Warlock Brothers of Havenbridge 01 - Spell Bound (26 page)

“Not quite,” I replied. I grabbed his hands and held them in mine.

“Then who’s headin’ over here?”

“Two other magical families like us. But they aren’t warlocks. They’re witches and wizards.”

Drake fell back into the chair behind him. I knelt in front of him, hoping my smile and the affection in my eyes would quell the rising tide of panic that surged within. I stroked his thigh while cupping his chin. “Don’t freak out on me, Drake. I don’t know what I’d do if you did.”

Drake took a deep breath before looking around. He wouldn’t stop fidgeting. “I don’t know what to do with all this,” he repeated once he’d looked again at me.

“Then we’ll figure it out,” I said. “Together.”

M
Y
FATHER
and brothers left the living room to give us some privacy. Drake had had a whole shitload of information heaped upon him, and we needed some time alone to sort through everything before the Stonewalls and the Proctors arrived.

“Talk to me,” I said.

But he didn’t respond. He paced the room, surveying every object, every picture. He studied our family portrait, his blond eyebrows arching as if he realized something, but instead of speaking, he moved on. He gnawed on his lower lip and resumed doing laps around the room.

“You can ask me anything. I promise to answer truthfully.”

“Because you’ve been so truthful up until now?”

That hurt. “It’s not like I could tell you what I was. We have laws, you know?”

“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “I don’t.”

I told him about the rules that prevented us from revealing our true identities and why those laws were in place. We’d been hunted almost to extinction during the witch trials, and we were still hunted to this day. Our laws kept us safe. As long as we followed them, those who still wished to exterminate us wouldn’t be able to find us.

“So you’re sayin’ there are modern-day witch hunters out there?”

I nodded.

“And they know about the existence of your kind and haven’t told anyone?”

“Who would believe them?”

Drake chuckled, but it wasn’t a sound that expressed joy. “I can’t argue with that.” He paused. He looked me up and down as if passing judgment.

“What?”

“If you’re a warlock, does that mean you’re evil?”

I winced. “What?”

“Well, aren’t warlocks evil? Don’t witches worship the devil? Isn’t that why you’re hunted?”

I took several deep breaths. I hated the stereotypes perpetuated by pop culture. “First of all, we were hunted because humans feared us. Their ignorance fed that fear. Nothing else. They don’t like what we represent. They think we’re evil because we can do things their gods say we shouldn’t be able to do, but no, we’re not evil, and witches don’t worship the devil. We evolved from humans, the same way humans evolved from primates. Does that make you evil? Of course not. Are there bad warlocks among us? Sure, just as there are evil humans. Don’t mistake types of magic for the people we are.”

This wasn’t going well. The force of my words added further distance between us, and whatever walls had previously fallen had gone right back up. Drake was rebuilding those barriers brick by brick, and the longer I stood there, the harder it was going to be to get around them again.

I crossed the room toward him, and he regarded me with suspicion. “I’m not going to hurt you,” I said, drawing closer. “I could never do that. It’s just, well, I know you’ve learned a lot of shit you probably never wanted to know about, but I’m still me. The boy you’ve been drawn to. The one who held you in his arms on the beach.”

“That seems like a lifetime ago,” he whispered. His anger stepped back for an instant as the boy I’d kissed, the one who’d pleaded with me to lie naked on top of him, came forward.

“I know it does,” I said, taking his hands in mine. He tensed upon contact, but I wasn’t going to give up. We’d given ourselves to each other, and that was a gift that wasn’t so easily returned. “A lot of fucked-up shit has happened since then, but it doesn’t change what I feel for you. From the moment I saw you, I knew you were special. I also knew you were a cocky motherfucker.” A sly smile spread across his lips as the bricks he’d erected started to crumble. “But that’s just who you are. That’s what makes you Drake Carpenter, the boy I tried not to like but ended up falling in love with.”

He inhaled sharply. “What did you say?”

I drew him into my arms and rested my forehead against his. “You heard me.”

“Say it again.”

“That you’re a cocky motherfucker?”

He playfully swatted my chest. “You’re such an asshole.”

