Alliances (Guardians of White Light, #1) (28 page)

Jenna ignored him as she gripped his jacket and jerked him closer. She readied her stake in the other.

“We can work together to unlock the secret. I have powerful allies. Without me, you’ll never find the answers you seek.”

“What’s the matter, Silas? Are you afraid to die?” Jenna hissed.

Silas smiled at her as he said, “You can’t kill me if you’re already dead.”

Before she had the chance to figure out what he meant, he showed her. A white hot pain shot through her chest. She broke her gaze and looked down to see the smooth handle of a blade protruding from her heart.
Shit.
The pain was crippling, almost paralyzing. She couldn’t breathe.
Don’t release your grip on him. Focus! Focus!
She fought with every ounce of will that she had to maintain her sturdy grip on Silas and her stake. She could feel her heartbeat weakening, slowing down. She had to end it now.

She jabbed the stake into his chest, all the way to his heart.
Mission accomplished.

“You think you’ve won?” Silas snarled. “You’ll wish I’d killed you when the secret comes to pass.”

What? What is coming?
Silas exploded into a cloud of thick ash. The battle was won. She gripped the blade in her chest and pulled it out slowly, unable to repress a scream as she did. The blade clattered to the floor and then she collapsed. She pressed her palm to the bloody wound, but her strength was waning so she couldn’t exert enough pressure to stop the bleeding.

“Jenna!” Mathias bellowed as he struggled forward on his knees to reach her. He couldn’t stand thanks to the bullet lodged in his thigh and he could barely move his arm for the same reason. He reached out his hand and took hers gently. She barely had a pulse. He could feel her wounded heart struggling to function. Silas had dealt her a fatal blow. She was dying.

“The war is won,” she rasped, offering him a weak smile.

“Stay with me. We can fix this. Stay awake, Jenna!” Mathias begged. He climbed on top of her, gritting his teeth from the agony of the bullets embedded in his body, straining to reach for her wound. An awful terror shot through him as he watched her shake her head at him. Her eyes closed and her entire body went limp.

“No! You’re not done! Wake up!” he yelled as he frantically tried to pick up her pulse. But he couldn’t feel anything. She had no pulse. Her heart had stopped beating.
No! No! No!
He drew her to him, taking her in his arms. He rocked her back and forth. “Jenna! No!” he murmured in her ear.

The door flew open behind him. “Mathias!” a familiar voice boomed.
General Clark.

He heard the General approach and craned his neck to look at him. He blinked hard in an effort to will away the tears that filled his eyes. The General read his look and gazed sadly at Jenna slumped lifelessly in his arms.

“Immortalia just stood down,” he told Mathias.

“It’s because Silas is dead. They're all connected to his will. They would have felt his death.”

General Clark caught sight of Jenna’s chest wound. He reached for her, but Mathias pulled her away possessively and cradled her tightly against him. The General realized Mathias was bleeding from half a dozen wounds, some made by bullets.

“She’s—?”

“Dead!”

“Let me try CPR,” the General said, shaking his head, refusing to believe that Jenna was truly gone.

“I know you care for her a great deal, but so do I. If I thought anything would work I would have already tried it. Look at the wound. It’s fatal, General.”

The General met Mathias’ pained gaze. “I’m sorry, Mathias.”

All of a sudden, Mathias snapped. He laid Jenna down on the floor and staggered to the balcony. He looked up at the starless sky and bellowed, “We had a deal, Sorceress! She cannot perish! We had a
deal
! I
demand
that you honor it!”

He stared up at the sky. He didn’t know what he was expecting. All he knew was that he couldn’t accept this ending. He had done everything the Sorceress had asked.
Jenna
had done everything she had asked. She had killed Silas before the weight of the curse had taken her. He had never expected that Silas would kill her. Had it voided the terms of his contract with the Sorceress? No, that couldn’t be so. Jenna had still fulfilled the contract, regardless of everything else.

“Mathias!” General Clark’s voice called from inside, cutting through his pained thoughts.

He turned back. What he saw caused him to freeze in his place. A golden glow of light enveloped Jenna’s lifeless body. The General stood over her, his dumbfounded expression fixed on Mathias. Mathias felt his spirit lift.
Sorceress.
She had heard him.

He rushed forward and skidded to his knees beside General Clark. He reached for her hand. The golden glow burned his skin, causing him to curse and break away. The two of them heeded the warning and eased back a little.

Moments passed and the light dissipated. And then Jenna’s eyes snapped open. She shot up suddenly and glanced around, disorientated. Then she slapped her hand to her heart, her eyes wide with terror. She pulled her hand away. There was no blood on it. She looked down at her chest. The wound was gone. As she regained her awareness, she realized that she wasn’t alone. Mathias and General Clark were with her. She scrambled to her feet and they followed her lead.

“Did I…die?”

Mathias nodded.

“What the hell just happened?” General Clark asked, looking to Mathias for answers. Resurrecting the dead wasn’t exactly his area of expertise.

“The Sorceress fulfilled her end of the contract,” Mathias said. Despite the agony of his wounds, Mathias reached for Jenna’s hands and drew her to him. “Welcome back,
Guardian
.”

EPILOGUE

Two Months Later

“Jenna, come back to bed,” Mathias called, pushing aside a scarlet drape hanging from the king-sized four-poster bed.

Wrapped in one of the silk bed sheets, Jenna held it against her chest as she drew her eyes from her laptop screen and gave him her attention. “You took a call from Valta.”

“That was a two-second call. You’ve been on that thing for ten minutes now. The bed is getting cold.”

