Chapter Seventeen

 

“Don’t look in his eyes!”

Bastian?

But he wasn’t her team. She had to watch Quentin. That’s all she had to do until her team arrived.

“Ophelia!”

Geez, Bastian. Don’t you see I have a job to do?

She didn’t turn her head to look at him. Didn’t want to.

He jumped between her and Quentin and shook her shoulders.

Light burst behind her eyes, and she gasped like she really had been underwater. Pain ricocheted through her from head to toe.

“Ow, my fucking arm, Bastian.” She blinked. What had she been doing?

“He can trance you. That’s how he abducted Antonia. Don’t look him in the eyes.” A still-shirtless Bastian stepped to the side. She averted her gaze from Quentin’s. “Roberts was coming up behind you, but he turned and ran when he saw me. He can’t have gone far.”

“We need to get Quentin out of here and work that spell.”

Bastian nodded, glaring in the direction Finneus had gone. “It’s almost dawn. I can carry him.” He spun and hoisted a hog-tied and squirming Quentin in his arms.

“Bastian? Dude, what the hell are you doing? Come on. It’s just me.”

Bastian stared straight ahead. “Don’t play stupid, demon. We know everything, and we know you know everything.”

Quentin snapped his mouth shut, his fangs clicking together.

She took a measured step. Her knee buckled, but she caught herself. She sucked in a lungful of air. Each step she took, the same thing happened. She’d had a long night, fighting off the drugs and a few vampires, and was sorely in need of healing blood.

Bastian was in the doorway before he turned to see how far behind she really was.

“Hellfire, Ophelia. I’m sorry. I—”

“Go.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but she cut him off before he made a sound.

“Just like Antonia. He’s the priority.”

Bastian stared at her for another heartbeat. “I’m coming back for you.”

“Again.” She gave him a smile that had to be creased with lines of pain. “I know. Then I can tell you that you were right.”

“I don’t care about that.” He gave her one last earnest look. “I’ll be back.”

“It’s almost sunrise. Don’t endanger yourself.”

He rushed off as if he hadn’t heard her. Quentin’s coaxing faded the farther away he got.

She hobbled farther, allowing herself to slow. Despite the sad state of her body, a smile played over her lips.

Bastian. She believed him. He didn’t care about being right. He only cared about those he…loved.

Could she be lucky enough to be included among those? Her motivation to gut through the blinding pain was knowing how good it’d feel to sup from him and be cradled in his arms all day as she healed.

There were no thoughts of physical satisfaction other than being close to him. She’d never had those feelings before. She wanted him around. She wanted to be around him. She wanted to cook breakfast every night and come home to him.

Domestic bliss with a domestic god.

Nice.

She wove through the kitchen. Her pace increased when she could use the counters for support.

She looked around for anything she could use as a makeshift cane. Wrong room. She wasn’t up to wrenching apart stainless steel.

Clearing the kitchen, she faced the stairs. A scraping sound caught her attention.

Spinning around, her eyes flew wide.

A bloodied, swollen, enraged Finneus charged her. In his hand was a silver blade. A steak knife.

It hadn’t occurred to her to grab another knife. She was on her way to freedom, dammit!

Throwing up her arms, her weight shifted to her injured leg and she dropped with a cry.

He plowed into her, but the knife went over her head. She punched upward, but his leg jostled hers and she lost her momentum, more white stars blazing across her vision.

Again with Finneus. She punched him once more. Strong body against strong limbs. Aiming for his gut where she’d gotten a few bullets in, she didn’t let up until he dropped on top of her.

“You…” he shouted, still on his knees and struggling to stick his knife in her. “Are a giant… pain”—pink spittle sprayed across her face—“in the ass.”

She wriggled out from under him and shoved his face backward, followed by a kick to his blood-soaked abdomen. Aiming her next kick for his hand, the blade clattered to the floor.

He paused in his assault on her to scramble for his meager weapon. She pushed herself up the steps, keeping her eye on him. This was the best place for a showdown. He couldn’t advance very well without her kicking him, and she couldn’t fall because the angle of the stairs propped her up.

But there was an exit door at the top of the stairs and if she could take this business outside, she might have a chance of killing him with her bare hands. Well, bare hand. Her broken and swollen one bordered on useless.

She got up a few more steps, breathing heavier than she ought to be. How much blood had she lost? Or was it all pooling in her injured extremities?

