Sealed With a Curse (WG 1) (35 page)

“An asshole! Just say it, Emme. Celia felt the urge to help some master vampire asshole! Son of a bitch, you couldn’t have waited fifteen freaking minutes for me to get there?”

“We’re off Highway Eighty-nine in South Tahoe. Take a right at the white fir sapling and the first left onto a gravel road.”

“Take a right at the white fir sapling! Are you crazy? There’s a million fu—”

Emme disconnected her call. “Bren says he’s disappointed we didn’t call him sooner. He’ll try to track us now and will hopefully join us momentarily.”

Emme missed her calling as a White House spokesperson.

“He hates me.” Taran gripped the steering wheel tight.

I cut my eyes from the road. “Who?”

“Gemini.”

I groaned. “Taran, he doesn’t. I think he’s just a little shy.”

“Do you think it’s all the swearing? Son of a bitch, is that it? I swear too goddamn much?”

“Well, dude, you could try toning it down a little.”

Shayna jumped in her seat at the sight of Taran’s
death glare. “Listen, Miss I Have Every Damn Wolf Eating from My Hand, I don’t need—”

“Taran, stop the car!” I rushed out as the trees cleared and a house came into view…an empty, half-built house. Only the foundation and skeleton frame had been completed in the McMansion. There was no roof, and the second floor hadn’t been laid. I ran around the house, sniffing the air for any hint of vampiric aroma. Nothing.
Nada
. No trace of magic at all…except for Tahoe. The house sat on top of the hill. I trekked to the back, where I had a view of another monstrous estate situated near the edge of the lake, a few acres from where I stood. The road we’d taken must have angled back around. This estate resembled a giant Tudor…or I should say about seven Tudors pushed together. A two-acre-wide maze of hedges ran from the side of the house to the bottom of the small cliff where I stood.

Taran wiped her muddy shoes on a flat rock. “So much for Misha’s reverse speed dial. Can we go now?”

Shayna bounced to my side. “Koda just texted back. They’ve been searching the last judge’s property in wolf form, so they haven’t had their cell phones on them. He’s worried and says to stay put. He’ll locate us through my phone.” Her ponytail swung happily as she shifted her weight from side to side. “He’s so sweet. But I can just text him and tell him we don’t need them.”

My tigress eyes locked onto the back of the estate. A wood door banged open and out ran a vampire…dressed in a Catholic schoolgirl uniform.

“Shayna…?”

“What, dude?”

My voice fell into a distressed whisper. “We need them…
now
.”

I barely heard the taps as Shayna’s fingers swept over her keyboard. Emme muffled a scream. Ana Clara’s long hair sailed behind her from the speed at which she ran. She tried to go through the hedge instead of around. Yellow-and-black magic sparked from the branches as she bounced off like she’d rammed a stone wall. Blood poured from her nose and from a thick gash on her head. She stumbled to her feet just as four severely infected vampires burst the hinges of the back door.

“Emme, grab her with your
force
!” I jumped up and down, waving my arms. “Here! Run here!”

Emme’s magic stirred. “I can’t. She’s too far. My power can’t reach her!”

We watched in horror as Ana Clara staggered into the wretched maze, the bloodlusters right behind her. “Left, goddamn it, go left!” Taran screamed. “Right. Now right!”

Ana Clara struggled even with Taran’s instructions. The first bloodluster approached, tracking her by blood. She drew closer, closer, Ana Clara screaming as she closed in.

Swoosh. Swoosh.

Shayna’s arrows found the bloodluster’s head and chest. She exploded close enough to smear Ana Clara’s back with putrid green ash. Another bloodluster neared. Shayna followed with two more arrows. One pierced an eye, the other a shoulder, but it didn’t hinder him. He pushed on, his thirst propelling his legs faster.

He tackled Ana Clara and raised a claw in the air. Shayna nailed him with an arrow through his palm and a thicker one through his temple. The infection hadn’t advanced too far. His blood spilled red, distracting the other vampires. Ana Clara crawled away, sobbing as the
two vamps feasted on the other. She rushed to her feet and sprinted.

And so did I.

Emme screamed.
“Celia!”