He reached for her and gripped her waist, but she hesitated, glancing at her laptop.

“Just five more minutes,” she pleaded, pouting her lips at him.

Mathias laughed. She knew the affect it had on him. “That’s not going to work this time, my darling. You need to relax. We only have a little while left before we have to reprise our roles as Guardians, as per the Sorceress’ orders. I’ve put out word to my contacts about the key and so have you. When they find something they’ll let us know. Until then, you just need to be patient.”

“Patience isn’t one of my virtues.”

Mathias reached under her sheet. He felt her respond instantly and surrender to his touch. “Well, then, I’ll just have to do a better job of distracting you.”

She yelped as he gripped her waist and hauled her onto the bed.

“That’s cheating,” she said, as he wrapped his arms tightly around her.

He felt her relax against him as she laid her head on his chest.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

She chuckled. “I told you, you don’t need to keep asking me that. If I’m hungry, I'll let you know.”

Being a vampire, Mathias didn’t eat. He didn’t need to in order to survive. All he needed was blood. He overcompensated for it by asking her if she was hungry several times every day. They hadn’t been together long, so there were still a few growing pains. Their relationship wasn’t like other couple’s. It was very rare for two different species to be with one another, especially a vampire with a human. Well, a
former
human. A natural predator with its natural prey. It would take some effort on both of their parts.

“I love this bed. I love this
house
,” Jenna murmured peacefully.

“Then don’t go home tonight. Stay with me,” Mathias urged her, tightening his hold around her.

“I’ve already been here for two days straight. I need fresh clothes.”

After the proverbial dust had settled following the destruction of Immortalia, the human world had started to relax. They no longer hunted vampires. Due in part to General Clark’s involvement, the human and supernatural world had signed a coexistence pact. Mathias had been able to take up residence back at his mansion. Being the nomad that she was, Jenna hadn’t had a home. She’d spent her entire adult life at war, moving from place to place. Mathias had set her up at Legion’s former base on the outskirts of town. Following the war, Legion had disbanded. Its mission had been to undermine Immortalia’s agenda. Now, with Immortalia destroyed, their mission was complete. John and Thomas had joined the Eternus brotherhood. And, Luke, well, he had disappeared shortly after the final battle had drawn to a close. He’d contacted Mathias only once in the last few weeks to let him know that he was all right. But he wasn’t all right. He had retreated into the shadows. He was grief-stricken, still reeling from having murdered his sister.

“I don’t believe you,” Mathias said.

“You don’t believe that I need a change of clothes?”

Mathias shook his head. “You’re going home so you can continue your research.”

Jenna eased herself out of his grip. “Silas said something big is coming and it has something to do with the secret that my family was keeping. I have to find out what it is. It’s my responsibility.”

“Jenna, we’re using all of our resources to find answers. Something
will
turn up. You need to try to summon some patience.”

“How can you be so calm about this?”

“It comes with age,” he said, smiling wryly.

Mathias shifted his weight and looked at her seriously, “Silas was a world-class manipulator, Jenna. This is exactly what he wanted—to torment you.”

“But if something is coming—”

Mathias pressed his fingers to her lips, “Then we will deal with it when that time comes. Until then, relax. You need to learn how to live your life. You’ve spent too much of it at war.” He watched her eyes flash with a glint of mischief and then he felt her teeth gently gnawing at his fingers. “I’m a vampire. Do you know how much that turns me on?”

She nodded and continued.

“You’re calling out the demon, Jenna,” he warned her, moaning as she bit down harder, almost hard enough to break his flesh and draw blood.
Blood.

She moved his fingers away from her mouth and said, “I know.”

“You want me to bite you?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yes,” she breathed.

He ripped the sheet off her and gazed down at her gorgeous naked body. He trailed his hand over her breasts, her stomach, her hips. “Where?” he asked.

She shrugged her shoulders and lifted her arms above her head. Her hands gripped the headboard railing tightly and she licked her lips.

Mathias smiled.
Translation: anywhere I want.

But before he could even summon his fangs, the sharp ringing of his cell phone cut through the intimate moment between them.
Dammit.
He hesitated.

“It might be information about the key,” Jenna said. “Take it.”

Mathias sighed. “Well, whoever it is, they have
great
timing,” he seethed.

He snatched up the phone and flipped it open. “Yes?” he snapped, resting against the headboard beside Jenna.

“Jax? What? Say that again?” he exclaimed, turning away from Jenna.

Jenna watched him listening. He didn’t utter another word and hung up without even saying goodbye.

“What’s wrong? What did Jax say?” she asked when he turned back to her.

Mathias just looked at her without saying a word.
What did Jax say?
He didn’t want to tell her. Not when things had finally returned to some semblance of normality. Not now that they were happy. Safe.

I believe Alna is still alive
, Jax had told him mere moments before.
She is the one who imbued Jenna with renewed strength so she could take on Silas
. Jax was certain that he now had enough proof that it had been her. He’d revealed to Mathias that he’d been looking into it since the day of the final battle. He hadn’t wanted to tell him anything until he was sure.

But something didn’t make sense. If Alna was still alive, where the hell was she? Why hadn’t she contacted him?
Unless
, she had turned.

As he thought about it, it became clear that it was the
only
explanation. Alna had turned! She was a vampire.

She had been so close the day that she’d died. Mathias could barely bring himself to entertain that possibility, because the consequences would be dire. If she couldn’t control the demon then the magic that she possessed would make her an unstoppable force of death and destruction. But, in light of Jax’s call and his insistence, he
had
to entertain that possibility.