Blood at Stake (Warriors of the Krieger Book 2) (13 page)

“Clean you,” he panted, the
Vatakas
still present in his voice.

“Yes, Ashby,” I whispered, stroking his
strong jaw. “Please?”

Hot water blasted my body, and I sighed from
the feel of it pouring over my skin. Ashby held me tightly around
the waist as he reached for a bar of soap. His erection pressed
into the inside of my thigh. I knew he wanted to mark me, and I was
going to let him do what he needed to do in order to wash away the
scent and the memories.

“Please, Ashby,” I begged. “Make love to me
before the sun rises.”

A deep rumble sounded from inside him as he
tossed the bar of soap onto the ground. He lifted me higher and
pushed himself inside in one quick thrust, causing me to gasp from
the invasion. There was no work up to our love making…no, this was
not making love. This was a marking. There would be no tenderness
to what Ashby was doing to my body.

“Yes,” I hissed.

“I love you, my mate,” he admitted.
“Alydian.”

“Oh, Ashby,” I smiled, accepting each
punishing thrust he gave me. “And I love you.”

“I’ve wanted to tell you since the morning
we woke up mated, but I didn’t know if you were ready.” His thrust
betrayed his sweet words. As he spoke, his hips took long,
demanding strokes inside my wet flesh. Even with my accelerated
healing, I would more than likely still feel this when I came out
of my death sleep.

“I think I’ve loved you since the day I met
you,” I admitted. “It just took fate to make us see it.”

“Lydia,” he murmured into my neck, nipping
and biting as he thrust deep.

My back rested on the wall as he continued
to pound into my sex. I felt the quickening deep in my belly. I
called out his name as I came undone. Ashby growled when he found
his release as well.

“My love, my mate,” he vowed. “Let’s
rest.”

“Yes,” I said, kissing the vein on his neck
that gave me nourishment. The pull of the morning sun rushed us
into the bed. Ashby wrapped himself around me just as I took my
last breath.

Chapter 16

Ashby

My eyes opened, and I found myself wrapped
tightly around my mate. She was still in her death sleep, and I
didn’t want to move. Lydia’s hair fell over her neck, obstructing
it from my view. Running my fingers through the silky tresses, I
moved the strands back so that I could place a kiss on her cold,
soft skin.

Before my lips moved away, I felt the first
thud of her heart, and her skin immediately warmed under my
lips.

“You can do that every evening when I
awake,” she purred.

“I seem to be unable to keep my lips off of
your beautiful skin,” I admitted. “Your scent is addicting…like a
drug.”

Rolling over, she rested a hand on the side
of my face, concern etched in the corner of her eyes. “What
happened last night?”

“I really don’t know,” I admitted, pinching
my eyes closed trying to remember what exactly took place in the
woods. All I remembered was hearing her cries, and the need to
protect her took over. After that? I had no memory of the events
until I had her in my arms.

“You let your
Vatakas
free,” she
whispered.

“Did it scare you?” I asked.

“No,” she smiled, shaking her head. “I’ve
never felt as safe as I did in your arms.”

“I don’t remember much,” I admitted.

“You saved me…you and
him
,” she
frowned. “I’ve never seen what I saw last night. Your change looked
painful. Are
you
okay?”

“Yes,” I sighed, pulling her naked body
closer to my own. My cock hardened at the feel of her soft skin
against my body. I knew she felt the desire I had for her, by the
swift intake of breath and the contented sigh that came immediately
afterward. “It is something that warriors don’t talk about, because
only under extreme stress will the
Vatakas
come forth. It’s
like our super-secret extra power, I guess.”

“The other warriors were,” she paused, as if
she was trying to decide what word to use. “…concerned.”

“I’m sure they were,” I said, rolling over
onto my back. “Dragus will want me in his office this evening to
discuss what happened, but I’m not leaving here until you tell me
what happened to you. Are
you
okay?”

“I am now,” she frowned, looking down at the
sheets. When she started twining the fabric around her tiny
fingers, I grasped them in my hand and kissed the tips.

“That answer concerns me, Lydia,” I
admitted, sternly. “Did they touch you?” The question came out as a
protective growl.

