Blood and Malice

Chapter 3

3

HALEY

Thanks to Keradoc’s obsession with sharp objects—obsidian and bones, in this case—I finally sawed through the fae-spelled ropes and sliced a deep gouge in my palm, coating my ring in fresh blood.

Now, I took more than a little pleasure in watching that smug grin fall off the warlord’s face.

“Get f****d, asshole. You’re going down.” I slammed a blood-soaked palm against his chest. Power scorched the air as a blast of magick exploded at my touch, sending him crashing down the dais.

With another quick spell, I called up a magickal barrier around the guys. The guards rushed forward, but it was too late. I leaped from the throne and bolted down the dais, sealing myself inside the barrier with Elian and Jax before Keradoc could bark out an order to attack.

A wall of bright-red magick surged and crackled around us, enclosing us in a temporary safe haven impervious to weapons and fists.

Finally righting himself, Keradoc commanded the guards to break through, but they were no match for the magickal shield.

“Nice work, angel.” Jax managed a thin smile, but he was fading fast. Blood soaked into his shirt around the bolts and leaked from a deep gash on his forehead, sliding into the cavern of his missing eye.

He couldn’t even lift a hand to my shoulder without wincing.

“Sit tight,” I told him. “We’ll figure this out. Just… just give me a minute.”

I reached out to touch the barrier. It brightened in response, but just like that night in Blackbone Forest with the raven gryphon, I had no idea how long it would hold.

Didn’t matter, though. Five minutes or an hour, eventually it would fizzle out, and we’d have to fight our way out of this room.

I needed to get my men back on their feet.

I dropped down in front of Elian, gently helping him to his knees. He was the priority—he’d lost more blood than Jax, and that much hawthorn crammed into his body posed a major risk of permanent damage. If I could get the stakes out quickly, his natural healing would hopefully kick in. Then we could use his vampire blood to heal Jax.

Forcing a smile, I said, “No offense, Elian, but this is the worst rescue attempt ever. It’s like you’ve never even seen a superhero movie.”

“Sparrow.” He cupped my face with a bloody hand, too weak to even smile back.

I hadn’t seen him since that night in the bedroom with Jax when he’d refused to kiss me, and suddenly there he was, his blood on my face, regret heavy in his voice, the scent of death sharp on the air…

All of it threatened to break me.

“I’ll fix this,” I said firmly, trying to convince us both. “Hold still.”

A brutal cough rattled through his chest, wet and wheezing. When he looked at me again, his eyes were glassy, his brow wrinkled in pain and confusion. He blinked slowly, then looked up at our captors.

“Evander,” he whispered, but then shook his head, his brow knitting in confusion as if he no longer recognized the name.

I had no idea who Evander was, or why Elian was so oddly fixated on Keradoc, but it would have to wait.

“Elian,” I said, “listen to me. We need to remove these stakes, and—”

“No,” he panted, shifting his attention back to me. A new urgency flashed through his eyes, clearing away the haze. “You must… get out. Run, sparrow. You… go.”

All around us the magick flickered, the guards hitting the wall with fae magick and weapons both, Keradoc pacing like an animal trying to sniff out the weak spot.

“Haley.” Jax coughed, blood splattering his lips. “It was Gem. She… she betrayed… You need to leave.”

“Gem?” I gasped. “s**t. s**t! Okay. Guys? I need you both to stay focused. Jax, we can heal you with Elian’s blood. He just needs a minute to regain his strength. I need to get these stakes out, so shut up and let me concentrate.”

Elian pushed my hands away, dark blood leaking from his mouth in a seemingly endless stream. “Go. Find… find Hudson and—” Another wet cough strangled his words.

Next to us, Jax sucked in a sharp breath and closed his eye, a shiver rattling his body.

He could sense it, I realized. My fear.

It surged up inside me, but quickly fizzled in the wake of another emotion.

Raw, unchecked rage.

Fuck. This.

I refused to be scared. There was no reason for it. Both of them were going to be just fine. Hudson was fine. All of us were absolutely f*****g fine. We just needed to get on our feet—first mission. That was our lasagna. Stop the f*****g bleeding and get these guys back on their feet.

“Here’s the deal, Elian,” I snapped. “I’m really mad at you, asshole. Like, really mad. For a lot of things, not the least of which—” I gripped his shoulder and unceremoniously yanked out one of the stakes. “—is your vanishing act this week. We don’t hear from you for days, and suddenly you show up shot full of hawthorn and dragged in by armed guards like a stuck pig?” I ripped out another stake, enjoying his grunts of agony. “What kind of vampire does that? God, I should put you out of your misery right now. One less cocky, obstinate, irredeemable bloodsucking fuckstick in the world.” Another stake removed, another clattering to the ground as Keradoc and his guards continued their assault on my barrier. “But you know what, Elian? That would be giving you an easy out, and you haven’t earned it. So if you f*****g die on me here? Yeah. We’re gonna have a serious problem—way more serious than a few branches of hawthorn impaling your chest.” I freed the last stake, then met his eyes once more. Not taking any chances, I sliced open my wrist with the stake, sucked the wound to get the blood flowing, then jammed it against his mouth. “Now feed, before I shove every last one of these stakes back in and finish the job Keradoc’s guards started.”

