Bound By The Night (13 page)

Well, his dark magic anyway.

And he knew how to break the bond that locked Jamie’s blood to Iona’s.

Two months. Two long fucking months had passed since she’d walked away from him in LA.

He knew where she was, of course, because it wasn’t easy to overlook a woman like her.

He’d sent his blood sent to her. Werewolf take-out.  But he hadn’t gone to her, because he couldn’t offer her the one thing that she needed.

Choice.

He’d taken that from Iona when he gave her his blood. 

I can’t stay with you because we have to be together
. Her voice haunted his nights. And his days.
It should be…we should be together because that’s what we want. Because anything else is unthinkable to us.

Anything else
was
unthinkable to him, and without her, he was going insane.  Slowly, moment-by-brittle-moment insane.

He needed her. He wanted her. And, hell, yeah, he’d get his heart cut out for her.
Not because you have to be with me.
Once the spell was broken, she could stay because that was what she wanted to do.

“You have to sever the bond to free your vampire.”  Ray looked a little too comfortable holding that knife three inches above Jamie’s chest.

Sean stood in the background muttering once more about bad ideas and wrong choices. The same song he’d been singing when they first went to wake up Iona.

“Am I gonna live through this?” Jamie asked the witch.

Ray frowned at that. “You expect to live?” He seemed surprised. “I thought it was just about
her
living.” He began to lower the knife. “I can’t make any guarantees for you.”

Sean lunged forward and grabbed Ray’s wrist. “Guarantee it.”  Lethally soft.

Ray swallowed.

Jamie stared at the tip of the knife. 

“I-I…he
should
survive.  It will hurt, probably worse than anything he’s ever felt, but he’ll live…and his vampire will be free.”

That was what he needed to know. “Cut me,” Jamie ordered and his hands fisted, pulling against the heavy chains that held him place.  Silver chains that Ray insisted were necessary.

Not a good sign. But at least he’d stopped feeling the burn from those chains now. 

Jamie closed his eyes. Pictured Iona. His beautiful queen.

Then the knife stabbed into his chest, bringing the fires of hell, and he roared her name. 

***

Pain exploded in her chest. Burning, white-hot, twisting and cutting and tearing into her flesh.

Iona opened her mouth to scream but found she didn’t have any breath.  The smell of burning flesh filled her nose even as bile rose in her throat.

What is happening to me?

She’d been on her way to find Jamie.  She’d discovered a witch who knew a way to break their bond. Only…

Another burst of pain had her nearly on her knees.

Iona screamed and realized that another cry had echoed her own.

Her head lifted as sweat soaked her clothes.  She stared at the house before her, the one nestled off the main road and hiding in the shadow of thick trees.

Jamie’s house.  The roar she’d heard, it had been her name. His voice.

Iona forced her body to straighten.
Jamie.
Fear and adrenaline rushed through her.

Another pain-filled roar shook the night, and she ran forward. Iona kicked in the house’s front door.

Two men—probably werewolves—turned and lunged at her. She knocked them back and followed the echo of that roar down a hallway. Then to the right. Another kick and the door before her flew off its hinges.

A man whirled toward her. Some guy with too-long red hair. He had a long, wickedly sharp knife in his hand. The blade was glowing red.

Jamie was on a table, chained. Smoke rose slowly from his flesh. 

“What are you doing to him?”  Iona leapt for him.

Someone grabbed her from behind. “Wait!” A familiar voice shouted in her ear. “He’s a witch, he’s breaking the bond and—”

And she tossed Sean into the nearest wall.  Iona advanced on the witch. “You’re hurting him.”
Us.
She rubbed her own aching chest. “You’re
dead.”
She raised her hands. Let the fire burn.

“Oh, shit,” the man muttered with eyes that had doubled in size.

“
No!”
Jamie’s snarl.

Her head snapped toward him. Surely he wasn’t protecting his attacker?

“It’s…almost…finished…” Sweat soaked his body. The brightness of his eyes had dimmed. “One more slice, and you’re free.”

