Apocalyptic Read online

  At the slight glazing of Gabriel’s eyes, I tensed. I should just tackle Lizzy. But no, this wasn’t my problem. I was here as backup. If she tried any magic shit, I’d take her down.

  Gabriel dodged her kiss. He shook off her attempt to enthrall him and caught hold of her arm. “Let’s go, Lizzy.”

  “No, I came here for something, and I’m not leaving without it.” She tried to pull free, but he held tight. “We’re supposed to be together, Gabe, and you know it. When you disappeared the coven gave up on you, but I never did. I never stopped looking for you.”

  “It was just a fling, Lizzy. I’m sorry, but I don’t feel the same way you do. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” Gabriel genuinely seemed apologetic. His mouth was drawn and tight, his shoulders slumped.

  He was learning a lesson in lovers and victims. A lesson we all had to learn at some point in some manner. Still, I felt bad for him. She’d been someone from his past who’d gotten mixed up in his present. He’d have some hard choices to make.

  “You haven’t even given us a chance,” she pouted, her gaze frantically darting about his face. “I’ll play by your stupid rules, ok? Don’t tell me you regret this. You came to me, remember? You’re responsible for all of this. You owe me a chance.” Her plea lacked desperation or true emotion. She was playing him.

  Guilt caused him to flinch. Dammit. Gabriel was a softy deep down. “Let’s talk about this outside.” He jerked hard on her arm, a mask of hard brutality where the guilt had just been.

  Lizzy dug her heels in, refusing to budge. She flung a hand in my direction. “So you two can kill me? Why else would you bring her, Gabriel?”

  “Because you need help. Killing you is not what I want. It’s up to you whether that happens or not.” Calm, smooth, the kid talked a good game. So subtle I barely detected it, he slipped her a relaxing pulse.

  It wasn’t enough. She made her choice with little hesitation, and she was damn fast about it. Shouting one word in Latin, which I did not understand, Lizzy flung black dust into Gabriel’s face. It struck him full on. He froze, eyes widening in shock before they glassed over as he succumbed. If I had to guess, she’d just used a spell from his grimoire.

  She pulled free of him and whirled to fling the same dust at me. Not close enough. It floated to the carpet, leaving me untouched. Two bounds and I was on her. Hands on her throat, I pinned her flailing body to the floor.

  Lizzy was new, hungry, and strong. Not to mention a little crazed. Her eyes had the glossy stare of a rabid fangirl. This was more than a crush out of control. Infatuation fed by brand new hungers and sex-charged power had created a level of obsession beyond anything I’d witnessed in humans. Vampires were so easily obsessed with what they could not have. Case in point: Arys.

  “You won’t keep me from him,” she grunted out. Raising hands blackened by sinister magic, she grabbed both sides of my head and hit me with it.

  Absolute black smashed into my brain hard and fast. I screamed and instinctively tried to break free. Lizzy’s magic was soul-suckingly dark. It poured through me like ebony lava, flowing and scorching everything in its path. The searing pain blinded, and I flung myself away from her.

  In a blur Brogan rushed to help. A stream of Latin flew from her lips. Lizzy shrieked as a tight band of energy clamped around her, pinning her arms to her sides.

  “I can’t break this spell.” Brogan waved a hand in front of Gabriel’s face. He stared right through her, just standing there, unmoving.

  “Of course not,” Lizzy cackled. “It’s Gabriel’s spell. Only he can break it.”

  It was my turn to do one of those skyward stares, a plea for wisdom in the face of Arys’s progeny’s mistake. Why, oh why, did he have to keep a book packed with deadly black magic?

  “You can break it.” I was up in Lizzy’s face, baring wolf fangs. “You’re a dead woman if you keep this up. I can only afford so much patience for you. It’s almost out.”

  Lizzy eyed me with a head shake of disdain. “You’re heartless. Just like they say you are. Have you no compassion?”

  Who the hell said I was heartless? I had half a mind to shake some names out of her but knew that would be playing into her hands. “Right now what I have is no time to deal with this shit. If you can’t conduct yourself with discretion and control, I have no other option than to kill you.” I made sure she saw the truth in my stare. I’d do it.

