“It’s too bad,” she purred, her hands pulling at his jumper. “You’re cute, but you’re positioned right where I need you to be—the right hand of my murderer. Yes, you’ll do just fine.”
“You’re Eleanor,” he said as the tip of her knife trailed along his stomach.
“The word dead has such a finality about it,” she replied, blowing him a kiss. “Nothing truly dies, Tristan, least of all an Unhallowed witch.”
She didn’t deny her identity, but he supposed she was confident he was done for. While he still drew breath, there was always hope.
“Why now?” he asked, trying to move against the invisible bonds that held him. “Four hundred years is a long time to wait in the shadows.”
She smiled. “All good things take time.”
“Have you been alive all this time?” He didn’t understand how she could be here. Not even Aya had known of a spell that could prolong a witch’s life beyond a hundred or so years.
“You know so much yet understand so little,” Eleanor replied, straddling his prone body. Holding the knife in two hands, she drove the tip into his skin, pain beginning to burn his flesh. He could feel the power traveling from her, through the steel, and into him.
He would not end up like the corpses that had been appearing around the city. He wouldn’t allow her to turn him into a reanimated sack of rotting flesh sent to tear his friends apart. Not after all of the things he’d seen in this world. He couldn’t become a part of the feral darkness that had taken him all those long years ago. There was no way in hell.
He felt her knife carving into the flesh of his chest, the symbol coming closer to completion, and he pushed against her with all eleven hundred years of his accumulated strength.
Her eyes widened in surprise as he broke free of her hold, and suddenly, he was shoving her aside. Baring his fangs, he dove onto her and tore into her neck. Eleanor screamed as the knife clattered to the cobblestones, the sound hardly registering as her blood began to burn his mouth and throat rather than fill him with the strength he needed to take her out.
Letting her go, he clutched his neck, spitting blood all over the ground. It was eating through his flesh like acid…
Eleanor began to laugh hysterically as she lay flat on her back. “Tastes nice, doesn’t it?”
Tristan heaved, throwing up the contents of his stomach. What in the world was happening?
Slowly, the witch sat up, her expression falling from laughter into darkness. He felt the crackle of static charging the air, and he knew he had to do something or bear the brunt of the spell the witch was muttering under her breath.
His throat burned, his stomach hissing and spitting inside of him as her blood ate away at his flesh, and Tristan knew he couldn’t fight her. Not alone and not without a witch to help him. The only thing he could do if he wanted to get out of this and warn Nye was to run.
Stumbling to his feet, he slammed against the wall, his balance thrown off. Eleanor’s hands rose as the spell began to crescendo, and he ran.
Emerging onto the street, he heard her enraged cry behind him and the sound of running feet as she attempted pursuit. No doubt, she’d hoped the poison that was her blood would subdue him long enough to complete her ritual. Not tonight.
Tristan turned and ran, not stopping until he burst through the front door of the mansion. Climbing the stairs, he shoved into the study and fell to his knees as Nye rose to his feet.
“What the hell happened to you?” he asked, looking over the knight.
His chest heaving as his strength failed, Tristan pawed at his jumper and realized it was covered in blood and whatever he’d thrown up. Holes appeared in places Eleanor’s blood had soaked through, eating away the fabric like it had his throat.
“The Unhallowed,” he wheezed.
Nye knelt before him, his face coming into focus. “Are you all right?”
He nodded and curled his hand around his throat. “Her blood was like acid.”
“What’s going on?”
Tristan froze at the sound of Isobel’s voice at the door, and he stared up at her. He couldn’t take his eyes off the human girl.
“Isobel,” Nye said, frowning at Tristan’s reaction. “Go to the kitchen and get some blood from the fridge.”
She stared at the knight a moment longer, then nodded. “Sure.”
When she was gone, he managed to pull his gaze away. “I got away,” he said. “She lured me into a trap.”
“She?” Nye asked. “Did she say who she was? Were there others?”
He swallowed hard. “Yes. There are others…”
Isobel appeared again, and he hesitated as Nye took the blood bags from her trembling fingers. She was a good person. She wanted to help them so desperately but was helpless. Maybe there was a way she could help…
Nye handed him the blood and helped him into the armchair. Ripping off the tab at the top of the first bag, he sucked greedily, the blood soothing the razor blades in his throat and stomach.
“Will he be okay?” Isobel asked Nye, watching as the knight devoured the blood without a care for what he looked like.
“He will,” the spy replied. “Go back to your room.”
Isobel hesitated and then slowly backed out of the study, leaving the two vampires alone.
Tristan drank the last of the blood, the burning sensation finally subsiding to a simmer that was already beginning to fade as his body healed itself.
“You want to tell me what happened?”
He glanced at Nye and nodded. “Eleanor.”
Nye visibly stiffened. “What?”
“She’s alive,” he replied. “I don’t know how, but she attacked me. Held me down and tried to turn me into one of her corpses.”
“Eleanor is responsible for the…” Nye let his head fall into his hands. “How is this possible?”
“I don’t think she’s workin’ alone,” Tristan went on. “She seemed to allude to others.”
