“Shit.”
Leaning down, he placed a soft kiss against her forehead. It was no use hiding his affection now. Not if this was going to be the last time he saw her sweet face.
“I just wanted to see you before I stepped out,” he said.
“Where are you going?”
“Just an errand. Nothing special,” he replied, his heart sinking.
Her eyes drooped. “Oh…”
“Sleep,” he said, tugging up her blankets. “You’ll feel better soon.”
She murmured something incomprehensible as she slipped into her dreams once more. Her condition was worsening, and her waking moments were becoming less frequent…there was no time to lose.
“Goodbye, Isobel,” he murmured with all the conviction he could muster. She’d be well soon enough. He’d make sure of it.
Setting his phone on the bedside table, he left her to rest, knowing that when she woke, she would be free of the curse.
Closing the bedroom door behind him, he went downstairs and outside into the night, sliding into one of the many cars Regulus had left to Gabby.
Nobody followed or tried to stop him, but why would they? Gabby knew it. Alex knew it. Even Tristan knew it. This was the only way to save them all. Wasn’t love about sacrifice?
Gunning the engine, he pulled out of the garage and onto the road, powering toward his destiny.
Chapter 17
Nye breathed deeply as he crossed the field, the air sweet with the lingering summer sun.
Overhead, the moon was only just visible, its last quarter hanging low in the sky and casting little light over his final march. Ahead, the six fingers of the standing stones the map had led him to broke up the straight horizon.
It was here that he hoped to find Eleanor so he could put this feud to rest. He was counting on it.
As Nye approached, he was keenly aware that the temperature was dropping. With every step, the air became ice, and it reminded him of the cold nothingness that awaited him in death. True death.
Lingering at the edge of the stones, he waited in the darkness. He was alone in the physical sense, yet all around him, he felt the presence of a lingering anger and the charge in the air that always preceded a witch’s appearance. They were here.
As he waited for them to show their faces, he cast his gaze over the site of his final stand. There was no way out, but he still looked for one.
The standing stones were a circle of six jagged bluestone slabs with a smaller stone in the center, which he understood was called the Blood Stone in this kind of formation. During the Middle Ages, they had been repurposed by some fanatical groups as places of sacrifice…human sacrifice. On a few occasions, he’d put a stop to the barbaric practice while in service to the English Crown. Now they’d been recycled yet again—this time, as a supernatural battery for that bitch Eleanor and her coven of wraiths.
A plot four hundred years in the making… Eleanor had conviction—he’d give her that.
“Nye Saer,” a voice purred from behind him.
He stilled at the sound of Eleanor’s voice but didn’t turn. She stepped around him and glided into the stone circle, lifting her right hand. Clicking her fingers, flame erupted, engulfing the torches that had been placed in the ground between each bluestone slab.
He narrowed his eyes at the sight of her in modern clothing, her hair wild and her eyes darkened with makeup. Someone as vain as Eleanor must revel in the trappings of modern fashion. Women were freer than they’d ever been throughout history, even if they were harboring a supernatural secret.
“Come,” she said, curling her finger to gesture him forward. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Stepping into the light, he glared at the witch with all the disdain he could muster. “You know why I’m here. I want proof that you’ve lifted the curse before I let you have me, or I’ll take your head…and this time, I won’t be so efficient about it.”
“What a queer thing it is for a vampire to love a human,” she said, regarding him. “You would give up your eternity so Isobel might live, what…a handful of years?”
“If you understood what love is, Eleanor, you’d understand why.”
He saw the anger in her gaze, and he felt nothing. He wanted to fight, but he knew it was useless. He stood in her domain, the place where she was most powerful. Even with Gabby at his side, he couldn’t win. To go up against Eleanor now was foolish.
“I’ve been watching you for a very long time, Nye,” she began, her eyes shining with malice. “The murders. The hunting. How you carried out a Roman’s orders without question. The same Roman who helped you cut off my head.”
“Looks like you got it back,” he retorted, not missing a beat.
Eleanor snorted. “How could a man like you love a woman like that?”
He laughed at the irony. “What? Are you jealous?”
Her lip curled in anger, and she turned away.
“Remove the curse on Isobel, and I am yours to do with what you will.”
Eleanor seemed to ignore his demands and placed her palm against the standing stone before her. Her head lowered, and she began to chant in the language of the witches. The language given to them as gifts from the Celestines…from his friend Aya. It was sickening to hear, knowing what Eleanor had become. Everything that had made the Unhallowed witches had been forsaken so they could live forever in pursuit of a single goal. Revenge.
“It is done,” she said, turning to face him once more.
“I want proof,” he demanded. “Your words mean nothing to me.”
“Kneel,” she commanded. When he didn’t move to spite her, she held up her hand and roared, “Kneel!”
Pain tore through his head, and his knees buckled beneath him as her power ripped into his body.
“You want proof?” she asked, standing before him. “Here is your proof.”
Her palm slammed against his forehead, and an image burst into his mind’s eye. Eleanor wasn’t gentle about it as the vision was forced into the deepest parts of his brain, making it feel like his head was being split in two…but he saw her. Isobel.