Finneus gave a shout of triumph when he wrapped his hand around his tiny blade. But it was still a hell of an advantage to her nothing.

One more stair. She didn’t dare look back to see how far she had yet to go, but she must have half a flight. The scent of crisp, cool outdoor air wafted through the stairwell. She was so close, and so was dawn.

Finneus rose, but he couldn’t straighten. It was like the dried blood pasted his clothing together, while new blood cemented the fabric to his skin.

Keep bleeding.

She kept moving. Grunt. Up another step.

He advanced, and no matter how fearsome of a facade he put on, he couldn’t hide the misery his body was putting him in. They’d been through a nasty night and it was still a draw on who’d come out alive.

He crept closer, unable to move very fast, his knuckles white with a death grip on the railing to keep upright.

She continued her backward flight. Propping her hand behind her, she wanted to whoop when her fingers met air instead of another stair. The landing!

Her exuberance faded. If she scooted onto the landing, then how was she going to stand and defend herself while doing it?

Shit.

Finneus’s menacing gaze was full of deadly promise. She summoned the last of her strength and rose to her good leg. She spun and hopped to the next step. Getting outside was paramount; the sun was her best weapon.

Finneus roared and she pictured him hauling himself up each step by sliding against the railing.

Her heart raced, and each beat reverberated in the broken limbs. Each time she tensed to hop—and worse, land—the pain sent new waves of nausea coursing through her. She tightened her belly. She would not puke while hopping.

The exit was close. Only six feet away.

“Ophelia!” Finneus had cleared the top.

She risked a look over her shoulder, and terror flooded her system. He was within reach and was raising the knife to strike at her.

She flung herself out the door. A screech of metal echoed across the yard and the wham of the door busting off its hinges and hitting the exterior mingled with Finneus’s enraged shout. She tumbled across the yard to land on her face twenty feet away.

Her mouth stretched open in a silent cry. Ow! For fuck’s sake that hurt.

“We’ll both die, bitch!”

Craning her head to the side, she monitored him at the door, willing him to come outside.

Weak heat caressed her muscles. This was her favorite part of the day—used to be her favorite part. Snuggled in Bastian’s arms during the daylight hours sounded much better than greeting the dawn. Her self-destructive habit had lost its appeal.

Didn’t mean she wanted to quit being around for the sunrise.

Finneus glanced at the horizon visible beyond the trees. Not many of their kind dabbled in testing their sunlight resistance.

What if he flashed away when he stepped outside? It’d make this evening feel like it was for nothing.

She forced out a chuckle, but it sounded like a wheezing pant. “What’s the matter, Finneus? Fear you’re too weak?”

Anger sparked in his eyes. Yes. The taunt worked.

“I seem to be doing okay, but then, my blood was always stronger.” She kept going, even when she wanted to just lay her head down and soak up the warmth offered by the sky. “Isn’t that why you always wanted to feed from me?”

Finneus was a proud male, arrogant to a fault. It was what had drawn her to him over the last several years before she’d settled on poor treatment from Nadair.

If all those rounds of sex with Finneus had given her the ammunition to destroy him, then she wouldn’t regret it. What had Bastian said? Her past made her strong.

“You opened your legs and offered a vein for anyone,” he sneered but took a tentative step toward her, blinking as if noonday rays shone down on him.

She laughed, and it wasn’t much stronger than her attempt at chuckling. “I had to because no one ever satisfied me.”

Yep, that cut him.

His nostrils flared and he advanced. A cough doubled him over. Red foam bubbled out of his mouth and he propped a hand on his knee. He kept that stance as he stumble-stepped toward her.

“You’ll be”—pant—“satisfied as I stake you to the ground”—pant—“with this knife and let you boil like a lobster as the sun rises.”

He squinted at the sky and used the hand clutching his knife to wipe imaginary sweat off his brow.

Good, he was sorely unused to the sun. Her skin was warming, but she wasn’t uncomfortable—yet. If he truly managed to incapacitate her, then she really would end up as a pile of ash like Gaston.

She wrestled up on her elbow, making it look like she was trying to slide away from him when she was trying to angle herself better.

He made it within feet of her, looming over her with a nasty sneer. The skin on his face had already deepened a few shades of red. From the sun or anger? “Today you die, Ophelia. I’m sick of your meddling.”

