Annie Nicholas - Catch

I rolled onto my stomach and scrambled for it. Grasping the weapon, I got to my feet.

Rurik extended his hand. “Toss it.”

Throwing the stake with my uninjured left hand, it flipped through the air, but never reached its destination. Luckard was too fast and caught it mid-air.

“Not so soon.” He shook his finger at me. “This—” he lifted his prize, “will hurt and most probably kill you.” One step at a time, he followed my retreat until I was cornered.

Tane wrapped his hands around one of the metal bars poking him through the hip and began to extricate it. I didn’t think he’d make it in time to stop Luckard. I was on my own against a Nosferatu vampire, an ubervamp.

Luckard raised the stake over his head and aimed at my chest.

Raising my hands in a futile attempt to block the strike, I closed my eyes and said a little prayer.

The room echoed with sounds of fighting and struggle, Rurik’s cries, and Tane’s growls. Yet, I still heard the stake pierce flesh over all that chaos.

Someone in heaven must have heard my prayer because it didn’t hurt. My eyes sprung open, expecting to see a huge toothpick sticking out of my chest, but instead golden hair blocked my view. I shifted over for a better look.

Archios’s wide eyed expression surprised me as he cried out. “No!” He shoved Rurik away and ran across the room.

I stepped around Bel who somehow stood between me and Luckard. The stake protruded from her chest.

She stared at it then at me. “It hurts.” She slowly crumbled to ashes before me.

Everything went empty inside my soul. I covered my mouth to hold back my screams. If I started I’d never stop. This tipped my sanity scale into the crazy zone.

Bel saved me.

Archios fell to his knees at her feet and tried to hold her disintegrating body together.

The anguish in his horror-filled cries left no doubt of how much she meant to him.

Unable to prevent the inevitable, he jumped to his feet and turned on Luckard. “You killed her.” The heartache made Archios’ voice hoarse. He grabbed his accomplice by the shirt collar and smashed him into the wall, leaving a dent.

Something slick sounding popped behind me. I spun to watch Rurik pull the last of the steel bar from Tane.

Wrath embodied him as he stumbled free. Dark pits of revenge filled his eyes. He stormed past Rurik and plucked Archios from Luckard’s grasp, tossing him to my lover as if he were a doll. Tane then turned his attention to Luckard. “I won’t let you escape this time. One of us will be joining Belatia in her fate.” Then he grabbed him by the shoulders and head butted him.

I swung around, half expecting to find Rurik and Archios at each other’s throats.

Instead, I found Archios in a heap at Rurik’s feet, crying uncontrollably.

My lover gestured for me to come to him. “Connie!”

When I took a step my toe kicked a hard object. The wooden stake rolled away. I glanced at Tane, who appeared to be trying to tear Luckard’s head from his shoulders without success.

This dick-head tortured me and my vampires, haunted my dreams, and killed…my friend. Tucking my fear in a dark corner of my mind, I chased the wooden stake across the floor toward the Nosferatu and snatched it. I tightened my sweaty grip to make sure it wouldn’t slip when I got my chance to pierce Luckard’s black shriveled heart.

Tane’s gaze met mine and traced down to the stake in my hand. An understanding passed between us without the need of a blood bond or a mental link. The malicious grin that spread across his face sent a pleasant shiver down my spine.

He spun around and shifted his hold on Luckard to pin his arms behind his back.

I’d seen Colby slay enough vampires to have a clue how to stake one. Needing momentum to pierce their hard flesh, I ran as I raised the stake over my head.

Luckard’s glare ensnared me, my mental shield gonged as if he’d swung a baseball bat and hit it. Disoriented and dizzy, the world tilted, yet I managed to keep my sight on his chest. I plunged the stake into his heart and applied my weight so it would sink deep.

Tane dropped him. “We need to severe the head and burn the heart.”

I stared at the limp body on the floor. My chest heaved as if I’d just run a marathon instead of a few feet. No more Luckard. No more nightmares. I kicked his foot and half expected him to jump, but nothing happened. We were safe. We’d won. Then out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed Archios gathering Bel’s ashes.

Well, sort of won. A lump formed in my throat.

Rurik gathered me into his strong arms and squeezed me tight as if to make sure I was real then rubbed his face into my hair. “My hero,” he whispered.

I shifted my position to face him and pressed my lips to his for a fast kiss. “We need to break this bad habit of having to rescue each other.” The adrenaline faded and my arm throbbed, weariness stole over my body.

Watching a distraught Archios get to his feet, I was surprised to find I felt nothing except pity for him. He faced Rurik. “I won’t cause any more trouble. All this was for naught without Belatia. I did it for her. I only wish to join her now.”

Anger erupted through the pity. “You pompous ass, what do you mean you did this for her ? She ran to me through the Tree People-infested jungle by herself to help them.” I pointed at my vampires. “She didn’t want to be part of this fiasco.”

Rurik held me back.

“Let her stake me. I deserve it. She’s right. Bel wasn’t capable of understanding why we needed to be rid of Tane. She knew nothing until tonight.” He held out his hand to the side and offered his chest.

“I can’t figure why you needed me dead. Enlighten me.” Tane crossed his arms over his half-healed chest.

Archios glared at him. “It’s all your fault.” There was no anger in his voice, only surrender.

“You’re asking for mercy, yet I’m not feeling very merciful tonight, Archios.” My bald master spoke as if he had trouble controlling his rage.

I pulled from Rurik’s comforting embrace to step between them. “She was the one killing the girls.”

Archios’s gasp confirmed my suspicions. “Did she tell you?”

“No, but she told me about her loneliness, and how she’d use the jungle trail to get to the city, even though you told her that ridiculous story about the Tree People. Why else would she go there? The young women were all found dressed in lovely clothes and their hair done in elaborate styles.”

“Her hunger drove her mad. No one understands how much it changed her.” Blood-tinged tears spilled from Archios’s eyes and he hung his head.

Tane came to stand next to me and I wrapped my arms around his narrow waist. “I thought when she became vampire it cured her.”

Archios shook his head. “No, it only masked it. She could never control her thirst.

Once she started to feed—”

“—she couldn’t stop.” I finished his sentence. “Not until they were dead.” I thought of the bodies in the kitchen.

“Dragos didn’t care, but you do.” He glared at Tane. “You would have executed her.”

“Yes, I would have, except you managed to do it for me.”

I gasped at Tane’s callous words yet understood his meaning. The ruler of a predatory race couldn’t afford pity. He needed to be strong and feared to get vampires to comply with the laws, especially since Dragos allowed some of those laws to be bent.

The execution of the traitors at the party set a standard. No tolerance.

Tane’s words struck Archios like a physical blow.

His tears streamed unchecked now as he stared at his ash-coated hands. “I loved her.”

Rurik grabbed the stake off the floor. Time slowed as I realized his intent. With a single one-handed smooth jab, he ended Archios’s existence. He got his wish and joined his beloved Belatia. Making him continue on would have been the true punishment.