Prince of Power (19 page)

Tyra's triumph was short-lived.

No sooner had she sunk into an attack stance than an arm came down, crushing with surprising force against her windpipe. All traces of the charismatic, convivial Master from before were gone when he spoke. “It turns out that after eight hundred years I do have a trick or two up my sleeve. I told you that I would not be so easy to defeat, did I not?”

It was probably a rhetorical question. Not like she could answer, what with him cutting off her airflow and all.

Her fingers dug into skin that was hide tough. Eyes watered. There was nothing nearby for her to use to grab a toehold, nothing to gain leverage from. She focused on flexing the new power she had absorbed from Anton, heating her body from the inside out so that she could in turn heat the wizard's, but in the panic of the moment nothing was happening.

“Miss Tyra.” And to add to the entire snafu, Selena was awake.

Tyra opened her mouth to reassure the girl, but nothing came out other than a garble and a gasp. So she did the only other thing she could think of. She tucked her chin, bit the Master's arm as hard as she could, and while sinking her fangs into it, tried very hard not to think about where that arm might have been.

“Ow.” Tyra got the knee-jerk reaction she had hoped for, and she sank in harder, focusing more on using her blunt back teeth to increase the Master's discomfort. It was both gratifying and horrid when he wrenched his arm free and the flesh ripped under her teeth.

Immediately Tyra spun. He'd gone invisible again, but the blood trail had not. And she was, after all, still part vampire. The hungry, bloodthirsty, primal part of her scented the fresh blood, and her fangs crowded her mouth as her adrenaline surged. She glanced at Selena, who stood near the corner, poised but uncertain, with clenched fists. Poor girl had gotten so much more than she bargained for tonight.

“Selena, honey, I need you to get in the corner and put your head down. You got that?”

A small nod.

“Okay. I'm going to do my best to see that you get back to your mom, but I can only do that if you stay out of the way. If you don't watch, that's even better.”

She didn't wait for an answer. Couldn't, because in the next moment one of the drips of blood swung with movement. The wizard was taking advantage of her distraction. She crouched low, pulling a knife from her ankle strap when she did. She rushed forward at the same time and was rewarded with a groan of pain when the knife sank into flesh. It wasn't clear where she'd hit, but she'd definitely hit something, and a quiet uneven shuffle could be heard in the far corner of the room. He was retreating to regroup, and he was hurt. Good.

Another fireball formed in the palm of her hand. It was her favorite power. Her first, the one she'd inherited from her father. Probably that was why she loved it best to use in battle. She was most confident with it, and it made her feel closest to her vampire side. And setting the enemy on fire was so cool. She shot a small orb in the direction of the blood trail.

Nothing.

A larger ball, in case the first had misaimed, but still nothing.

Remembering the surprise attack from behind, Tyra started inching backward, constantly sweeping her gaze across the room until her back met the cold stone of the wall. Selena was to her left, curled into a tight, self-protective ball. Good girl.

Tyra got quiet and stretched her senses. She was willing to bet any amount of money he was still in the room. She could feel him. But his presence was nebulous and scattered, like a thick fog rather than something solid. After a few deep breaths, she arrived at a decision. It was risky, but it had to work.

He was in here somewhere; she was sure of it.
Absolutely
sure of it.

Tyra breathed deeply again, all the way to her toes, drawing up every bit of power she could, and then went for it. She backed into the corner where Selena was curled to make sure the girl was protected and then proceeded to fill the remainder of the room with fireballs. Every. Effing. Inch.

If the Master was in there, she would smoke him out, or at the very least, she might get him to drop his cloak of invisibility.

Seconds passed… a minute…

Nothing.

Tyra inhaled, waiting… The drain from using her powers, especially that last burst of fire, was coming fast. He was in here, dammit. He was in here somewh—

An unseen force yanked Tyra's arm, and she half flew, half flopped against the wall like a rag doll. Perfect. Just perfect. A fist, still unseen, connected solidly with her jaw. Blood and spittle flew.

The fighter in Tyra wanted to fight back, but against whom? Or at least, where? A long cut appeared on her arm and blood welled from it. She thought of that scar on Anton's collarbone.

Anton
. She could see now what he had been up against. It would be good to have him to fight alongside her now, like she had earlier. It would be good to have him here at all.

Another invisible fist struck her already tender cheek, but she couldn't connect it with any kind of body. Nobody seemed to be standing over her. She raised a hand and flailed a little, but she didn't manage to touch anything.

Laughter. Wicked, evil, villainous laughter came from nowhere.
No. This can't happen…

“I did tell you that I would win, Tyra.”

***

Xander woke in a darkened room. His body was incredibly heavy, and holy hell, was he ever tired. If he allowed himself, he probably could have gone back to sleep for hours.

