is gone and he’s lost. It’s probably similar to when we lost our magic, except he has the potential to be a very powerful killing machine. He doesn’t trust himself and he shouldn’t.”

“I don’t think he would hurt me.” I knew I was being stubborn about it, but I couldn’t believe in my heart that he would harm me.

“The old Lucius would never harm you. With the man he has become, it’s you who is most at risk. His hunger and lust are mixed and that’s all he experiences when he sees you.”

I blushed. I knew Lucius wanted me—he had made that clear—but I didn’t expect Quintus to throw it out there so casually.

“Maybe if I give him more of my blood?”

“While I think you’re the most unique and exquisite woman in the world, your blood is still the same as any other. His thirst is unquenchable. Na’min has given us some hope. He says there is only one known cure for a goblin bite and that is to drink the blood of the goblin king. The goblin king is not known for his generosity. He has never willingly given the cure to anyone. So if we are to get this cure, it will have to be by force.”

“Then we’ll go there and do whatever it takes to bring him back here so Lucius can drink him dry.”

Quintus’ eyes started to glow and his fangs came down. “I would enjoy nothing more.”

He wanted this as much as I did. We would do this together.

“So what’s our next step?”

“We get you ready to meet Mab. I will train you to control that magic of yours and Killian is my combat expert. Normally, it would be Lucius, but for obvious rea
sons that’s not an option. He’ll give you a crash course in hand-to-hand combat and in how to use a gun. It’s unlikely you will ever get close enough to Mab to use anything like that, but it doesn’t hurt. Na’min will help by filling us in on every minute detail he knows about the dark fae, and especially Mab.”

The
fae world had been sealed off from ours over two thousand years ago to protect humans from their meddling. Since that day, their world had been slowly dying. Everything, including the fae themselves, was made of magic, so when the source was shut off, their whole world withered. Na’min was a prince in the fae seelie court and one of the first to notice the change.

When he finally convinced the queen that things were dire
, she agreed to use the last reserve of magic to send him through the fae door. Against all odds, he made it through and arrived in the wolf compound. In exchange for a rare magical artifact and riches beyond comprehension, they agreed to help him with his quest.

When I had the
geis
removed and got my magic back, it seemed like his solution had finally arrived, but when the door was opened, it wasn’t a hero’s welcome that greeted him. The dark fae had escaped their prison and now were in charge and bent on revenge.

“I can’t wait months to go back, Quintus. Every day gives her more time to do something evil.” I couldn’t wait that long to be ready; I needed to go now.

“I promised I would help you kill Mab, but I won’t run in blindly. I haven’t survived this long by being careless. We’re the only ones who know of this danger and if we’re to have any success, then we need to be as prepared as we can be. We can’t afford to lose when we go.”

I tried to come up with some argument that would show Quintus he was wrong, but deep down I knew Mab was too powerful to challenge without being fully prepared. Even then, it was a long shot, but so was opening the fae door, and I had done that too.

Starting that night, we put Quintus’ plan to work. Killian, who was Quintus’ unofficial third in command, was going to help me train in self-defense. I had known him since coming to Vancouver. He spent most of his time in Seattle, but he always made time to come visit when he came to Canada and we always joked around on the phone whenever he called. If it couldn’t be Lucius, then Killian was a good back-up.

I started with the most basic self-defen
se techniques. Killian told me he knew eighty-year-old women who were in better shape. He was right. I had no flexibility or endurance. I was never into exercising and now it showed. So that was going great, and then my magic, which hadn’t been reliable since I had the
geis
lifted, was playing hide and seek, emphasis on the
hide
. My mentor felt I was blocking because of what happened the last time I used my magic. I didn’t care why; I just wanted it to work and stop being such a moody bitch.

Lucius wandered the halls, a pale
specter of his former self. The physical bites were gone, but he needed more and more blood to keep the little control he had. I wish I could have helped, but getting back to the wolf compound was what I needed to do, and if I did, then the cure would come. I hated running into him. Sometimes he would look at me with such sadness that it made my heart ache, and other times he would look at me with such hunger and lust, it paralyzed me with fear.

