Bitten By Magic (13 page)

“What are you doing here? How did you get in here?” Jaxson placed a hand on Alexa’s arm, tugging her behind him as he faced the High Priest.

“Don’t be a hero, Enforcer. Your Elder invited me here to handle his wife’s disobedience. I suggest you leave her in my care and go back to your station.”

“You don’t give me orders, old man.” Jaxson clearly meant to argue the point, his fangs coming out in a deadly hiss.

“Don’t.” Alexa placed a hand on Jaxson’s arm. “This has been the Elder’s plan from the beginning. He won’t welcome your interference. Go.” Alexa raised an eyebrow at him as he hesitated, clearly not trusting the High Priest. “Go. That is an order from your Mistress. I’ll be fine here, Jaxson.” She felt his concern as he turned his head to gauge the truth in her calm words. Poor Enforcer, she thought with regret, he didn’t realize she could hide her fear beneath the emotionless facade of the Keeper. “Thank you, Jaxson.” Her words held the slightest amount of warmth for him. He would have fought to his demise for her; she sensed it in his hesitation.

“Wilhelm will be here soon.” Jaxson glared at O’Mallery and his guards before reluctantly leaving the room. The door slammed behind him. The finality in the sound echoed in her head, though not in the rubber-covered room. Here she was without magic, effectively de-winged and facing her greatest enemy—time.

“Why are you here?” Alexa watched the wrinkled man cock his head to the side.

“I suppose you think you have the right to demand answers now that you are the Keeper and the Mistress here, but you are wrong. Wilhelm wants you broken. And I’m here to do the breaking.” His aged yellow teeth gleamed in the glare from the recessed lights lining the stone roof.

Alexa took a quick look around the room. There were chains bolted to the rubber wall. In the corner stood the box she knew so well. A shiver of horror had her tightening her fists as she saw O’Mallery’s evil grin. He had her. There was no magic available to her as she stood on bleeding feet and rubber floors. The walls were even lined in the thick black rubber. She was at his mercy because at his feet was a small basin filled with dirt.

“What makes you think you can break me, O’Mallery? You tried once before for six months and you failed.”

“I won’t fail this time, Alexa. I don’t have anyone looking over my shoulder. No one but a very pissed-off Elder who will love seeing you bleed on his floors. Don’t worry, dear. I plan to save every last drop of your precious blood for your husband.”

Delighted laughter had his head arching back, spittle flying from his mouth as his chuckles ended in a coughing jag.

“There’s one very big difference between then and now, High Priest. Then I didn’t have a need to fight you. I wanted my position. This time I have the position and the need to see you fail again.”

“We’ll see. Take her,” he ordered his three guards and stepped back into the basin of dirt.

Alexa settled back into her balanced fighting stance. She didn’t have magic to aid her, but she wasn’t defenseless. She waited for them to strike, adrenaline giving her strength as she began to dance with the guards, dueling with her hands and feet in an effort to protect herself from a maniac with no sense of pity. If she were to fall, it would be her death, but only after he extracted every last bit of pain from her body.

Chapter Nine

Wilhelm stared down at a deathly pale Rosalyn as she lay on the gurney beneath Grant’s expert examination. His temper was at the point where he could snap his lovely little wife’s neck with two fingers. She’d done something to Rosalyn. What, he didn’t know, but he was more than certain she was the one responsible for the strong woman fighting for her undead life.

“What is it?” he demanded as Grant hummed in his throat.

“I’m not sure, but it looks like a septic reaction to something she ingested.” Grant looked up with a frown. “I don’t think this is a spell.”

“How the hell can you tell?”

“Don’t snap at me, Elder. I can only guess at this point. I’ll need to pump her stomach and take blood tests. Things I can’t accomplish with you hanging over my damn shoulder. Get out of my med room.”

Few individuals could order him around in his own home without losing life or limb, Grant was one of them. “I don’t want to leave her.” Rosalyn could be a vindictive pain in the ass, but she was one of his. He hated seeing a woman so full of power and vitality so weak and vulnerable.

“You look hungry. Go get a snack and then come back. I’ll have some kind of answer for you then.” Grant’s voice softened as he placed a hand on Wilhelm’s shoulder over the table.

“I have my headset on. Let me know the instant you hear something,” he commanded gruffly.