I couldn’t watch any more. I leaped off the small cliff, landing in a
shift,
and surfaced as far as I could into the maze. “Ana Clara! Run to my voice!” I continued
shifting
. The magic prevented us from crashing through the wall of hedges, but it didn’t penetrate beneath the earth. Every time I emerged, I called to her. And every time her sobs grew louder. I surfaced once more, out of breath from
shifting.
My heart thundered against my rib cage as I searched along the endless labyrinth of green until I finally caught sight of her.

Ana Clara tore around a bend, crying, grunting, her arms pumping wildly as her bare feet dug into the muddy ground.

“Hurry, Ana Clara. Hurry!”

The hedges twitched and crackled. Black-and-yellow mist rose into the sky. I no longer felt the sting of dark magic prick against my skin.
Oh, no.
The barrier had fallen.

One of the bloodlusters crashed through the thick branches between me and Ana Clara. I
shifted
him through the ground and kicked his head from his shoulders. Another bloodluster broke through, then another, and another.

Shit
.

All the air was squeezed from my lungs as my feet left the ground. Ana Clara and I flew through the air on the wobbly wings of Emme’s
force
. Four bloodlusters chased us below. My head jerked to find Emme. She and my sisters were only a quarter of the way in through the
maze. We moved fast. But it wasn’t fast enough. Six more infected vampires crashed through the thick field of green, heading toward my sisters.

“
Run
. There’s more.
Run!
”

Ana Clara screamed as a Zhahara-size bloodluster leaped up and yanked her out of Emme’s
force
. She crashed with him on top. He tore into her like a piñata, spilling her insides. I jerked my head away when two more piled on top of her. She screamed. She screamed the whole time. Until the silence announced her end.

My sisters ran, Emme dragging me behind her like a kite.

But they were too slow. Taran turned and launched a stream of lightning. The vamps leaped out of the way…and onto my sisters.

C
HAPTER 33

“No!”
My roars were cut off by a sharp tightening around my throat. Something yanked me free from Emme’s
force.
I crashed hard on the ground, struggling to breathe.

My body twisted and buckled. Each time I fought my way to my feet, I was immediately brought back down, until I finally succumbed from lack of breath.

Silver satin ballet slippers stepped into my line of vision, splattering mud against my face. “Relax your hold,” the dark-haired witch from the compound whispered quietly. “Your master doesn’t want Celia to die. Yet.”

The whip around my neck loosened enough so I could pass air, but not much. I protruded my claws and cut through the leather strap. I rolled back, only for a second whip to cut off my breathing again the moment I struggled to my knees.

My head spun from lack of oxygen, and tears blurred my vision. The whip loosened once more and my hands were roughly bound behind me. This time I was too breathless and weak to act.

So were my sisters. Mud soaked their clothes, and
they bled from their mouths and noses. They must have been squashed by the weight of their bloodlusters. Zhahara had been huge. Four males, all bigger, all hungrier, all deadlier, danced eagerly from side to side, smacking their lips and drooling as they held my sisters like dolls. They couldn’t wait to eat.

Us.

Taran swore under her breath, cringing every time her vamp’s tongue extended near her jaw. Shayna kicked futilely. Emme whimpered and shut her eyes tight. A large contusion swelled across her crown. She’d banged her head. It would take time for her body to heal her and her mind to act. Time we didn’t have.

The witch’s head angled as she regarded me, her coal-colored eyes filling with hatred. More hatred than should have been possible for someone who didn’t know me. “Come, my children,” she said, her voice oddly childlike considering the darkness surrounding her. “Your master is waiting.”

Oh, great. Time to meet Daddy.

I was half dragged through the mud. The infected vamp holding me laughed each time I stumbled to my feet. Each time I rose, I grew stronger. Each time he yanked on his hold, I grew angrier. And each time he laughed, I knew he’d die.

And that I’d be the one to kill him.

Misha’s gut-wrenching screams made my head snap up. So did the currents of power drifting from the threshold of the demolished door. The vamp holding me hissed. “Why isn’t he dead yet?”

Yet?

The vamp tugged me harder through a large kitchen where entranced women bustled at tasks on countertops
and busied themselves over simmering pots. Their eyes glazed over from hypnosis. Chunks of skin had knitted over their horribly mauled wrists and necks, perspiration giving their grotesque pallor a sickly glow. These women teetered on the edge of death. Yet the force driving their efforts compelled their frail bodies forward.

