Her Vampire Husband (27 page)

Their numbers were large for a pack. On average a pack was six or eight males strong, though he’d known the rare pack to be as large as twenty. And he had killed three in the compound last night. Obviously the wolves had not suffered so much as they wished the vampires to believe.

But the fact remained, there were no females. And that was directly related to the vampires hunting their breed many decades earlier.

Creed inhaled and bowed before Amandus, his hands clasped before him. “Principal Masterson. I come to you not as the leader of tribe Nava, nor as a representative of the vampire nations.”

Amandus tilted a wicked sneer at him and crossed his arms high on his chest. The old wolf would not be so easily impressed. Below his Adam’s apple, the flesh was bruised and scarred. Creed had begun to rip the old man’s throat out at the banquet, but he couldn’t complete the job. He was Blu’s father, after all.

“I come to you as your daughter’s husband. A man concerned only for her well-being.”

Snorts and snickers from the wolves echoed in the
vast building. Creed did not look away from Amandus’s dour sneer.

As Blu had guessed, Creed was winging this. He didn’t need a plan. His heart would show him the way.

“It was you who gave her to me, Principal. You who offered your daughter to a vampire. That was a bold gesture. An immense sacrifice. And we all know neither side expected the other to submit to the pact of peace. It was a game. A stupid game.”

“Not stupid,” Amandus hissed.

“But certainly a folly.”

The werewolf grudgingly gave an agreeing nod to the foolishness of it all. “Get on with it, longtooth. I tire of your company already. If I must endure your stench, then make it good, and make it quick.”

Dropping to his knees, Creed bowed his head. The wolves had formed into a half circle before him and he could sense the curiosity over his move. As well, he could feel their bloodlust. It was so thick, he could bite it from the air and spit it at them.

At a time when he wished to wield Wolfsbane, or even magic, he could only trust his heart would lead him through this.

“I humble myself before the pack,” he offered. “What has gone on for centuries between the vampires and werewolves has always been accepted as how things are.
Now I find it unacceptable. It pains me to see us go at one another with no more reason than the lust for blood and vengeance. We have, both sides, committed heinous crimes against the other.”

“We have never hunted and skinned vampires alive,” Amandus said sharply.

No, but they did force vampires to kill one another, which was an equally heinous crime.

“You owe us much land, vampire.”

“The lands the vampires have purchased have been done so in a legal process.”

“By a Council prejudice to the wolves, you know that,” Amandus hissed.

That could be true. But if more wolves chose to serve on the Council—No. Now was no time for picking at stupid details.

Amandus stepped forward and bent to meet Creed’s gaze. “You have tainted my daughter, longtooth.”

“If you choose to see it that way, then I certainly have. If loving someone is harmful or tainted, yes, I am guilty. Do not forget you offered her in this game of deceit.”

Amandus hissed. “She means nothing to me now. She has broken our bargain.”

“I did that. Not her. It was I who stole her from the compound. I took her from chains.” His heart ached to recall the silver shackles about Blu’s wrist. “One does not chain someone they care about.”

“Do not presume to tell me how to treat my offspring!”

“Of course not.” Yes, he must watch his anger. This was his last hope. “I do not know the ways of the pack.”

“You never will. Why try, vampire? There is no way you can make reparations for the land. For our lost generations!”

“Nor can the wolves atone for the lives they have enslaved and forced to fight to the death.”

Amandus scoffed. “You
murdered
Ryan. As well as two others from my pack.”

It would serve no good to explain that Ryan’s death had been an accident and the others self-defense. The principal knew that.

Nava had lost two vampires during the fight. All was fair in war. As well, he would not bring up the wolf’s murdered wife. That may push him over the edge. It was a crime he must answer to eventually, but now was not the time.

“Please, Principal, I sense you wish this to end, too. We’ve lost too many of our own.” Spreading his arms to expose his heart, Creed asked, “What can I do?”

“Take his life,” muttered a wolf from the pack. Another cried, “Kill the longtooth.”

Amandus paced before him, his heels scuffing the floor. “I would ask for my daughter back, but as I’ve said, she is ruined and of no use to me now.”

