Made By Design (Blood Bound Series Book 2) (46 page)

The other three stalled at the high shrill tone of my voice. “What’s wrong?” Dorian asked.

Breathing wasn’t an option, and my brain swam without oxygen. “Something’s wrong. Marika—”

My mind shifted, occupying Kendrick’s and seeing through his eyes. On the elevated dais before him were six seated royals, all donning long cloaks.

The seventh was Caius, standing before my double and holding out the chalice filled with peppery Pure Blood.

Each reigning royal had donated their own blood to fill the chalice as part of the ritual to recognize and bless their new Oracle. All Marika, still perfectly masked as me, had to do was drink it. All of it.

Now in her hands, the chalice lifted inch by slow inch until its cold edge grazed her lower lip.

There was an instantaneous hush all around as she tipped the cup, not wavering even a nanosecond. Yet as the blood flowed into her mouth, an unmissable flash of gold crossed my mirrored eyes.

That was all he needed to see.

Caius took back the empty chalice, stepping back to place it on the altar. He scrutinized my double. Then his unwavering voice rose over the dense crowd of eager vampires. “This is not my niece.”

Caius unsheathed the sword at his back and gasps rang out over the crowd. It was the same sword that had been used to bleed out each royal’s blood for the offering. He pointed the gleaming edge at my double’s heart. His eyes blazed, incredulous and crazed. “Traitor!”

My mom jumped up from the front row, clearing the rise to the dais to land between Caius and his readying sword. “Caius, stop! What in the world are you doing?”

“Caius knows I’m not me,” I said, while still watching through Kendrick’s eyes.

A hot, calloused hand gripped mine and pulled, forcing me along a path I couldn’t see. Rushing words blew through my ears, but I couldn’t make sense of them. My total focus was a level above us, watching the horror unfold.

Caius retracted his sword a few inches and regarded my mom with a hard look. “Lamayli, this is not your daughter. This is an—” He moved with blurred speed, his wielding arm burying the sword in Marika’s stomach. “Imposter!”

Uproar exploded and guards closed in on the stage.

Kendrick rushed forward as Caius’s sword drew free, glistening blade dripping bright with crimson. He caught Marika right before she collapsed to the ground and hauled her sideways.

My mom screamed with violent disbelief. She threw herself onto Caius as guards stood by, waiting for a command.

Marcus rose and strode toward Kendrick, while the rest of The Council sat in unmoving shock.

Except for Uriel. She flung off her cloak to reveal silver stakes strapped to her sides. Among the growing panic rising from the crowd, she was the only one to speak. “In heaven’s name, what have you done?” She pinned Caius with a piercing stare, curling a gloved hand around one of the stakes.

My mom continued beating her fists into Caius who seemed unperturbed by her onslaught. “That is not Miss Amelia Lamont,” he bellowed loud enough to cover the noise of everyone watching as he pointed his stained sword. “She is not even a vampire.”

As the word
vampire
rang out the audience hushed.

Kendrick’s sight dropped, looking at my double who had pulsing blood pouring from her abdomen. Just as fast as Ty had morphed back to himself after imprinting me, so did Marika. Her blond hair receded, turning black and glossy. Her body bulged, tight once again in my coronation dress. And with tearing hazel eyes, and skin a tan contrast to the almost translucent porcelain it had been seconds before, the recession to her former self was complete.

With Caius’s clarifying words, “She’s a lycan!” the entire court swarmed into anarchy.

“What’s happening?” Dorian’s voice came from behind me. His hand pressed against my back, helping guide the way while Ty hauled me relentlessly forward. “Are they okay?”

“It’s M-Marika.” My vision merged back to the corridors we were speeding through. The image of blood pouring from Marika’s abdomen rose every time I blinked. I clutched at the phantom pain lancing through my own stomach and gagged, swallowing the rise of vomit. “Caius’s…sword. He…” The words died on my tongue, too horrific to spit out. But they had to know. “He ran her through.”

Ty’s grip on my hand tightened, forcing me on even faster. “I’ll kill him.”

“Is she dead?” Troy’s snarl was more animal than human, his inner wolf threatening to break free.