She lay in her bed at the mansion, sleeping just as he’d left her earlier. Gabby was beside her, asleep in the armchair someone had moved from the opposite end of the room. Isobel stirred, and then her eyes fluttered open. As if she’d been drowning and starved for oxygen, she pulled in a sharp breath and sat up, a single word on her lips… Nye.
Eleanor tore the vision away just as brutally as she’d given it, and he fell forward, his palms connecting with the ground.
“You have your proof,” the wraith snarled. “Now let’s get on with it, shall we? We have a long night ahead of us, Nye Saer.”
She turned and began walking away as five figures appeared in the darkness before her. Glancing up, he tried to focus on their forms, but it was like they weren’t even there. They looked human, but they were made up of shadow…neither here nor there. Every so often, a burst of light appeared inside their bodies, like a lightning storm was brewing. He’d never seen anything like them in his entire life, and he’d seen some pretty crazy things. This must be the Unhallowed in their true form. There was no other explanation.
It was five shades of fucked up if you asked him.
Nye was powerless as the wraiths approached, his body frozen as he was lifted by an unknown force and laid out on the Blood Stone. So this was how she was going to exact her revenge. By carving him up into little pieces.
No one was coming to help him, but it was how he wanted it. No one else had to get hurt.
He would endure alone knowing he’d saved Isobel from the darkness.
That would get him through.
Gabby’s dreams took her far that night.
After Nye left the study, Tristan had appeared, and together, they’d attempted to work out a plan to take out the Unhallowed at the source. Nothing any of them proposed was happening any time soon. Attacking the wraiths at the source of their power was the ultimate de
finition of stupid. They had to figure out a way to lure them into the open, and then they could sever them from the ley line…maybe.
It was all trial and error, but they didn’t have time for the error part. Not when Isobel was fading.
Gabby’s dreams carried her to her memories of the spirit world. She’d walked through the between place where all supernatural souls resided, the veil between the here and the hereafter, in search of Katrin the Betrayer. She’d been able to talk to the founding witch only because of their shared affinity in all things Roman. She’d had her love for Regulus and Katrin’s grimoire, which was the only thing that had led her to the witch.
Going into the spirit realm now would be risky. The Unhallowed’s magic worked on a spiritual level, and there was no way of telling where the wraiths could walk.
A sharp gasp of air roused her from her dreams, and Gabby sat up in the chair, rubbing her tired eyes.
Isobel was sitting up in bed, a wild look in her eyes. What the hell was happening?
“Nye,” Isobel whispered, her fingers tightening around the blankets that had covered her.
She reached out for Izzy, and when her fingers connected with her skin, she was zapped with a bolt of static electricity that had her snatching her hand back. That’s when Gabby realized what Nye had done.
“Tristan!” she shrieked, bolting from the room.
The knight materialized in the hall and grasped her shoulders. “What’s happened?”
“Isobel’s awake…” she began. “Like awake.”
“What?” He let her go and ran a hand over his face. “I don’t like the look on your face, Gabby.”
“Nye… Where is he?” Tristan’s expression fell, and Gabby shoved past him, heading for the study. “Shit!”
Alex appeared behind them, roused by the commotion. “What’s going on?”
“The curse is gone. I can’t feel it in her anymore,” Gabby replied.
The founder’s eyes widened as he followed her into the study. “Isobel’s awake?”
“Yes,” she muttered, fumbling through the papers on the desk, oblivious to the two vampires behind her.
“Gabby?”
They glanced up at Isobel, who’d staggered down the hall and was now leaning against the doorway of the study, looking like she’d been through hell and back. In a way, she had.
Tristan shot forward and threaded his arm around her back. Helping her into the room, he set her gently into one of the armchairs by the fireplace.
“What’s going on?” she asked again as Alex draped a blanket across her lap. “I don’t feel tired anymore…”
Gabby glanced uncertainly at Tristan while Alex doted on his sister, smoothing her tangled hair.
“Tell me!” Izzy practically shouted at them.
“It wasn’t me,” she said after a moment of awkward silence. “I didn’t lift the curse.”
Isobel’s hand flew to her mouth. “Then he… He…”
“He sacrificed himself for you,” Alex said, looking totally shocked. “He did… He was telling me the truth…”
“No!” she exclaimed, her bother’s words not even registering. “We have to get him back!”
“Isobel—”
“Shut up, Alex,” she snapped, flinging the blanket aside and practically launching herself from the chair. “I didn’t ask him to do this! I didn’t want him to! I need him back!”
Alex threw his arms round her, trying to soothe her rising desperation, but she pushed against him.
“Without Nye, who is going to lead this shithole of a city?” she cried. “No one! I didn’t even… I didn’t even get to… We need him!” She shook her head, wiping away her frustrated tears even as Alex held her in his arms. “He’s made the ultimate sacrifice…for me. A puny weakling of a human being. It can’t be too late to save him. We have to try.”
“You can say it, Izzy,” Alex murmured.
“Say what?”
“What you’re feeling.”
“I just did!” She glanced at Gabby and Tristan, and her shoulders sank. “I need him back…”
Gabby plucked the parchment off the desktop, the one that contained the map to the standing stones, and cast her gaze over the runes. Isobel’s fiery conviction and her own passionate entanglement with Regulus had all but convinced her.
