“I know a warlock,” Raiden said slowly. “I will give him a message and see if he would be happy to meet you tomorrow. I trust him, he is a good guy. A friend.”
“That would be great. Cael’s just no help. Though, in all fairness, I have only known him since Friday, and he doesn’t owe me help. But it would be good to speak to someone who knows about this stuff.”
“Especially if witches and warlocks are trying to abduct you,” Raiden murmured. “That has got me puzzled.”
“You went to Elior?” She paused. “I know he is a vampire, by the way.”
“Of course, you do,” he smiled. “We have spent the last couple of days keeping secrets it seems. Yes, I spoke with Elior. He will have another word with Lucian and ensure that he is not behind this. Elior is,” he shrugged. “Alright for a vampire. No vamp is great, but Elior at least has some honor.”
“I have never known a vampire before,” she led the way back down the stairs. “The most I have had to do with Others is occasionally seeing them on the streets. Grandmother was always very strict about discretion.”
“Protecting you,” he watched her close the door.
“I guess. She did not like to leave the house and wasn’t too keen on me leaving. She used to ward me every morning on my way out,” she smiled a little at the memory. “To hide me from Other’s eyes.”
“The Other world,” he stripped off his t-shirt. “Has its risks. She was being sensible, protecting you as a child. We teach our children to be careful. Being with the pack offers some protection, but you do have to know your way around the Other world anyway and have a few tricks up your sleeve just in case you cross paths with the wrong Other.”
“I know nothing,” she slid into the bed and waited for the moment when the warmth of his skin came up against hers with a decadent sigh. “I love that,” she admitted, shyly. “When I feel your skin against me.”
“Me too,” the Other was in his eyes, and she could feel him hardening against her. “It is two weeks until the full moon, Lia,” he leaned over her and cupped her cheek with the palm of his hand. “You know I want you as my mate, which means the full moon ceremony.”
She reached up and ran her fingers through his glossy curls. “It is… daunting, Raiden,” she admitted. “I have only known you since Friday, and I have never had a boyfriend before. What you are speaking of, the full moon ceremony, becoming a werewolf and your mate, is forever.”
“Yes, it is,” he turned his face and pressed a kiss against her palm. “But you are mine and I am yours and it is really that simple when you get down to it. We belong together, Lia. But you don’t have to decide tonight, I just wanted you to know my intentions so you can think about it a bit.”
“What about Paris and Brock? He intends to turn her on that same full moon, doesn’t he? And she won’t know until he does? That seems… unfair. And a betrayal for me not to warn her.”
“Leave it to Brock, Lia,” he replied. “Subconsciously, she knows that he is hers, but because in her world werewolves and mates don’t exist, she can’t put a name to how she feels. She won’t be angry, after. She will be… Well,” he grinned with a hint of wickedness. “It is very physical after. Werewolves take the honeymoon literally.”
She slid her hand down his stomach to close around him and he drew in a breath dropping his mouth to hers, his kiss gentle. “Werewolves are very physical in general,” he said wryly, acknowledging his hard on. “And you are my mate. My Other wants you, constantly.”
“And what about this you,” she asked him, brushing her lips against his.
“Oh, this me wants you constantly as well,” his hand stroked down her body, and he smiled. “I think this you wants me, too.”
“Yes,” she pulled his mouth down to hers, deepening the kiss and exploring the contours of his mouth.
The window exploded inwards, a brick thudding onto the floor, and shards of glass spraying across the bed. She saw blood well along Raiden’s back and a slice across his cheek, as he turned, the Other rising in his eyes.
His shift was seamless, from man to wolf in the twist of his body, hair flowing across skin, so that by the time his hands hit the mattress they were the paws of a truly massive beast, facing the shattered window, golden eyes flaring and long, curved teeth bared as the velvet upper lip peeled back. He snarled and leapt through the blowing curtains out into the night, his claws tearing her bedcover.
The bedroom door was thrown open and a naked Brock ran across her bed, leaping through the window, shifting in mid-air.