With a slow blink, I saw the chaos. A maelstrom of volatile wind had formed. Inside it, Kendrick had managed to drag Marika to the back corner stairs leading to the second level balcony. Blood continued to leak from her healing wound, but her complexion had grown pale. She would die before the blood flow stopped. She coughed and crimson pooled from her mouth and ran down her chin. Kendrick used a blade to score his forearm and forced it to her mouth.

All of a sudden I was forced to a standstill. The hall blacked out like a light and the red-tinted corridor appeared. We had cleared the lower level and were now a corridor’s length from the glass security station.

“I asked you a question, leech.” Troy pressed an arm against my windpipe, pinning me against the wall.

My mouth opened, but nothing came out. Pressure tightened my chest and striking pain pierced my neck. A gentle push down is all it would take to crush bone.

Quick as a flash, two figures shot to either side of us. Ty had his hands around Troy’s neck, and Dorian belted into the guy’s chest while tearing his arm back from my throat. They threw him at the opposite stone wall.

With murder in his eyes, Ty’s face tilted, huge canines sliding free. “Touch her again,” he snarled, blocking the space between Troy and me, “and I will tear out your fucking throat.”

Keeping them in his line of sight, Dorian came to my side to inspect the damage. “Anything broken?”

I rubbed the blazing flesh while my focus remained on the wolves. “No.” Troy looked milliseconds from taking on Ty’s threat. And I couldn’t have it. I went to Ty’s side and tugged on his shoulder. “Stop it. Both of you.” I tried not to let Troy’s radiating hatred poison my expression. “Lives are at stake and we need to work together.”

Ty released his hold, but didn’t move or retract his canines.

“I know you’re worried about Marika, but she’s okay. Kendrick’s with her. He’s helping her heal.”

Troy breathed through flared nostrils. Then he pushed off the wall. Quiet cracks erupted with the elongation of his mouth, and his teeth grew to razor-sharp canines. “With his blood?” His mouth twisted while his hazel eyes raged with golden flecks. A succession of louder cracks erupted with the outraged cry of a human voice turning wild.

“Kendrick’s doing what’s needed to save her life,” Dorian cut in.

But no words could stop what was already set in motion. In seconds Troy had transformed into a dark-chocolate-colored wolf. Ty blocked his way before he could take off. “Touch Kendrick and I’ll let her,” he flashed his hard stare at me, “kill you. You get them out and that’s it. No casualties.”

Troy snarled then let out a bark. His skull dipped and tilted, then he took off, paws pelting the ground as he ran. Without pause we shot after him.

As we reached the cross paths that split from the station, Kendrick’s voice rang through my ears.
Amelia, left!

“This way.” I tugged on Ty’s hand, redirecting the three of us along the corridor that snaked left from the glass station. “Troy will catch up.” Kendrick was sending us directly to the council hall. And we needed every second we could get. If my vision was right, and my gut told me it was, the damned would be busting in any second now.

Part of me needed to stay for the fight. Everyone in that hall was here to see me. Their Oracle. Caius may have brought them here, but attendance wasn’t mandatory. I couldn’t abandon them. Not when I knew of the mortal danger to come. But if I stayed?

I’d seen Ty bleeding and weak, being cut up by Caius’s sword. I didn’t know the outcome, and I didn’t want to stick around to find out.

As we reached the last bend before immersing ourselves in the loud riot that poured through the arched entrance, I tugged Ty back. With forceful hands, I shoved his shoulders back against the wall. “Wait!” Dorian paused, and I nodded him on. “Get to Kendrick and move Marika to the second level balcony. We’ll be right behind you.”

Dorian disappeared around the bend, pulling the folded crossbow from his backpack and flinging it out into operation.

“Amelia, we don’t have time for this.” Ty watched after my brother, body twitching to take after him. “They need our help.”

“I know. But I need you to promise me something.” At Ty’s raised eyebrows I went on. “Promise me that we’ll get to our friends and you’ll get out.”

“That’s the plan, isn’t it?” Ty’s expression shifted, speculation drawing his lips open. “Amelia, what aren’t you telling me?”

That Caius will come gunning for you.
I gulped and bit my lip.

Before I could speak, a crash of glass imploding split through the air.

In a flash we appeared at the arched opening to the council hall and stood frozen in horror. Every glimmering glass pane surrounding the hall had been smashed in. Streaming through them and filling the hall were countless figures, a moving wall of viciousness closing in on all the vampires below. All draped in black with gray translucent flesh, their piercing red pupils shone with starvation.