Wilhelm stood in the hallway feeling pulled in two different directions. He felt a need to go check on his so-called wife. He wanted answers that only she could give him, but he was afraid that if he didn’t like her answers, he might tear her apart with his bare hands. Then there was Rosalyn fighting for her life in the room behind him. He didn’t want to go too far away from her in case... He shoved his hands through his hair with a growl of pure rage.

He never should have brought the Witch into the Hive. He’d opened their little community up to her kind without thinking about the powers she wielded. She could have killed them all while he slept soundly. He’d let her warm body and sweet blood play him for a fool. Fuming, he headed for the main hall. The feeding would be commencing soon and if he had to face the Witch below them, he’d need to drink deeply to regain his own strength.

Everyone in the main room acknowledged his presence with a solemn bow. The subdued atmosphere told him they had already heard of his wife’s treachery and knew her fate. The irony wasn’t lost on him. A joyous wedding one night and an execution the next. They probably thought she was already dead. As she should be, he realized with a rush of anger. His fangs flashed as he moved through the crowd to take his place on the throne at the head of the room. All eyes were on him as he surveyed the room with a coldhearted glare. There wasn’t a single heartbeat reaching out to him anywhere in the quiet room. Frustration edged out rage as he tried to make sense of his loss of appetite. It wasn’t as if he felt anything for the Witch. She was his wife in title, not in need. The look of helplessness in her green eyes as he passed her with Rosalyn in his arms had a growl escaping as he sat down and leaned forward to stare into the crowd.

A girl in a tight black dress with a glitter of excitement shining in her dark blue eyes caught his attention. He nodded to her in a silent command. The people began to move and talk to one another as the redhead moved toward him, her hips sashaying from side to side as she slowly approached him with a crimson smile on her heart-shaped mouth.

Wilhelm nodded in approval as she sank to her knees before him. The invitation in her eyes begged him to take what he wished from her young, lush body. Her blood red nails flashed as she pulled her curls over her shoulder and tilted her head to offer her pale throat to him. Her hands rested on his knees as she quietly waited for him to feed from her.

Wilhelm studied her neck and the faint blue veins throbbing with her excitement. He licked his fangs, waiting for his hearing to detect her heartbeat. There was nothing. No urge to bite, no pulsing need to feel her body jerking in his arms as he sucked her life’s blood. It was the ultimate in physical intimacy for an Immortal to take another’s lifeblood into his body. He’d never failed to take some pleasure in the act, but as he stared at her neck he could only feel revulsion so strong that he wanted to puke.

He forced himself to place his hands in the thick curls of her fire-kissed hair. Tilting her head further to the side, he closed his eyes tightly, thinking that if he couldn’t see the woman then maybe he could drink of her. His lips touched her warm throat, his fangs grazing the delicate tissue below her ear. Revulsion flooded him as a pair of moss green eyes flashed in his mind’s eye.
Holy hell
!

He shoved the girl away from him with a disgusted curse. Silence filled the room as he stood up to wade through the sea of shocked faces. Rage moved him through the wary crowd until he was entering the halls of the Hive. He was almost to the entrance to the tunnels when he saw Jaxson striding toward him. His second in command’s dark blue eyes narrowed accusingly as he drew closer.

“What the hell are you doing up here? You were supposed to be guarding my wife!” Wilhelm stopped to demand with barely hidden rage. Jaxson’s hands clenched at his sides as he stopped to answer his Elder with a hiss of his own.

“You wanted me to watch while that bastard tortured her? Sorry, Elder. I’m not the coldblooded asshole you are,” Jaxson huffed out as he shook his head. “Why did you make her my Mistress if all you wanted was for her to suffer under our very noses? Didn’t you realize we’d feel a duty to protect her as well?”

“What are you bitching about? I haven’t given any orders for her torture...not yet.” But now that he knew she had somehow managed to place a curse on him he was more than ready to see her suffer! He couldn’t bite anyone but her, damn it! Wilhelm placed his hands on his hips, his brain trying to understand where Jaxson’s anger was coming from.

“The hell you haven’t! He was down there. I delivered her to him, just like you wanted.” Wilhelm moved then, gripping Jaxson’s shirt in his hands as he shoved him up against the wall. Aggression met aggression as the two Vampires hissed and glared in each other’s faces. Wilhelm’s head snapped back as Jaxson’s accusations finally made sense to his addled brain.

