Captiva Capitulation (31 page)

Poison’s glittery eyes widened into pure horror, his hands gripped hers soundly, pulling. Blythe’s hands were bloody, but she managed to circle the blade somewhat, pressing it further. His mouth opened but no words came out, only a sound of fury. His own blood stained his fine white shirt in a circling pattern around the hilt. “I will take pleasure in torturing every mate you hold dear,” Poison said in a demonic whisper, “as you watch me do it.” He blinked deliberately, and Blythe saw that his eyes darkened, the gold, silver and bronze fading away.

Kicking out with her legs, Blythe erupted from the ground, and whacked solidly against the hilt of Sixten’s blade. A large crack sounded. On the left side, Poison’s ribs seemed to have caved in. Only then did he stagger back, as though he couldn’t breathe. “That’s for Sixten!” She then brought her knee up, delivering an uppercut to his chin, snapping his neck to the side. Blythe knew her blows weren’t anything to an immortal, but that blade was working him over,
poisoning
Poison’s system. “How does it feel to be powerless, like all those women you lorded over, Raven Warrior?”

Already, she was racing down the side property, jumping over fallen limbs and tracing around two large sand dunes. Her feet were as bloody as her hand was, and her legs trembled in fear. However, Blythe concentrated on the baby nestled inside her, that thought fueling her every move. She ran swiftly across her and Sixten’s property, in and out of trees, so another hunter would have difficulty swooping in and capturing her.

In her side vision, she could see Poison coming after her, his front bleeding profusely. He was slower than he should be, wasn’t misting, either, but she would be a fool to think he couldn’t still catch her in his weakened state. Snarling, he launched himself at her with Sixten’s bloodstained blade clutched in his right hand. Blythe ducked and turned just as Oycher jumped on Poison’s back. Both hit the ground, tumbling. Catching a seriously enfeebled Poison in the throat with his fangs, Oycher sank his teeth into him. The Vojak ripped from side to side so quickly, all Blythe saw was blood and mahogany flying everywhere.

Abruptly, the two stopped flailing, as if the whole fight never happened. Blythe thought she was suddenly observing everything in slow motion, or more than likely, she was in shock. Oycher stood up, walked over to her, swinging Poison’s decapitated head by the hair. Carefully, he placed it at her feet like an offering. Blythe felt herself licking her dry lips, standing frozen with a bleeding hand, and words wouldn’t surface.

“It’s alright,” Oycher said gently, reigning in his Species and wiping his bloody face on his leather encased arm. “But you hit your wrist in the worst way, and you’re bleeding out, going into shock. Sixten will devour the world if anything happens to you.” When he reached for her hand, she couldn’t lift it. “May I?”

“Poison said Sixten was dead,” she heard herself say. “Kash was attacked…and I don’t know where Rock is.”

Licking her hand and wrist, muscles seemed to pump along Oycher’s jaw, him fighting not to bite her. “Grim got ahold of Kash.” He shook his head a couple of times, snapping himself out of it. “As we speak, they're misting him to the Sanctuary. He’s in pain but otherwise fine. I spotted Sixten on the North side five minutes before I misted on your property. He’s far from dead, how about I take you to him?” At that, her legs dropped, taking her body with it. Oycher caught her in a sure grip, pressing his hand against her lower back. “You are not fearless, but show me someone who is.” He continued licking her in vampiric speed, sealing her up until she only saw faint pink lines. “But if given a choice,” he continued, “I’d rather be brave than fearless. It keeps things in the right perspective and you don’t get so full of yourself.”

She laughed at that. It was a shaky laugh, barely there, but it counted for something. Oycher and Blythe always had a communal of unnamed sorts. It wasn’t exactly a friendship, and yet she didn’t know what else to call it. “Thank you, Oycher.”

“He was half gone, Blythe,” he said, his beads rattling as his head moved. “You did that, you know. Like I said, you are not fearless, but I find you brave.”

“Are you going to bite me now?” she teased. It was their inside joke.

Hissing in the way of vampires, he brushed his still bloodied mouth against her throat. “I think you want me to bite you, Blythe.” Then his breath left him, an exhale hitting the side of her next, his extraordinary ocher eyes, his namesake, rolling up before shuttering. As he dropped to the ground, Blythe backed away to find Qudir standing over him with a Stavz, just as the hunter had done with Kash.

“What did you do?” she screamed.

