The Unhallowed (Book Five in the Witch Hunter Saga)

  “Hey.”

  She glanced up at the sound of Gabby’s voice. “You’re back!”

  “How is he?” the witch asked, venturing into the room.

  “Still out,” she replied. “I’m beginning to worry…”

  Gabby nodded and pulled down the blanket Isobel had placed over Nye. For a long moment, the witch studied the mark on his chest, her fingers probing the angry-looking skin.

  “Why isn’t it going away?” Isobel asked after a moment.

  “I’m not sure. There was some heavy-duty power flowing through him… That had to have some consequences.”

  “It’s just slowed his healing, right?”

  Her friend shrugged. “It’s possible. All we can do right now is wait.”

  “He stabbed himself in the heart,” she said. “How can he come back from that?”

  “Only a stake can kill him,” Gabby explained. “Wood or silver. The dagger was made out of steel, and he knew the right place to strike so his body could repair itself. If he were gone…”

  “If he were gone?”

  “His body would desiccate.”

  She’d seen it before when her brother killed Aed. Of course, Nye was still here.

  “Does it usually take this long?” she asked.

  Gabby shrugged. “I suppose a hole in a heart is a little more complicated than most mortal wounds. All we can do is wait.”

  Isobel glanced at Nye and tightened her grip on his hand, willing him to wake while her mind went back to the events of the night. Everything had happened so fast…

  She’d stood right behind Gabby as the witch ripped the earth apart around them. Full-on tore it to shreds and put them into the eye of a tornado…but then there were the Unhallowed. She’d been powerless in that moment, watching the six women flicker from solid human form into storm clouds of their own. The things she’d seen in the past few months defied everything that was logical. Then there was the man who lay before her, dead but not… Four hundred years and just as many lifetimes under his belt, and here she was, a baby compared to his understanding of the world.

  “What were they?” she asked, shoving away her doubts. “Those women? I know you said they’re wraiths, but… They looked human one second, then…”

  “Wraiths are nothing like I’ve ever seen, either,” Gabby replied. “And I’ve seen some crazy shit. Neither living nor dead, they assume human forms and feed off the power of the ley lines to prolong their lives. Without it, their bodies decay and their souls are lost in a supernatural limbo for eternity.”

  “The ley lines under the stone circle? That’s why they needed them so bad?”

  The witch nodded. “Now that I’ve seen and felt what they can do, I’m fairly certain they move around, and as one line is depleted, they find another so the one they fed off can grow again. A constant push and pull with the other side.”

  “What a life,” she drawled. “Clinging to life like a leech.”

  “I don’t think the stone circle was the Keeping Place,” Gabby said, lost in thought.

  “But the map…” Isobel began to argue.

  “Just led us to their ritual.”

  “Then what has this Keeping Place got to do with Nye?”

  Gabby shrugged. “Whatever is in the Keeping Place might be something that will give the Unhallowed enough power to not have to use the ley lines anymore. An unlimited power source, maybe… It’s just a guess, but the memories the earth showed me pointed toward something they were looking for.” She frowned, remembering the matriarch’s words. “She said Eleanor would bear the fruit of their salvation.”

  “That doesn’t sound whacked at all,” Izzy drawled.

  “What do you think?” Gabby asked.

  “Me?” Her eyes widened. Someone was asking her what she thought? Finally!

  The witch shrugged. “Any clue is a good clue.”

  “Well,” she said, glancing at Nye, whose eyes were still closed. “Bearing fruit is usually a fertility reference in ancient text. They could be growing something, or…”

  “A baby?” Gabby asked, curling her nose. “A wraith baby? Impossible.”

  “Why was Eleanor so desperate for Nye to be a part of finding this Keeping Place? Was it just revenge, or do you think…”

  “The only thing more absurd than a wraith baby is a vampire one.”

  “Then maybe something about Nye is part of a map or key?” she threw out, hoping something was right.

