Bloodcraft (34 page)

Angie raced toward her without fear for her own safety, her eyes wide as she saw what only she could see. Her friend grasped her shoulders and Victoria slumped forward into the embrace. “Pan’s here,” Angie said. “Christian compelled him to fix a counter potion.”

“It’s too late,” Victoria whispered. “He only wanted me weak enough to invoke the blood magic.”

“Pan?” Christian and Angie said in unison.

“Leto.”

Christian exhaled. “
Leto
?”

She raised heavy eyes to them. “He’s the demon. He’s the creator of the Cruentus Curse, trapped in a cat’s body for millennia.”

“You’re not making sense, Tori,” Angie said. “Leto is your familiar.”

“Leto is a demon.”

Aliya joined them, nodding with slow understanding. “According to the Cruentus Curse legends, part of the Goddess Mother’s curse was for the demon to serve his descendants until the end of time. We assumed that was in spirit or it was a part of the story that had become myth instead of truth.” She shook herself. “I should have guessed. My familiar, Dante, sensed that Leto was an Ancient, only he isn’t the familiar successor of a witch queen. He is so much more than that.”

“No one could have known,” Victoria said weakly. “I used the amulet’s power to banish him to the château, but not before he invoked the blood magic. No one’s safe.”

Angie sucked in a breath, her eyes unfocusing as she used her special sight. “Tori, your aura is going all black and blotchy again.”

“What does that mean?” Freyja asked from behind them.

“It’s beyond bad,” Angie whispered, wide-eyed. “The curse has been invoked and it’s taking over everything that is
her
.”

“The curse?” Freyja gasped.

Angie nodded. “I saw it possess Christian once, and now it’s trying to do the same to her. With the effects of the neural toxin on Tori’s control, it has a chance.”

“What do you mean by
possess
?”

Christian answered Freyja’s question. “Victoria’s blood has a mind of its own, and it is consumed by a lust for power and its own immortality. Put simply, the blood magic is a beast that she must keep caged, and now that her mastery over it has been compromised, the beast is free.”

Angie’s eyes turned upward as the stone walls of the temple started to rattle. It felt like an earthquake was erupting beneath them, but Victoria knew that it was far more than that. It was by sheer force of will that she didn’t kill the people standing around her, but a half dozen witches, three vampires, and a warlock near the entrance collapsed, their figures drained to empty husks. The stolen magic surged into Victoria’s body like the purest drug. The high was exhilarating.
Consuming
. And heaven help her, she wanted more.

“Get. Everyone. Out. Of. Here.” Victoria’s words came in a violent staccato as if she could barely control her lips. Her eyes lifted to Christian’s, tears pouring from them. “Take … me home.”

Christian nodded to Aliya and the rest of the people behind him. “Do as she says,” he said before scooping Victoria into his arms. “Get the younglings to safety and rally anyone you can. The demon is at Fontainebleau. I’ll take her.”

Lucian’s voice cut through the fog of the panicked chatter. “Christian, what you are doing is suicide. She will kill you.”

“If that is my fate, then so be it. My life has always been bound to hers.”

TWENTY-TWO

The Rules of Survival

Christian held Victoria close as they flew through the night sky. She felt so fragile in his arms, but he knew that the power within her slim frame was capable of destroying the entire world around them. Her skin was cold, her fingers clasped in a death grip around her amulet. The scent of her blood was maddening. He knew he could resist her, but this was different. This was the same blood that had called to him, that had seduced him months before without a qualm. It was like an old lover offering herself and he could barely resist its siren song. Christian’s teeth grazed against his lower lip, and for the first time in weeks, hunger speared his insides with violent irascible touches.

“What are you going to do?” he asked close-lipped as they alighted on the lush manicured gardens of Fontainebleau.

Victoria’s fierce eyes were like pieces of onyx in the shifting moonlight at odds with the shaky tenor of her voice. “I’m going to kill it.”

“You can’t do that alone.”

She blinked, her hands gripping his as she fought for balance. “The demon only wants me.”

Christian shook his head, frowning. “I don’t understand.”

“He wants me to do what I was born to do. Take the power around me and feed it to him so that he can become strong. He was afraid of me … that’s why he made Pan do what he did so that he could control the blood magic.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m the only one who can stop him.” She drew a shaky breath. “Who could have stopped him. Now my blood no longer answers to me—it bends to his command.”

Christian grabbed her by the shoulders, his fingers skimming down the softness of her bare arms. She was so cold, too cold. “You’re too weak. I can see what the blood magic is doing to you—it’s eating you alive.”

“I can do this, Christian,” she said. “I have to do this.”

“How?”

She didn’t answer him. Instead she knelt at his feet and placed her hands flat on the grass. Her eyes met his and he realized what she was going to do. “
Protectum
,” she whispered in his direction. The dark magic at his core responded to the power of the shield spell even as the grass at her fingertips faded to a rusty brown. The circle of death widened, sparing him because of her protection spell, as Victoria leached the life from around them. Trees wilted and withered before his very eyes. He could feel the life around him dying as she absorbed their living energies.

After several long minutes, Victoria stood. Her skin pulsed with stolen energy and her eyes were the color of gleaming jade. It almost scared him how easily she could take power from other living things to satisfy the insatiable thirst of the blood magic. She stepped toward him, the air about her crackling with electricity.

Christian felt something surge in his body. Even surrounded by the field of destruction she had created, she had never looked more beautiful. Or desirable. Her face was flushed, her blood rushing beneath the surface, its scent subtle and tantalizing. His teeth elongated in automatic visceral response as other parts of him lengthened, too. Embarrassed by the heated response of his body, Christian inhaled sharply, fighting to rein himself under control. It was a losing battle, especially when she closed the distance between them and plied the length of her body against his. Paralyzed, he held his breath, unwilling to tempt fate.