“How is she alive?” Nye roared, tightening his hands into fists. “I cut off that bitch’s head four hundred years ago!”
“How the hell should I know? I saw her. She was flesh and blood…” His fingers rose to touch his throat. “I bit her… Her blood was like acid.”
“A bitch with acid in her veins,” Nye drawled. “Sounds about right. What did she want? To kill you?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t get very far before I got away.” He pulled up his jumper, but his skin had healed. “She was carvin’ somethin’ but it’s gone now.”
“Good. Last thing we need is you turning into a walking corpse.”
“There’s somethin’ in this house they want desperately,” he said, glancing at Nye.
“I think I already get that, but thanks for the refresher.”
Tristan’s mind was foggy, details of his encounter with Eleanor scrambled in his mind. “I don’t think they just want to kill you…”
Nye rolled his eyes. “No, they want to torture me for their own amusement before they rip me apart.”
“I think you should summon Gabby,” Tristan said. “This is outside of my knowledge…”
“After a week and half?” Nye scoffed. “No. I can handle this on my own. Eleanor is my problem.”
“Her blood was acid, Nye. I don’t think she’s a witch anymore.”
“Not a witch?” he replied, his eyebrows rising. “Then what is she?”
Tristan shook his head slowly, his senses starting to return. “I don’t know, but we need to find out. I’m a thousand years old, so she shouldn’t have been able to subdue me as easily as she did.”
“Maybe you have a point.” Nye rose to his feet and began pacing in front of the fireplace. On his second turn, he glanced at Tristan.
“Call her, Nye.” The spy waved him off, and he shrugged. “It’s your funeral.”
“You should go get some rest,” Nye said finally. “You look like shit.”
Rolling his eyes, he replied, “Thanks for the vote of co
nfidence.”
Knowing there was nothing else he could say to sway him, Tristan stood and shuffled toward the door. Let him make his own mistakes. There was only so much he could do to convince him. Maybe Isobel could sway him.
As he returned to his room on the other side of the mansion, he made a mental note to talk to her when he felt better.
When Tristan was long gone, Nye picked up his phone and opened the contacts.
The knight was right. Seeing him on the floor like that, totally spent from a five-minute encounter with Eleanor, had shaken him…and he hadn’t been the one to feel the tip of her blade this time.
Eleanor was alive. How was the even possible? What power could bring back a headless corpse? If what Tristan had seen was real, then the reflection he’d seen in the off-license the night before was real. She’d been there, watching his every move and then some.
Breathing deeply, he could still smell the lingering scent of Isobel in the room. Her appearance moments before was the first he’d seen of her since he’d lost control and… Her blood had been so sweet and pure. Better than any he’d tasted in a very long time. Just the thought of it had his teeth aching, threatening to grow into the fangs that could rip into her flesh.
Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and closed off all his senses but the one he needed the most. Sucking up his pride, he took Tristan’s advice.
Pressing his thumb on the screen where Gabby’s name was displayed, he listened as it began to ring and waited until the call connected.
She answered after the fifth tone.
“It’s been a week and a half, Nye. You haven’t burned all your bridges already, have you?”
“No, don’t be ridiculous,” he drawled. “And hello to you, too.”
“What is it? I’ve been having a wonderful break from vampire drama. It’s refreshing not having to use my powers to battle ancient curses and creatures, you know.”
“Good for you.”
“Spit it out. I haven’t got all night.”
“We’ve got a problem,” he said. “A big one.”
There was pause on the other end, and then Gabby asked, “What kind of problem?”
“Someone broke a window. And there’s a painting hanging in the foyer that’s worth ten million pounds.”
“Quit it, Nye. I expect this kind of runaround from Zac, not you. Just say what you mean or hang up and leave me alone.”
“A coven of witches called the Unhallowed have been planting spells all over the city and murdering vampires. They tried to kill Tristan tonight.”
“Tristan? But he’s… Is he okay?”
“Yes, he will be, but he said it was close.”
“Hell… I’m sorry, Nye. I…”
“Have you heard of them before?” he asked, turning the conversation back to their current problem.
“The Unhallowed? Never heard of them, but there are a lot of covens out there. Some go back to near the beginning of our kind, to those that are first generation. Even covens that span all elemental affinities. There’s no way that any one person could follow them all. If things went to plan like they were supposed to, then there was only ever going to be five covens. Now there are thousands… These Unhallowed witches could have been flying under the radar for a long time.”
“It doesn’t matter if you’ve heard of them or not,” he shot back, not needing the history lesson. “It’s what they’re doing now that’s a thorn in my side.”
“Go on…”
He took a deep breath and told her the whole convoluted story, minus the part where Isobel was trapped inside the mansion and the lines had become blurry as hell. Alex would love that, and if he wasn’t careful, Gabby was one breath away from telling the newborn vampire all about it.
“I really need your help, Gabby,” he said, laying it all out there. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“Nye Saer putting his city before his pride,” the witch replied. “Perhaps we made the right decision, after all.”
“Are you going to help or not?” he asked, rolling his eyes.