  I left her bound, with Brogan standing watch. A close inspection of Gabriel revealed him to be subdued by something akin to hypnosis. He wasn’t really frozen, just entranced. Held in place by a hypnotic force.

  “Gabriel?” When he didn’t react to his name, I laid a hand on his arm. No reaction. He continued to stare off at nothing.

  Closing my eyes, I focused on the energy surrounding him. A master of energy manipulation, that’s what Willow had just called me. If I could isolate the spell’s energy, maybe I could break it.

  The spell’s murky essence coated Gabriel. Beneath it I could feel his strong vibes thrumming hard, fighting to break free. So he was fully aware, despite being struck silent and immobile. Creepy spell. Although perhaps having his own spells used against him would teach him a lesson he’d never have learned any other way.

  Feeling out the metaphysical form of the spell left a bad taste in my mouth. Fibers of darkness woven together formed a strong binding around him. Each layer on its own, however, was relatively fragile. Once I focused in on each individual fragment of the spell, I was able to easily pick it apart.

  A little push of power charged with both vampire and wolf, dark twisted into light, and the magic began to unravel. It retreated beneath my touch, chased away like a shadow fleeing the sun.

  The final threads of magic fell away, releasing him. I saw him come back to himself, the hypnotic haze falling away. There was no doubt in my mind that he was fully aware when he kissed me.

  I couldn’t help that it got a little erotically charged. And I definitely couldn’t help Gabriel’s own desires.

  Stepping in close to bring our bodies together, Gabriel captured my face in his hands and consumed my lips in a desire-drenched kiss that shook me. What the hell was he trying to prove? It almost pulled me under, but Lizzy’s shriek broke us apart.

  She busted free of Brogan’s binding spell and went straight for her. Grabbing Brogan around the throat, Lizzy dragged her close, using her like a human shield. “Fuck you, Gabriel. Fuck you right to hell and back.” Lizzy flung an erratic shot of power that shattered an entire display of glassware. It came down with a crash that left my ears ringing.

  Brogan’s eyes went huge with terror. She didn’t struggle, managing to stay calm despite Lizzy’s stranglehold.

  “You used me,” Lizzy accused Gabriel as she dragged Brogan with her toward the front door, pausing to fetch the basket of items she’d dropped. “I never meant anything to you, did I? You wanted an easy lay, a quick snack. But I’m just an inconvenience to you now. A loose end to tie up. Well fuck that. You won’t get away with treating me like this, like I’m disposable.”

  As she drew closer to the door, Gabriel took a step forward, like he might rush her. “This is between you and me, Lizzy. Let her go. We can go somewhere and discuss this rationally.”

  “Oh, no, we can’t.” She chortled, but her eyes filled with blood tears. “You’re just like the rest of them. Take one more step and I snap her neck.” Lizzy’s grip on Brogan’s throat tightened.

  I caught Gabriel’s elbow, keeping him in place. We couldn’t risk Brogan’s life.

  Using the frightened witch as her hostage, Lizzy shoved the glass shop door open. The beads jangled ominously. “This isn’t over, Gabe.” She disappeared outside, taking Brogan with her.

  I counted to three and went after her. We found Brogan at the edge of the parking lot, on her knees, coughing and rubbing her throat. Lizzy had dissolved into the night. Gabriel went after her anyway, in the direction Brogan pointed. I stayed with her, reluctant to leave even
after getting her back inside.

  “I’m fine, Alexa. Go after her. I’ll set up some extra protection wards.” Brogan’s pale face and speeding heartrate didn’t convince me that she was fine.

  “Do you know what she took with her? In the basket.”

  Squinting in thought, Brogan nodded, her blonde ponytail swinging. “Love spell stuff. Most of it pretty standard. Harmless in the hands of the average witch or lovelorn amateur.”

  “But in the hands of a black magic witch with vampire power?” I asked with a grimace. “She has Gabriel’s grimoire too.”

  Brogan smoothed a hand over her hair and sighed. “Then I’d say she’s planning on twisting something big enough to bend his will. Which is against everything most of us believe in.”