Vegetables steamed in pots, rolls baked in the oven, and lamb roasted in the rotisserie. The aroma of food would have sickened me, considering the state of the women who prepared it, yet the scent was barely noticeable over the escalating fragrance of vampiric power and Misha’s tormented bellows.

A tremendous surge of the energy caused the vampires dragging us down the dark wood-paneled corridors to pause. God, it was so strong it pressed like a wall against my chest. I coughed and gagged, desperately trying to draw a full breath as we crossed into another room.

We entered a tremendous antechamber decorated à la Museum of Natural History meets ghetto bizzaro. A chandelier fashioned from dinosaur bones and lit with candles hung from the center of the wood-beamed ceiling, illuminating the virtual gallery of ancient relics. Gaudy furniture made from animal skins and accented with leopard-fur pillows had been pushed out to create space within the two-story-high room. Stuffed animal heads from elephants, bears, wolves, to freaking zebras were fastened to the walls between the tapestries and paintings in thick brass frames. Armored knights encased in giant glass boxes stood on either side of the marble fireplace. It seemed like a stressed-out museum curator had thrown up in here…a demented, cruel, and masochistic curator.

Misha’s four remaining vampires were fastened to the
large wooden beams by chains. The hum of the metal told me they’d been reinforced with magic. The witch had too much power. She definitely topped my “needing to die” list.

Misha’s family hissed with rage, fighting against the chains. Tears stained their blood-smeared cheeks. They barely noticed us enter for how badly they hurt for Misha, cringing with each roar from their master’s pain. Their hatred could have singed the pillars. They wanted to spill blood, and, as the bloodlusters watching the show parted like a curtain, I very much wanted to give them the opportunity.

All I could see was the vampire’s bare, muscular back as his arm sliced across Misha’s chest with a cursed gold dagger. But his crew-cut blond hair gave him away.

Petro. Misha’s so-called brother. The so-called weakling.

Good God
. Never underestimate the underdog.

Petro carved into Misha’s body with an arc of his hand, appearing more an artist painting a masterpiece than a monster cleaving into a being who breathed and hurt.

Petro glanced over his shoulder. The polite smile he usually demonstrated was gone, replaced by one so filled with malice, I wanted to cringe from it. Except the growing need to make hamburger out of his throat kept my gaze locked on his jugular. No, Petro wasn’t weak. He was simply a master manipulator and one hell of an actor.

“Good evening, Celia.” He stepped aside, giving me a full view of Misha. My heart clenched. I tried to look away, but my captor yanked my head back so I could take in the state of my guardian angel.

Misha’s head drooped against his chest, draping his blood-soaked hair against his knees. Droplets of red fell
like rain against the dark marble floor. He wheezed with every ragged breath. The hilts of two gold daggers protruded from his thighs, anchoring him into the large wooden throne and sending the cursed gold to poison his blood. Like the damn gold chains wrapped around his open, nonhealing wounds weren’t enough.

Misha slowly raised his head—a miracle, considering Petro’s efforts should have killed him by now. Petro had made mincemeat of Misha’s once beautiful face. His strong gray eyes were fogged over from pain. But when he fixed them on me, they cleared like the sun breaking through an ugly storm, showing me his fury and the strength that remained. I couldn’t hear his thoughts, but his unsaid words rang clear. He wasn’t ready to die. And I wasn’t ready to let him.

Petro drove his dagger into a side wooden table and removed the thick rubber gloves he wore. He extended his arms so his servants could circle him and lick Misha’s splattered blood clean from his body. “What’s the matter, Celia? You don’t look well, my darling.”

I always look this way before I kill someone.
“Don’t call me your darling. I felt sorry for you!”

Petro smiled, his familiar gentle demeanor returning, although this time I knew it was all a lie. “Everyone did,
darling
. That’s what made my coup that much easier. All I needed was time, and a little patience.” He glanced over at Misha in a strangely adoring manner. “Time I likely wouldn’t have had if my brother hadn’t spared me from our grand master’s destruction.”

I closed my eyes tight, trying to calm my raging beast. The whip would crush my larynx before I finished
changing
. But my increasing fury made it hard to focus. Petro had used Misha. Hell, he’d used all of us.
Prick
. “Tell me,
Petro. Was it you or your witch who discovered how to magic the bloodlust into viral form?”