Except… where was he?

He breathed in a familiar scent. “Theresa?”

“Right here.”

He turned his head to the side and there she was. Looking worn and tired, but no less lovely. “What am I doing in your bed? And where is the baby?”

She smiled and ran a protective hand over his forehead. Xander was surprised as much by the gesture as by the comfort he took in it. “Sleeping. They do a lot of that at the beginning. And you're here because this bed is more comfortable than the guest room.” She pressed gently on the mattress. “Memory foam. I figured you would be sore. From the sunburn.”

He closed his eyes, and as he exhaled, it seemed indeed that he could sink right into the mattress. Through it would have been even better. “Tell me you didn't give me more blood.”

“Only a little.” Her voice was soft. “You didn't need much. The wizard or… whoever he is. Anton? He had some kind of healing power. It worked on you fairly well, as it turns out.”

“Damn.” Xander exhaled and shook his head slightly. Turned out too much movement made his head throb. “I never thought I'd see the day when I would find myself grateful to a wizard for anything.”

“He seems like a nice man.”

“He does. Hard to believe, isn't it?”

Theresa smiled in the semi-dark. All of this was very odd. Their conversations hadn't extended very far beyond day-to-day small talk. And being here in her bed. He wasn't much of a traditionalist, but it was unseemly to him, being in the bed of a recently widowed female.

Xander moved to sit up. “I should go check in with Thad.”

Her hand landed on top of his. There was no pushing or forcing, just a hand. Her fingers wrapped gently around his. Somehow, that small gesture was enough to stop him cold.

“I wish you wouldn't go just yet.”

“Theresa, I…” He what? He couldn't explain exactly why he felt like he shouldn't be here, only that it was the worst kind of wrong to drink her blood, not once but twice, and lie in the bed she had shared with Eamon.

“Alexander, lie down please. You need more time to rest.”

Hardly anybody ever called him that. He must be really exhausted because it was enough to make him comply with her request. “Theresa, I just don't think I should be here.”

“I got new sheets, you know.”

What? “I'm not sure what… okay.”

There were a lot of lines around her eyes when she smiled. “Before the baby, I went a little crazy wanting to get all these new things. It's so bizarre in retrospect, but at the time I was convinced I needed brand-new sheets for the bed in case the baby slept in bed with me. For some reason, the ones I already had weren't good enough. I wanted the best, softest sheets I could find. Fifteen hundred thread count.” She ran a hand along the edge of the mattress next to Xander's hand. “Nice and soft, huh?”

Xander had to agree; they were comfortable sheets. Even though he didn't entirely understand where the hell she was going with this. “Uh. Very soft, yes.”

“Eamon thought it was crazy. That I'd spent way too much money on something that the baby was only going to spit up on, you know? He was so angry he ordered me to send them back.” A delicate fang sank into her lower lip, and a tear slid down her cheek. “But I didn't want to. So I hid them. I never used them until after the baby was born.”

Something significant was in that statement, and Xander couldn't… quite… grasp it. Clearly, he was supposed to, though. Shit.

“The mattress and pillows too. You remember?”

He closed his eyes and let his head sink for a moment into the aforementioned pillow. Yes, Xander remembered. Just before the birth Theresa had begun to complain of back pain, and then her water had broken while she was in bed, destroying the mattress on which she slept. The one on which Xander now lay was brand new.

“Yes,” he said quietly, “I remember that.”

She patted his hand. “Sometimes it's okay to make a new start, Xander.”

Ah. That was the message, then?

“I believe this wizard's intentions are good, and I think you already know it's okay to be his friend. And being here… taking my blood…” She ran her hand over the sheet again. “I would return these sheets in a second, if I could, for another day with Eamon in my arms. I would give
anything
in the world to have him back. I know you feel the same about Tam. We can love them and miss them and still survive. A new start is okay, sometimes. Sometimes it's good and necessary, and I believe that they would want that for us. Don't you?”

Her golden eyes glittered with tears in the light of the bedside lamp. His fingers traced over Theresa's brand-new soft sheet, and he wondered if perhaps he didn't need to agree as much for her benefit as his own. “I'm sure you're right.”

She leaned down and placed a kiss on his temple. “You rest, okay, Xander? We just got you healthy again, and I'm not ready to lose you just yet.”

With that, the lamp by the bed winked out and she left him alone.

This time, Anton hadn't given Thad a choice about going back after Tyra alone. He was dead certain that his father had her, and there was no way he was waiting for nightfall. It would be long past too late.

What he saw when he tore through the portal terrified the shit out of him. Tyra was backed to a wall, held by an unseen force, while Anton's father came toward her with a sternal saw. The wizards used them to cut open vampires. To retrieve the heart.