“Stunned him!” he snarled back, his midnight eyes flashing. “He was at your throat, talking about biting you, the scent of your blood leaving his mouth. Would you rather I allowed Oycher to ravage you? He fights the call of your Donor blood every time he’s around you!”

“He wasn’t attacking me, but saving me.” Blythe dropped to her knees, cradling Oycher’s head in her lap, stroking his forehead. Blood seeped from his eyes, his jaw clenched so tight that his fangs pierced his chin. “He’s in pain and you did this!”

However, Qudir wasn’t listening. “You killed him, or did Oycher?” With his booted toe, he nudged Poison’s head.

“It was a joint effort, but I’ll give Oycher the entire credit. I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t come along.” Poison wouldn’t have killed her, but she would be underground somewhere in one of his freaky labs, suffering unjustly. Cupping Oycher’s chin, she said, “We’ll get you some help.”

“You fucking bitch!”

Out of nowhere, Qudir backhanded her, her own blood filling her mouth. When she righted herself, bracing her hands flat against the earth, Blythe stared up into darkened eyes glossed over with rage. Slowly, she stood again, backing away several paces with her hand circling her stomach. Blythe knew without uncertainty that her baby was strong and deep-seated inside her womb. Even so, she didn’t need to go the distance with yet another angry immortal tonight.

Quickly Qudir was in front of her, biting through his wrist. “Drink!”

“I want nothing from you!”

He pinned her to a tree with his torso and thighs, one arm wrapping around her and half the tree trunk. With a diabolical sneer, he said, “Your father-n-law, the Habaline King, waits for you now, and I’m going to deliver. So drink up! Can’t have him seeing you battered, he’ll have my head.”

The Commanding Vojak leader wasn’t here now. Gone. A diabolical vampire was in his stead, crushing her, his eyes soulless and hungry. When he moved, she could feel him hard against her, his sex aroused by his power over her. He made her sick. And with that revolting feeling, a realization washed over her. “You have played both sides all along, haven’t you? All the times the Habalines stayed a fraction ahead of your
Vojaks
. You were behind it, weren’t you? Hitting Oycher with that thing had nothing to do with him trying to feed from me. Your warrior brother was in your way, had polished off your Habaline partner in crime!”

His hand curled around her ribcage, slowly he began to move it down to her hip…caressing. Qudir put his lips against her lips, his mouth curving when he said, “All those times I couldn’t fuck you. I hated that Marchii, and your pretend brother. Hell, I hated Six most of all.” Sliding his tongue across her lower lip, he whispered, “You’re nice and knocked up now, timing’s perfect. The deed is signed, sealed and almost delivered.” His head moved incrementally, midnight eyes finding that glowing object hovering low over the beach. “Poison was going to keep you as his mate, you know? Live with you in the adjacent realm. Wasn’t going to let me have a go at you, not even once. That has changed.”

“You are spectacularly nuts, as crazy as Poison, and you curdle my blood,” she snarled, trying to raise an elbow between them to break his nose, but he had her effectively imprisoned.

His wrist met her mouth, the thickly rich blood rushing down her throat, and his opposite hand now cupped the back of her head. Forced to swallow, lights flashed through her head, not just her eyes this time. With the second swallow, a popping sensation resounded inside her skull, creaking as if a door were literally opening in her brain.

Memories flooded her mind.

Every gap filled.

“Do you see all the times you belonged to me?”

She certainly did, flashes of him taking her when Gianni left his compound, tying her up and licking every inch of skin on her body.

“Do you see all the times I had to hold back, so that bastard Marchii wouldn’t smell my sex on you?”

Qudir above her, thrashing her over the welts Gianni had made, screaming at her because he couldn’t bury his cock inside her heat, but he’d thrust it inside her mouth on many occasions, only pulling out before he climaxed.

When he dropped his hand, sealing his wound with his tongue, he said, “You belonged to me as much as you did the Marchii.”

“I
belong
to my mates,” she whispered in anguish, waiting for the nearly crippling pain to leave her head, wondering if it ever would. Images continued to play across her mind. Her father flying her away from Italy while in his Lovec form. A cold steel table supporting her body as hands examined her, some moving painfully, as many watched on. A promise that garnered collective gasps in a laboratory smelling of rot and death: ‘Oh yes, this female is quite compatible, promising,
very
promising, Master.’