Interesting. Because Blu could return to the pack, mate with a wolf and have many werewolf children, Creed felt sure. That the principal put such spite to the vampire taint made him wonder about his efforts now.

“Your death would mean little. I see no significance whether you are a tribe leader or a common bloodsucker.”

The wolf knew he was an elder, one who possessed magic, and should be more fearsome. He must take pride in the fact he’d been the one to see Creed shackled.

“You may have something,” Amandus finally conceded. “I do wish this to settle. Losing pack numbers is difficult. We are few as it is. The River pack lost a female in the battle last night.”

Creed bowed and shook his head.

“My daughter refuses to play her part repopulating the pack. Useless bitch.”

Creed winced. She was the most incredible creature in his world. But a man so insensible as Amandus could never see that. Feeling his neck heat and his muscles tense, he cautioned himself against the simmering rage.

“You agree to sacrifice for peace?” Amandus said suddenly.

Creed looked at the man. What sacrifice had the man in mind?

Did it matter?

Your death will leave me alone. Is that how you show me your love?

He couldn’t die, could not abandon Blu.

But he was so close. He could feel the end near. The end to battle, the killing, the war. Was one simple sacrifice all that was required?

It would never completely dissipate the hatred between the nations. But if the revered Northern pack stepped from the vanguard, other packs would follow, as well, the tribes would.

“You vow that Blu will be free from the pack to live as she chooses?”

“So be it,” the principal muttered. “She is free.”

“Then I agree,” Creed said. Though what he agreed to, he didn’t know.

Amandus whistled sharply, bringing his first man to his side. “One thousand talons!”

Ridge nodded and grinned a toothy snarl at Creed.

Others gathered in a line flanking Amandus. The wolves shifted, their bodies bulking and lengthening, talons growing from their fingers, and fur rippling across their bodies as clothing tore and fell from their furred limbs.

His own hackles prickling, Creed winced at the acrid odor of musk and aggression.

Amandus motioned Creed to stand. “You survive
this, vampire, and you have my word on peace. You will have atoned for Eugene Ryan’s death and the injury you gave me. And, despite my utter disgust for your kind, you will have earned the right to call my daughter wife.”

The first strike happened without warning. Icy pain cut across Creed’s chest. The lead wolf slashed a talon through him.

He was immortal. A vampire who healed rapidly, and could not die unless his heart was staked and his head removed. But immortality did not mean he didn’t feel pain. He felt it acutely, perhaps more than the average mortal because of his heightened senses. A cut to flesh sizzled like a hive of bee stings.

The second talon burned through the flesh strapping his abdomen, searing through muscle and meat and drawing hot blood. Creed clamped his jaw tight, fighting the need to release an agonizing yowl. He would remain standing. He must.

For Blu.

Quickly and fiercely, the wolves took turns, each of their slashes made with surgical precision. All growled wickedly to deliver the blow, and then chuckled as their evil task was completed and they filed to the back of the never-ending line.

A slash across Creed’s thigh cut the artery. A talon at his cheek cut into his mouth, scratching a tooth. A
bicep muscle was torn, snapping painfully like sliced rubber.

It was the most agonizing pain. It burrowed deep, electrifying his nerves. An unending pain formed from hell. Twenty times worse than the shackles.

Yet, as the twentieth and thirtieth slashes were delivered, the first slashes began to heal. New flesh was reopened and tormented over and over again.

How could he endure the one thousand talons Amandus had called for?

Creed lost count somewhere around ninety-eight. He staggered but remained standing in the blood that pooled at his feet. Occasionally he cried out. The pain was too fierce not to shout, to attempt to alleviate or redirect the fire of agony. Once he put up a hand to block a slash, and the talon cut through his palm.

When Amandus called out, “One hundred!” Creed fell to his knees.

A werewolf romped around behind him and began to work on a new set of slashes.

R
IDGE DELIVERED THE
five hundredth slash across the vampire’s bloodied bones. How the vampire still managed to kneel on all fours was beyond him. Occasionally he’d cried out the princess’s name.

Was love so powerful then?

