Scarlet Heat (Born to Darkness) (41 page)

“Easy, big boy!” LeeAnn pulled on the chain around my throat but she
couldn’t control me. My brands burned, the old and the new alike shooting pain
and change and rage through my entire system. The beast had been held off long
enough—too long—and now he was coming out.

My vision became a wash of pure, bloody scarlet and then I knew no
more.

Chapter Twenty-seven—Taylor

I saw him change.

Celeste’s mouth was clamped to my throat,
draining my blood, taking my life, but all I could see was Victor. All I could
do was watch as the beast inside him took over completely.

His eyes, which had been red before, changed even more. The scarlet pupils
seemed to spread, covering the whites, taking up the entire eye like an
animal’s. As I watched, the last scrap of humanity leaked away, leaving nothing
human behind.

Coarse black hair sprouted all over his body until it covered him like a
pelt and his mouth and nose became long and pointed, turning into a wolf’s
muzzle. But though his head changed, his body didn’t follow…not the way I
expected it to, anyway. He didn’t turn all the way into a wolf. Instead, he
grew bigger, more massive, more muscular as his clothes burst at the seams and
fell away from him. He grew until I swore he stood nine feet tall, his head
blotting out the moon.

I stared in terror and fascination at what he had become—a monster out of a
fairy tale told to frighten children at night. A beast from mythology. A man
with the head of a wolf and the appetites of an animal.

As Victor’s size increased, his strength did too. He snapped the chains
that held him to the thick metal stake with a guttural, animal roar. The
vampires and weres that were Celeste’s minions backed away slowly. All except
for Tozer—he took one look at the transformed Victor and ran away as fast as he
could. Only LeeAnn and Celeste weren’t leaving—Celeste because she was too busy
draining me and LeeAnn because she was plainly still determined to take Victor
down herself.

Despite his dramatic metamorphosis, she was still hanging on grimly, trying
to control him by the thick silver chain wrapped around his neck. When he
snapped his other restraints and stood free of the pole, she yelled his name.

“Victor—no!” She yanked hard on the chain, trying to bring him to heel like
an owner forcing a reluctant dog to behave.

It was a bad idea.

The beast Victor had become turned toward her, moving with frightening
speed for a creature so large. The thick muscles of his chest and arms flexed
with raw power and that was all it took—the silver chain around his neck popped
like a string.

Still LeeAnn wouldn’t quit. Either she had a death wish, or she was
incredibly arrogant.

“No,” she shouted, shaking the broken chain at him. “Bad! Get down! Bow to
your Alpha! You’re mine, Victor—
mine.
Bow to me now or—”

Victor simply swatted her away like a fly. The backhand sweep of his
massive hand sent her flying right at me. I would have ducked but Celeste had
me locked in place and all I could do was watch.

LeeAnn’s head connected with the thick roots of the tree right at my feet. I
gasped behind the gag at the impact—a wet, sickening thud. It was the sound of an
overripe melon being split open.

She was lying at my left side and Celeste was feeding from my right so I
was able to look down enough to see what had happened to her. LeeAnn had landed
at my feet, her naked body limp as a rag doll’s. She might have survived the
impact but one of the tree’s roots was poking crookedly out like an old witch’s
gnarled finger. Looking down I saw that it had pierced LeeAnn’s right eye. Her other
eye had rolled up to stare sightlessly at the night sky and blood trickled from
her nose and mouth. Dead.

I barely had time to take in LeeAnn’s demise, though, because the beast was
already coming toward me. I moaned and struggled but Celeste still held me
tightly, her mouth locked on my throat.

“Hold still,” she muttered, between swallows of my blood. “No point
struggling now, my dear. As soon as I drain the last drop of your blood, your
powers will be m—”

She never got to finish her sentence. A huge, heavy hand reached down and
dragged her off of me. I felt an instant of relief when her mouth left my
throat but my wound was still bleeding freely, the blood flowing down my neck.
I had no way to stem the tide and even if I had, I was mesmerized by the scene
playing out before me.