Shouts came from the dais, instruction for all living vampires to arm themselves. The shock of having a lycan impersonating their Oracle was easily forgotten. Every vampire inside the hall was moving. Some made for the exits, while others scrambled over each other to arm themselves with the many weapons that had been stowed beneath boxed benches lining the hall.

Still positioned on the dais was the Royal Vampire Council. Every one of them was armed to the teeth. Some clutched silver stakes while the rest unsheathed gleaming silver swords from the backs of their thrones.

Before the RVC were their immediate family members. These ones had clearly been alerted to the possible attack, because they were now all brandishing an assortment of weapons. They leaped into battle, weapons swinging past those still rushing to get armed. But they weren’t fast enough. The damned moved like lightning, their blurred figures rendering bodies lifeless quicker than they could be taken down. In the melee one thing was glaringly apparent. Caius was nowhere to be seen and neither was my mom.

Kendrick hauled an almost unconscious Marika up the stairs to the balcony. Dorian covered them, firing off rounds from his crossbow at the swarming damned. I shuddered as they reached the balcony railing. Damned were crawling up the walls like spiders.

Desperation and fear clung to my heart and soul. We didn’t have long. “Ty, will you leave with them?”

“Will
I
?” His jaw clenched, reading between the lines. “What about you?”

There was no backing out of this now. “I’m staying.” Fully accepted as the Oracle or not, the vampires needed me. I couldn’t leave them to die. Not when I could help. A cold knot unfurled in my gut. “I can’t abandon them.”

Clear determination rippled through Ty’s eyes. Without even a glimmer of hesitation he said, “Then I stay, too.”

I knew that fierce look from the threats Ty had given Troy. Nothing I could say would make him change his mind. Just like nothing he’d said could have kept me from endangering us all to rescue him. I could never have left him to be executed. And he would never leave me here alone. He’d never abandon me. So there was no way to alter the future. I had done everything to escape the inevitable, but it couldn’t be controlled or changed any more than my love for Ty could.

“Okay.” I pressed a soft kiss to his lips that was over and done with way too soon. Tears blurred my vision but I held them back. “But promise you’ll stay away from Caius.” I paused for the briefest moment, but he had to know the fate I’d seen. “He’s going to try to kill you.”

With a roar and the crack of reforming bones, Ty transformed into the wolf. The strongest and most equipped form he had for battle. He threw a glance at me before leaping into the fray, canines bared and ready to tear flesh.

I bounded after him with my stake in hand and got caught in the mass of vampires and damned fighting to the death. Keeping low, I weaved between those already feuding and managed to take out a few damned with the tactic of surprise. As I staked my third damned, I sensed Kendrick watching me over the balcony. The spider-climbing damned were scaling up to their level. The only thing holding them back was Kendrick’s whirlwind and Dorian’s firing crossbow.

Kendrick. Get Marika and Dorian out. And don’t come back.

If you think I’m leaving you down there alone, you’ve lost your mind.

Kendrick lifted Marika and edged back with Dorian to the pitched window ending the balcony. As he went to kick the glass out, a damned broke through the maelstrom. Dorian pulled the crossbow trigger, but the canister was empty.

At the same instant, I swept under the clawed hands of a damned, my foot striking out to bring him down. Though not before he’d rent tracks across my ribs. My stake came down, piercing his heart.

When my eyes shot up from the exploding ash, I almost froze. Dorian had his hands out in front of him. The concentration straining his face was do or die. Then it happened. The damned stalking forward fell to its knees. Black oozed from its eyes, streaming down its murderous-turned-panicked face. As its mouth twisted open in agony, more blood gurgled up. Then it fell flat on its face.

Overwhelmed, but seeing more damned begin to break the wind barrier, I rushed my words.
Kendrick, please. I can’t lose you, too.
My stake pierced another attacker’s chest before my heart could skip a beat. The damned’s face contorted and then her entire body combusted into a smoldering pile of burning ash.

I’ll be back,
Kendrick’s promise echoed through my ears.

Before I could argue, he leaped from the window with Marika slung over his shoulder. Dorian was right behind them, reloading his crossbow.