  Several minutes later Gabriel returned seething but disappointed. “No luck. Her energy signature is still hidden.”

  “We’ll keep looking,” I said, frowning as a strange sensation came over me.

  For a split second I was in Arys’s head, struck by the weight of the torment that consumed him. The constant battle that tore him apart. Then I was back in my own head, disoriented. I had to blink a few times to get my bearings. That had been happening a lot lately.

  “I’m calling it a night.” Brogan set about shutting the shop. She turned off the computer on the counter and some of the lights. “It’s been a while since there’s been any supernatural action in here. I don’t love it.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  After helping clean up the slivers of glassware, we walked Brogan out to her car where I asked if she was ok one last time. After she drove away, Gabriel and I stood in the tiny parking lot. Not knowing where Lizzy would head, I’d have to put out an alert to Smudge so her watchdogs could keep their eyes peeled.

  “Where should we start?” I glanced over at Gabriel who stood silently fuming several feet away. He was blaming himself. I got it. There was a lot of that going around.

  Gabriel’s hair hung long and loose over his shoulders. Part of it fell to hide his face as he stared at an oil smear on the ground. “Right here. With you claiming me.”

  It didn’t take me by surprise this time, hearing him say it. It intrigued me, his request, making me look at him differently. “Why now?”

  “So that she can’t. She’s going to use the dark love spell from my book on me.” Turning to face me, Gabriel raked a hand through his hair, shoving it back. Forcing me to see the strong lines of his jaw, the angled planes of his nose.

  I tore my gaze away before I could ogle him further. Arys’s torment echoed in my mind. His need was my need. What I needed most was him, my other half. A tug inside me encouraged me to go to him, to find him and throw myself fully into him. Come what may.

  That was the easy way out. Unable to let myself give in to that urge, I let my focus be swayed by Gabriel’s request. I wanted to take what he offered. Hands clenched tight, I paced away from him, hoping distance would help. We should be hunting Lizzy, not having this conversation again.

  Frustration rode me hard. In a burst of temper, I shouted at the vampire watching me from the other side of the tiny lot. “There’s no point asking why you have such dangerous spells, but I’m telling you right now, if I get my hands on your grimoire, I’m burning the motherfucking thing.”

  “Whatever you want.” A listless shrug. He didn’t seem to care much about the book.

  “How will claiming you keep a love spell from working on you?” Suspicion tinged my tone. What was Gabriel willing to say and do to get what he wanted?

  Hands shoved into the pockets of his long jacket, he held my gaze, letting me search him for truth. “If I’m tied to you, constantly yearning for you, the part of me the spell seeks to control will already be under your influence.”

  How could he stand there so nonchalant and seem so sure? He was asking me to mind fuck him in the worst of ways. “I still don’t think you realize what you’re asking for.”

  “Alexa, the last thing I want is for you to feel forced into anything. But I’ve seen how this world works. I’ve seen shit I can’t even give words to. I know what I’m asking. But I respect your right to refuse.” He let that hang between us before adding, “We should go. Lizzy could be anywhere.”

  Gabriel had come close to being like the others. The night he’d first risen as a vampire I’d taunted him with my blood in an attempt to bind him to me. It had been an effort to overthrow Shya. It hadn’t worked.

  Now he all but begged me to do it. This was an opportunity to expand those directly linked to me. To empower us all with our growing strength and power. We might need it one day.

  And did I not want to?

  Arys’s darkness danced through me, singing and chanting, encouraging and tempting. Take him, it said. Taste him. Feel him. Claim him.

  “I’ll do it.” Those three words rang in the emptiness around us.

  Gabriel turned to me, surprised.

  With a finger, I beckoned him closer. “Just remember, there’s no going back.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ARYS

  One of these idiots had put country music on the jukebox. I had half a mind to stick my pool cue up his ass. I was in a mood tonight. Some human jackass snivelling lyrics about his hard life and the girl who’d done him wrong just pissed me off.

  Since Shaz had dragged me out of The Wicked Kiss, I’d been nothing but a snarling, surly asshole. Despite my attitude, he’d brought me to Doghead and shoved a pool cue in my hand. He was trying to distract me. It wasn’t working.