“Nice that you could join us, Son.”

The second the buzz of the sternal saw sounded, Anton flew. Blood thundered in his ears. He dropped the gun in his hand without thinking, and the next thing he knew, the saw was against the stone wall in a scatter of pieces. His father's throat was solid and satisfying under his fingers.

Damned satisfying.

As chokes and sputters came from his father's throat, the man's skin burned a bright lobster red in mere seconds. Far faster than the wizard from before. Anger definitely was the trigger. And right now Anton overflowed with rage.

You
were
always
the
smart
one, you know.
Smarter
than
your
brother, Petros. Don't you know I wanted it to be you at my right hand?

His father's eyes were dark gray like Anton's own. Even as his father's skin reddened and the veins of his head bulged, Anton could see himself in that face, and the plea there tugged at his heart. Some part of Anton was still human—perhaps a far greater part than should have been.

It wasn't in him to kill.

The hesitation cost him. Anton found himself with his back to the wall and his father's hands around his throat. He choked and struggled against the bruising grip. His feet didn't touch the floor, and he couldn't quite manage a grip on his father. He kicked. Couldn't breathe.

And then the Master dropped him. Anton's knee struck the stone floor painfully. He gagged a little when the pressure let up on his throat. The Master's robes were burning.

“Tyra?” Anton's gaze swept the room. She wasn't anywhere.

Something thumped the old monster on the side.
There
she was. Anton shook his head. He'd forgotten she could go invisible too. He was going to need a list at some point. Anton's chest swelled with pride when Tyra's invisible form got another hit in, causing the Master to double over in pain. But that didn't last long.

Tyra's softly grunted “Ow, fuck,” and a hard smack against the adjacent wall made Anton go cold. He knew that sound; his body had made that sound hitting that same wall.

The Master had many powers. He'd had many centuries on earth, and heaven knew how much vampire blood he'd consumed. Anton could only guess at some of his father's powers. When Tyra's cloak of invisibility faded, Anton knew they had a real problem.

It wasn't simply that she had hit the wall. Her eyes were still open, but she wasn't moving. Worse, one glance at the fierce clutch of her hands and the tension in her body… she was in pain. He could just tell. Anton had fought alongside Tyra not long ago so he knew she ought to be sturdy enough able to take a hit and keep going.

There wasn't time to figure it out. Anton dropped to the concrete floor and grabbed his father's foot, upending the old wizard before he could deal a final blow to Tyra's head. Anton tackled with all the force he could manage. All the hurt. All the rage. Every evil thing he'd experienced growing up.

Everything he wanted to be for Tyra and couldn't.

Tears flowed down Anton's face. The night his father had first tried to end his life, Anton had told the Master that it was not in him to kill. That certainly was still true.

It was
not
in him to kill.

He did
not
want to kill his father.

Anton, don't do this… I gave life to you.

But there was want, and there was need. He
needed
to guarantee Tyra's safety. Anton gritted his teeth and pressed harder. He envisioned the Master's blood boiling, like a volcanic lava flow. “And you would have taken it away without thought, too.”

His father gasped. Sweat rolled off Anton's body. His father practically glowed. Hands clawed and feet kicked desperately.

I
thought
it
was
necessary. We could be a team, you and I. And your beloved Tyra. We could find a way to work together. To be at peace. Ask her. I offered her a way for us to live in peace with the vampires…

Anton's heart broke. He met his father's desperate stare. He leaned close and whispered into his father's ear. “You will understand if I doubt your sincerity.” The same words that the Master himself had said to Anton the night father had almost killed son. Anton's eyes squeezed shut as he tightened his grasp, and he held his breath until long after his father's body no longer moved.

Then he let the tears flow freely.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered.

And he was. Whether he should have been or not, he was.

***

Alexia closed her eyes. Her head lolled against a wall, as horror-movie images flickered behind her closed eyelids in rapid-fire succession: The wizard thudding against the hood of the car. Lee stabbing one in the police cruiser. Her stepfather's friend, the one with the red hair, who… she pried her eyes open.

Don't go there.

Her gaze roved around the empty barn. She checked her cell phone. What she needed was a damned drink. But it was way too early to go anywhere, and she refused to spiral downward to the point of drinking alone in her bedroom.

Refused.

So… what to do? She bounced her feet and chewed her lip. Problem was, the whole rest of her little corner of the world had bigger problems right now. Tyra was missing. Again. Lee and Siddoh and a few of the other fighters had massive sunburns from fighting too close to dawn. Anton was out finding Tyra, so everyone was waiting with bated breath to hear how that turned out.

In an estate filled with hundreds of vampires, she was completely alone.