  “We could be speculating all day,” Gabby replied with a rather large yawn. “Let’s wait for Nye to recover first. He might know more seeing as he had a chance to talk to Eleanor. He knew he had to sever himself from the ley line, which was why he…” She gestured to the dead vampire.

  Isobel scowled and turned back to Nye, taking his hand once more. She hated the fact Eleanor had her claws in him at all. Jealousy and anger rose inside her, and for the first time, she said what she was feeling about the vampire who’d stolen her heart. Stolen it without even trying, she might add. “Despite everything that’s happened, the things he’s done, who he is, and what he is, I love him. I love Nye.”

  “I know,” Gabby replied. “I know.”

  “What a fickle thing the heart is,” she murmured.

  “You’ll get your chance to tell him, Izzy,” her friend said. “Don’t doubt that.”

  There was a soft knock on the door, and Alex appeared. “Gabby, Reed is here.”

  The witch nodded and rose to her feet. “I’ll be right down.”

  “Reed?” Isobel asked. “Anything to worry about?”

  “Nope. Just one last thing to do before I get to sleep the day and night away,” she replied. “Tristan needs watching, and Nye trusts Reed, so in he comes.”

  Once Gabby had left, Isobel turned back to Nye, casting Reed to the back of her mind. Another vampire in the mansion! If Nye trusted him, then she was content to follow suit and care for the one who mattered the most.

  Nye still hadn’t stirred, but his skin had healed over entirely now, so she pulled the covers up over his chest to keep him warm…even though he probably didn’t need it. Yet another thing she wasn’t used to about his kind.

  Curling up beside him, she closed her eyes, relieved he was back in the mansion—away from the wicked Unhallowed—and in her bed, right where she wanted him all along.

  Chapter 22

  Nye had died many times as a vampire and had always come back eventually.

  He’d had his neck snapped, his throat slit, a knife or two shoved through his gut—such was the life of the leader of the Six—but there was something different about this time.

  Usually, awareness came back to his body abruptly, like someone had thrown a switch. But this time, he felt like he was rising to the surface of a tepid pool of water, his limbs heavy and unable to move.

  He still felt the echo of power that had flown through him, linking his body to the Unhallowed…and Eleanor. Was that the reason he was having trouble coming back? And what exactly was he coming back to? They shouldn’t have come. Gabby, Tristan, Alex… Isobel. They should have let him die.

  No matter his suffering or how long it took for them to end him—they shouldn’t have come.

  He’d locked eyes with Isobel and plunged the dagger into his heart, just so… It was her horrified expression he saw as the life fled his body, the last image that he took into the darkness.

  The Unhallowed’s link had been severed from the ley lines, and he’d died yet another vampire death. It had all felt so real.

  Eleanor had gotten into his head before, taunting him in what should have been a dreamless sleep, and projected her image of the night he’d gone to the off-license. Reflected in the glass door of the refrigerator like a warning. Now he understood that she had been there.

  When his eyes opened, he instantly knew he was at the mansion…in Isobel’s bed. Thank God. Gabby must’ve been able to overwhelm the wraiths after he’d severed their link.

  “Isobel,” he
said, his voice bursting forth in a painful rasp.

  “I’m here,” she said, her face coming into focus. “You’re safe.”

  “What happened?”

  “Gabby was able to send the wraiths packing after you…” She glanced away. “They’re still out there.”

  He closed his eyes, knowing that they were pretty much back at square one. His sacrifice had been for nothing…but Isobel…she seemed to be awake, so the curse had remained lifted.

  “Here,” she murmured, offering him a glass.

  He sat up and took it, his gaze focusing on the contents. Blood. She shouldn’t have to give him this. She shouldn’t have to be here… He shouldn’t have made her stay the day she turned up looking for Alex. He’d ruined her future. Her safe, happy future.

  “Nye?” she prodded, her voice sounding faraway.

  He stood, his body shaking with the effort of containing his anger. Not at her, never at her. He was furious with himself for letting the Unhallowed get their hands on her in the first place. All of this was his fault.

