There'll be Hell to Pay (Hellcat Series Book 6) (24 page)

“
Release them,” Julius told her. It was a rare pleasure for her
to enjoy following a direct order. She dropped her control over the
wolves and the dark glade swirled around her.

“
Lea?” Julius said, concern clear.

“
I’m fine,” she gasped just before her butt hit the grass. She
dropped her forehead to her upraised knees as dizziness swamped her
and spikes of pain lanced through her head. Razor’s whiskers
tickled the side of her face and his worry washed over
her.

“
Hellcat?” Mac’s voice was on her other side. His weathered
hand covered one of hers, his fingers digging gently into the pulse
point at her wrist. “She’s okay,” she heard him say. “Here.” A
water bottle pressed into her hand, and she dared to open one eye
as she twisted the cap off. The cool gush of the water down her
throat was heaven.
I’m fine,
Julius
, she projected at him.

“
Just give me a moment,” she said out loud. The headache had
dulled from piercing to throbbing. Razor nuzzled her face, purring,
relieved but not entirely reassured. She petted him as she finished
the water, then put one hand on Mac’s arm and used his solid
strength to pull herself into a standing position. The knot of
werewolves bristled angrily in the circle of mindless Vampires, but
Fergus’s silent threat seemed to be keeping them under control.
Zayden still knelt silently at Julius’s feet while Julius watched
her with narrowed eyes. She gave Mac a grateful pat and withdrew
her hand from his forearm. “Take care of Butch. Call me if you need
me,” she told him, stiffening her wobbly knees before going to join
Julius.

“
I would prefer you didn’t see this,” he told her, showing no
hint of the strain he must be under keeping control of so many
hostile Vampires. He had slammed his mental walls into place as
soon as he realised she was alright, and not a single emotion
leaked through his barriers.

“
Am I your Consort or not?” She tried to keep her voice even,
but didn’t quite manage it. She was filled with a mixture of
irritation, anticipation and fear. Kyle had warned her that she
didn’t really want to see this side of Julius. Kyle had seen it,
and Gabi knew it still haunted him. But it was time; she wanted…no,
she needed to see every part of him, understand every aspect of
him. She knew the good, noble, loyal side of him; now she had to
see the brutal, heartless side, the side that would stop at nothing
to protect those he loved. His dark sapphire gaze bored into hers.
She opened her mind, laying herself bare, hoping to prove she was
strong enough to see all of him.

Finally, he
nodded, just once, but his expression was bleak.

Power swirled
around Gabi and then the Vampire on the ground shook his head and
groaned, like someone waking from a nightmare. He looked up to find
Gabi and Julius staring down at him, and flinched.

“
Tell us who sent you here? Who were you going to deliver me
to?” Gabi asked.

Zayden visibly
steadied himself and let the mocking smile slide back into place.
“I don’t take orders from others, especially not mostly human
females,” he sneered.

“
Answer the questions, or I’ll rip the information from your
mind,” Julius said. His voice was low and soft, and Gabi was
grateful it wasn’t directed at her. She could almost taste the
foreboding in his words.

“
I will not tell you anything,” the Vampire hissed. “Release me
and my people or this will be considered a declaration of war. The
Lucis will not stand a chance.” He spat the words as though they
were distasteful in his mouth.

“
Your choice,” Julius replied. And then the Vampire’s spine
bowed, his head flew backwards and he screamed.

Zayden, the
powerful Decurian, lay on the ground, his legs twisted under him at
unnatural angles, his eyes staring vacantly up at the starry sky.
Julius had avoided looking at Gabi throughout the process, and he
turned away from her now. Watching the man writhe and scream hadn’t
been pleasant; she’d never been comfortable with calculated
torture, but the vision of Julius on his knees with a dagger
millimetres from his heart was still fresh in her mind, and she’d
felt no empathy for the Decurian. Her fears over how she’d feel
about Julius afterward were groundless; she felt only amazement at
the power he was capable of wielding. She wished he would turn and
read her so he would understand the depth of her feelings for him,
the admiration she had for the control he showed every second he
was conscious. How easy and how tempting would it be for someone
with his gifts to simply make others do exactly what he wanted? If
someone like Dantè or one of the Decuria had even a drop of the
power he possessed, the world would be a very, very different
place.