Celeste was finally looking at Victor—at the beast he had become—and I
could see the terror and disbelief on her face.

“No,” she breathed as he lifted her, his scarlet animal eyes glaring into
hers. “No, it can’t be. The curse—it’s not true. It’s all superstition and
nonsense!”

Victor raised her higher and growled, deep in his throat. Celeste screamed
and tried to break his grip but she couldn’t get free. She looked like a doll
in his massive hands, a tiny blonde doll that kicked and shrieked as he brought
her closer and closer to his gaping jaws.

“Get back! Get away!” Celeste reached out with one hand and clawed at his
eyes. She got the side of his face instead—the side she’d so recently branded.

Victor’s beast snarled in pain and anger. He grabbed her arm and I heard a
low popping sound as her shoulder disconnected from the socket. Then he simply
yanked the arm off, like a hungry man twisting off a chicken drumstick.

Celeste shrieked in mingled pain and disbelief, staring at the bloody socket
where her arm had been. I understood her confusion—Victor shouldn’t have been able
to tear her apart like this. She was a three-star vampire—one of the strongest
beings on the planet. But clearly the beast inside him was stronger.

“You can’t do this to me!” she screamed, lashing out with her other arm and
baring her fangs. “I have lived for centuries and soon I will have the power
to—”

The beast’s jaws opened wide and I saw teeth as long as my hand glitter in
the moonlight. He clamped down hard and bit into the slender white column of
her throat.

Celeste shrieked again, a high, terrified sound that ended abruptly in a
dull, crunching—the bones of her neck being crushed, I realized. As I watched,
the beast’s jaws met completely and I saw that he had bitten clean through her
throat and spinal column. Her eyes were still wide with horror as her head
toppled off and rolled to the ground at his feet.

The beast threw her lifeless, still twitching body down like a discarded
toy. Her blood ran down his chin as he threw back his head and bayed at the
moon, a long, low, ululating howl filled with grief and pain and rage and most
of all, bloodlust. The sound cut through me like a knife—it turned my bones to
water and made me cold inside.

And then the beast lowered his head and came for me.

“Victor,” I whispered as the bloody jaws loomed in my vision. “Victor,
please…please don’t.”

It was one thing to be sucked dry, drained to the point of death as Celeste
had intended to do to me. That was an unpleasant ending, to be sure. But it was
still preferable to being torn limb from limb by the man I loved. I was chained
to the tree, though—there was nothing I could do to stop him.

Blood
loss and fear made me lightheaded and dizzy as he
pushed his face toward mine. I closed my eyes and tried to brace myself as I
felt his hot breath on the side of my bleeding neck. Oh God, this was it—he was
going to bite off my head, just as he had done to Celeste. I could almost feel
those dagger-like teeth sinking into my flesh, snapping my bones like twigs…

Except that wasn’t what I felt at all.

Instead of sharp white teeth, I felt his tongue. Hot and wet and infinitely
gentle, he was licking my wound. Not like an animal tasting food it wants to
eat—but almost like a pet that wants to give comfort to the one it loves.

“Victor?” I whispered, daring to open my eyes and look up at him. His eyes
were still red but they seemed gentler now—filled with sorrow instead of rage.
He made a soft sound at the back of his throat and licked me again.

Somehow, I understood what he was trying to do. He was trying to heal me—to
seal my wound as I had done for him on multiple occasions when I fed from him.
But it wouldn’t work. He didn’t have the natural healing ability I did, and
though his mouth on me was soothing rather than painful, I could still feel the
blood trickling from my wound and down my neck. The whole front of my white
gown was red with it now and though it was barely a minute since Celeste had cut
my throat, I was already beginning to fade.

“Victor,” I whispered as my eyelids began to flutter closed. “Love you so
much. Sorry…sorry about everything. So sorry…”

“Get him off her,” shouted a voice behind me—Addison’s voice. “He’s
killing her!”

“Stop!” I recognized that voice as well—it was Corbin. “Stay back, Addison,
your gun is no good in this case. Let me handle it.”