  Across the pool table Owen bent low, lining up his shot. He and Izzy were playing Shaz and me. A few guys were tossing darts across the room. Others drank and smoked, loud and raucous.

  Annoying as fuck.

  How the hell Shaz could put up with this crap each night?

  The pack wasn’t as small as it looked, based on the twenty or so wolves in the bar. Everyone else was home living the normal life, tucked into bed in their two-story houses complete with the picket fence. Useless, in my opinion. Every one of them. Playing human while a wolf lurked beneath their skin. Denying their true nature and leaving the rest of the pack to fend for themselves when the FPA came knocking.

  Shaz was a better man than me. No question about it. He looked around at these sad, drunken animals and saw potential. I saw a buffet.

  “Shit,” Owen swore, swigging from a beer bottle. “Scratched the eight ball. Izzy, you rack.”

  Izzy gathered the balls and began to organize them. I watched her move them around, the colors tumbling over one another in her hands. Such lovely hands she had. Those wrists. Slender and elegant. I couldn’t see the pulse in her wrist from where I stood, but if I concentrated I could pick out her heartbeat.

  From her wrists my gaze traveled up her bare arms to the thin strap of her tank top. Her collarbone beckoned to be bitten. So perfectly defined, leading my gaze right to her delicate throat.

  Feeling my gaze, Izzy looked up, right into my eyes, and silently snarled. A challenge.

  “Try not to so obviously ogle my pack, would you?” An elbow in my ribs forced a small grunt from me. A beer in one hand, a pool cue in the other, Shaz cast an analytical glance over me.

  I ogled him instead. From the bulge of his bicep beneath the sleeve of his t-shirt to the cupid’s bow of his full lips. Lingering on my half-healed bite from the previous night, I drank him in. “Better?”

  He eyed me warily, as he should. Using his cue, he pointed to the table. “Break.”

  Playing pool was a terrible way to pass time. Because time had become the enemy. I didn’t want to pass it. I wanted to hunt it. Catch it. Crush it with my bare hands. Make it my bitch. But we all knew time was nobody’s bitch.

  I went through the motions. Line up the shot, sink a few balls. Wait my turn. Rinse and repeat. Inside an unholy itch tortured me. I’d tasted wolf blood again tonight. Still it hadn’t been hers. The want had been awakened, though it rarely slumbered these days.

>   That taste of Ebyn had been entirely for Alexa’s benefit. I needed to feel her fire. The heat of her anger grabbed me by the balls, and I fucking loved it. So I’d gone after her boy toy. It had worked. I got what I wanted when she stormed inside and found us.

  So why didn’t I feel satisfied with that? Because of that goddamn flicker. The piece of her that lived in me. The spark that never went out.

  It wasn’t me that wanted to hurt Alexa, emotionally or physically. The real essence of who I was as a person and a man, it didn’t want anything but good things for her. To see a smile on her face when she looked at me instead of rage and hate. To have her snuggle in against me rather than throw a fist in my face.

  Why did I continue to torment us both like this? Why couldn’t I make it stop?

  Because it was me. It was what I’d become. It was all I knew how to be.

  That’s a lie, the voice of the light whispered. You are so much more.

  Sometimes I wished I could slam a fist into my chest and tear out the piece of me that was her. Listening to the voice while my darkest obsession ate at me pushed me from irate to downright frenzied. Alexa penetrated all of me. Every fiber of my being. The only way to tear her out of me was to destroy both of us.

  Yeah, I’d been tempted a time or twelve. Who’s counting? I wanted to believe I could never really do it. But I knew I could. If things got bad enough, if she ever gave up on us, I would do it. To free us both.

  “Dude, I’ve gotta say that I am not liking the look in your eyes.” Keeping his voice down despite keen wolf ears within range, Shaz held himself relaxed but ready. In case I snapped.

  Humoring him, I shook my head and tried to appear anything but ravenous. “What look might that be, pup?”

  “Like you’re thinking about slaughtering every last wolf in here, me included. Should we leave?” Shaz wasn’t taking any chances with Alexa or me anymore. At the first sign that we were slipping, he acted.