Every day was a round-the-clock series of lessons designed to get my body and mind into shape. Killian was trying to teach me self-defense and all I felt like was a punching bag. My body was battered and bruised. I was stiff and my muscles were
begging me to stop. I thought working with Killian would be fun and relaxed, but he was all business and never even cracked a smile. It made me suspicious that Quintus had said something to him, but I decided to let it go. He had promised not to coddle me anymore and I felt I owed him the benefit of the doubt.

My days were filled with yoga and relaxation techniques; anything that might allow my magic to come out of its hidey-hole. My mind had decided that my magic was just too dangerous and she put it on lockdown. I was willing to try anything to get rid of this block I had. Quintus, for his part, ran the gambit between being the coddling, encouraging mentor and a psycho drill sergeant. Some nights, I didn’t even remember how I got to bed; I was so tired.

As I trained, Quintus and Na’min planned. The fae prince gave us every bit of knowledge he had about Mab. As master of Seattle/Vancouver, Quintus used his power to gather vampires from the area; ones he trusted and knew would have our backs in the fight with the fae. It was all starting to come together and it couldn’t happen soon enough for me.

Christmas Eve came and no one was in a mood to celebrate. Our little group was a sad ragtag bunch. Na’min kept to the guesthouse, coming into the main house only when it was asked of him. He was just as anxious as I was to go back to the wolf compound, and every day we stayed in Vancouver, he grew more and more impatient. He had finally freed his people, only to find them in yet another jail.

I was having a rare moment of mindless me time in Quintus’ study when I heard a faint knock on the door. I quickly shut my magazine. I didn’t want anyone to know I was reading “Ten Ways to Please Your Man in Bed.” Quintus poked his head in the door.

“Can I come in?”

“Of course; this is your study.”

“I consider this house as much your home as mine. I always have.”

I knew he meant it and it was a comfort to know I had a home.

“Thank
you, and you have always made sure I felt at home.”

“I know we all agreed that to celebrate Christmas just seemed wrong this year, but I couldn’t resist giving you something. I should have done it a long time ago.” He had a mischievous glint in his eye as he sidled further into the room. He had his hands behind his back and he was looking a little too pleased with
himself.

“What did you do, Quintus?” Please don’t be an engagement ring, please
please please. My stomach fell to the floor as I waited for him to give me my gift. I wasn’t ready to go on a date and I certainly wasn’t ready for marriage. Why had my mind gone there so quickly?

He brought it from behind his back. It was a flat rectangular box. Relief flooded me and I felt foolish that I had even thought he was going to propose. I took the exquisitely wrapped gift with the velvet black bow and started to unwrap it. Who would think a 2000-year-old vampire would have a gift-wrapping room in his mansion?

I pulled off the top of the box and peeled back the tissue paper. Two smiling faces looked back at me. Tears immediately rolled down my cheeks. It was a picture of my parents, taken the year they died. A close-up of their faces spoke so much about how they were when they were together. Mom looked so happy and Dad looked at her the way he always did, like she was the best thing he’d ever seen.

I had been so terrified even to think about my parents. I couldn’t bear to have that image of the last time I had seen them in my head. The fear had kept me from having the comfort that came with seeing them happy. Now, looking at their faces—so full of life, so much in love—I knew how wrong I had been to have no reminders of the people who had loved me the most. I couldn’t pull my eyes away from them.

“I know Lucius told you that I own your house and cottage back in Nova Scotia. I got the caretaker to search for pictures and have them sent here. The rest are boxed up in one of the spare rooms so you can look through everything when you get the chance. You were quite an adorable little girl, by the way.”

“I love it and I’m sorry I haven’t thanked you for buying the house and the cottage. When this is all over, maybe we could go there so I could see them. I miss the lake; we had so much fun there when I was a kid.” I realized I was smiling. The tears rolling down my cheeks were happy ones. I had locked all the good memories away with that one bad one and now I knew it was safe to let them in.

He pulled me up from the chair into his arms. His cool lips brushed my ear. “I love you, Cassandra Myles.” A warm pulse spread through my body. My stomach erupted with a million butterflies.