Wild Hearts (Blood & Judgment #1) (34 page)

“Draven! Draven, slow the spell! Stop, Draven!” Ember screams.

But he doesn’t.

A sudden wave of blue fire erupts between us, shooting several feet high. It swirls around all three of us. Over and over again.

It splits into three paths, becoming magical arrows. Each one points at our hearts.

Draven grunts and grits his teeth.

And then the arrows
fire
into our hearts.

I gasp as I feel a huge surge of incredible power. It completely wipes out the pain. All I feel now is strength. Incredible strength.

“You did it!” Ember cries. “The ritual’s complete. I can feel it.”

“Holy hell. Me too,” I say.

Draven doesn’t say a word though.

I watch in horror as he chokes, blood spurting from his mouth. Ember screams as he collapses onto his back, letting go of our hands and breaking the circle. She scrambles over to him and frantically reaches for him. “Draven. Draven, can you hear me? Wake up.
Please
. Wake up.”

“Cahl!” I bellow through the chaos of the battle raging all around us.

He’s beside me a second later. He searches my face. “Are you all right?”

“It’s not me. It’s Draven,” I say, pointing to him lying sprawled out unconscious on the ground.

He rushes over to him, ignoring Ember’s frantic pleas for Draven to wake up.

I see Cahl press his hand to his forehead and flinch. Oh no. That’s not good at all. He turns to me, shaking his head.

Oh my God.

“We need to leave,” he tells Ember. “Now,” he says, pointing to the hellish battle waging between Edric’s men and the Ambassadors.

“No! Do something. Please. Do something. Help him. You can heal him, like you said you could with Aria.”

“I cannot.”

“You can, you must,” she pleads with him.

“Do you not feel it?”

“Cahl!” she demands.

“You are vampire. You must be able to hear that his heart is no longer beating.”

Oh, fucking hell.

“No,” she says, shaking her head vehemently and pulling Draven’s limp body against her and holding him close. She rips open her wrist with her fangs and is about to place it to his mouth when bolts of black magic rain down around us suddenly. I cry out as I’m hit in the chest. The power behind it knocks me back and I struggle to maintain my footing. And then another hits me. And another. But I don’t go down, not like I have done in the past when I’ve been assaulted by Ambassador magic. It barely even hurts me either. It’s more of an annoyance than anything else.

That annoyance escalates unbelievably quickly. Before I know it, rage is burning through my veins and calling to the wolf within.
Unleash. Unleash.

I can’t stop it.

I roar at them all, the furor of it reverberating through the entire cathedral.

I’m vaguely aware of Cahl approaching me and warning me to calm down.

But it’s too late. With this new intense power I feel coursing through me from the completion of the ritual, the wolf is more powerful than it’s ever been. I have no hope of controlling it right now.

The wolf wants to rip our enemies apart.

Kill. Kill. Kill.

I leap through the air, shifting in mid-flight within seconds. I land, as wolf, between the two warring armies. They all take a fearful step back. The wolf loves that. It wants more. More fear. More damage and destruction. And, above all, bloodshed.

All they are to the wolf are targets that need to be destroyed. Ripped apart.

Everything becomes a blur. The screams of the Ambassador soldiers and Edric’s warriors all meld into one as I tear into their flesh with my claws, my teeth.

“Take that beast down!” Edric bellows.

Like hell!

Before I can make a move, someone steps into my path, blocking my way to them.

The wolf stills as it looks upon Cahl standing there, eyeing me warily with his magic at the ready.

“Calm,” he commands, his voice soothing and almost hypnotic.

The wolf growls its protest.

Cahl doesn’t back down.

He actually comes closer. Lowering his hands, he says, “I love you, Aria. Trust in me, princess.”

His heartfelt words cut through the rage fueling the wolf.

It slumps to the ground at his feet. He crouches down and strokes its fur gently. “You are beautiful as wolf and as human.”

The wolf likes that and licks his arm. He smiles with amusement as its tongue drenches the sleeve of his jacket in its saliva.

I feel the wolf slipping away.

The world comes rushing back to the surface in a blur.

I look down and find myself back in human form. Naked. Great.

Cahl hurriedly shakes off his jacket and wraps it around me. He zips it up. “Thanks,” I say, moving to step back. As I do, a sudden weakness takes me over and my legs buckle. Cahl sweeps me up in his arms before I hit the ground.

“It was far too soon after a spell so huge for you to shift. You need time to acclimatize to your newfound greater power,” he tells me.

I can’t even answer him. I can barely keep my eyes open as he carries me back to Ember.

She’s absolutely distraught, still by Draven’s side. His mouth is covered in her blood. She obviously tried to turn him, but judging by the look on her face, she knows it’s not gonna happen.

“We must go immediately,” Cahl says, gesturing behind him to Edric and his remaining mages who have their evil glares fixed on us.

Edric takes a step forward and his men follow his lead.

They know this is their opportunity. I’m severely weakened. Ember is in an emotional state. Cahl is concerned with taking care of me. And Draven…Draven is gone.

“You are coming with me,” Edric announces to Ember. “There is no warlock to protect you now.”

Cahl shifts my weight in his arms, freeing a single hand. He’s about to call his magic to him.

A sudden flash of bright blue light explodes around us.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” a voice booms, coming from inside the explosion of magic.

It dissipates and Jacob emerges, his palms raised, his magic live and wild.

Edric scoffs. “You are not your brother,
child
. You aren’t strong—”

Jacob snaps his fingers and Edric is silenced, he and his remaining mages frozen.

He mutters something under his breath and that blue fire appears on his palms again. He takes aim at Edric.

