Devotion (25 page)

"Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Tristan sneered.

"
What?
What's that supposed to mean?"

"I saw you ogling him out at the pond."

"I wasn't
ogling him
! He was naked and standing right in front of us!"

"Which you didn't mind one bit, did you? Or the way he looked at you?"

I stopped in my tracks and stared at him as if he'd slapped me.
What's wrong with him?
This was not my Tristan. My Tristan was sweet and caring and definitely not jealous. He had no need to be. He was the center of my world, and absolutely no one could ever compare to him.

"I spent seven-and-a-half years
waiting
for you," I spewed. "It's always been you and no one else. How
dare
you!"

I glared at him, my fists balled on my hips. He glared back.
Well, if he's going to be that way …

"At least Jax would be able to find this place. I
trusted
you to know what you're doing, and now we're lost."

That did it. Tristan's perfect face twisted and contorted as several emotions tried to take over at once. The gold in his eyes sparked–not like they used to, with real flames, but like anyone's eyes when they're overcome with anger. My trust in him was sacred ground, not something to be thrown around lightly.

But before he could settle on any single emotion, something behind him caught my eye. The air itself wrinkled. I first thought it was the heat rising from the ground, but as I watched, it did it again and it was definitely … not normal.

"Oh! Tristan! I think we found it," I shouted, my anger replaced by surprise and jubilation. "Over here!"

I tugged on his hand, pulling him with me. We took two strides toward the wrinkle when a large Jeep burst out of that space, charging right at us. A musical laugh chimed over the grinding of tires on sand and gravel as the Jeep slid to a stop twenty yards in front of us. Tristan and I spun back around, but had nowhere to go. We were surrounded. Six Jeeps encircled us–some drivers and occupants with fangs, some with wands and yet others quivering, about to transform.

"Sorry to spoil your spat," Vanessa chimed. "I was quite enjoying it, and it kept you nicely distracted."

Tristan squeezed my hand, and I knew he was about to flash and I was to follow him. But before we had a chance, the air around us whooshed upward and our surroundings suddenly changed, like an abrupt scene change in a movie. We stood in the center of a wide road, a handful of old, brick buildings and squat houses spread out beyond the Jeeps.
Kuckaroo.
Vampires, Weres and mages surrounded the jeeps that surrounded Tristan and me.

"These two are mine but the rest are fair game," Vanessa yelled.

Chaos erupted. The vampires became blurred streaks as they flew at each other. Daemoni Weres changed on the fly as they lunged at their enemy cousins, bits of skin and goo–were-pulp–raining down on us. Magic spells shot around and across the circle. Jaws snapped. Buildings and Jeeps burst into flames. The screech of metal against stone echoed off the buildings.

Vanessa laughed maniacally, then lifted her arms and jumped toward me, flying across the twenty yards between us.

I knew what she planned to do before she did it, but I saw a chance to retrieve my necklace wrapped around her gloved arm, so I didn't stop her. Just as she was close enough to touch, her fangs bared for the bite, I ducked out of her way and reached for the pendant. My fingers brushed her ice-cold shoulder, and a spark crackled as they barely touched the ruby.
Damn it!
I missed, but her fangs didn't–they sliced across the inside of my arm, from wrist to inner elbow.

I didn't have vampire skin, but close enough, and, just as they can cut through their own skin, vampire fangs could cut through mine. Vanessa's left a deep gash that didn't heal instantly, and they couldn't have been more precise on the vein. Blood spurted to the rhythm of my speeding heart.

And I was suddenly surrounded by ravenous vampires. Including ours.

If there was any blood even Amadis vamps with the highest control couldn't resist, it would be mine. Owen had called it an energy drink for vamps–and that was before the completion of the
Ang'dora
. Now it was more powerful, and the vamps could smell it. They closed in on me.

Tristan growled deafeningly, and the vampires flinched. At once, he held one hand out and hit the Daemoni vampires with his power, and with his other hand, grasped my wrist, lifted my arm to him and ran his tongue along the gash. I could feel it starting to heal before, but his saliva sealed it instantly, stopping the blood flow.

"Well, isn't that sweet," Vanessa sang right before Tristan swung his hand toward her. She disappeared with a
pop.

Her retreat signaled the rest of the Daemoni. The vampires, disabled by Tristan, disappeared first. He hit the Weres the best he could without hitting our own as they fought, and the evil Weres ran away. We both aimed at the mages who shot spells everywhere, some hitting buildings, some hitting our people. We blasted them together, cutting off their spells, and they finally flashed, too.

The air hung still and silent long enough for me to take in the destruction–burning buildings and Jeeps sending smoke plumes skyward, injured Amadis moaning with pain and crumpled bodies lying motionless on the ground. But not long enough for someone to finish yelling "Shield!"

Popping sounds filled the air as a new round of Daemoni appeared. After all these years, I still recognized the leprechaun face of Ian, the former Amadis who'd told me about the arranged marriage between Tristan and me, and the narrator of the beheading video. He quickly threw his hands in the air, as if in surrender, as he'd done with Tristan so many years ago.

"Just deliverin' a message," he said with his Irish accent. "You two stay 'ere, we keep attackin'."

"You have no right," Tristan yelled. "These are innocents!"

