Embrace the Wild (The Blood Rose Series Book 6) (21 page)

She nodded, wiping another stray tear from her cheek.

He left by way of the front door, and after issuing orders to the Guardsmen, he flew swiftly up above the canopy of the dense forest, then sped back to his house.

He contacted Zane mind-to-mind, asking about the black ops team, but they’d had no luck through the previous night locating Axton. Malik was disappointed, but not especially surprised.

A few minutes later, he landed on the front walk of his home, then opened the door. But the moment he crossed the threshold, a strange dizziness passed through his head that made him pause. Once the sensation drifted away, he tried to take a step forward, but couldn’t. In fact he couldn’t move at all. What the fuck?

He tried to call out to his housekeeper, but even his voice was frozen.

Mentally, he reached out for Zane, but he couldn’t path, not to Zane, not to anyone.

Panic set in so that for the next couple of minutes he did everything he could think of to either move his feet or to reach someone telepathically but nothing worked.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened. Right now he was caught in a powerful fae spell. To his knowledge, not even Alexandra the Bad could create a stasis spell, which meant that Zane’s was right after all.

And Margetta had come for him.

He thought about Willow’s headache, her uneasiness, and that she hadn’t slept well. Dammit, if he hadn’t been so caught up in leaving her, he might have figured out that something
fae
had been at work in her treehouse as well, disturbing her dreams and causing her pain.

Another wave of panic flowed through him. He didn’t have to be told that right now Axton was already inside Willow’s home and that Malik couldn’t do a damn thing about it because he was trapped in his own house.

~ ~ ~

Willow hadn’t moved from the time that Malik left. Instead, she sat with her elbows on the table, her head in her hands. She’d never experienced such a bad headache in her life and no amount of self-healing seemed to offer any relief. It was as though someone was pounding on her telepathic frequency demanding admittance, yet when she searched the vibration, nothing was there.

But there was something more. She regretted letting Malik leave without assuring him that she didn’t blame him for killing her father. She had just been so taken aback by his confession, that she hadn’t been able to process it quickly enough. And Malik had looked so stricken when he’d told her, but he’d left before she could tell him that she really did understand and that he was forgiven. She’d had decades to come to terms with what had happened.

She rubbed her temples, wishing the headache would let up.

Then suddenly, the pain was gone. But why?

“Hello, Willow. Sweet Goddess but you smell like heaven.”

Willow looked up. “Oh, no.”

Axton.

She glanced around. He appeared to be alone, yet she could feel a powerful fae presence supporting him. And just like that, she understood the whole picture, why she hadn’t slept well and why she’d had a headache and why the pain had just now vanished; she’d been under a terrible spell and now the spell had been broken.

In its stead, however, a great evil had entered her treehouse.

Margetta the Ancient Fae, the creator of the Invictus scourge, had come to call.

“Take her,” a female voice whispered along the air currents of the room.

She rose to her feet, wanting to face the enemy while standing. “You’ve been behind all of this, Mistress Margetta?” She glanced around the space, looking for any sign of the woman.

“Of course.” The voice had a wavy, disguised sound, as though cloaked, a protective spell, maybe, that kept her hidden. “And all I needed to do was to wait for Malik to leave you as I knew he would.

“I want the wraiths in that little colony you’ve been hiding and I mean to have each and every one. They’ll make a fine army and Axton intends to help me pair them up with the willing citizens of The Society. Now isn’t that a match made in heaven?”

Willow’s heart raced. There had to be a way out of this mess, but how? And already her desire for Axton began to swell within her. The blood rose gift was anxious to feed any mastyr vampire who drew near.

Then a golden light appeared, and Margetta made herself visible. Willow turned toward her and gasped. The woman was so beautiful for someone with such a twisted soul. She had long blond hair, a lovely straight nose and wide-set, violet eyes.

“You’re Margetta the Ancient Fae.”

“I am.”

She waved a hand toward Willow that froze her in place. She’d heard rumors that the most powerful fae could create a stasis spell, but she’d never felt one before.