  “I didn’t want to be saved!” he roared, throwing the glass across the room.

  She flinched and sucked in a shallow breath as it shattered against the wall, blood trickling down the paintwork.

  “I sacrificed myself to save—” He stopped midsentence, nostrils flaring as he seethed.

  “Say it, Nye,” she whispered. “Tell me what you want me to hear. Break my heart one last time. I know it’s a lie. I know.”

  “After everything, you still believe—” He grimaced, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter how I feel. Loving me will only see you killed or worse.”

  “There’s something worse than death?” she scoffed, rising to her feet.

  “Go,” he said, casting his gaze away. “Go as far and as fast as you can. The Unhallowed are my problem.”

  “I won’t leave you!” she cried, standing beside him. “I can’t. It’s impossible.”

  “Get out!” he roared, turning to face her with black eyes. “I don’t want you, Isobel. You are not welcome here. Get out.”

  Tears began to stream down her face, and she shook her head defiantly. “Liar.”

  “Isobel, please…”

  “I love you, Nye,” she declared, grasping his face in her warm hands. “I love you. Don’t ask me how the hell it happened, but it did. Just like that.”

  “Just like that,” he echoed, her words slicing into him…deeper than Eleanor’s dagger ever could.

  “See?” she prodded, begging him for a response. “I couldn’t leave you even if I tried. It’s impossible.”

  He didn’t deserve the conviction behind her words. He’d done nothing but hurt her, and yet here she was—a human woman with a pure heart—fighting for him? A vampire who’d committed countless horrors?

  “I need…” he began, his gaze dropping. That’s when he saw the marks on his bare chest.

  The rune was still present. It was healed over but still there. He could see it was fading and would disappear eventually, but the fact it was there at all had him worried.

  “I need to clean up,” he muttered, ignoring the look of disappointment on Isobel’s face.

  “Yeah,” she whispered, taking a step back.

  She wanted him to tell her he loved her, and he did, but… Turning, he strode across the room, leaving her standing there on the verge of tears. If he remained beside her in the state he was…it was dangerous. He needed to gather himself before he could face that emotion.

  Closing himself in her bathroom, he grasped the edge of the basin and tried to hold himself together. Getting angry wouldn’t solve anything. His knuckles began to turn white, but he didn’t pull away until the marble started to crack underneath the force of his restrained fury.

  Ripping his ruined shirt open, he inspected the symbol the wraiths had carved into his chest. It had faded even more since the minute before, still much slower than usual, but what did he expect? The Unhallowed had marked him for something bigger than revenge for taking Eleanor’s human life.

  What they were and what they’d become were two different things.

  He stood in the shower for what felt like an age, scrubbing the dried blood from his skin, but no matter how much soap he applied to the cloth, the rune still wouldn’t fade fast enough. He was well and truly clean despite the remnants of Eleanor’s handiwork, so he turned off the spray of water, dried off, and dressed before finally emerging into the bedroom in a waft of steam.

  Isobel was on her hands and knees, cleaning up the mess he’d made when he’d thrown the glass across the room, and he felt his anxiety fall away, only to be replaced by longing. Loving a human, huh? It was going to be one hell of a ride.

  “Isobel,” he murmured, curling his hands around her wrists and urging her to her feet.

  “But I’ve got to clean this up,” she complained, holding back tears.

  “Fuck the mess,” he said, tugging her toward him.

  “Nye, please…” she said, trying to untangle herself from his grasp. She’d taken his earlier reaction as a rejection—that much was clear.

  “I’ve made so many mistakes with you,” he began, rubbing his hands up and down her arms. “I should’ve let you go home that day…”

  “But—”

  “Shh,” he murmured, interrupting what was no doubt a complaint. “What’s done is done, and I can’t take any of it back. The curse is gone, the Unhallowed are running scared, but…”

  “But?” she asked, her eyes still watering.