“That thing will rip you apart, just like it did Celeste,” Addison said. I
wished I could see her but the beast’s huge, hairy shoulder was in my way. I
couldn’t see anything but him.

“Wait,” a third voice said—Gwendolyn. “Don’t try to kill it—I don’t think
it’s hurting her.”

“Not hurting her?” Addison demanded. “Just look—she’s covered in blood and
that thing is
hungry!”

“If it was that hungry it would have stopped to eat Celeste or that other
dead body over there.” Gwendolyn was probably pointing to LeeAnn’s lifeless
corpse.

“The witch is right. I
think
he’s trying to help her,” Corbin said.
“But if we don’t get to her soon…”

“Her life force is fading,” Gwendolyn said. “We need to get her down from that
tree so I can work on her.”

“Let me talk to him,” Corbin said. I thought I heard Addison protest again
but then Corbin’s voice got closer. “Victor,” he said, “I know you are in there
somewhere and I know you can hear me. This form you are in, I believe that it
cares for Taylor as you do yourself. Therefore you must contain it and step
away so we can get to her.”

The beast growled low in his throat.

“No one will harm her,” Corbin said in a soft, coaxing voice. “I swear it,
Victor, we only wish to help.”

“I can barely feel her anymore,” Gwendolyn said, and for some reason, it
sounded like she was talking from far away. “She’s fading…”

“Victor,
please.”
It was
Addison’s voice this time. “If you love Taylor then you have to let us get to
her. She’s
dying.
We have to get her
away from the tree so Gwendolyn can help her.”

There was a snuffling sound and then the beast’s jaws moved away. I felt
his cold, wet nose sniffing along one of my arms and then I felt a jerk and a
tug. Suddenly, my right arm was free—he had bitten through the chains!

I tried to lift my arm but it felt too heavy and my head felt too light.
Victor’s beast bit through the other chains as well, setting me free. Then he
howled again, long and low and mournful. I could have been wrong but it seemed
like there was a question in that howl.

“Yes," Corbin said to the beast, who was looking at him inquisitively.
“We will do our best for her. Go and run with the moon now—you have done all
you can.”

Victor’s beast leaned toward me and licked my cheek once more—a goodbye
kiss. I smelled the warm fur and musk scent that was at once and entirely
Victor and saw the moonlight reflected in his scarlet eyes. Then he rushed away
into the underbrush, nearly silent despite his huge bulk, and disappeared.

“Victor,” I muttered and tried to take a step to go after him, but my legs
betrayed me. Now that I was free of the chains and there was nothing holding me
up, I was so weak I couldn’t even stand.

“Catch her!” Addison gasped.

Corbin did and laid me gently on the ground. He and Addison and Gwendolyn
all crowded around me, peering down anxiously into my face. They looked blurry
to me, unreal. Addison had her palm pressed to my neck, trying to stop the flow
of blood, which was now little more than a sluggish trickle. Everything was
fading…black flowers were exploding in my vision, eating everything in their
path.

“It’s too late,” Gwendolyn said. “She’s lost too much.”

“No, I won’t accept that.” Addison sounded like she was going to cry. “She
can’t go—not now. She has to be all right…be all right…be all right…”

Her words seemed to echo in my head, following me down into the long, dark
tunnel or hallway I suddenly found myself walking in.

“Taylor!” Addison might have been screaming but it sounded like a whisper.
“Taylor, don’t go—come back!”

“Addison…darling…” Corbin’s deep voice sounded as though he was comforting
her. “I’m sorry but it’s too late.”

“It’s not too late—heal her, Corbin! You can do it, you have the power.”

“I cannot. I can seal the wound but even if I do, she has no blood left.
She has been drained dry—a fledgling vampire cannot survive under those
circumstances.”

“Then I’ll feed her.” Addison’s voice was sounding fainter and fainter.
“Her blood-bond with Victor is broken, right? So she can drink from anyone. Quick,
Corbin—bite my wrist.”