Margetta drew close to Axton and took his hand, leading him toward Willow.

Willow tried to back up, to move away, to run, but she was paralyzed. She tried to scream, but her voice was frozen as well.

When the Ancient Fae took Willow’s hand, a powerful shudder of revulsion rolled through her. She’d never touched evil before, but she could feel that something very sadistic ran through Margetta’s veins.

Willow breathed hard as Axton took her hand. He gripped it hard, squeezing until it hurt, but she couldn’t cry out.

“You’ll do as you’re told, Mistress,” Axton said. “I have command of you now, and you will do whatever I say.”

Margetta ran a hand down Willow’s head and hair. “Axton is going to drink from you now and somewhere in that drinking you’d better choose to bond with him, or he will take you all the way to the grave, do you understand? You bond or you die.”

Willow found she could move her eyes, the only thing that worked in the stasis spell. She shifted her gaze to the illuminated wraith-fae who smelled sickly sweet. She tried to speak, but couldn’t.

Margetta narrowed her gaze and waved her hand once more. “You may speak.”

Willow gasped at the sudden freeing of her vocal chords, then said, “I despise you.”

Margetta smiled. “Despise me all you want. Just tell me you understand that I’m giving you the choice of life or death? And answer me, Willow, or I will kill one of your ineffective guards.”

Willow glanced at the Guardsmen out the window of her home. All were unaware of the events inside the house. “I understand.”

Margetta stepped back. “Axton, this party is all yours and I have other critical business to attend to. Once she bonds, the stasis will end or you can also end it by giving her a solid blow anywhere on her body. Enjoy.”

The golden light dissipated and Willow felt the evil presence fade then disappear.

Axton slid his hand up around Willow’s neck and held her gaze. “The moment I caught your blood rose scent the other night, I made a vow to myself that I’d make you mine.” He leaned close and sniffed her throat.

The part of Willow that was a blood rose failed to differentiate even a little bit between Axton and Malik. Her heart thrummed heavily now, while her body created an excess of rich blood intended to ease the suffering of any mastyr, whether good or evil.

His fangs descended.

~ ~ ~

Sweat poured off Malik’s brow. He’d never worked so hard in his life as he strove to find a way out of the trap that had been laid for him. His heart beat hard and every muscle in his body ached with the effort to try to move. But all he’d succeeded in doing was flexing to the point of causing more than one muscle to cramp painfully.

As a man used to fighting, of doing battle with either the energy from his palms or his fists, being held in stasis was nothing less than torture.

He forced himself to take a few deep breaths and calm down. There had to be a way out.

Willow. Sweet Goddess, what was happening to her right now? He tried to reach for her telepathically, but couldn’t.

He then searched through each of his frequencies, including both his mating frequency and his battle vibration but nothing had the smallest effect on the stasis. And he still couldn’t reach anyone beyond the spell that had bound him.

When a new wave of dizziness hit him, he would have fallen had the spell not held him upright.

A golden light suddenly filled the entryway, and a very beautiful woman appeared. Yet he knew without having to be told that he was looking at the Ancient Fae, the woman responsible for centuries of anguish in every realm of his world.

Margetta, a wraith-fae of enormous power who worked in tandem with her husband, Gustave, had discovered how to forge a bond between wraiths and any other realm-folk. These bonds created violent fighting teams that Margetta was presently using in an attempt to take over the Nine Realms.

Malik thought back to Davido’s warning that the entire fate of their world depended on what happened right now in his realm.

“How are you, Mastyr Malik?” For someone so evil, she had a voice that sounded of soft wind chimes, but he wasn’t about to be drawn in.

She waved a hand. “You may speak.”

“Fuck you, Margetta.”

She clucked her tongue, tsking at him. The bitch. “Is that anyway to talk to the woman who holds your life in her hands? But I do have something I need to tell you and though it gives me great joy, you probably won’t like it. I just wanted you to know that I’ve brought my army into your realm, and I’ll shortly begin my invasion of the wraith colony.”

In his effort to separate from Willow, he knew he’d just brought disaster down on his realm.

