Min's Vampire (19 page)

Min sighed and rolled her eyes at the
preposterousness of the wolf pack sitting on their thumbs. She was
still way low on firepower. She spun around the room, looking about
her trying to find what she was so obviously missing.

And then something caught her eye,
gleaming from above her mother’s desk where it had hung for as long
as she could remember, something she’d passed by so often,
something that was just part of the background of the office. Until
that moment, only a decoration, an artifact from the family’s
rather sordid past. Something she’d forgotten. It glinted silvery
in the dim light of the office, and Min reached up and took it from
where it hung.

Would it still work? Holding
its weight in her hands, she could feel its power just waiting to
be unleashed, anxious to be put to work.
Hungry.

Min raised an eyebrow and smiled. It
was crazy, and stupid—old magick like it would have easily
degraded, and using it could turn suicidal—but it could just
work.

Chapter 19

The alley wasn’t hard to find. The
moment Min had woken she’d known exactly where Luca had fallen. It
was part of a long crisscross of alleys running between four near
identical seven-story buildings. They housed everything from
restaurants and coffee shops, to lawyers, accountants, a nail salon
and a florist.

Andy had taken dance classes at a
studio there when she was young.

The alley in question was directly
behind the nail salon. Min found the alley deserted, and no sign of
a struggle…unless you counted the small pool of blood that
shimmered inhumanly in the light of the full moon, right beside a
particularly putrid smelling dumpster. She knelt and dabbed her
finger into the cold, black, shimmering substance, then drew it to
her nose. She may not be a werewolf, but she knew the smell of
vampire blood. She especially knew the sweet, near intoxicating
scent of Luca.

In a few hours the sun would rise in
the sky. Had the werewolves killed him, or would they use him as
leverage, thinking that Elaina would come for him?

Min knew from Luca’s memories that that
was a mistake. Elaina would not risk herself, not for him,
especially if he’d picked Min over her. Min shook the knowledge
that he loved her out of her mind. It was making her heart race and
her breathing catch in her throat—not productive things and she had
to concentrate. She knew already that Günter knew Luca was her
lover. She just had to hope he wouldn’t try and kill her when she
came to collect Luca from him. After all, he should just take her
word that Luca, the vampire, wasn’t evil anymore.

Yeah, that would
happen…

She had to get him back. But first she
needed to know where they had taken him.

Well,
she thought
, I’ve got some
blood—nothing’s more personal than that—so now’s the time to show
some magical capability.
Min pulled the
chalk out of her pocket, and the origami hummingbird. She put the
bird by the drops of blood, and then drew a small circle around
them both. Extending her will out to it, the circle sealed with a
silent pop of magick. She told the bird to wake, in the old
language of her people, and when it stirred, stretching its wings
and turning its head with rapid motions, she told it to, “Find the
owner of this blood.”

The little bird chirped and hopped
delicately over to and pecked at the pool of blood, drinking it.
Min then reached down and broke the circle with her finger and a
bit of will.

The bird fluttered into the air,
faltered, and finally took off, zipping down the alley. Min took
off at a dead run, her heart pounding in her chest, her eye never
leaving the rocketing bird.

~*~

Luca woke to the sweet scent
of maple trees and
nearly
fresh air—he could still hear cars passing along
in the distance, so he knew before he opened his eyes he was still
somewhere in the city. He also woke to the searing pain of silver
chains biting, burning, into his flesh. He jerked against the
chains, and though they were thin, they kept him in place well
enough. If anything, the thinner chains cut more easily into the
flesh, something a werewolf would know all too well. The silver in
the chains would keep Luca from using his powers. No strength, no
ability to glamour; he was screwed and in pain. And from the rough
unyielding hulk of what he was chained to, he guessed it was a
tree. A really big one, though with silver chains, a sapling would
have held him just as well.

Another scent, rank and unmistakable,
told him that he was surrounded by the pack of werewolves. He
glanced around: those few in human form were armed with swords and
other hunting finery. More than a dozen were already shifted into
their beasts, and they were pissed, growling, their slathering jaws
gaping to show off long, sharp teeth.

A woman cackled, and Luca looked to
her. Her copper hair was long and curly, and framed her lean,
angular face. Her mouth was full and sensuous, but those eyes,
though lovely, held true insanity. Either that or she was a
ravening bitch by nature. Either way, Luca cringed as she stalked
closer to him.

“
My, my, my…the pretty
vampire has finally woke up.” She stopped only a foot from him, her
eyes meeting his without a trace of fear, which either meant she
really was crazy, or she knew that the silver chains would dampen
his power to mentally push and glamour her. She pursed her lips.
“About damn time.”

Luca tried again to pull at the silver
chains, only causing himself even more pain as the chains cut
deeper into him. He groaned and felt his stomach turn as he smelled
his own flesh burning.

“
Don’t worry, leech, with
you alive and bleeding still, your whores will come for you soon
enough. And when they do, the witch and the vampire die with
you.”

Luca looked up into the woman’s eyes,
his voice shattered, no more than a breathy groan. “I’ll kill you
if you touch her!”

“
Which one?” asked a man
that the other werewolves parted to clear a path for. He was of
average height, but everything else about him said power. Broad
shoulders, a well-built body, coupled with the handsome, angular
features of Eastern Europe. His head was shaved, and his dark eyes
were sharp. “You’ll kill us if we touch her…but which
her
are you speaking of:
the witch or the vampire?”

The woman moved around the man, her
body language obvious—she wanted him, yearned for him. It might be
part of the reason she was so crazed, for the man didn’t seem to
register her even being there. A woman in love, a woman scorned,
was always dangerous—preternatural strength or no.

