Page 38 of Hunted (Love and Revenge #5)

Josh

I dreamt of teeth. Not the slide of Acacia’s fangs into my skin—though that memory hovered, always, with Acacia’s presence, behind the thin veil of my resistance. This time, the blood wasn’t mine, and the voice that whispered inside me sounded almost kind.

Beautiful monster, it said. Remember who you are.

I reached out, my fingers slick with red blood that slowly turned bright blue before my eyes. The dream shifted, sharpened, took on weight. I slowly woke to reality, dizzy and confused.

A hallway in The Fox, all rough stone and polished wood, with plush deep red carpet—somewhere in the court’s private living area. Pale light from the sconces. Warm, sticky liquid on my hands. Not all a dream, then. My hand was covered in blood.

And it was blue.

Yukio slumped halfway down the wall, one hand pressed to his ribs, half of his sleek black hair falling out of its topknot, and the promise of frosty retribution in his blue eyes.

Blood soaked through the pixie-cross’s shirt—not red like in the beginning of my half-waking dream, but deep blue.

My nails were still extended—long, sharp, and inhuman. And they were coated with pixie blood.

“No,” I rasped, staggering backward, registering the punctures at Yukio’s throat, still leaking a fine stream of his magic-rich blood. I could taste the faint hint of peppermint and fae magic on my tongue. “No, no, no—”

Yukio’s expression twisted with pain, but not fear. He didn’t move to defend himself. He just looked at me like he was studying something he didn’t understand. Something pitiful and broken.

“I didn’t—” I began, then stopped, breath hitching. I dropped to my knees on the rich carpet, fingers twitching. “I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t—I thought with the curse breaker nearby...”

“You stopped,” Yukio said softly. His rich voice was hoarse, maybe from pain, maybe from anger. It was hard to tell with him. “I sensed it, the moment your will won out over the bitch in your head.”

My shoulders shook. He hadn’t fought back.

Not that I could recall much, but I was completely unharmed.

And Yukio was a highly-trained assassin with fae magic and the yuki-onna ability to turn my blood to ice in my veins, to freeze me from the inside out.

If he’d fought me, I’d know it. But there was no blade—ice or otherwise—stuck through my heart right now . Why?

“Hit me,” I demanded, my defeated voice rising to a near shout. “Throw your magic at me. Stab me through my evil heart. Do something!”

“No.” Yukio’s voice dripped disdain as he pushed himself up straight, still leaning against the wall.

He was still bleeding slowly, his scent filling my senses and making it hard to think straight.

Even now, the hunger was there, clawing at my willpower, demanding we feast on the abundance of beautiful, frosty power before us.

“Please,” I begged. I dropped my head until it nearly touched the ground, bowing as one did when pleading for a life in the naga court. “You have to. Look what I’ve done? I can’t—if I don’t pay for it, how can I—” How could I live with myself?

“You don’t get to decide whether or not you deserve punishment.” Yukio’s words were clipped. Not angry. Just... weary. Done with me and all the problems I caused. “Get up, moron. I’m not going to give you some fucking benediction.”

I choked on a sob.

He sighed, pushing off from the wall. A surge of his chilly magic made me look up again, as he stuck a hand through the hole in his shirt and froze the wound on his torso to temporarily halt the bleeding.

A dark part of me observed that his magic would have been really handy back in the vampire menagerie, where it wasn’t uncommon for a pet to die of blood loss thanks to an overzealous monster like me.

Footsteps echoed behind me. Then a sharp flash of power. Sanka.

Thank all the Gods and Goddesses. Sanka was Yukio’s lover.

He would defend Yukio with a vengeance. But why had Yukio let me attack him in the first place?

He barely tolerated me even when I was human.

I knew he loathed me now that I was a vampire.

Surely he’d welcome the excuse to execute me. Why hadn’t he fought back?

Yukio met my stare and arched one black brow as if he knew exactly what I was thinking.

“Killing you might seem convenient, but it would cause more problems than it would solve,” he said, his sharp blue gaze intense.

Something in his manner shifted, and I had the strange feeling that he saw more than either of us wanted him to.

That maybe he knew how far into the darkness I sometimes went.

Maybe he knew how much time I’d spent trying to get around Acacia’s orders and kill myself, just to end this ordeal.

