Ilona Andrews: Magic Bleeds

He raised his head, unhinging his enormous jaws, and roared, shaking the street, all teeth and fur.

Curran had gone mad.

I wouldn’t lose him. I would not lose him on this dark, cold street. It wouldn’t happen.

The beast that used to be Curran leapt at the undead. Huge hands grasped Darkness, pulling him up. Muscles bulged and Curran tore him to pieces, dismembering his body as if it were a rag doll. Blood gushed from the savaged body, drenching the snow.

Erra’s hands shook on her axe, but her weight kept me down.

Curran smashed into the blood ward. Magic boomed. He hit again, the impact of his body shaking the red wall and the street beneath. His eyes blazed white. The fur on his arms smoked from the contact with Erra’s blood ward.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Cracks formed in the blood ward.

Erra stared, her face slapped with shock.

Curran rammed the ward.

The red wall cracked and fell apart. He burst through it, roaring, his fur on fire, and crashed into the snow. Magic tore at me, like a typhoon wild in it fury. I screamed and Erra echoed me, doubling over in pain over me, her hair falling like a dark curtain.

I grabbed her hair and jerked her down with all my strength straight onto my sword.

Slayer slid into her eye. I felt it pierce the bone and drove it in all the way.

Erra vomited blood. It drenched me like fire, my magic mixing with my aunt’s lifeblood leaking from her body. I felt the magic in it, the way I’d felt it in the rakshasas’ golden cage.

I smeared our mixed blood onto her face, pushed, and saw a forest of needles burst through her skin.

She screamed and laid on the axe, and I screamed as the spike ripped my innards. The needles crumbled and melted into her skin.

“You will not take me down,” Erra ground out. “You will not . . .”

Her legs failed and she crashed to her knees.

“It’s over,” I whispered to her with bloody lips.

Desperation claimed her broken face. She clawed at the spear, trying to pull herself upright. Our blood painted the snow a bright rich scarlet.

“Die,” I told her.

She fell on all fours next to me. Her one good eye stared into mine. “Live . . . long, child,” she whispered. “Live long enough to see everyone you love die. Suffer . . . like me.”

Her words clamped on to me like a curse. She collapsed in the snow. Her chest rose for the last time. A single breath escaped with a soft whisper and the life faded from her eye.

I looked at her and saw myself, dead in the snow.

The smoking ruin that was Curran raised his bloody head.

“Curran,” I whispered. “Look at me.”

The burns blotching his monstrous face melted. Fur sprouted, running along his frame, hiding the wounds. His eyes were still pure white.

He strode to me, swiped at the axe, and plucked it out of me like a toothpick. Clawed hands picked me up.

“Talk to me.” I peered into his eyes and saw nothing. “Talk to me, Curran.”

A low growl reverberated in his throat.

No. No, no, no.

Emaciated twisted shapes dashed by the ward—the first vampiric scouts. They’d watched the battle until they figured out the winner. Curran saw the vampires. A horrible sound broke from his mouth, halfway between a roar and a scream. He lunged at the ward. In the split second before we hit the scarlet flames, I thrust my bloody hand into Erra’s defensive spell. Magic shot from me. The red collapsed, and everything went black.

EVERYTHING HURT.

“Don’t move.” Urgency filled Jim’s quiet voice.

I lay absolutely still, my eyes closed. The magic was down. The air smelled of blood.

Something fanned my face. I opened my eyes just enough to glimpse a clawed foot passing out of my field of vision.

“You’re on the floor,” Jim said. “I’m at the door directly in front of you. When I say, run to me.”

My eyes snapped open.

Jim crouched in the doorway, Doolittle next to him. Derek stood to the left, his face white. Beyond them I saw Mahon looming like a mountain.

Jim’s eyes shone with green.

“She doesn’t understand,” Doolittle murmured.

Jim leaned an inch forward. “You’re in the Keep. Curran brought you here three hours ago. He’s pacing back and forth around you. He attacks anyone who tries to enter. He isn’t talking. He doesn’t recognize me or anyone else.” He paused, waiting for it sink in. “Kate, he may have gone loup. You must get out of here, before he kills you. If you run, we’ll shut the door as soon as you make it out. We’ve got enough people to hold it.”

Three hours. He hasn’t spoken in three hours.

I sat up. A dark bloody stain slicked the floor under me. I must’ve bled. I turned and saw a furry gray back at the far wall and above it a tangled, bloodstained mane. Curran.

“Kate!” Jim hissed.

The beast that used to be Curran whipped around. White eyes glared at me.

I stood up.

He leaped across the room, covering the distance between us in a single bound. His hands clamped my ribs. He jerked me up to a mouth full of teeth.

“Hey, baby,” I said into his maw, breathing out to let him inhale my scent.

White eyes peered into mine. A deep growl rolled from him.

“Very scary,” I told him softly. “I’m terribly impressed.”

He snarled. Teeth clicked a hair from my throat.

“Curran,” I whispered. “Remember me.”

He inhaled my scent. His ears twitched. He was listening to the shapeshifters at the door.

“Close the door, Jim.”

Jim hesitated.

“I’m his mate. Close the door .”

A moment later the door clicked shut.

I put my arms around his neck. “You’re mine. You can’t let her win. She can’t have you.”

He was listening but not hearing.

“I love you,” I told him. “You said you would always come for me. I need you now. Come back to me. Please, come back to me.”

I put my head against Curran’s mane.

“Come back to me. I know you’re in there. You brought me here. You didn’t kill me. You must know who I am.”

Fur slid under my fingers. He stood rigid.

“If you come back to me, I’ll never leave you,” I whispered into the furry ear. “I’ll make you all the pies you could ever eat.”

All of the magic I had, all of the power of my blood, all of it was useless with the magic down. He was slipping away, farther and farther, with each passing second. “Come back to me. Please. Remember you wanted me to say please. I’m saying it now. Please come back to me.”

Nothing.

“Who’ll protect me from myself if you’re gone? Who’ll fight with me? I will be all by myself. You can’t abandon me, Curran. You can’t orphan the Pack. You just can’t.”

He clenched me to him. Pain exploded and I cried out.

Curran snarled and gripped me tighter.

He didn’t remember me. Curran was lost. She took him from me. She ripped him right out of my life with her dying breath. The world broke to pieces and caved in on me. I couldn’t even breathe.

My eyes grew hot. Something inside me broke and I cried. I hugged his thick neck and cried and cried, because he was dying second by second and I could do nothing.

“Come back to me. Don’t leave me all alone. Don’t die on me, you stupid sonovabitch. You goddamn fucking idiot. I told you to stay out of the damn fight! Why the hell don’t you ever listen? I fucking hate you. I hate you, you hear me? Don’t you dare die on me, because I need to kill you with my bare hands.”

The fur boiled under my hands and my fingers grazed human skin. Curran’s gray eyes looked at me from a human face.

“Talk to me, baby,” I whispered. “Please talk to me.”