But Victoria had no such compunction. Her gaze captured his as if she felt the inexorable pull between them, too. Her free hand slid down the bunched muscle of his back to the rise of his buttocks. She kneaded gently, drawing him even closer to the heat of her own body. It made him think of thoughts he’d banished—thoughts of her lying half clothed in his bed. He closed his eyes, his shameless thoughts agonizing. Her hand slid around his hips to the front of his trousers.

“What are you doing?” he gritted, his jaw clenched.

The melting look in her eyes was his undoing even before she spoke, her voice husky with want. “Kiss me, Christian.”

His brows snapped together with confused restraint. “Kiss you now?”

“Yes.” The word was a growl as she grabbed the lapels of his coat and dragged his head down to hers. He sheathed his teeth, keeping his lips closed, but Victoria would have none of it. Her tongue pushed past them and forced his mouth open. And Christian was lost in the taste of her, the silky feel of her. His tongue slid against hers, their lips grinding together. The tips of his teeth grazed the inside of her mouth and he held his breath. It wouldn’t take much to break the fragile skin and one drop of blood was all it would take to reduce him to a slave. She sighed against his mouth as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.

He pulled away, knowing he was losing her by the second. He could see flashes of the girl he knew in her eyes. “Tori—”

“I can control it, Christian. I’m already stronger from the magic—” Her voice faltered as if the thought of where she’d obtained the strength was too distressing to bear. “And Pan’s toxin won’t last much longer.”

“Take whatever dark magic I have. Use it.” Christian knew it was a gamble offering it to her, but he’d meant what he said—every last breath within him belonged to her and her alone.

“I’d hurt you.” She shook her head. “No, I can’t risk it.”

“You won’t.”

“How do you know?” she whispered.

“Because I trust you,” he said. “And I told you once that my life was yours. It still is and now you need it more than I do. I love you, Victoria. Now do what you need to do. Or else I will be forced to do something rash like attempt to drain your blood to keep it from harming you.”

She didn’t answer, but her eyes went wide with alarm. She, too, knew what her blood was capable of when it had possessed him before. After a long, charged moment, she leaned up to press a whisper soft kiss on his lips. Her eyes never left his. But he could feel the moment she started to absorb his energy. Pinpricks of burning light prickled his skin. He felt weightless and suspended, as if caught in a magnetic field, and he could feel his strength diminishing with each passing second. Her green eyes widened as his dark magic filled her. Christian’s body felt sapped as she drew her lips from his with an indrawn gasp. Wild and unhinged, his hunger returned in full force. His earlier lust was eclipsed by a need for blood and only blood.

“Is that better?” he gasped, falling to one knee, and stared at the ground. The hunger clawed at him, making him see red. The smell of her was torture, and Christian realized that if he so much as looked at her, he would rip her throat out. “Do you still feel weak?”

The woman in front of him laughed, the humorless sound brittle in the silence, and it made his stomach clench. “This host may be weak, but I am not, Your Grace.”

“Tori?” He frowned, but by the time he looked up, Victoria had already gone. He was alone. And ravenous. Christian loped into the surrounding forest with a single deadly intent—to feed.

Ten mindless minutes later, he wasn’t sure how much he’d consumed or how far he’d run, only that the dull insistent throb in his throat had finally disappeared. Sated, his senses sharpened with acute awareness. Christian knelt, placing his hands onto the damp earth of the Fontainebleau forest, letting the rich soil crumble through his fingers. He’d raced far beyond Victoria’s sphere of devastation, deep into the wood. He could hear the chatter of night animals, feel the pulse of life beneath and around him. The magic of the night called to him, and for a moment, he let himself be cradled in its embrace.

“Christian?” The voice was shocked.

He looked up to find his brother and Lena standing there watching him. Christian stood, feeling the life force of fresh blood coursing through his veins. For the first time, he noticed the grounded fear in both their gazes and frowned. “What is it?”

But they didn’t have to answer as his eyes took in what lay before him. Dead carcasses of every possible animal littered the forest floor, the landscape a bloody tableau—one far worse than Victoria’s brown canvas. How many had he killed? Despair struck him with the raw edge of its blade. The death toll sickened him, and he was the only one to blame. He had allowed this to happen.

David had cautioned that his hunger would be uncontrollable if he let it get too deep, and when Victoria had taken his energy, she had sapped him to the very bare bones of his humanity. His single grateful thought was that he’d been alone in the forest instead of in the middle of Paris. The body count would have been same, only it would have had a far different outcome. Raw power coursed through him and he flexed his arms, feeling its tensile strength as replenished dark magic shivered along the inside of his skin. Every inch of him felt
alive
.

“Are you okay?” Lucian asked.

“Fine.” Christian shook away the remnants of self-disgust and met his brother’s eyes. There was something in there he’d never seen before—a measure of respect. It surprised him. Lucian’s expression where he was concerned was primarily loathing. Lucian stepped forward and handed him his signet ring, which he placed on his finger with a nod. A third figure stood in the shrouded darkness, whom he hadn’t noticed, likely because she hadn’t posed a threat. Angie. “Where are the others?”

“They have come en masse.”

“Have you seen Victoria?” he asked, even though he knew she was close. He could feel the pull of her like the barest brush against his senses. His brother shook his head. Christian’s gaze slid to Angie, who stood beside Lena. He didn’t bother to disguise his surprise.

Lucian quirked an eyebrow at his unspoken question. “She impressed me.”

“She tends to do that,” Christian agreed, remembering that it had been Angie who had come to him with Victoria’s whereabouts last year. Her courage had saved them all. She met his stare with an even one of her own. “Are you okay?” he asked her.