“
Fergus,” Julius called.

“
I’ll do it,” Mac said, already stalking across the clearing.
Butch was sitting up, leaning against the helicopter, a water
bottle in one hand, his skin less ashen. Mac approached the prone
Vampire, his expression as cold as the blade of the hunting knife
in his right hand. Gabi growled a little; it was too kind to finish
the Decurian this cleanly. Leaving the living wreck alive would be
fair warning to any others who thought they could mess with
Julius’s Clan. But that wasn’t Julius’s way. She respected
that.

As Mac neared
him, Julius held out his hand for the knife. Mac ignored his
unspoken request and knelt near the Vampire’s head. “He doesn’t
deserve the honour of being slain by a Master Vampire,” he told
Julius, his voice gruff. Without hesitation he jammed the blade
into the Vampire’s neck and hacked downward until the head came
away from the body. They all watched in silence, even Zayden’s own
people, as the Vampire began to shrivel and decay. In just moments
his clothing lay crumpled on the grass, small piles of ash at the
openings, and little more. Julius tossed the ivory-handled dagger
beside the clothing and stepped away.

A strong
swirling of air and the sound of a powerful motor drew Gabi’s
attention; Butch was in the helicopter’s pilot seat, flicking
switches. A quick glance at her watch revealed there wasn’t much
night left; they needed to leave. Julius strode towards Zayden’s
people. The Vampires had lost the spaced-out look they’d had
earlier, and the Werewolves paced restlessly, the whites of their
eyes showing, their wolves clawing for control.

“
Leave however you wish,” he told them. “Go back to the others,
or build another life for yourselves, I don’t care which, but if I
ever see any of you again, you will not get off as lightly as he
did.”

Gabi clenched
Nex a little tighter and moved in front of Razor as the tense
throng of Vampires and Werewolves broke apart and scattered to the
four winds. Mac and Fergus stood, fierce and battle ready, watching
them go. Not one so much as looked back.

Julius turned
on his heel and paced towards the helicopter, still studiously
avoiding Gabi’s gaze. Annoyance flared and Nex’s hilt grew warm in
her hand as she moved to intercept him.

“
You bastard,” she growled, levelling Nex at his chest. He
stopped when the tip of her blade touched his chest, his eyes
finally meeting hers, and in their depths she read his sense of
doom. “You nearly made my heart stop when I saw that dagger in your
chest…you took ten fucking years off my life.” She broke off,
letting the sword fall to her side. She was too tired to actually
stab any sense into him. Instead she knocked down the mental walls
she’d automatically rebuilt and allowed her emotions to drench him.
He hesitated for a full second before reaching out and pulling her
into his arms, ignoring her outraged squawk and Razor’s warning
hiss.

“
You are something else,” he breathed into her hair before
releasing her just enough that she could look up at him. “That’s
the part that scared you?” he asked with narrowed eyes. She pulled
a ‘duh’ face at him. He shook his head and released an explosive
breath. “I apologise for scaring you, Lea, but the opportunity was
just too good to pass up.”

“
You could’ve warned me through our link,” she grumbled,
nowhere near placated.

“
Controlling them all in the middle of a brawl would’ve been
nigh-on impossible. I needed to keep everyone calm. I needed the
leader to think he was in control. Your reaction needed to be
natural, and it was absolutely perfect. This was the safest way I
could think of.”

“
And why the goddamned headlong rush down the mountain?” she
demanded, still not ready to forgive and forget. “That nearly
killed me.” His reluctant smile was grim.

“
I figured they’d have Butch; I didn’t want to leave him too
long in their tender care.”

She had no more
energy to argue or to act annoyed, so she simply dropped her head
onto his chest and allowed herself a moment to savour the feeling
of sheer relief. Relief that her mom was safe and on her way home,
that Butch was alive and functioning, that Fergus hadn’t been
mortally wounded, and that Julius hadn’t been reduced to a pile of
ash. It was as good an ending as she could hope for. The rest could
wait. Even the raging desire to know what Julius had pulled from
Zayden’s mind.