“Who was down there?” he demanded through clenched teeth. His fangs ached with the need to tear through flesh. “Who?” He shoved Jaxson against the wall hard as the other Vampire only glared at him.

“The High Priest!” Jaxson’s words shot through Wilhelm with a shock of pain. He frowned as he quickly released his friend. “Will, he said you knew he was here. He said you put him in charge of her punishment for disobedience.”

“Damn it!” Wilhelm moved with an Immortal’s supernatural speed through the door and down the stairs. He could hear Jaxson right behind him as he descended as fast as his feet would go on the stone steps. “I told you to guard her, Jax!”

“I couldn’t stand it, Will. He’s a sadistic son of a bitch!” Jaxson hissed angrily.

“Shit!” Terror had Wilhelm hurrying down the stone stairs. If Jaxson, a well-trained and seasoned Enforcer couldn’t stand the punishment O’Mallery was dishing out, then there might not be anything left of Alexa when they reached the lower tunnels.

Wilhelm didn’t even hesitate when he hit the bottom step. The sweet scent of her blood turned his stomach as he entered the tunnel leading to the special room O’Mallery had suggested he build to hold her should he need to keep her isolated. He regretted listening to the old fiend now. He should have known the bastard had an ulterior motive. A fierce roar echoed through the tunnels as he reached and powered straight through the locked door.

The scene before him and the strong smell of her blood had him stopping on the threshold. Jaxson slammed right into him and then stepped backwards as the smell of her life ebbing away hit him as well. Wilhelm’s lips pulled back in a growl of rage as his gaze landed on his wife’s bloodied body. Alexa was chained to the rubber wall, her legs dangling inches above a wide basin catching her blood as it dripped from her body. Her breasts and hips were bound by a narrow strip of red cloth. Every inch of her exposed body was striped with thick gashes that bled.

Her head hung limply to the side, her hair hanging over her face in wet clumps. He looked for some movement, hoping to detect an indrawn breath. She was dead. The cold knowledge of her death took his sanity as the demon within howled with uncontrollable rage.

O’Mallery turned toward him then. In his aged hand he held a whip-like object. Instead of leather strands there were blue flames dancing with a life of their own from the handle. Wilhelm didn’t let the priest intimidate him as he lunged for the little old man. The air vanished from his lungs as he was thrust painfully up against the hard rubber wall of the room. He heard Jaxson advance into the room only to meet the single guard dressed in white robes. The heavy door slammed shut, locking Jaxson and the muscular guard out of the room.

“You bastard!” Wilhelm struggled to break free of the High Priest’s magical grip, only to be lifted off his feet. His hair touched the stone ceiling as the priest’s power held him there, helpless.

“Ah, Elder Chambers. We had an arrangement, did we not? A bride to gain entry to the Book of Souls. It matters not who that bride turned out to be.” A smile lit up the old man’s face as he licked his lips slowly. He turned his head to study Alexa’s bloody body. “It was very fortuitous for me that you chose the Keeper as a viable replacement for Elaina Dunt. Mistress Alexa Carver has always been a jewel in the crown of the Coven. Always so pretty, so strong of will. How lovely it is to finally break her.” O’Mallery looked back up. “Do you smell her blood? I saved it all for you, wasted not one drop, Elder.”

Wilhelm snarled as he tried to move against O’Mallery’s power. He hungered for blood, all right. He loved the taste of her blood, but not like this. He could almost feel her pain as he looked over toward her limp body. He blinked as he thought he detected a slight movement of the tight reddened cloth over her breasts. Was he seeing things or was she breathing? He concentrated, but could barely detect a weak heartbeat.

“You weren’t supposed to kill her, O’Mallery! You stupid, senile fool!”

“I might have gotten a little carried away.” O’Mallery shrugged a shoulder as he glanced towards Alexa. “Can you blame me? She didn’t break easily. No begging for her life, no screams, just silence from the strong-willed Keeper.” His annoyance was evident in the way he looked at her. “She could die, probably will.” He swung his gaze back toward Wilhelm. “Does it matter if she does? Not really. Do you think your wife was the only female abused and punished enough to gain entrance to Helen’s island? One should never put all his eggs in one basket, Elder. I placed two other pawns in motion to achieve my goal. It was stupid of you to underestimate me. All those millennia under your belt and you couldn’t even conceive of my motivation. I want the book! I will get the book! I just don’t need you or your little Keeper to get it for me.”