She could hear Paris screaming in the background and wondered what had occurred to scare her so upstairs.
Lia ran for the walk-in-robe, feeling the bite of glass underfoot. She pulled on her jeans and t-shirt, standing on one foot and then the other in order to hurriedly brush the glass fragments off the soles of her feet, wincing and pulling out pieces that had sunk into her skin. She pulled on sneakers, not caring about the blood that would get on them, before running towards the bedroom door.
“Got you,” someone said as they grabbed her around the waist.
She screamed and kicked and clawed. She saw the flash of red Other in the eyes of the man who had her, and the elongated canine and premolars as he snarled, her heels landing against his shins and her fingers gouging his cheeks. Vampire, she thought. Although they were stronger, they felt pain the same as anyone else.
“Stop it,” he snapped at her as if she were being unreasonable fighting against him.
“Surgensque percusserit,” she shrieked, and the glass shards lifted from the floor and surged forward like crystalline arrows. She felt one strike her cheek, and the vampire cried out, releasing her as the glass shards impaled into him, spraying blood across her bed.
She fell to the floor as he released her, and skittered across the corner of her bed, and then the floor, grabbing for the door handle, and throwing herself into the hallway, striking the opposite wall before she managed to redirect her feet to the front door.
As she threw open the front door and ran across the porch, she saw a wolf impact with the side of the Ute, the metal denting beneath the massive beast. The wolf crumpled on the floor, and she screamed, not sure if it were Brock or Raiden.
“Impedio cresere et vampire!” She jumped off the porch, forgoing the stairs, landing on her hands and knees on the grass, sending her power into the grass so that it appeared to heave with its sudden growth, its blades shooting for the sky, entangling around the vampires that fought against the other wolf.
She slid over to the collapsed wolf, placing her hand on his side. His heartbeat strongly beneath her hands, but he whimpered. She saw the other wolf tear off a vampire’s arm and heard the vampire’s scream rip the night.
The first vampire leapt from the porch, crossing the porch railings and the expanse of grass in one impossibly athletic leap, to land beside her, his brown hair covering his face. He thrust it back with one hand and sneered.
He grabbed her, one hand closing over her mouth, holding her jaw closed so that she could not utter another incantation, and sank his teeth into her neck, her shriek of pain smothered by his grasp. “No more spells from you witchy,” he growled at her without withdrawing his teeth from her neck. She felt her blood trickle over her skin before he sealed his mouth over the wound, and the press of his tongue was unpleasantly intimate.
He lifted his head, his mouth, and teeth red with her blood. “Stop playing with the wolf you fools, and get into the car, I have her.”
He bit his wrist and released his grip on her jaw long enough to force his wrist against her mouth. She bit him, causing him to laugh. “You won’t have so much fight left in you, now, sweetheart. Sleep.”
She could taste his blood in her mouth and tried to spit it out, certain that it was not a good thing to swallow it, but already she felt a warm laxness spread through her, and her knees gave out.
The vampire picked her up, throwing her over his shoulder. She heard the second wolf yelp as he strode across the driveway to where a black 4WD idled on the sidewalk and saw the first wolf struggle to stand before sinking back down.
Oh god, Raiden. Both wolves were injured. Her mate was injured.
He threw her onto the backseat, the air pushed out of her lungs from the impact, before sliding into the driver’s side. Her body was heavy and uncoordinated, the limbs not quite her own to control, but she fought against it, knowing that she needed to get free, needed to help the werewolves.
The other two vampires got in, one pushing her over in order to slide in beside her. The 4WD screeched down the road.
“Shit,” the front passenger was binding the stump of his arm. “My f-king arm!”
“It will grow back,” the driver replied dismissively. “Don’t be such a cry-baby, Ed. We have all had a limb ripped off before. It is not a big deal.”
It was incredibly hard to keep her eyes open. She slid her hands along the seat, and fought to pull herself into a seated position, her head heavy on her neck and her arms and legs uncooperative. She slid across the leather seat, her temple hitting the cold glass of the window. She felt along the door, trying for the handle.