“Maybe,” I said with a nod. “But I’m an asshole who loves you.”

The smile that stretched across his lips might as well have been a wrecking ball, because it smashed through the barrier that had briefly come between us. “And I’m a cocky motherfucker who loves you too,” he replied before pressing his lips against mine.

And when we kissed, the final remnants of Drake’s fear and apprehension melted away.

We were going to be okay, and that was what I truly believed until the house went dark.

“I
T
’
S
BACK
,”
my father said as he and my brothers charged into the dark room.

Drake held me tight, but it wasn’t out of fear. Well, not completely. He trembled against me, so he was scared. Hell, I was too. But he wasn’t holding me because he was terrified. His embrace communicated his love for me, his desire to protect me. It also told me we were in this together.

If a vampyre hadn’t been about to attack us, I’d have been ripping off his clothes.

Thad muttered an illumination spell, and a dozen balls of light floated in the air above us. Pierce sneered, and streaks of blue electricity emanated from his clenched fists. A low rumble preceded my father encasing himself entirely in stone.

“Wow,” Drake muttered as he saw my family prepare for battle. “That’s fuckin’ awesome.”

Thad smirked as he gestured in a wide circle. Ice immediately started forming along the walls, covering up the windows and the entranceway to the room in solid blocks. “That’ll slow the bastard down some.”

My father nodded, his handsome face now only solid stone. “And alert us from where he’s going to attack.” As usual when he was in his rock form, his voice was low and gravelly.

“Why not just attack him?” Drake asked. “There’s four of you and one of him.”

“If only it was that easy,” Thad answered. “A vampyre is pure power, capable of tearing through an entire coven all by itself. Our best chance right now is to hold it off until the rest of the protector covens get here. Then we might have a fighting chance.”

“You have no chance against me,” the vampyre said. Its voice didn’t emanate from outside Thad’s icy formation. It was in here with us, and we swept the room, searching for where it was hidden. I stepped in front of Drake, making sure that wherever I looked, he remained behind me, but Drake, stubborn as usual, stepped out from behind me and stood at my side.

“We’re in this together, remember?”

I was about to remind him he was human and had no powers to fight off an attack—but his steely gaze told me he’d hear none of that. There was only one acceptable answer. “I do.”

The vampyre laughed. “How touching! The human thinks it stands a chance against me. Does it not realize I could rip it in two before it even saw me coming?”

Its threat sparked my anger. I used it to fuel my magic. I still had no clue how to call forth my active power the way my family did, but I felt it bubbling to the surface the same way it had when the vampyre had attacked Drake at Aunt Millie’s. “If you lay one pasty finger on him, I’ll kill you.”

The vampyre’s cocky laughter echoed off the ice around us, making it sound as if a dozen vampyren surrounded us. “You can’t kill me. You already tried. And failed. There’s nothing you or anyone can do to stop me and my mission.”

“And what mission is that?” I asked as my father and brothers continued to search the room. Perhaps if I kept it distracted, one of them would either find where it lurked or come up with a plan to stop this motherfucker.

“
Tsk-tsk
,” it said, as if I were a silly child. “I’m not about to give away all our secrets.”

Our? Was there more than one vampyre or did this thing have an accomplice?

“But I will tell you this,” it said. “Mostly because it involves you.”

Drake tensed. I gripped his hand, hoping my touch gave him the comfort his gave me. “Me? What about me?”

“Nothing is going to change what is coming. It’s inevitable, but I can offer you this. One of the things I was sent to retrieve was you, Shadow Weaver, and if you come with me, your family and your human will be spared. For now.”

My brothers and my father stared at me, shaking their heads. They realized I was considering the offer. I loved them and Drake. If I could buy them a few more hours or days, they might be able to find a way to stop the vampyre and whatever schemes it had concocted with its friends.

“I don’t think so,” Drake answered for me. He gripped my face in his hands and forced my attention away from the threat that surrounded us. “There’s no way I’m lettin’ you sacrifice yourself.”

“It might be the only way.”

“Mason, no,” he said. He wrapped his arms around my neck and held me tight. “There’s always another way.”