She pushed the man—now she knew he was a witch—away and rushed to Jamie’s side. When she saw his chest, she had to bite her lip to hold back her own scream of fury.  It looked like the skin had been branded, a dark, fierce red.  But she knew the knife was enchanted and the branding wasn’t just on the surface.

The brand would go all the way around his heart.

No, not all the way, not yet.
Jamie had said that he needed one more slice.

The floor creaked behind her.

Iona spun around and grabbed the knife from the witch’s hands.

“Do it,” Jamie urged her. “Finish it. Be free…then you can come back to me.” 

“The witch was cutting out your heart!” She’d found her own witch, a woman who told her this could be done, that this was the way to sever the tie between them.

Take out the heart and the bond is broken.

“No.” Jamie shook his head and jerked on the chains.
Silver
chains. The fool werewolf had let himself be locked down with silver chains. “I’ll still live,” Jamie told her. “Ray’s not actually taking my heart—”

Yes, yes, she knew how the magic worked. The enchanted blade both cut and healed at the same time. The witch would cut a circle around the heart, severing its connection to the body. Then, in the next instant, the blade would burn and heal—reconnecting the heart with magic. The severing and healing would continue until a full circle had been cast around the heart.

Brutal. Hellish. Iona knew that the agony she’d felt was just a psychic echo of the pain that he’d experienced.  Her witch had warned her of that, too.

When one is sacrificed, the other will feel the whisper of the pain. Just a whisper. The real agony is a hundred times stronger than that whisper.

“A spell.” She glared at the knife.

“The knife cuts through the magic that binds you, but he still lives.” Did the witch think those words would make her feel better?

She knew their hearts were linked. The blood pumping from her heart linked to the blood pumping from his. To cut their ties, a heart had to be severed.

And Jamie, he was willing to face the agony, for her? 

She licked her lips. Felt tears on her cheeks.
Not about breaking. About living.
“You’re not like Latham.” 

He stared up at her. His face was too pale. Her wolf looked too weak. “Told…you…”

She snapped the knife and let the pieces fall from her fingers. The witch gasped and got the hell back.

Sean had picked himself off the floor.  He stood back, too. Smart guy.

She grabbed the chain around Jamie’s right wrist. Shattered the heavy silver. Did the same with the links that bound his left hand.

“I can feel you…” Iona told him, and brought his hand to rest over her heart, “in here.” Even when they were apart, she felt him. Like a caress in her soul, she could feel him touching her.

His gaze searched hers.

“You let him come at you with that knife…” Well, the witch
wouldn’t
be comingagain since she’d destroyed his knife.  “He would have cut me out of your heart.”
And taken you from mine.

Jamie rose.  The back of his hand slid down her cheek, and she turned her face to better feel his touch.

“Nothing will ever take you from my heart,” he told her. The words sounded like a promise.

He’d been willing to suffer so much…for her.

Jamie sucked in a deep breath. “I can…I can still send you the blood. I can do whatever you want…”

“Kiss me.”

He frowned, then shook his head.

She put her hands on his shoulders. Those shoulders of his seemed even bigger than before.

I missed him.
“I want you to kiss me, Jamie.”

His mouth took hers. Ravenous and wild with its hunger. The same hunger that she felt.

Tears pricked at her eyes. She’d lived so long and had never expected to find a man who looked at the Blood Queen and…loved.

He loves me.

So she kissed him back.  Hot, eager, their mouths met. She didn’t care about the others in the room. They didn’t matter. Nothing, no one mattered to her except him.

His arms locked around her. He pulled her close, right between his legs as they hung over the edge of the table. His mouth was feverish on hers, his hands seeming to touch her everywhere.

“Missed you…” Jamie growled the words against her lips. Then his head rose. He stared at her with the eyes of a beast in the face of a man. “You’re…giving us a chance?”

She had to shake her head, and when she did, pain flashed in his gaze.  Iona spoke quickly, desperate to make him understand as she said, “No, Jamie, I’m giving us more than a chance.”  Her shoe crunched over the remains of the knife. “I want to give us forever.”

His hands tightened around her. “Be…sure.”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything.” Or anyone.  He’d been willing to suffer such torture, for her.