He swung to face Amandus and shifted from werewolf form to half were shape so he could speak. Spitting away sweat and blood from his lips, he then said, “Enough. No wolf has survived this long.”

“I’ll say it’s enough when we’ve reached one thousand,” Amandus spit. “Insubordinate.”

Covered with the vampire’s blood, Ridge shook his head, flinging droplets from his soaked hair. He cast a weary glance over his comrades, all red with blood and heaving from exhaustion. Reluctant now, they all had lost the vigor for vengeance.

“No,” Ridge said, and stepped to the principal. “The
vampire has proved his worth. He’s survived. He does this for peace, and for your daughter.”

“Do you dare to disobey me?” Amandus growled lowly. Of the wolves in the room he alone had not shifted to werewolf shape at all.

Ridge nodded. “The vampire has earned the princess. And peace between the packs and the tribes. You don’t like it?”

“Not exactly—”

One swipe of Ridge’s bloodied paw took Amandus Masterson’s head from his neck. The principal’s body slumped. And the pack nodded silently, respectful of Ridge’s act.

“T
AKE HIM OUT OF HERE
.”

Creed could barely make out sounds. Blood beat loudly in his ears, muffling the world. He could not smell anything but his own acrid, meaty blood.

A were’s face appeared above him, floating, or maybe Creed could not focus. It was the one called Ridge. He was no longer in werewolf form.

“Lord Creed Saint-Pierre, you have my promise to peace. And you may call Princess Masterson your own.” Ridge glanced over his shoulder. “Get this vampire gone from here! Jones, clean up this foul mess!”

The
mess
must be the thick sticky liquid Creed lay in. His own blood. Half of him, surely, pooled on the cement floor.

A hand gripped him at the ankle. He screamed but heard no sound. Other hands grasped at open, seeping parts of him. They handled him roughly, as if something to discard with a toss.

So much pain. His flesh was peeled away, his bones exposed. He could no longer heal quickly for he’d been torn to shreds.

As consciousness flickered, he thought of the most beautiful color in the world. Blu. And he smiled.

B
LU HUNG UP THE PHONE
and then threw the whole thing against the penthouse wall. It smashed, scattering electronic bits and plastic.

“What is it?” Severo, who had stopped by after he heard Creed had gone to the compound on his own, got to her as she began to shake.

She shoved away his embrace and gripped the kitchen counter.

“Who was it? Creed?”

“Ridge, my father’s second in command, who has just taken leadership of the Northern pack. He said I could pick up Creed a mile out from the compound. They laid him in a ditch. That means he’s not in good shape. He could be dead, Severo!”

“He could also be alive. Let’s go. He won’t survive for long in this sun.”

S
EVERO TOOK THE COUNTRY
road going ninety. His Jeep handled the road well enough, but he struggled to keep it straight on the loose gravel. Blu wanted to leap, shift to wolf shape and race across the countryside. But this way was faster, so she clutched the dashboard as tightly as her jaw.

“There are blankets in the back,” he said as they rounded a curve that set the Jeep on two wheels for a jawtensing few seconds. “You’ll need them. The compound is ahead, but I don’t know where—”

“There!” Blu released the door latch and bounded out, her feet hitting the ground and racing to meet the speed of the vehicle.

The glint at the edge of the ditch was not a jewel or metal—but blood. She could smell it before she could see it. Blood and the acrid scent of smoke. The sun burned him!

She landed on the blood-soaked grass beside what must be her husband but looked like a mass of man-shaped meat. His face was flat on the ground, arms splayed and legs bent. He bled everywhere. Huge gashes cut through his back. There was more blood and bone exposed than flesh.

Why had the wounds not healed?

Because there are so many.

Blu immediately knew her father had instituted his
favorite punishment upon Creed—one thousand talons. A werewolf never survived beyond two or three hundred. One rarity had seen her father reneging the punishment after one hundred, because he wished to save his best warrior.

She pressed her palm aside the bloody mass of Creed’s neck. His throat was torn, but there she felt a pulse.

Severo appeared in the ditch with blankets in hand. “Is he alive?”

“Barely.”

“Cover him from the sun. I’ll carry him to the Jeep.”