  Her body trembled underneath his touch as he moved his hands to her face, cupping her flushed cheeks in his palms. “Love isn’t something I’ve felt,” he admitted. “Not a love like this. I’m not sure how…”

  “Do you think I am?” she asked with a sigh. “I don’t know shit about it, either.”

  “You knew when to say it,” he replied. “And when to fight for it.”

  “And what about now?”

  “Now…” he began, drawing in a sharp breath. “I’m yours, Isobel…but I think you already knew that.”

  “We can argue all day and night about who belongs to who,” she whispered, her gaze lowering to his lips. “Or you could just kiss me and seal the deal.”

  Hoping the third time was a charm, he lowered his lips to hers and kissed her softly. He wasn’t prepared for the wave of emotion that swept over him as he held her close. It smashed into him with surprising force, his newly repaired heart swelling.

  When it became too much for him to handle, he tore his lips from hers and wrapped his arms around her, cradling her body against his like she was the most precious thing in the world.

  “Knowing you, I’m sure you’ve been up all night,” he murmured against her hair. “It’s your turn to rest, dear Isobel.”

  “I can’t go to sleep now,” she argued. “All I want to do is kiss you some more.”

  He smiled, relishing the recklessness of their affection. “We’ll have plenty of time for that, but for now, please get some rest. I can feel how tired you are.”

  “What do you mean by that?” she asked, pulling away from him. “Is that another vampire thing?”

  “No,” he replied, leading her toward the bed. “It’s an observational thing. Nothing supernatural about it.”

  She practically fell into bed, giving up her charade of wakefulness. “Smartass.”

  He wrapped her up in the quilt and lay beside her, his front against her back with the material wedged between them. There was another hurdle in their cross-species relationship. The fire and ice that was their body temperatures.

  “Nye?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you really okay?”

  He hesitated, not knowing how to answer her. He was beginning to feel pretty damn fine, but the rune was still marking his skin.

  “It’s been a really long night,” he replied. “Strange, fucked up, and totally psycho. I’ll be fine with a little rest…and so will you.”

  She s
ighed, nestling back into him. “I want to believe you,” she murmured, sounding sleepy. “But you have to make me a promise.”

  “Anything.”

  “No more secrets.”

  He closed his eyes, and not knowing if that was a promise he could keep, gave her the answer she wanted. “No more secrets.”

  Isobel seemed satisfied with his answer and began to settle in his arms. He listened with all his vampire senses for the moment she fell asleep, knowing that he didn’t have a moment to lose in getting the upper hand with the Unhallowed. He had to seek out Tristan and make sure the knight was rid of the compulsion Eleanor put on him, and once that was done, begin to plan for the showdown of the century.

  Isobel was his now, and he would do anything to keep her safe. He loved her and she loved him, and that was worth fighting for. If the London underworld crumbled and his throne was taken from underneath his ass, it wouldn’t matter one bit…as long as she was with him.

  Her heartrate slowed and her breathing became shallow as sleep finally took her away, reenergizing her tired body. Slipping from the bed, he took one last look at her innocent features. He didn’t know when things had changed from innocent flirtation to love, but the most important thing was that he felt it now. Between the four of them—Gabby, Alex, Tristan, and himself—she would be safe from anyone or anything that would do her harm.

  Leaving her to rest, Nye ghosted into the study where he found Tristan slumped in the armchair beside the fireplace.

  “Are you still compelled?” he asked as the knight glanced up.

  “Gabby removed it after I tried to kill her,” he replied. “What about you?”

  “We’ve got a problem,” he snarled, ignoring the vampire’s unwanted concern over his health.

  “Which problem are you talkin’ about because we’ve got a lot of them?”

  “The Unhallowed are coming back for me, and I will not let them get their hands on Isobel again.”

  “What do you propose? With the Six out handlin’ the vampires and Gabby’s power at almost nothin’, we don’t have much firepower. We need time to regroup.”