She quirked a brow. “You sold yourself. You sold kids. You’re not a male of worth, no matter who your parents were.”

He bared his fangs and tensed to jump on her. She lashed out with her leg and swept his feet out from under him.

She groaned. The motion jostled her pained body. Finneus dropped and fell on her.

“You—” He sucked in a gasp. “So hot.”

He forgot her and glanced back to the entrance to the building. His eyes blanked, and she panicked. She could not allow him to flash to safety.

She hugged him to her, squeezing his torso as hard as she could. By now, her hold wasn’t very strong, but neither was Finneus’s. She probed with her fingers and he rocked against her, trying to get away. If she could keep him in such pain that he couldn’t flash, then her plan might work. Unfortunately, it’d work against her, too. Her ability to flash was hindered by the state of her body, but she wouldn’t let it stop her.

Her life had always felt like it was at the mercy of others, that she was nothing truly special—to anyone. Ironic that as she was pinned under the sun she’d craved for so long to meet, it was no longer true. Bastian cared about her. Ophelia LeFevre. Not just for her blood, or for her body, or for something as insignificant as her cooking, but for her as a whole. He talked to her. He cared about what she thought even if they disagreed.

Finneus’s struggles weakened as he shrieked. “Don’t let me die! Not like this!”

She hugged him harder. He was hot. She was growing hotter. By now the multihued rays of the sunrise were blending into nothing but blue sky. She rarely hung out in the daylight this late. Only twice: after she’d freed herself from the prison that was her home, and again when she’d killed the father of her daughter. Both times, she’d pondered her role in the world, wondering if the emotional turmoil was worth it.

Sheer stubbornness and curiosity for what the future held had prompted her to seek shelter. It was the same stubborn tenacity that kept her anchored to Finneus as he slowly burned up.

He threw his head back with such force, his mouth opened wide in a final shout. Smoke rose in ever-increasing tendrils off his skin as his face blistered. Her own face and the bare skin of her legs tightened like she was in the early stages of an admirable sunburn. Only the results of this burn would be death.

“Help me—” He evaporated in a puff of ash, his clothing draping over her, offering a smidgeon of protection.

She coughed and collapsed back. Her role in society was as a protector, and she was going to die in that role. Regret sifted through her, but she couldn’t regret Bastian, just the time she wasn’t going to get with him.

Heat whipped through her. Death was coming.

“Ophelia!”

She blinked and turned her head toward the building. Bastian had appeared and jumped back into the shadow of the doorway.

“I would’ve loved to be your true mate.” Had her words made sense, or were they too clogged with pain to be intelligible?

He stepped away from the protection of the shadow and winced. He was strong, but his bloodlines wouldn’t tolerate much exposure, and he still had no shirt on. She could go out with that view.

“Save yourself. Get back to the compound.” Her eyelids were drifting shut to accept her fate when he disappeared.

His scent swamped her, and her eyes flew open to his handsome, red and blistering face. “Bastian, save—”

His face was tight with pain, but he swooped her up and flashed away.

He fell against the wall of the compound, but as much as he had to be in agony, he cradled her and took the brunt of the impact. When he stiffened, she knew his end was near.

“Don’t die on me,” she whispered. God, she was useless. He was going to drop her as he ended up just like Finneus, then she’d follow in the same cloud of ash.

Part of her took solace that they’d be together at the very end. The rest of her mourned his loss for their people. They needed more people like him.

The compound’s door flung open and hands reached out to yank them inside. Bastian’s arms gave away, but before she hit the ground another pair of sturdy arms grabbed her. A wave of cool dark air blanketed her, but she didn’t care that she was out of the sun.

“Bastian?” What happened? Why had he dropped her? She tried looking around, but her eyes were burnt and blinking was like scraping her eyelids over hot sandpaper.

“Bastian?” That panicked cry for him had come from her? Yes. Where was he? What happened?

A wrist slammed over her mouth and blood filled her mouth. Who was feeding her? This wasn’t Bastian’s blood, but another female’s. She gagged, but someone plugged her nose. She swallowed on reflex as strength literally poured into her.

That was the effect of finding a true mate: trouble tolerating another’s blood. Did that mean he was still alive?

The trauma of the night caught up with her. Her body and mind gave up to the power of Calli’s healing blood.

Bastian was her last thought as she lost consciousness.