“They’ve taken him to the Keeping Place,” she said, holding up the parchment. “It’s there they’ll exact their revenge…”
“What the hell is the Keeping Place?” Alex asked, letting Isobel go.
“The standing stones, I guess.” Gabby shrugged.
“Then what are we waiting for?” Isobel asked. “Let’s go!”
“Oh no,” her brother declared. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Izzy faced him off. “Try to stop me.”
Gabby could see fighting her was useless. It was going to be dangerous, but Isobel being there might just be the thing that turned the tide for Nye. She had a good idea how much suffering the Unhallowed would subject him to and how long they’d draw it out, so he’d need something stronger than life itself to pull him back. He would fight for Isobel, knowing that she was fighting just as hard.
“She’s coming,” Gabby said, using the force of her power behind her command.
The two vampires stilled, sensing the energy in the air, and it was decided. For better or worse.
Isobel nodded, squaring her jaw. “Let’s go get that bitch and tear her a new one.”
Chapter 18
One thing Gabby had learned since becoming a witch was you never went into a magical fight without some preparation.
Witches were fond of loopholes, counter-spells, and the will of nature, so there had to be some ace she could pull out of her sleeve. There was no doubt in her mind they would have to face Eleanor and her coven of Unhallowed wraiths before the night was through. It was entirely possible they were too late to save Nye. Glancing at Isobel, who sat next to her in the back of the car, she had to believe it wasn’t an option.
Tristan was driving, and Alex was in the passenger seat, the glow of his cell phone bright in the darkness. Outside, the city had melted into sprawling countryside as they ventured off the main highway and through narrow country lanes on their way to the stone circle.
Gabby focused her energy on her grimoire where she’d documented everything she’d been through as a witch. From her humble beginnings lighting candles all the way to the fae hybrid she’d hunted with Regulus. Finally, the newest pages contained her notes and speculations on the Unhallowed…and she had a lot of those. Wild fairy tales with no basis in reality.
One thing that disturbed her was the location of the stone circle. It didn’t just sit on a ley line but was a place where three of those lines intersected. Three points of power all culminating underneath the Stone Age monument, giving the Unhallowed the equivalent of an all-you-can-eat buffet, which explained a great deal about the kind of magic they were able to pull off considering they weren’t supposed to have human forms.
That was another thing that gave Gabby the creeps. No one had seen a wraith for a thousand years, but in all the grimoires that had spoken about their kind, they described them as ‘clouds of thunder and lightning, retaining the shape of what they once were,’ which was men and women. For Eleanor to appear in her human form there had to be some serious power behind the coven. The ley lines explained it.
For all the theories she held, none of them helped her with how to kill one of these things. When they got to the stone circle, what was she going to do?
“How much further?” Isobel asked, leaning forward.
“Not far,” Alex replied. “Ten minutes.”
Gabby glanced at her friend. “Stay with Alex when we get there. I don’t know what we’ll find.”
“What’s the plan?” Tristan asked, glancing at her in the rearview mirror.
“I don’t know how to kill them,” she replied. “Not for sure. I can try to slow them down and buy us time…”
>
“So we do a smash and grab,” Alex said. “Gabby distracts them with her awesomeness, and we grab Nye. Then we get back to the mansion where it’s safe and sound. We can kick their asses another day when we have a surefire way of sending those bitches to hell.”
“I like the sound of that,” Tristan said in agreement.
Gabby turned to Isobel, who was staring out the window at the passing countryside. The whole time they’d been in the car, she hadn’t uttered a word, lost in her own thoughts and fears. If it were Regulus in the clutches of the Unhallowed, she’d be just as passionate about saving him. They’d had a love that crossed the walls hatred had placed between their kinds… Witches and vampires. It was the same with humans. The predator and the prey. The sun and the moon. Good and evil.
If Gabby could learn only one thing from this crazy quest, it was that love conquered all, even when the union was the deadliest of them all. Nye and Isobel would have the time she didn’t have with Regulus. It seemed fitting in the wake of her loss, but with everything in this crazy world of witches and vampires, it would come with a price. She was certain of it.
“Isobel?” she asked, nudging her friend.
“Huh?” Isobel glanced at Gabby, a faraway look in her eyes.
“He might be in a bad way,” she said gently. “And you might be the only one of us who can get through to him. Are you up for it?”
Isobel nodded furiously, her shoulders squaring. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“Stick with Alex,” she said. “He’ll have your back and get you to Nye. Leave the Unhallowed to me.”
“Who’s got your back?” Izzy asked.
Gabby smiled, allowing her power to thrum in her veins. “I’ve got my own. Don’t worry about me.”
As Tristan turned the car off the sealed road and onto a dirt track, Gabby contemplated the scene that was about to unfold. They were walking into a war zone. The Unhallowed had all the advantage, and they had none…but maybe, just maybe, they had underestimated how powerful she was. Even she didn’t know how deep her gifts ran. Even when she went up against Aed, the most powerful hybrid that had ever existed, she hadn’t reached all the way inside her soul.