“Not in the way you think,” she stated,
vaguely.

“What way, Lydia?” I demanded.

“They touched me, but they didn’t rape me,”
she said, looking down at her hands. “They said rude things, and
one of them groped me.”

“Are you okay? Really?” As I asked, running
my hands over her body. Whatever wounds she had were already
healed, but the ones to her mind could last for years. I wanted
nothing more than to wipe those images from her memories. “I want
to kill them again.”

“I’m okay,” she nodded. “I’m okay, because
you saved me, Ashby.”

“I won’t let anyone touch you again,” I
vowed.

“I know,” she smiled, kissing my jaw.

“Who were those men?” I asked.

“Two of them were humans,” she said, sitting
up in the bed. She pulled the sheet up to cover her breasts. “One
of them was something else. His scent was like Kai’s, but there was
a musky overtone to it that made me a tad nauseous. His name was
Myles, and the way one of the humans talked, this Myles guy was the
one who thought he could transfer our blood to change humans. I
didn’t get much information from them before you arrived.”

“I will find out who is behind all of this,”
I promised. “We won’t stop looking until the people responsible are
caught. The crime against you was bad enough the night of Dragus
and Charity’s wedding, but now that you are a mate to a
Krieger
. The witch, human, or whatever they are, now have a
bounty on their heads. By the laws, I have a right to kill every
single one of them for harming you.”

“I understand,” she sighed, looking up at me
through her lowered lashes. “Is it horrible of me to hope that you
shred them to pieces? Like you did those men last night.”

“No, baby,” I said, cupping her tiny face
with my hand. I kissed her soft lips and rested my forehead against
hers. “It’s not horrible of you. They deserve the vengeance I plan
on taking out on them.” And that was a promise I intended to
keep.

I dropped her off at
Nights
and
hurried over to the station, finding Dragus already in his office.
I knocked on the door and entered, not waiting on him to ask me
inside. He finished typing up what was probably the report for what
happened in the woods.

There would be no charges filed against me
for murdering those humans. In our world, my actions were
justified. My mate, the mate of a
Krieger,
was kidnapped,
drugged, and violated. Lydia was not sexually violated, but the
fact that those men had touched her in a demeaning way still
constituted being violated. They deserved what they got.

“Stand down,
Krieger
,” Dragus said,
snapping my attention back to my brother.

“Sorry,” I sighed, heavily. I didn’t realize
I’d been growling with my thoughts.

“You’re lucky,” he began. “Setting your
beast free is dangerous. Civilians could have been hurt. Humans
could’ve seen your beast.”

“It wasn’t an option,” I said, scrubbing my
face with my hands. “It just happened. I had no control over it,
Dragus.”

“I know,” he said, slamming his fists on his
desk, not flinching when everything on top jumped and rattled. “If
you’d been in public, the humans would have seen it, and we’d have
lost ten year’s worth of trust. We obviously still have hate groups
and those who would rather see us destroyed.”

“I understand,” I said, sitting forward and
resting my elbows on the top of my knees. He was right. Setting a
beast free was not something the humans and their government needed
to know. The
Krieger
were a hundred times more powerful than
any civilian vampire, but the
Vatakas
side of the
Krieger
was even deadlier.

“I can’t write you up for this,” he smiled,
but it didn’t reach his eyes. My boss and maker was concerned at my
behavior, but it was obvious that he completely understood. “Hell,
I probably would have done the same damn thing if my Charity was
taken. My advice to you is to get a good hold on your feelings for
my mate’s maker and make it permanent. The queen should’ve been
notified of your mating by now, and she won’t be happy if she finds
out from someone other than you.”

“Damn,” I cursed, shaking my head. I’d
forgotten all about notifying our queen. She would be the one to
approve the mating and bless us as a couple. She’d even officiate
our wedding, sealing us together for eternity.

“Yeah, damn is right,” Dragus laughed. “But
no need to worry, I already sent in the notice on your behalf.”

“You did?” I asked.

“It’s my gift to you and Lady Lydia,” he
smiled.

“Thank you,” I replied.