He tried to turn away, but the temptation of my fresh blood on his lips was too much to resist, as I knew it would be. He grabbed my wrist with a trembling hand and licked the wound, then sucked, his eyes locked on mine in a fierce battle of wills. We both knew he had no choice but to feed, but he wasn’t about to do it happily.

Too bad. I needed him alive more than I needed him happy.

Ignoring the surge of pleasure in my veins, I let him take his fill, waiting until the first pangs of dizziness hit me before I finally tore my wrist from his mouth.

The color had returned to his face, the haze clearing from his eyes. The gaping wounds in his chest started closing. Slowly, but still. Progress.

Blood ran down my arm. I lowered it to my side and curled my fingers, letting it pool in the cup of my hand until it coated my ring. Then, pressing my hand to the floor, I whispered another spell. The magickal shield brightened in response, but the incessant barrage of dark fae magick was taking its toll.

We didn’t have much time.

“We need to help Jax,” I said to Elian.

Wiping the blood from his mouth, he nodded and crawled over to the demon, who was turning paler by the second. Elian bit into his wrist and held it to Jax’s mouth, urging him to drink as I carefully removed the bolts.

Even with the healing magick of vampire blood coursing through his system, Jax’s wounds would still take time to heal. But devil’s traps could drain a demon’s life force at the soul level, and their removal had an immediate effect. All at once, the color returned to his skin, and after another minute, he finally turned away from Elian’s vein, offering a curt nod of thanks.

“Better?” I asked.

“Nothing I won’t survive.” Jax wrapped an arm around his midsection, stifling another bloody cough as he scrambled to his feet.

I helped Elian up, and the three of us let out a collective sigh.

“Gem betrayed us,” Elian said, leaning on me hard. A slight tremor still rattled his muscles, reverberating into my shoulder. “We planned for everything—everything but that.”

Anger rolled off him in hot waves, infecting me and Jax both.

“We’ll deal with her later,” Jax said. “We need to find a way out.”

“There are too many of them.” I blew out a breath. “Once this barrier drops, they’ll attack us.”

“If Keradoc wanted us dead,” Jax said, “we’d already be in the moat.”

“Agreed,” I said, “but there’s a lot of gray area between keeping someone alive and keeping them alive and unharmed. I’m really not in the mood to get my ass kicked.”

“You might not have a choice tonight, angel.” He nodded at the show of force. The guards who weren’t working on dismantling the barrier had their weapons drawn, every last one of them waiting for their shot—waiting for Keradoc to order them to take it.

Keradoc glared at me through the barrier, his eyes blazing, his rage so palpable I could practically taste it. Even through the magick, his sweet rose scent stung the back of my nose.

Memories collided suddenly in my mind, making me shiver. The dance, the sound of my name on his lips, the ferocity of our kiss, all of it spinning around my head like he’d spun me around that ballroom…

My magick flickered.

“Sparrow.” Elian leaned close, his body still trembling and weak. “You… you need to go.”

On my other side, Jax nodded. “We’ll hold them off. You break for it.”

“Shut up,” I snapped. “Both of you. We go out together, or we go down together. Non-negotiable.”

They tried to argue, but it was pointless. I’d no sooner leave them behind than they’d leave me. The problem was neither of them was strong enough to walk out of here without a lot of help—not when we’d still have to fight our way past the guards and whatever else awaited us outside this room, not to mention the party still raging down on the main level.

Shit, s**t, s**t!

Where was Hudson? What the hell had Gem done? Where had she gone? Was she still in the castle, waiting in the shadows for another opportunity to stab us in the back?

I glanced around frantically for another escape, my magick waning. Everywhere I looked, I saw another guard. Another obstacle. Another dead end.

I wanted to roar. After all that blood and magick, after finally getting the guys on their feet, we were no better off than when Keradoc’s guards had dumped them on the floor. Elian didn’t have the strength for a vampire blur, Jax didn’t have the energy to work his fear mojo, and my magick was completely tapped out.

The barrier surrounding us faded to a dull pink.

We had minutes. Maybe seconds.

The guys closed ranks around me.

And then, with nothing more than a soft hiss, the magick fizzled out, leaving us completely exposed.