She tapped her feet some more and then stretched her left ankle over her right knee. An old tear to that left hamstring had left the muscles in that leg perpetually tight, and it took a lot of stretching and yoga to keep the tension from seizing her entire body.

Okay, so she could admit that maybe it wasn't only old tension from the injury that caused her pain.

Her gaze lit on one of her tattoos. It was a newer one, a snake that coiled around her calf muscle, courtesy of their friend Lucas, who had come to the estate a couple of weeks ago at Isabel's behest.

“Lucas. Perfect.” Lexi clapped her hands a little at the joy of her revelation, even though nobody was around to agree with her.

She wrenched open the floor hatch and barreled down the stairs. Lucas's place was a fair hike through the maze of tunnels but she jogged it easily, without the tree branches and bracing cold of her usual morning run. His door was easy to find; even his tunnel entrance was decorated with very individualized graffiti. Lucas was simply unable to be just like anyone else. She could respect that.

Alexia knocked. When he didn't answer, she banged louder, until the door finally opened and Lucas poked his long, curly-haired head out of the door. “What the hell are you doing banging on doors at this hour, lady?”

Alexia smirked. “Like you were asleep.”

He shrugged and pushed the door open wider to let her in. Lucas was the only someone she knew who slept less than she did. Then again, he wasn't human. He could get away with it.

He was watching the Speed Channel and sipping red wine, which was pretty much what Lucas did all the time if he wasn't working. And as nice as it was for Isabel to have given Lucas a steady job and a place to live, Alexia worried that without the constant bustle of the tourist crowd, Lucas might languish a little in a place like this one.

“You know,” she said. “Washington, DC, is within spitting distance from here. You could open up a shop or even get a spot at the tattoo parlor in downtown Ash Falls.”

He pushed his hair out of the way as he flopped into a beanbag chair to watch television. “I could.” He glanced quickly in her direction before focusing back on the autocross race already in progress. “And you could go back to living with real people, babe. Why haven't you done that?”

Alexia reached up to twist a piece of her hair and had to stop herself. It was such a stupid, nervous, little-girl habit, but so automatic she didn't even catch herself sometimes. She jammed her hands in her pockets. “Fine. I won't examine your motives if you don't examine mine.”

He laughed and rolled off the beanbag, walking on his knees until he was nearly between her legs. His arms snaked around her waist, and he looked up at her. He had amazing, fiery, mesmerizing eyes. Too bad she wasn't into
him
like that. “You here to let me drink your blood, mama?”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Do you really need my blood?” His hair smelled divine. Coco-nutty.

He smiled and licked his lower lip. “No.”

She smiled back. She hadn't figured so. “Then no.”

“So why are you here?”

She chewed her lip again. It was starting to get sore, which was always a sign that things had been going badly. As if she needed a sign in this case. “I need…” She sighed. “I'm not sure, exactly.”

He rocked back and stood. “Better not get ink if you haven't thought it out. Besides…” He gestured vaguely up and down at her. “You're so tiny, and you're running out of real estate on that canvas of yours. Wanna choose wisely.”

“I know.” She walked to the front door of his small house, the one that led outside, and looked in a full-length mirror that he'd tacked onto the back of it. She tried not to look too closely. Never once had she been happy with what she'd seen when she looked in the mirror, and today was no exception. Especially not after nabbing a large man with the front of an SUV like he was overgrown roadkill.

That was probably how she ought to be thinking of him.

She fingered her ears, which already had piercings going up about halfway. Her navel was already done.

Lucas came to stand behind her, his tall frame dwarfed hers in the mirror, and she focused on his face, which was handsome in a perpetually boyish way, rather than her own. “I could give you an industrial, maybe. Something on your face. Nose stud? Eyebrow? He rubbed her shoulders in a far too friendly manner, and she caught his hand when long fingers started an exaggerated creep toward her chest.

“Cut it out, you. Let's leave those alone.”

He harrumphed at her but smiled again. “What, then?”

She stuck out her tongue. “What do you think?”

He shrugged. “Tongue? Sure, why not? Easy one.”

She smiled. “Great.” It would take her mind off things for a little while, anyway. But then she closed her eyes and saw that wizard bouncing off the hood of the Land Rover again. She thought of something she needed far more than a tongue stud. “Actually, no. I think I wanna do a tattoo after all. This is a tattoo kind of problem.”

“You're sure?”

She turned to a stack of binders on the kitchen counter. “I'm sure. Where's your book of Chinese characters?”

“Right on top there.” He pointed to a stool in his kitchen while he set about pulling things out of drawers. Most folks kept knives and spatulas in their kitchen; Lucas kept tattoo and piercing equipment. Gloves, ink, etc. There was an autoclave on the counter. “Have a seat on that stool, and I'll be with you in a sec.”