“He’s right,” my father said. Pierce and Thad nodded in agreement. “We stand together. Like always.”

What else could I say? My family and my boyfriend had my back. What more did I need? I looked about the room. “Go fuck yourself.”

An angry wail filled the room as the vampyre leaped out of the shadow cast across the wooden floor. Its sudden appearance startled all of us. We’d been prepared for it to be in the room, but none of us expected it to jump out of a shadow as if it were an open window. Just how powerful was this vampyre?

Pierce was the first to respond. He unleashed a powerful lightning bolt that struck the vampyre in the chest. Thunder reverberated in the room as it flew back into Thad’s ice wall. Thad seized the opportunity. He gestured toward his creation, and the ice started to crystallize around the vampyre. It thrashed and cursed as the ice formed around its limbs. My father stomped over to where it was held fast. His massive, rocky fists pummeled the monster’s stomach.

Even though I wasn’t the most educated among us in terms of vampyren, even I knew their efforts were in vain. They were only pissing it off.

Black spittle flew from its lips as my father continued his assault and Pierce unleashed another barrage of electricity. It strained against Thad’s formation. Its superhuman strength caused the ice to crack, and no matter how quickly Thad reformed the prison, he wasn’t going to maintain it for long.

Only a stake through the vampyre’s heart would end this.

“We’ve got to do somethin’,” Drake said.

“I will.” I turned to the wooden coffee table that sat in the middle of the room. It was the only piece of furniture sturdy enough to have what we needed. “Pierce.”

My brother glanced at me and then at where I pointed. He nodded in understanding and fired a volley of electricity at it. I shielded Drake with my body as my brother’s assault caused the coffee table to explode into a shower of splintered wood.

“No!” the vampyre screamed. It vomited a stream of black tar at Pierce, which coated him from head to toe. He gasped and clawed at the substance as it clogged his nose and throat. If we didn’t get it off him, he was going to die.

“I’ll help Pierce,” Drake said as he ran to my brother’s side. “You do what you need to do.”

I nodded as Drake began wiping the oily substance from Pierce’s breathing passages. I searched the splintered mess for a piece big and sturdy enough to kill that fucker.

A huge explosion tore through the room. One glance over my shoulder revealed the vampyre had freed itself and was leaping through the air at me. My father grabbed its foot and slammed it into the ground.

When it landed, boiling black shadows erupted around its form. It was the same darkness it had tried to kill me with earlier. Was the vampyre also a shadow weaver? The black clouds quickly engulfed my father and Thad. They screamed in pain as the tentacled creatures that lived within squeezed the life out of them as they had tried to do to me.

I returned to the broken remains of the coffee table. There was nothing in the mess that would help.

“Watch out!”

Drake’s warning came at just the right time. I managed to move out of the way just as the vampyre crashed down upon where I’d previously stood. It hissed and snarled as it lunged at me again, but this time I was ready.

The shadows around us bent to my command. They lifted from where they were cast and solidified after wrapping around the vampyre. Some anchored it to the floor, while others coiled around its neck. It pulled against the shadowy restraint.

I’d stopped it, but not for long. It would be free soon, and I had to get Drake out of here. I pointed my hands to the ice wall that covered the exit to the room, and a stream of black energy flew out of me. It collided with the barrier, causing it to explode in a shower of ice. “Get out of here!” I told Drake. He’d managed to remove the black tar from Pierce, who’d passed out from lack of oxygen.

“I’m not leavin’ you,” he said.

The vampyre snapped free of the shadow ropes and leaped upon me. We fell to the floor in a heap. It hissed, and its claws sliced through my skin. “Please, Drake,” I said as its tongue darted through its sharp teeth at me. I didn’t have much time left, but I had enough to keep it distracted while he escaped.

Drake stopped arguing. He realized we’d lost, so why was he smirking? He sprinted at top speed out the exit I’d made. When he was gone, I sighed in relief.

“I’ll hunt him down,” the vampyre said. Its tongue lapped at my face before moving to my neck. It couldn’t wait to tear me open and drink. “But first, you die.”