“And again, fuck you.”

She narrowed her eyes slightly. “Well, for that little piece of insolence, I am going to have kill you. But don’t worry, I’ll do it slow, that way you’ll have the illusion you can escape. And while you’re breathing your last, Axton will take Willow for his own and the power they will create together will change the future of the Nine Realms forever, make no mistake.”

She laughed this time, and the tips of her wraith-fangs showed. She waved her arm and a wave hit him, this time of terrible pain. But when it passed, he was left with what felt like an invisible band around his chest.

She watched him carefully, smiling all the while.

He took a deep breath, ready to shout her down, but the band tightened into a vise, and with each breath that followed, it tightened a little more.

Margetta had cast a spell that would slowly suffocate him.

Mentally, he cursed long and loud but worked to draw as little air into his lungs as possible, yet with each breath he felt the band cinch.

Without the ability to reach out for help, or to move, or to stop the band-spell, he knew he was going to die.

His spirit caved within him and again, if he hadn’t been held in stasis, he would have fallen to his knees.

Margetta drew close and touched his face. “You’re one of the most handsome men I’ve ever seen. I can end this agony you’re suffering if you’ll agree to be with me, to share my bed.”

“I’d rather be dead.” The band tightened some more.

She waved her hand again. “And now no more talking and I definitely don’t want you calling out for help.”

He tried to answer her, but the paralysis had returned to his vocal chords.

“I wish I could stay, Mastyr, because it would give me great pleasure to watch you breathe your last, but I really do need to coordinate my wraith-pairs. They’re hopeless without me.” She lifted an arm and vanished.

Another breath. Another tightening of the band.

He thought of Willow caught in Axton’s trap and how he’d failed to protect her. Why hadn’t it occurred to him that Axton would make Willow his priority instead of the wraith colony?

He trembled head-to-foot at the thought of another vampire feeding from Willow and the woman that belonged to him. He would always think of her as his.

Then a thought even worse surfaced. Axton would bond with the woman
Malik loved.

His chest ached as though he’d just been punched hard right over his heart. Why hadn’t he seen the truth sooner about what Willow was to him?

He understood now that she wasn’t just his blood rose. Somewhere during all those months of chasing her, she’d gotten under his skin.

And he loved her.

But as the bands tightened and full-on suffocation drew close, he had to admit another horrible truth. He wouldn’t even be in this mess if he hadn’t been in such a Goddess be-damned hurry to leave Willow.

He could see the signs now that Margetta had been after her. Willow had complained of headaches and she hadn’t slept well all night. A fae as powerful as Willow could have self-healed easily, but he’d been intent on creating some distance, and now here he was having fallen into Margetta’s trap.

He felt like five kinds of fool. Alexandra the Bad had called it right when she kept slapping at his chest and calling him a stupid man, because right now that’s exactly what he was. He’d been lying to himself and calling it smart.

With barely any air now flowing into his lungs, his arrogance left him. What remained was humility and the truth that if given the chance, he’d bond with her and not think twice about it.

This time, a new dizziness came over him, because his brain was slowly being deprived of oxygen.

The whole situation lay before him from the time Axton had begun his attacks on the entrance to the wraith colony until this moment. What struck him was that he no longer worked alone but had functioned as part of a team, whether with Alexandra and the fae leadership, or with Zane and his Guard, or with Willow.

He felt in his bones that his going-it-alone days were gone. He saw a new future of greater cooperation all over his realm and that was when he realized he’d forgotten one of the vibrations that he and Willow had tapped into.

The earth itself.

But could he reach this most primal frequency so far away from the wraith colony?

He had no idea, but he had to try.

With black spots coming and going in front of his eyes, he opened to the gift Willow had given him of the ability to feel the power of the Nine Realms itself as it lay deep in the earth.

He drew the vibrations up into his body and felt the frequency begin to push back against Margetta’s spell.

Magically, the bands loosened enough for him to start gasping in air. With each breath, the spots before his eyes lessened, and the bands stretched wide until finally the band-spell broke.