“Keep fighting, idiot. Don’t let her win,” he whispered, as if afraid someone might overhear his irritated pep-talk.

Then his lips curled in disgust. “I don’t want to put up with all the grieving nonsense that would occur if everyone who loves you—which is this whole damned court—loses their minds over your death. ”

His intense stare lingered, and I couldn’t look away. Was Yukio... attempting to encourage me? To protect me from myself?

Sanka reached us then, his heavy footsteps sliding to a halt as he took in the two of us. “Damn it.” Rather than attending to Yukio first, the way I expected him to, the big sorcerer crouched beside me and pressed something cold and burning to my chest. The pendant the curse breaker had given me.

I only now realized it was missing. Acacia must have found a way to convince me to take it off. It pulsed against my skin now—once, twice—and Acacia’s lingering presence vanished from my awareness. She was still there, I knew, but shoved far into the periphery. For now.

I whimpered involuntarily. I wanted her gone, but the echoing silence she left behind ached.

And it made my hunger flare up, urging me to fill the void my maker left behind.

Sanka smelled so good. Like power and fiery demon-laced sorcerer blood.

I wanted nothing more than to sink my fangs into his warm brown skin and drink.

I resisted the need, used every scrap of my own vampire magic that I could access to turn off the hunger and block Acacia out as thoroughly as I could.

It was too much. The warring factions inside me burned, trying to tear me apart from the inside.

Blood surged up the back of my throat, and I retched violently, curling in on myself as I coughed up thick crimson. Not Yukio’s magical blue blood. This was my own. The backlash from attempting to resist Acacia, and my own vampiric nature.

“Shit,” Sanka said, catching me before I face-planted.

My eyes fluttered open. “She’s gone.”

“Temporarily,” Sanka said. “The curse breaker warned this isn’t a permanent fix. Like a band aid over a bullet wound.”

I stared at the ceiling. “I can’t keep doing this. You all can’t keep doing this.”

Yukio crouched, gripping his injured side. “If it means that bitch doesn’t win,” he said evenly, “we’ll do whatever it takes. It’s only until the Cold Moon, a couple of weeks now, and the squatter will finish breaking your curse. Now get the fuck up, vampire. We’ve got shit to do.”

Nodding, I pushed myself to my feet and followed them to the workroom, where I got cleaned up at the industrial sink and took a seat on a stool in the corner like a chastised child.

A short time later, we sat in silence while the others trickled in, called by their leader, or by some sixth sense that let them know there was trouble.

My head throbbed as I watched the others move about, guilt and determination coming and going in waves.

Yukio was right. I couldn’t let Acacia win.

She had stolen enough of my life away when I was her servant at the menagerie.

She didn’t get to keep taking from me, or torturing Sadavir and the others through me.

And yet... the hopelessness and guilt were overwhelming.

Yukio sat on a matching stool across the room, shirtless, while Ruya healed him with her delicious golden power and her soft touch.

The pixie seemed unconcerned about my attempt to eat him—or eviscerate him.

But Ruya... the way her whole demeanor had shut down when she arrived and went to assess Yukio.

... She had, somehow, forgiven me for hurting Cicely.

For nearly killing him. But how many more times could she forgive me for endangering the people she loved? Was this it? Did she hate me now?

She should.

Sanka was currently muttering with the curse breaker in the corner, arguing over magical tolerances and why the curse breaker couldn’t just do the ritual to break my bond with Acacia early, rather than wait for the full moon.

I couldn’t focus. Couldn’t feel anything past the ragged emptiness that filled my chest.

Acacia had made me hurt someone again. Someone I cared about.

Yukio might not like me much, but I saw the goodness in him.

The way he watched out for everyone—even if his care sometimes came in the form of barbed words and mild insults.

And beyond that... he mattered to the others.

Ruya, Robin, and Sanka, at least, were all in love with the man.

I didn’t know how much of that Acacia was aware of, but she had to have picked up on the court dynamics from looking through my eyes and shuffling through my brain.

She had used me and Yukio to hurt the others.

She might have been motivated by rage over the curse breaker’s interference, but still, there was calculation behind it.

An intent to cause the most pain possible for as many of the court as she could.

And this time, she’d done it through my dreams. I couldn’t even trust myself to sleep. My one escape from her had been stolen.

I stared at my hands, seeing blue pixie blood that wasn’t there, wondering if I’d ever feel clean again.