“Don’t thank me yet,” he laughed. “You still
have to make it through the wedding.” I saw him cringe. I smiled to
myself. In the hundreds of years that I’d known Dragus, I’d never
seen him nervous. There wasn’t an opponent that rattled my best
friend, but that wedding, and the fact that he couldn’t see his
bride for twenty-four hours, made him a mess. We’d threatened to
tie him to a chair several times throughout the night.

“I’ll leave that to her,” I shivered.

“Good luck with that,” he laughed, standing
up from his chair. “We have to go talk to Mistress Laveau. She’s
expecting us.”

“Does she know anything that can help us?” I
asked, hopeful.

“I was able to bag the chains that held
Lydia to the table, and I’m hoping she can tell me who may be
enchanting these weapons.” He opened the drawer in his desk and
removed a clear plastic bag. I snarled when I saw the drops of
blood on the chains, knowing that blood belonged to my mate.

“Let’s go,” I growled.

Chapter 17

Ashby

“I assure you,
Krieger
. I have not
sensed this type of magic in forty years.” Kai Laveau sat at her
kitchen table drinking some sort of herbal tea that smelled
awful.

“Where did you last see this type of magic
used?” Dragus pressed. We’d both refused to take a seat at her
table and opted to stand where we could see the doors to her home.
Traditionally, vampires and witches didn’t get along. The only
reason why Kai worked with us was because of her loyalty to Dragus’
mate, Charity.

“The vampire trials in the nineteen
seventies,” she said. “Witches in the southwest had been killed by
a clan of vampires and the clan leader, Master Suran spelled silver
chains to restrain any vampires that were accused of killing
witches.”

“Where is this Master Suran now?” I
demanded. If this was the man who’d spelled the bullets and the
chains, I would turn over every stone in this town to find him and
shred him with my own hands.

“He was killed about thirty years ago,” she
said. “He was shot.”

“Are you sure he’s actually dead?” I asked.
Something about this whole thing sounded fishy, and I didn’t like
it one bit.

“He was dead when I went to his funeral,”
she said. “I wanted to see for myself that he was out of the
picture. He was a deadly witch and a lot of people wanted him
dead.”

“Is there anyone else who would know how to
place spells on the bullets or chains?” Dragus continued with the
questioning.

“Not that I know of,” Kai said, shaking her
head. “Word is that those spells cause something dark to seep back
into the person casting those spells. I wouldn’t utter one word of
that spell if you paid me all the money in the world, Ashby. But I
can tell you this, keep an eye on Lydia. If these guys are after
her more than once, then she has something that they want…something
they need. What that is? I have no idea.”

“We need to go,” I said, turning for the
door. I’d left her unprotected.

Dragus told Kai we’d be in touch and thanked
her for her help. I rushed out of her little apartment and hurried
out to the Hummer. Dragus slid into the passenger seat and didn’t
protest when I pressed the gas all the way to the floor.

“What is so special about Lydia that these
humans want her blood?” Dragus mused from beside me. He called
Rowland and asked him to pull Lydia’s file to see if there was
something…anything in it that could tell us why they were after
her.

“Get someone over to
Nights
,” I said.
“She can’t be alone.”

“Harlow is on his way,” Dragus said.

I pushed the vehicle to its limits as we
drove back to Port Royal. Thankfully, we didn’t have much traffic
on the road and arrived within twenty minutes.

The club was packed, and I felt Lydia’s
confusion as we entered the building. I flinched when I imagined
her horror at meeting Harlow for the first time. It was an expected
reaction to anyone seeing the
Krieger
up close.

I didn’t bother knocking on the office door
when I found it closed, opening it wide to fit through the frame.
Lydia was sitting at her desk, a glass of wine in her hand. To my
left, Harlow was standing at attention at the door. His hand was on
his weapon, ready to defend my mate if the need arose.

“Hey,” she smiled, looking over my shoulder
at Dragus. “What’s wrong?”

“We need to talk to you,” I said, walking
around the desk to take her hand into mine.

“Did Kai give you any leads?” she frowned,
noticing our worried gazes. “What…?”