A
LEXANDRE ARRIVED
an hour after they’d returned to the hotel. Blu would not answer the door and appreciated that Severo had stuck around. Nothing could make her leave Creed’s side.

Piles of bloody towels lay heaped on the floor. She’d washed her husband’s wounds but tearfully realized he was one entire wound. The strips of flesh that had been spared were few. The sun had burned his back and the wounds festered.

But he was in there. He must sense her presence, feel her careful touches. Touches that must pain him, and she regretted them while she knew they were necessary.

“Stop crying,” she told herself. “You have to be strong for him. He did this for you.”

And he was still alive. That was better than dead. It had to be.

A quiet knock at the door did not dissuade her from the task of wringing the towels in the washbasin and rinsing them for reuse.

Severo peeked in. “How is he?”

“I think he may be healing. It’s hard to tell. But he moaned a few minutes ago. Alexandre, hello.”

“Oh, hell.” The tall vampire rushed to the bedside and held a palm over his friend’s chest. He moved it over Creed’s body, as if a metal detector used to determine pulse. “He will live.”

“You promise?” Blu asked, tears welling much against her will. “Please, Alexandre, promise me.”

“You can’t kill us so easily. Unfortunately.” He swallowed and looked over Creed’s chest. “The heart is still pumping so it did not take the damage.”

Yes, Blu had been able to peer between ribs and see the thick, beating muscle. How his heart had not been torn open was beyond her understanding. She couldn’t imagine her father’s men purposely avoiding his heart to keep him alive.

But what better way to prolong the torture than to keep the victim alive?

Bile rose in her throat. She hated her father and the pack so desperately. And yet, Ridge had said something
else when he’d called. Amandus was dead, at Ridge’s hand. He’d claimed leadership of the Northern pack.

She had lost her father and Ryan in less than twenty-four hours. Neither, however, was worthy of her sadness or tears.

“I have news,” Alexandre said softly. He turned his back to Creed and spoke to Blu and Severo. “The Northern pack has burned the sporting warehouse. They’ve taken a step toward peace. In fact, the one who claimed leadership—”

“Ridge.”

“Yes, he’s offered to stand good on the peace pact. I’m having the Nava tribe’s attorneys draw up contracts right now to return a portion of land to them. There is some land that we can determine, without doubt, was gained by nefarious means. It’s a beginning.”

“Possible only because of your husband,” Severo said. He put a hand on her shoulder. Blu appreciated the steadying warmth. He was one wolf she actually trusted. He tipped up her chin. “Ah? You wear his bite.”

She stroked her neck.

“You will not regret it,” he offered with kind eyes. Tugging aside his coat collar, he revealed a similar scar at the side of his neck. “The bond is like no other.”

“Your wife bit you? Do you drink blood?” she asked.

He nodded. “Only from my wife. It is an incredible experience. And you mustn’t worry, the blood hunger will
not force you to take a victim out of desperation. You’ll have time to return to your husband’s side.”

“Thank you, Severo. For all you have done.”

“We’ll leave you two. If there’s anything you need, Blu, you have my number.”

“Yes, but I don’t know what to do. What
can
I do?” She looked to both men, finding hope in Severo’s eyes, but little else.

“I wonder,” Alexandre said. He grabbed her hand and examined it. “Have you the ring still?”

Blu glanced to the bedside table where she’d deposited the ring last night. “What can that do? Creed believed it might take away his magic.”

“Yes, and yet he also believed it could have the opposite effect.”

“But at the risk he may be reduced to ash if either guess is wrong. Besides, he’s been shackled. He can’t use his magic without having his bones crushed!”

“I wasn’t aware,” Alexandre said. “When did that happen?”

“Last night. As soon as we arrived at the clubhouse. It was so awful. They bound him magically.”

Alexandre rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “He needs magic, Blu. He’ll heal faster if he can utilize his magic.”

“Magic?” Severo asked.

“He’s an elder,” Blu said. “One of the first vampires who used to steal magic from enslaved witches.”

“Remarkable,” Severo said. “Yet the shackle spell does not take away his magic. Perhaps the Council would see to giving it back to him, just to heal. It is worth the risk to help him heal, no?”