As quickly as it came, the pain dissipated, snapping her to the present. Blythe reopened her eyes to find herself completely naked with Qudir’s body positioned over hers. With one of his hands coiled around her throat, and the other spreading her open between her thighs.

“I remember everything,” she hissed, sounding very much like a vampire.

“Of course you do,” he grinned, his fangs shining in the night. “I’m the one who took your memories from the beginning. I take them from all our females. Otherwise, how would we work them through the Dynasty after subjecting them to our labs?” His hand moved and then she heard his zipper come down. “Not that I’m without connections in the monarchy, but we cannot have our little Donors going off blabbing. Now, can we? Not when we need them to form blood bonds. But we can talk about that later.” His sick gaze dropped to her breasts. “At the present, we have something else to entertain us.”

A golden flash spiraled above them, and then shot into the air like an explosion. Warm air hit her skin, though nothing that resembled an island breeze. “No!” Qudir hissed, jumping up and pulling her with him. Sinking his fangs into her throat, he misted them a hundred or so yards up the coastline, the sand spiraling out beneath their feet as they reformed, and then he left her.

Whirling to make a run for it, she froze in her tracks. Something called her back, something tugged at her soul with such passion that she turned around to investigate. Due to a blazing intensity coming from a bizarre circling tunnel, Blythe could barely look ahead of her. And when she did, movement seemed to slow, as if the world had gone very still and nothing else… “Matters,” she whispered on a ragged breath. “Sixten!”

From the corner of her eye, she could see Qudir pulling him away from the tunnel, his arms going up in golden flames. Sixten’s entire front melting in a grotesque display of flesh and bones, he fought against Qudir’s hold. Her heels dug into the sand, her arm shielding her eyes, as she ran forward. Granules of sand kicking up behind her, hitting her naked body with such force, she knew she was moving at inhuman speed. A blue flame burned past her and her head whipped around to find Rock barreling into Sixten and Qudir, breaking them apart.

You will stop where you are.

Rock’s command thundered through her head, causing her to flinch before her legs stopped moving. “Please! Qudir is a traitor! He worked with Poison, took my memories. Tried to rape me just now!” His growl reverberated through her body, and it was nothing less of ferocious.

Think of our baby and do not distract me, my female!

Rock, in full transformation, jumped Qudir’s back, hurtling the bastard end over end. It was all she could do not to wail, her feet stiff against the sand, her body unwilling to listen to any of her own commands. “Sixten!” Her husband landed on the sand, his body doused but still devoured by fire. What untouched skin she saw was pasty. She didn’t even know if he was breathing, but he managed to say something to Rock before he went deadly still. And by Rock’s changing stance, his werewolf was then fueled with a determined purpose.

Qudir head butted him, the crush of bone on bone meeting her ears. Blythe stared on, couldn’t seem to look away. Rock spat out blood as his clawed hand flew straight in the center of Qudir’s chest, burying his fist, leaving an open hole as he tore away the flesh. She remembered when Sixten made that move on Gianni, reaching inside and pulling out the Dynasty Vampyr’s heart while centered in the orange grove, but Rock held no heart in his hand. What he left behind, however, was a flaming blue illumination in line with the color emitting from his werewolf.

Power.

Pure unbridled power.

And Qudir staggered from the force of it, from Rock’s
will
.

Her heart racing, Blythe watched a blinding golden light open before Rock tossed Qudir’s body through the strange tunnel. Even as his battered body hurdled through, his hands moving at air, his legs kicking out from his body, Qudir’s face held the look of disbelief, even betrayal. At that, Blythe felt her lips curve into a smile, though tears slid over her lips.

Maestru came out of nowhere, kneeling beside Sixten, tearing at his own throat with his claws and forcing her husband to feed. She still couldn’t move, since Rock hadn’t released her. But she was far too serene to be angry, the world revolving around her in utter stillness. No sounds, no real movements…Rock was screaming at her, his mouth opening and closing as he bounded towards her, but she couldn’t hear him.

Screaming at her?

A fiery plume shot straight up from the bizarre tunnel and flames rose to the sky. Rock covered her, cradling her body as he moved her steadily and swiftly away from the carnage. “Sixten!” Her mouth moved, but she didn’t hear the syllables form. Over Rock’s shoulder, she watched Maestru open his hands, channeling seawater into the form of a geyser and aiming it toward the incredible fire. “Is he alive?” she asked, her voice finally forming.