“
Which is it, vampire…Min or
Elaina?”

Luca stayed perfectly still, not
letting a bit of his inner reaction to Min’s name show
through.

The werewolf smiled knowingly. “Ah, so
you wish to protect the witch. Surprising.”

“
Touch her and I will end
you,” Luca said low and cold.

The werewolf looked amused. “Really?”
He looked Luca up and down. “You’re bound in silver. Forgive me if
I don’t see how you’re going to make good on any threat you make
right now.”

Hate bubbled up inside Luca. Anger and
panic, and his chest rumbled with it as he bared his
fangs.

“
Don’t worry, vampire.
Though she has soiled her soul by taking a creature as of you into
her bed, the pack has no quarrel with Min.”

“
Günter…you can’t be
serious!” the copper haired woman roared in an animalistic version
of her own voice. She seemed on the verge of losing control, her
human traits melting away before she even transformed. “She knew
damn well her leech lover was in league with the vampire that
killed Marina. She deserves the same fate as the
vampires.”

Günter didn’t take his eyes from
Luca’s. “Min will not be touched, Giselle. I have—”

“
His whore is as guilty as
he is. Her hands are as stained with Marina’s blood as—”

With lightning speed Günter turned and
struck Giselle hard enough to flatten her to the ground. His eyes
had turned wolf gold, and his teeth were bared as he glowered down
upon her. “You’ll do well not to say her name again.”

Fear showed shivering in Giselle’s
eyes.

“
And as for Min, she has
been a friend and ally to the pack for many years. Besides being a
powerful witch and a well trained fighter, she—”

“
She was your whore
too!”

Something in Luca’s chest tore with
grizzly pain as he realized Min had been with the werewolf. He’d
believed her when she’d said…but she’d kept this back from him. It
hurt, and he knew that it shouldn’t.

Günter’s eyes turned to molten amber,
and his voice became chilled like smooth, glassy ice. “You are the
only woman I’ve been with that was ever a whore,
Giselle.”

She gasped and bowed her head as Günter
turned back to Luca. She sobbed and then picked herself up off the
ground. Those around her didn’t bother to look at her, they just
stood and listened to their leader.

“
But your Elaina will die
with you. All we have to do is wait for her to turn up. And with
such alluring bait as you, how can she resist?”

All too readily,
Luca thought. The werewolf doesn’t know Elaina at
all. She had been toying with them, stringing them along with
murder and the need for vengeance, as she led them straight to him.
Whatever they thought, she knew damn well the danger he was in, and
she didn’t care. If anything, she’d orchestrated it.

“
And once she does,” Günter
continued, “we’ll capture her, and what’s left of her will meet the
loving touch of dawn alongside you.”

A cheer erupted from the
pack of werewolves, human voices mingling with feral wolf howls and
growls. In that moment Luca hoped that his death would be enough to
sate the werewolves thirst for vengeance, so they would stay away
from Min. For he knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that Elaina
would show her face, not to save him. Maybe she was somewhere close
enough that she could watch. Now
that
sounded like Elaina.

Luca smiled to himself. Günter saw it
and moved closer, peering into his eyes. Then with that lightening
quickness from before, he belted Luca across the mouth. “Don’t be
mistaken, you’ll see the light of day soon enough, vampire. If your
mistress doesn’t come for you, then you’ll meet the sun and go to
hell alone.”

He turned away from Luca and walked to
the other side of the clearing, unsheathing a sword and swinging it
absently as he moved. “As for Min, even though she has soiled her
body and soul with you, once our business is through we will leave
her in peace. I can only hope once you are but dust she will regain
her sanity.” He turned and looked Luca in the eye. “Surely you have
her in a spell, pushed or glamoured into a slavery of
sorts.”

Luca laughed, feeling the chains dig
further into his chest as he did so. He kept laughing through the
pain, alternating with pained groans and grunts. He tasted his own
blood from the punch the wolf had given him. It made the beast in
him stir, though the silver chains kept it bound as tightly as they
bound Luca. A thought came to him, that the last blood he’d taste
in this world would be his own. It made the beast in him whimper
and then scream with impotent rage.

“
What’s so funny, vampire?”
Günter stared with cool curiosity, holding the sharpness of his
silver blade against his palm, smoke curling from where it touched
his flesh.

“
You don’t know Min as well
as you think. She—” Luca fell silent. He realized with a cold surge
that it would be better for Min if the wolves thought that she had
indeed been pushed. That the big, bad vampire had taken her over
and used her and that once he really was gone she would revert back
to normal.

“
What was that
vampire?”

What looked like a yellow hummingbird
fluttered into the clearing, but no sooner did Luca focus on it
than it fell to the ground, just a crumpled piece of paper the wind
was already blowing away.

Luca looked down to the cold earth
beneath him. The grass he stood on was scorched black. They’d used
this spot to execute vampires before. Luca felt a pounding of
terror rush through him, cold and lonely, and utterly overwhelming.
He’d just be the next to die here. A footnote in the packs long
history. But then he closed his eyes and tried to hold onto one
thought. If he stayed quiet and just let it happen, Min would be
safe, and probably never know what had really happened. The thought
of her safe and ignorant of his fate filled him with
hope.

The winds changed and Luca
caught the faint scent of what he wanted more than anything on this
earth.
Min.
It had
to be his imagination. But a moment later the entire pack stopped
their howling and chanting to scent the air as well.

Günter growled and then called out into
the night. “Come out, Min! We can all smell you.”

Her laughter fell through the air like
rain, touching everything as it did, making Luca’s flesh tingle.
From the look on Günter’s face he felt it too.