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“I won’t hurt her. I can’t. Zeph, that’s my mother. I knew one day this would happen. I knew it. I’ve always known.”
“Holy fuck.”
Zephyr had been in too many battles, however, not to know exactly how this one would go because Alesia hesitated. Her mother wasn’t aware of her actions and had only one intention, to kill.
But Zeph knew better. He tossed the wraith aside and leaped in the air at the exact same moment that Alesia’s mother threw the knife at her.
The blade struck just below his sternum and he fell to the ground in immeasurable pain. Worse, however, he knew that the dagger had hit the artery that ran along his spine.
“Zeph!” Alesia shouted.
“You’ve got to destroy them, Alesia, or we’re both dead.”
He was mortally wounded and if she didn’t take charge and either kill or at least incapacitate the wraith-pair, they’d both die in the next few seconds.
Left alone, he could self-heal, but the Invictus wouldn’t hesitate to slaughter them both right now, if given the chance.
And it was all up to Alesia.
* * * * * * * * *
Alesia had her worst fear realized. Her mother, in a vicious Invictus state, moved swiftly in Zephyr’s direction, just as the wraith leaped toward Alesia.
The choices she made were instantaneous as she released her battle energy toward the wraith first and then her mother.
But just as the frequency would have struck her parent, Zephyr rose up and blocked the vibration, taking part of the hit with his hip.
He fell limp as did her mother.
Alesia remained frozen for a long moment. She took in the horror all around her. The wraith was dead. She’d taken out his entire chest with one blast.
Moving swiftly toward her mother and Zephyr, she saw that her battle energy had torn away part of his hip and side and that he gasped for breath. Her mother, with one arm almost completely gone, was unconscious but still breathing.
She heard battling in the distance and knew that Gerrod’s forces had arrived at Zephyr’s house.
Drawing Zephyr’s phone from the pocket of his jeans and with shaking hands, she called Gerrod, telling him where she was as well as Zeph’s condition and that he was near death.
Within seconds, several of the Merhaine vampire Guard surrounded her and a few seconds more a fae medic dropped down beside Zephyr. The medic immediately went to work. Many of the fae, male and female, were gifted in advanced healing arts.
Zeph had a chance.
When one of the Guardsman bent over her mother, she hurried to kneel beside her. “Is she dead?”
“Not yet.”
When he reached down with a dagger to finish the job, Alesia intervened. “Please don’t kill her. She’s my mother. And if she survives, I want her to go to the rehabilitation prison. Please, sir.”
The Guardsmen glared at her and perhaps for the first time since her mother had been abducted, she thought she understood why the Guard and warriors like Zephyr didn’t hesitate to kill the Invictus pairs. She might lose Zephyr tonight because of her failure to act and she wasn’t sure that if he died, she’d ever be able to forgive herself because of it.
“Guardsman, fall back.”
Alesia looked up and saw that Mastyr Gerrod, the ruler of Merhaine Realm, levitated nearby. He was an awesome sight with long black hair caught back in a woven clasp and wearing the traditional Guardsman uniform of long black leather coat, hips boots and battle leathers. “Get this realm-person to the prison, as Mistress Alesia has commanded. Are we clear?”
The Guardsman, though disgruntled, responded, “Yes, Mastyr.” He then lifted her mother in his arms and flew toward the east, in the direction of the closest rehab center.
Alesia turned her attention to Zephyr, who was unconscious and very pale. She could see that he barely clung to life despite the work of the powerful medic. “Feed him,” Gerrod commanded.
“What?”