“It’s my house, and London was Regulus’s city,” she came back with, her voice wavering slightly as she uttered her dead love’s name. “It’s my home, too. My home that I allow you to live in and direct your kingdom from. I’m not going to let some crazyass witch with a vendetta against her ex-boyfriend stuff it all up.”
Nye’s lips curved into a smile as some of the tension left his shoulders. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”
“I’ll be on the next flight out.”
Chapter 11
Gabby rolled her suitcase up the path that threaded through the front garden of the Hampstead mansion.
Her mansion. It still felt weird saying that considering a few months ago, she only had a few hundred dollars in her savings account and a dead-end job at a Realtor’s office in a tiny town in backwater Louisiana, USA. Now she was the multi-millionaire heiress to her dead vampire boyfriend’s fortune that had been amassed over two thousand years. Try to explain that one to the IRS.
It might’ve been jet lag after the nightmare flight she’d just gotten off, but she felt the tingle of unfamiliar magic and shivered. Staring up at the house, she narrowed her eyes, and the image shimmered slightly. Yes, something was definitely there, and it wasn’t her magic. It made her skin tingle like she had pins and needles all over the longer she tried to feel it out.
Further prodding revealed it to be some kind of barrier, but what for? Gabby could feel the web all around the mansion, its tendrils gripping tight to the facade, closing over windows and doors.
Letting go of her suitcase, she turned around and peered at the garden. She felt it there, too. There were wards around the perimeter of the property, but they were clumsy, like whoever had cast them had been a novice or hadn’t really cared. What the hell had Nye been doing while she was away?
Grasping the handle of her suitcase once more, she rolled it up the remainder of the path and stuck her key into the front door. Unlocking it, she dragged her luggage into the foyer.
“Nye!” she yelled, her voice echoing through the cavernous house. “You’d better be here!”
“Gabby?”
At the sound of a familiar voice, she glanced at the stairs where an excited Isobel was galloping down two at a time. She was the last person Gabby was expecting to see, especially since Alex was still in Ashburton.
“Izzy?” she asked, her eyebrows rising in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
Isobel bounded across the foyer and threw her arms around her neck, hugging her tightly. It was a much warmer welcome than Nye would’ve given her, that’s for sure.
“It’s so good to see you,” Isobel murmured, sounding tired. “I thought I’d never get out of here.”
“Get out of here?” Gabby pulled away and frowned. “What do you mean?”
Isobel’s expression fell, and she glanced over her shoulder. “He didn’t tell you, did he?”
Gabby’s eyes narrowed as the pieces began to fall into place. “Tell me what?”
Her friend shuffled nervously, unsure of what to say, and Gabby began to seethe. Of all the stupid things that vampire could do…
“Nye!” she screeched, stepping around Isobel and thundering up the stairs.
Shoving into the study, she found Nye perched on top of the desk, waiting for her imminent arrival.
“What is Isobel doing here?” she demanded.
He gazed at her for a moment and shrugged. Something fishy was going on here, and she was going to get it out of the vampire even if she had to make a few of his brain cells pop.
“Seriously? Is that all you’ve got to say about imprisoning Isobel against her will?”
“If you stop to think about it, you’ll understand why,” he replied drolly.
“What did you do to her?”
“Excuse me?” he asked, rising to his feet.
“You’ve done something to her,” she declared. “I saw the way you look
ed at her in Oxford. We all did.”
“Are you insinuating that I compelled her to remain in the mansion as my pet?” His eyes narrowed, and she knew she had at least some of it right.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Right now, I am.”
“She came to see Alex a week and a half ago,” he began, and Gabby’s mouth fell open. “Things have not been going smoothly in your absence. She was on the doorstep, and by then, it was already too late. If you know anything about vampire politics, you know this. I kept Isobel here to protect her. From the vampires and now from the Unhallowed.”
There was so much wrong with this Gabby didn’t even know where to start. “The Unhallowed? What have they done to her that you’ve so conveniently left out?”
“The corpse…” His eyes lowered. “It was stronger than we anticipated and got into the house…”
“It attacked her?”
“You must understand, Gabby, I never intended…”
He turned away, obviously feeling guilty over his part in Isobel’s predicament. He was right about her being in danger from the London vampires, but not telling Gabby about it before now was madness. There was so much she could’ve done to prevent much of the chaos that had already fallen into Nye’s lap.
Then there was Alex. There was no way she was telling a newborn founding vampire that his human sister was in the crosshairs of a city of vampires and an unknown coven of witches.
Sinking down into Regulus’s favorite armchair, she sighed. “Tell me about the Unhallowed.”
Nye glanced at her over his shoulder. “Are you sure? You must be tired…”
“Tell me, Nye. No more avoiding or leaving out important details. Just give it to me straight.”
“The Unhallowed have been attempting to siphon power from their victims. Carving their symbols and runes into the flesh of the dead and bringing them back to life. They did it once, but we stopped them the second time, and then they attempted it with Tristan. Eleanor attempted it. It was the same thing she tried to do to me the day I killed her.”