“Death is the risk,” Blu insisted.

She glanced at Creed’s ravaged body. Death or what horrendous condition if she did not try to help him? Would he remain tattered and broken forever? Could he function like that? Possibly, but would he
want
to live that way?

Not forever. No man would, and most especially not this proud warrior. But she could not imagine life without him now.

Looking to Severo, she asked, “Do you think the Council would agree to giving him the use of his magic? What would he do with it? He’s incapable.”

“He needs air, open space, to utilize any magic he may have,” Alexandre said. “And his earth magic, as well.”

“
If
the blood works.”

“Yes, if. Severo, will you take her to the Council?”

“No, I won’t leave Creed.”

“The Council will not come to you,” the werewolf offered. “If you want to save your husband, you must beg mercy.”

“And quickly. Take this.” Alexandre handed her the
ring. “Get permission, then we’ll bring Creed to a good spot. Drip the blood into his heart.”

Blu held the ring before her and tapped the glass. “I’m not sure.”

How could Alexandre be certain it would help him? He’d been a vampire centuries less than Creed.

Severo hugged her and examined the ring. “If you do not try it, he may never recover. The vampire is immortal, but a man can only take so much damage before his body simply gives up.”

“You think he’ll die if I allow him to heal without magical assistance?”

Both Severo and Alexandre nodded.

“Then let’s go.” She hastened out of the bedroom, with Severo behind her.

A
BIGAIL
R
OWAN LIVED
in a cottage Blu couldn’t help but label quaint. It was surrounded by lush flower blooms, manicured hedges and even had Welcome scrawled across the front doormat.

Blu knocked again, this time faster, louder and more insistent.

Severo hissed. “Be careful, Blu. Mustn’t do anything to rile her.”

“But we can’t afford to waste time. Creed is almost dead. Where is she?”

The door creaked open to reveal a thin blonde woman in white silk pajama bottoms and top. Her hair was tousled, as if she’d just risen.

“Oh, hell, no,” Abigail said.

“Did we wake you?” Severo asked.

“What do you think?”

“But it’s afternoon.” Blu stepped forward, but the witch didn’t move aside to allow entrance. “Can we come in?”

“No. You interrupted the first hour of good sleep I’ve had in days. What’s wrong now?”

“It’s Creed. He’s dying.”

The witch shrugged and made to close the door, but Severo blocked it with his boot.

“Oh, come on,” Abigail whined. “If you need to speak to the Council there are plenty other choices than me. I’m tired.”

“He needs his magic back.” Blu shoved the door inside and entered, forcing Abigail to step aside. She heard Severo apologize as he entered. “My father instituted his favorite punishment of a thousand talons against Creed, and now he’s near death. But Severo and Alexandre Renard both believe Creed may have a fighting chance if he can utilize his magic.”

“Not
his
magic,” Abigail said, her tone not so weary now. “Magic stolen from helpless witches.”

“They weren’t so helpless,” Blu snapped.

“Blu,” Severo cautioned. He bowed graciously to the witch. “It would only be until he can recover. Then you could shackle him again.”

“No.” Abigail paced before the glass coffee table. Even looking tousled as she was, Blu felt her power. She was no witch to mess with.

She could accept the justice meted out by shackling Creed of his magic. But that didn’t mean she had to kowtow to this woman because she had a beef against her husband.

“I won’t leave until you change your mind,” Blu said. “I can’t. He’s my husband. I love him. Have you never been in love, Abigail?”

“No,” she offered with disinterest. “And I can sleep with you here. Makes no matter to me.”

“Please. He risked his life to end the war.”

That got Abigail’s attention.

“You haven’t heard?” Severo spoke now. “The Northern pack has burned a sporting warehouse and the vampires are in talks to return some land to the wolves.”

“Amandus Masterson allowed this?” Abigail asked.

“He’s dead,” Blu said.

As final as those two simple words. She would not grieve that man any longer than it took to bury his bones in the ground.

Blu lifted her head and met the witch’s bold green eyes. “Ridge killed him. He refused to complete the punishment against my husband. Because of Creed the vampires and werewolves have agreed to peace.”