Page 80 of Cold Sacrifice

Sam rushed toward us from the direction I’d left Zach and Remy, and I could have cried with relief.

I wasn’t going to fight alone. More importantly, I was not going to protect the vampires alone. The fighting, I could have handled. I’d fought alone before. But right then, I just didn’t want to have to.

I buried my fingers in Jared’s thick fur, then leaned over to press my forehead against his. “Alpha,” I murmured. My wolf fought to get free, because she wanted to run with her alpha. But I needed to fight the necromancer with my demon blade, not my wolf’s claws.

I straightened and tossed Sam a smile. “I’m so happy to see you.”

“Aaron is on his way to pick up Remy,” he said. “Let’s go kick ass.”

When we arrived at Bastien’s house in Alexandria, the place was chaos, Jolene was laughing, and the master was caught.

Maybe before the vampire had been cut from her by Remy’s stake, the necromancer part of her wouldn’t have been strong enough to capture Bastien. But now, she was strong enough.

Her joy was insane. It was as though she was no longer feeding on blood, but emotions. Despair. She was drunk on her power, and every time she took a vampire’s will and crushed his spirit, she grew stronger, and she grew happier.

For a couple of minutes, the wolves, Sam, and I simply stood frozen in the huge hall, watching as she forced Bastien to kill his people, his children, his coven. I didn’t see Farrow and didn’t expect to. This time, he would have locked her away in a place no one could access. Not even Jolene.

“She’s just one monster,” Sam said. “There’s no way she can take on all of us.”

“She won’t be the only one taking us on,” I said, resting my hand on Jared’s back. “She has an army of vampires. Try to control them without killing them. Once I distract her, she’ll lose her hold on at least some of the vampires. She’ll want to focus on Bastien—and me. And I’m going to kill her, once and for all.”

The second she saw me coming, Jolene commanded Bastien to come to her. I’d known she’d make him fight me, so I wasn’t surprised. But I also knew Bastien was somewhere in there. He was aware of everything that was happening, and even though he might not think he could fight his way out of it, I was confident in his strength.

Jolene was stronger, but she was diluting her power because she was spreading it so thinly. She wanted to control them all, and that greed was what would destroy her in the end.

That greed, and me.

She was keeping them all inside the house, but not because she wanted to make sure no humans saw the fighting. She wanted to keep them contained in a smaller area so she could better control them.

Maybe the farther they got from her, the weaker the hold became.

Honestly, she had a lot stacked against her. But that didn’t mean she was going to be easy to stop. Not even a little bit.

Jared sprang forward as two of the vampires rushed us, knocking both of them back with his enormous wolf’s body. I didn’t hesitate again. I sprinted for the one whose death would end the fighting and free the vampires.

Bastien stood in front of her, waiting for me, watching me come with a look in his eyes that was both dead and full of worry.

“Kill her,” Jolene ordered the master, and behind her, I saw a small group of vampires break from the fighting and run away. She was losing her control of them already, but I didn’t believe she cared too much.

Once the master was dead, she would handle the lesser vampires with ease. She might have believed she could travel the world ending vampires. Who the hell knew what was in her mad brain?

I didn’t slow my run. And when I was only a few seconds away from him, Bastien drew his lips back, bared his fangs, and ran to meet me. It was no secret that he wanted to bite me. He wanted nothing more than to taste my blood, to feed from me. But before, he would never take it without permission.

He didn’t have my permission now, but he had the necromancer’s command. And I couldn’t help but wonder if some part of him wouldn’t fight as hard as he could have because he wanted so badly to drink my blood. He’d wanted that for a very long time.

He expected me to fight him. He expected me to hurt him, to drive my knife into his heart, to try my very best to kill him. Jolene would expect that as well.

I heard her joyous laughter even as I felt Bastien’s horror and despair. Oh, she loved that despair.

But I didn’t do what either of them expected. I threw myself against Bastien so hard he staggered, and then I wrapped my arms around him, my demon blade flat against his back, and slammed my mouth against his.

I gave him something he wanted very nearly as much as he wanted my blood. I knew how he felt about me. I knew, and I took advantage. As I kissed him, I felt him hesitate. His body trembled, and his appetites exploded. He wanted to hold me, to kiss me, to taste me, yes. But he did not want to kill me.

I was just reminding him of that fact.

Jolene’s hold was strong, but mine was stronger.

I felt the hot magic of the demon blade slide through Bastien’s shirt and into his skin. I was tied to that magic, and for a few seconds, I became lost in the ecstasy of feeling magic, any magic, and I moaned against Bastien’s mouth.