“No, you don’t,” the vampire in the back pulled her away from the door. “Put the locks on, Alex, she is still with it enough to try to get out.”
“She should be sleeping,” the driver glanced into the rear vision mirror. “I commanded her to do so. Sleep, girl,” he repeated the Other flashing red in the reflection.
“F-k you,” she slurred, fighting against it. “My wolf.”
“Both wolves are pretty f-ked up right now,” the one with a missing arm snarled at her. “It will take them a couple of days to heal up from that, if they don’t die in the interim.”
Raiden. She felt a tear slide down her cheek. “Incen-”
“Silence!” The one in the front seat commanded, as the one in the back slapped his hand over her mouth, pulling her hard against his chest. “F-king gag her, Toby. Lucian’s going to have to tear her tongue out to keep her under control. Why the f-k he wants a witch, I don’t know. There is a reason no one keeps them as blood slaves.”
She knew that she needed to fight but couldn’t quite remember why. She wanted to sleep but knew she shouldn’t. Her body felt too heavy to move and her head hung on her neck, held in place only by the hand over her mouth.
“He wants her because no one else has managed to make a witch a blood slave, you know Lucian, he has to prove he is better than anyone else,” Toby released her. Under the dual commands of sleep and silence, her body fell heavily, her head coming to rest on Toby’s lap. “She is docile now,” he stroked his fingers through her hair. “She is a pretty little thing.”
“Tastes sweet,” Alex grinned, his teeth still red with her blood, and his lips stained by it. “I wouldn’t mind some more.”
“Lucian’s not going to be happy that you tasted her first,” Toby continued to stroke her hair, his touch gentle and almost soothing.
“He will understand that I needed to get her under control.”
She groaned as she struggled against the urge to sleep.
“She is still awake,” Toby observed.
“That is pretty impressive,” Alex replied. “I told her twice to sleep after she has had my blood. She should be dead to the world.”
Toby slid her onto his lap, and she fell against his shoulder like a rag doll. He shifted her so that her head fell to the side, exposing her neck. He leaned over her and carefully aligned his teeth with the still seeping wounds left by Alex. She sucked in air, trying to scream, as he sank his teeth into the already raw flesh, the pain focusing her again.
Raiden. “Incendi-” She whispered before Toby clasped his hand over her mouth.
She felt his tongue stroking over the wounds in her neck, the sensation causing her skin to crawl. He was hard, the throb of him pressing against her, and he ground his hips up, letting her know it, and that she was helpless to defend herself if he decided to rape her.
“What are you doing, Toby?” Alex said sharply. “Don’t drain her.”
“Just a taste,” Toby replied listing his head. “I had to heal the wounds you left anyway, so why not have a sample whilst I was there? She is sweet. There is something… different to her blood, too. Something to the way it sits against the tongue. Must be the witch in her. I have never tasted one before.”
He bit his wrist and released her mouth in order to push his wrist against her. She fought to keep her mouth closed, but he pinched her cheeks between thumb and forefinger, parting her lips. She fought against his blood as it spilled past the ineffectual barriers of her teeth.
“Drink it,” he murmured, his tongue stroking along her cheek where she had been cut by the glass, and he smiled, pleased, when she swallowed. “Good girl.” He put his wrist to his mouth and ran his tongue across it.
When he dropped his hand back onto her thighs, there was no evidence of a wound. Saliva heals, she thought, trying to remember where she knew that from.
Her eyes kept closing and every moment in the darkness, a greater length of time seemed to have passed in the car, their conversation becoming disjointed.
The third blink, the car was parked somewhere beneath golden artificial lights. The fourth she was being carried by Toby down a hallway. The fifth, she was on a bed in a room, the light bright and white overhead, and Toby and Alex stood in the doorway.
“Night night,” Toby grinned at her, his teeth stained with her blood. He turned off the light and she heard the door closed.
“Raiden,” she whispered into the darkness.