“No! Stop, Jacob!” Ember screams.

He pauses and turns his head towards her, a questioning expression on his face.

“I’m gonna kill him for you, right here and now. For all of us.”

She shakes her head, her teary eyes pleading with him. “Please. He’s mine to kill.”

Jacob hesitates and I see him trying desperately to avoid looking at Draven in Ember’s arms. But then his gaze dips and he ends up looking right at him. The pain there all over his face is hard to even witness.

He lowers his palms and stalks towards them.

“Is Aria okay?” he asks Cahl as he passes us by.

“She just needs to rest.”

Jacob nods.

He reaches Ember and Draven.

Wrapping his arms around Ember, he gently pulls her off his brother. As he kneels down and examines Draven, Ember is there again, leaning over Jacob and clutching at his shirt. “I tried to save him, I tried.
He
wouldn’t do anything.” She fires her wrathful gaze at Cahl and then back to Jacob.

Jacob scrubs his hand over his face and then draws in a breath, before looking over his shoulder at her. “He’s gone, Ember. I’m sorry,” he croaks out, barely able to get the words out at all.

Ember’s tears start flowing freely now. “Come here,” Jacob says, reaching out to her and pulling her to him. She collapses against him and he holds her as she breaks down, shaking from her violent sobs.

I’m not normally an emotional person, but I can barely look. It’s so tragic. So awful.

With Ember hanging onto his arm, Jacob somehow manages to pick up Draven’s deadweight and get to his feet. He eyes Cahl and tells him, “I’ve dropped the wards around the estate. You can teleport there now. Meet you on the other side?”

“Yes,” Cahl confirms.

In a flash of blue light, Jacob, Ember and Draven disappear. The second they do, Edric and his men are released from the frozen state Jacob put them in.

That’s the last thing I see before Cahl teleports us away.

Epilogue

~Aria~

One Month Later

Should I go to her, or does she need to be alone right now?

I’m standing on the roof of the Coven mansion, looking down at Ember. She’s in the grounds at the back of the estate, kneeling at a statue of Draven dressed in his ceremonial robes. It’s the Coven’s memorial to him. It’s massive. Several feet tall. It towers above the plants and flowers surrounding it. A real tribute to him.

She’s still wearing black. Nothing but black for the last month now. She has on a floor-length gown today with a scoop neck. It seems like this might be progress, because up until now it’s been baggy clothes all the way. Hoodies and sweats. Completely unlike her. She’s back to her sophisticated, dolled up self today.

Good. This is good.

Okay, yeah. I’m gonna go talk to her.

I grab the railing, about to leap over the stone wall to the gardens sixty-feet below, because with my new greater power, I can do amazing shit like that, but what I see stops me.

Jacob comes walking out into the gardens.

Ember looks over her shoulder, obviously sensing him. Something appears on her face that I haven’t seen for a long while. A smile. A
genuine
smile. Hmm.

She stands up as he reaches her.

My breath catches in my throat as Jacob comes up behind her and slides his arms around her waist. She sinks back into him and turns her cheek. An actual gasp escapes me as I watch him kiss her there. Sure, the actual action itself is a mere peck on the cheek, but the intimacy of it is way beyond that. I’m wolf. I know all about chemistry, lust and heat. And what I’m seeing right now is all of that.

Holy shit. This is really messed up. Her and Draven’s brother? Again? I remember how Draven reacted when he’d found out they’d hooked up once, before he and Ember had even met. Now, he’s probably turning in his grave. Jesus Christ. I need to talk to her about this. Maybe she’s not thinking clearly through her grief over Draven’s sudden death. It was an awful tragedy and, God, did it happen suddenly, too? One moment he’s there with us in the circle and the next…the next, he’s gone. Shit, it’s been four weeks and I still can’t get what happened that day out of my head.

The results of the ritual are still with me, too. This new power hasn’t been a bed of roses. It’s been a lot to control and get used to. I keep discovering all these new abilities that’ve come along with it. One of the best ones is that I can heal pretty much instantly now. Cahl actually saw that coming that time when he’d spelled the amulet Draven had given me and it’d burned me, but I’d healed quickly. He said it was because I’d been in close proximity to Ember and Draven. But now I can heal wherever I am, even when I’m not in proximity to anyone.

But with all good things, there’s also a bad side. In this case, it’s the wolf. Its power is massive now. It’s more of a struggle to control than it ever had been and that’s saying something. It’s made me insanely horny. I’m talking
insanely.
I don’t think that’s bothered Cahl, though. Fucking several times a day, every day is something he’s definitely been on board with. Aside from physical violence, sex and lots of it is the only thing that can sate the wolf.

Well, there is one other thing, too. But I can’t use it when I’m around Cahl. He never reacts well to it. He thinks I need to be without it and learn how to control my wolf without its help.

The amulet. The
Lunar Barrier.

I’m wearing it right now and it’s such a relief. So soothing.

“Aria.”

Shit. It’s Cahl. I glance down at myself quickly to make sure it’s not visible beneath my tank top. Good, it’s not. Between it and my leather jacket, it covers it well.

I step back from the guardrail and turn to face him. “What’s up, baby?”

“Have you spoken to her?”

“Who?” I ask, walking over to him.

He rolls his eyes at me. “You know very well, princess.”

“She’s still in mourning.”

“We can wait no longer. It has already been a month.”

“I know. It’s just…she’s in no state to go to war against the Jurisdiction right now.”

“There is no choice. They have stepped up their assault against the supernatural world in response to the ritual being completed.”

I nod. “They’re trying to draw us out.”