The helicopter
flight back to the airport was short, urgent and noisy and did
nothing to ease the throbbing in Gabi’s head. Night was fading and
sunrise was imminent; the need to get Mac onto the plane before
sunrise made them all tense. Gabi was both surprised and oddly
relieved to find Sicarius waiting for them in the plane, which was
already warming up and almost ready to go. He barely raised an
eyebrow at their dishevelled and bloodied appearance, and he didn’t
seem any the worse for wear. But questions would have to wait.

“
Seats, please,” the pilot’s voice said over the intercom, and
they all hurried to comply. Mac disappeared into the first sleeping
cubicle, and Fergus began divesting himself of his scabbard and
assorted weapons. Gabi fell into a seat and gently bumped heads
with Razor as he hopped up beside her, purring. Julius handed her a
bottle of painkillers and a glass of water then gave the assassin a
pointed look. Sicarius sighed, saluted and went off to the same
cubicle he’d been locked in on the flight here. Fergus took a seat
near them after shoving a disturbingly large pile of weapons into a
storage locker next to the on-board toilet and shower room. The
plane began to taxi toward the runway as Gabi glanced out of the
window to see the eastern sky light with false dawn. They’d made
it. She popped four tablets into her mouth and washed them down
with the entire glass of water.

“
Sire,” Fergus rumbled, “can we troost th’ Decurian, or dae I
need tae dispose ay th’ assassin?”

“
Let Gabrielle call and speak to her mother first; then we will
talk,” Julius told him.

“
It can wait. I know she’s safe with Kyle,” Gabi said,
loosening Razor’s armour as the plane turned at the end of the
runway and began to pick up speed ready for take-off. “Fergus will
need to sleep soon. I can call her then.”

“
Nae, lass, I can stave off the sleep. Call yer mother; it’ll
set yer mind at ease,” he told her.

Gabi frowned,
thinking back, but she couldn’t remember Fergus being able to delay
his daysleep in the past. She knew he was powerful but…

“
Have you been keeping secrets from me?” she demanded, glancing
from the Scotsman to Julius and back. They looked at each other,
not meeting her gaze; it was almost comical to see two of the
fiercest men on the planet looking sheepish. She sighed and pulled
a face. “Really?” she asked, her disbelief drawing out the word. “I
only gave him like a teaspoonful.” A couple of months ago she’d
given Fergus a small amount of her blood to wake him from daysleep.
She hadn’t given the donation much thought at the time, but now it
was clear that, small as it had been, it had had an
effect.

“
Ye ur potent lass.” Fergus grinned.

“
Fergus was only a hairsbreadth from Master level anyway,”
Julius explained. “He would’ve reached it on his own within months,
but your blood pushed him over the threshold.”

“
Ye hae tae be very careful who ye share it with. Ye cannae dae
it without thinkin’,” Fergus put in, his face serious.

Gabi grimaced.
“We’ll talk about this later. I’m going to call my mom.”

“
That’s a lot tae think about,” Fergus grumbled an hour later.
“Naethin’ is straightforward with th’ Decurians.”

“
Or with the Lucis,” Gabi added. Razor was sleeping with his
head and one paw on her thigh. She stroked him, soothing herself
more than the cat.

“
And everything could change tomorrow if any of the major
players have a change of heart,” Julius agreed.

“
But for now, we can trust Eka, in as much as he needs us to
educate and protect Flora.” Gabi phrased it as a statement, but it
was equally a question. “If his life is as threatened as Zayden
thought it was, he’s in a worse position than he painted for
us.”

“
Perhaps he simply doesn’t know how adamant they are about
removing him,” Julius surmised.

“
Ur he is confident he can overcome any attacks by bein’
forewarned,” Fergus said.

“
What are the chances he will try to Turn Flora?” Gabi asked
the question that had been prickling the back of her mind since
they sat in the cave with the Decurian Number One.