And she’d seen more of Jamie’s secrets in her dreams.

Him, watching her with not just lust, but longing.

Him…rushing through the day and night as he tracked her to LA, desperate to find her before Latham got to her.

She’d seen a wolf run until he’d his paws had bled. Watched through his eyes as Jamie drove a truck like a madman until he’d arrived outside the dark walls of her old home. She’d felt his fear…until he’d seen her.

Her lips brushed over his once more.  He’d woken her up, but not just from Latham’s spell. He’d given her life again.

He’d given her love, and it was exactly what she wanted. No,
he
was what she wanted now.

Not because they had to be together.

“Because anything else is unthinkable,” she whispered. And it was. Her body and soul had ached for him. She needed him. Couldn’t imagine going another single day without her werewolf.

The door squeaked closed behind them, and she knew that Sean had grabbed the witch and gotten out of there.

Good.

Because the Blood Queen had finally found her werewolf king, and she wasn’t letting him go.

Not now. Not ever.

Some bonds weren’t meant to be broken.

“Forever,” Jamie said against her lips. A demand.

Her werewolf had just spoken true…some bonds really were meant to last forever.

They kissed again. She tasted the wildness of his beast. The love of the man.

Forever.

###

Have you missed any of Cynthia Eden’s BOUND stories?

BOUND BY BLOOD…Available now for .99

BOUND IN DARKNESS…Available now for .99

BOUND IN SIN…Available now for .99

Vampires and werewolves…time to get BOUND.

BOUND BY BLOOD

It’s an Immortal War…

Vampires and werewolves have been blood enemies for centuries, but now a new threat is rising…demons are escaping from hell and those demons are intent on wiping out both the vamps and the werewolves.

When you have no one to trust…

In order to stop the demons, pureblood vampire princess Morgan LaBeaux agrees to the treaty offered by werewolf alpha Jace Vaughn. She’ll mate with him, share her blood with him…and in return, the wolves will aid the vampires in this battle.

The enemy of my enemy is my husband…

But Morgan doesn’t realize just how dangerous the wolves can truly be. Jace has been waiting years to claim her. He’s set a trap for his princess, and now that he has her, Jace doesn’t plan to let her go.  He’ll send the demons back to hell, and he’ll keep his vampiress—forever.

Because the blood binds all.

If you haven’t read BOUND BY BLOOD, here’s a special excerpt from the story that launched the BOUND books…

The sexy little vampiress walked into the bar as if she owned the place.

Since Howling Moon was a low-rent dive hidden on the shadier side of Miami, a bar that catered to werewolves, well, the lady was very much out of fucking place. And, if she wasn’t careful, she might just become the night’s entertainment.

Jace Vaughn tensed when he saw her.  He wasn’t as drunk as the other wolves, not yet anyway, so he recognized the deceptively delicate woman instantly.

He could see the hint of her small fangs peeking out just behind the plump fullness of her too-red lips. Vamps’ fangs always came out when they were about to fight or fuck.

So which one was the vamp about to do?

She stilled inside the doorway of the bar. Her long blond hair tumbled behind her as her gaze raked to the left. To the right. Huh. Looked like she was hunting for someone—or something. In this place, the only thing she’d find was a pack ready to rip her to pieces.

Vampires and wolves weren’t exactly playing nice these days. Or any days.

She 
should
 
know that.

But then her gaze swept by him. Swept by, then came right back.  Her blue eyes—bright with a vamp’s power—caught his.  She stared at him, and Jace found he couldn’t look away. A vampire’s trick of compulsion?

Nah…more likely just his own lust.  Because the lady was hot.  Most female vamps were, those pureblood ones anyway.  And Jace knew he was looking at one of the elite pureblood Florida vamps.

A pureblood, in a werewolf hell.

He smiled. Fate must be laughing her ass off somewhere.

Then, 
she
 smiled too.  A lick of heat shot straight through his body, and the beast that he kept chained inside stretched and growled.

Want.

She started walking toward him in her high, fuck-me or fuck-off black boots.  Jace shoved away from the bar.