Ian laughed his sick ogre's laugh, his red hair shaking and his pale blue eyes crinkling. "But
you
ain't! And … so's ya know … the boy is ours."

My breath caught.
Dorian!
The realization that he and Owen were supposed to be here slammed into me like a Mack truck. The thought of them in a burning building or among the bodies drained all of my sensibility.

"Dorian," I yelled, turning around in circles, the obliterated village spinning in blurs. "Owen! Dorian!"

A female vampire knelt in front of me and took my hand. "They're not here, Miz Alexis."

I turned to Tristan, jerking my arm away as the vamp sniffed at the drying blood. The gold in his eyes was dim, the green dark, his expression unfathomable.

"They
have
him?" I shrieked with near hysteria.

Ian laughed. And I couldn't help it. Every time I saw the disgusting ogre, he was laughing at my heartbreak. I didn't electrocute him, though. Ian hated the Amadis in a different way than other Daemoni–he held a vendetta for his own heartbreak by my mother, who rejected his advances. So I pushed all my Amadis power through my hand and directed it right at his chest. Love, hope and faith … everything good wrapped into a thick rope of energy that I jammed into his heart. He fell to the ground, writhing.

Maniacal laughter–laughter at
his
misery–bubbled in my chest, but I managed to suppress it. I'd torture Ian until he begged for mercy and would only let up long enough to take what I needed from his mind.
And then I might kill the bastard.

The other Daemoni advanced two steps toward me as I continued with the force on Ian. I held my left hand up.

"Don't. Make. Me. Fry. You."

A warlock held his own hands up, threatening me with his magic. "Leave then."

"We leave after you do," Tristan said. "We're not abandoning these innocents."

"We're watching," the warlock warned. "You don't leave, we attack. Again. And again. And again … until you do."

Tristan cocked his head and I heard what he heard–with my ears and my mind–and my breath let out with relief. I let Ian go.

"Not a problem," Tristan said.

An old, rusty truck appeared down the road, heading straight for us and swerving for the Daemoni. They popped out of sight.

"Need a lift?" Owen yelled from the driver's side.

"Get in, princess," Jax called from the passenger's seat as the truck slowed down enough for Tristan and me to jump into the back. But I didn't move until I saw the little blond head wedged between Owen and Jax.
He's safe.
I sprang into the truck's bed.

"Take cover," Tristan yelled at the Amadis and the burning village instantly disappeared. "The truck, too, Owen!"

Owen thrust his hands up to shield and cloak the truck and then yanked the wheel in a hard left turn, throwing Tristan and me against the side of the bed. Several figures popped into existence in the direction we had been heading, but not able to see us, they gave up and disappeared again. Then the truck back-fired, slowed and stopped.

"Is something wrong?" My voice cracked on the last word as panic tried to grip me.

"Nah. This is where I get out, princess," Jax said. "I only came to show warlock here how to find Kuckaroo. He would have never made it in time, the direction he was going."

"How did you know?"

"My bird friend brought me a message about the Daemoni. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what they're looking for." He peered back the way we'd come, as if he could still see the hidden town. "I guess those are the closest I got to mates. I can't abandon them. Better see what I can do."

He took off down the road, no time for any of us to say long goodbyes.

"Thank you for everything," I called out.

"Any time, princess."

Owen jammed the truck into gear, and it lurched, then rumbled on. I jumped to the front of the bed and pulled Dorian through the open window to the cab, welding him against me, never wanting to let him go. I kissed all over the top of his head, every part that wasn't buried against me.

"Mom … can't … breathe," Dorian gasped against my chest.

I laughed, an unfamiliar sound mixed with joy and grief–joy to have my baby in my arms, grief for what we left behind.

"You have a plan, Scarecrow?" Tristan called over the truck's ear-splitting engine.

"You're the plan man," Owen yelled back.

"Can you still fly?"

Owen laughed. "Oh, yeah! Those were the only classes I didn't mind sitting through."

"There's a private air strip about a-hundred-and-fifty kilometers due west."

"Gotch'ya! It'll take a while with old Bertha here," Owen said, slapping the ancient truck's dashboard, "but we should get there before dark."

We rumbled along through the bush on no apparent road. The benefit of Owen's shield, besides the fact that it made us literally disappear in the Outback and lose the Daemoni, was that it magically protected us from the dust. Not that I could be any nastier with dirt stuck to the dried sweat and blood from the morning.

Tristan leaned against the front of the truck's bed, wrapped his arms around us and pulled us between his legs, Dorian still in my lap.

"I love you,
ma lykita
," Tristan murmured against my ear. "I'm sorry about earlier."

"Me, too. I have no idea what overcame me."

"Could have been Vanessa's mages messing with us before we saw them."

"Ah." I closed my eyes.
Bitch.
"You know I love you more than anything, right?"

"Of course."

"More than me?" Dorian asked.

I thought for a moment.
How do I explain the difference to a seven-year-old?
"Hmm … more than anything but Dorian. And Dorian, I love you more than anything but Dad. Okay?"

Dorian considered this for a moment. "Awesome. I'm the same as Dad."

I leaned my head against Tristan's chest and closed my eyes, tears silently seeping through my eyelashes.
Another village attacked, more people dead. Because of us
. And we couldn't even stay to help them. The best thing we could do for them was leave. And never return.

We were on our own.