What Rough Beast [Blood Oath 1] (21 page)

Garrick held Kate with his eyes so no screams tore at his throat, and Peter tired, the intervals between strikes longer, the blows less fierce. “Enough,” the were finally said, though the damage to the front of Garrick's body was far less than the bloody mess he'd carved into his back. Peter handed the gory whip to a blood-specked were. “Fetch the wolfsbane."

Garrick flinched, breaking eye contact.

Kate cried out.

"It's almost done."
Luc lifted from the ground by slow, cautious degrees. His hands vised over her slender arms to prevent her from breaking free.
"Don't fail him now."

One of the weres passed a slim brown vial to Peter, and when he snarled in warning, the pack fell back a step.

He pulled the stopper free.

"What is it?” Kate whispered, her voice rough, raspy from screaming.

Luc shuddered and didn't even reprimand her for speaking aloud. “Poison."

Peter swung the vial in an arc, flinging fine white powder over the streaming wounds on Garrick's chest from shoulder to hip, then again, left to right. The powder pasted on his blood-slick torso.

Garrick's head drooped.

Then fell.

His whole body collapsed, what little strength he'd had remaining in him fled.

"It is finished.” Peter shoved the cork back into the vial, now emptied. He nodded to the pair of weres who'd chained both Olivia and Garrick to the pole, and maintaining a wide berth from Garrick's poisoned chest, they worked at the locks at his wrists with gloved hands.

Peter tipped his head to Kate and Luc in an informal bow. “His proxy is fulfilled. The vampyr is yours."

She tore free of Luc's restraining grasp.

Sobbing his name, Kate ran.

Mindless of the poison, she caught Garrick into her arms when his hands were set free. His body crumpled onto hers, too heavy for her. They both dropped to the blood-soaked ground. He groaned fresh agony.

"I'm here. I'm here."
Weeping at the pain she caused him, she used the hem of her cloak to wipe at the sticky paste of wolfsbane on his chest.

"Give him your neck. Your blood will strengthen him, buy him time.” Luc gathered Garrick, and Kate crouched atop him, into his arms. The muscles in his neck corded, but he lifted them both. Garrick's body convulsed at the new assault on his raw and bloody wounds. “He can't wait. Do it now."

"Kate..."

She slid her fingers to his nape, urging his cracked and bloodied lips to her throat.
"Drink."

His teeth stabbed into her.
"I love you."

She stroked his hair as Luc carried them into the swamp.
"I know."

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They nursed him through the night and into the next hellish day.

"He needs blood. Oceans of it.” Luc eased Garrick to the mattress, mindful of the pulp his back had been reduced to. His skin should have air to heal, but Luc had sworn the poison that had seeped into his chest deserved more immediate attention. “Peter never would've given so much to his own kind. Bastard."

"Kate?"

"I'm right here."
She brushed his hair from his face with a gentle finger.
"Luc checked your back, but he's finished. Rest now."

She shook her head. “He won't die. Vampires don't die."

Luc laughed, a hard, brittle sound that set her stomach to roiling. “I assure you, bebe, we can and do die."

She glared at her guardian. “Then I won't let him."

"I've fed from the weres and hunted the towns close to Pridemore as much as I dare.” Luc shifted foot to foot in the door days later. “The local population can support a more intense hunt, but we can't risk the exposure. That's what the masters are searching for—overhunted ground."

She lay with Garrick in a tangled heap on their bed, their arms and legs, their bodies intertwined. The intimacy argued against every human notion in her to hold herself back from his injuries to avoid jarring the raw, bloody wounds.

But Garrick wasn't human.

He didn't need her caution.

He needed the familiarity of her touch, her scent.

He needed her blood.

Kate's hand poised a stingy inch above his slack mouth. Only wild desperation could've forced her to bite the seeping punctures into her wrist, especially since the virus healed those wounds so rapidly they closed within minutes unless reopened. She'd gagged the first time she'd bitten her own flesh, her stomach literally turning in horror at what she'd done, and man, had it
hurt
. Not that she'd ever expected it not to. She'd stabbed her incisors into her wrist until she drew blood. Of course it'd hurt. Only a moron would believe otherwise. Luc and Garrick had made it look so easy, though...

Blood slipped in a slow plopping cadence from her dangling fingers to his lips.

Well, whatever her reticence, her initial gut-wrenching reluctance, she'd overcome it long since.

She'd torn the ragged punctures in her wrist back open countless times in the past hours, felt the cumulative blood loss in the weary beat of her pulse, the heavy drag on her body, the fatigue that made clear and coherent thinking nigh impossible.

Still, Garrick did not stir. “It's all right, Luc. Go."

He frowned at her. “I'll return as soon as I can."

But he didn't leave.

She curved her lips, tried to hide her exhaustion from him. “You're headed north, toward Westwego. A lot of bayou, but not many homes until you get closer to New Orleans, which is too dangerous. So you'll range a farther, wider circle, stick to the rural areas to avoid drawing attention. You could be gone several hours. I know, Luc. It's okay."

His lips thinned to a harsh, disapproving line. “No, it's not okay!” He beat a fist against the frame of the door.

Kate's temper snapped. “He needs blood, and I can't get it for him, Luc."

"Do you think he'd thank me for jeopardizing your safety?” He jerked a furious shoulder. “If another of our kind stumbles on Pridemore while I'm gone, you'll be vulnerable."

Her mouth curled to a chiding sneer. “His damned werewolves will protect me.” The pack of weres had sworn to lay down their lives, if need be, to defend her. Perversely, she believed they would.

But these were the very same weres that had poisoned Garrick and flogged him within an inch of his life, so it was hard to feel magnanimous.

Breath by ragged breath, she felt Garrick slipping away from her. Heartbeat by stuttering heartbeat.

He was dying.

She was powerless to stop it.

Even Luc, who had worked so feverishly to heal Garrick at first, had pulled back as his condition had worsened. The only reason she'd persuaded him to hunt for fresh blood to replenish Garrick was her threat to do it herself if he refused.

"It'd take the entire pack to take one of us down. The masters draw nearer in their search for us, every day, and they've armies of servants and slaves with them.” Luc swore under his breath. “Leaving you is too great a risk."

"You almost starved the both of us to death in Chicago because you were afraid to leave me. Don't make that mistake again.” She glared at him. “Get out of here, Luc. And don't come back until you have blood for him."

"I'll hunt for more blood,” he said, dark eyes narrowing on the slow trickle that spattered to Garrick's lips, “if you give him no more of yours."

Her brow furrowed. She bit back a curse.

He meant it.

She didn't need to link with him to know by the rigid tension in his body that her guardian meant every word. Even if Garrick died before he returned. Even though his death would spell their doom.

Luc's caution would kill them all.

"I'm fine."

"Kate,” he growled in warning.

Her lips pursed. “Oh, all right. Have it your way.” She yanked her hand back, rubbing her wrist to speed its healing.

Luc's head dipped to a sharp nod. “Don't think to reopen the wound once I've left.” He tapped his temple with his finger. “I'll know."

Watching his retreating back, Kate was painfully aware that what he said was true.

Luc would know.

If she gave Garrick a drop of her blood, her guardian would race back to her.

Kate was counting on that.

But, alone in their rooms after he'd gone, she waited.

She whispered to Garrick. Murmured into his ear. Caressed his unresponsive body. She reached out to touch his mind more tenaciously and more often.
"Hold on, Rick. Just a little longer."

Of course, he didn't answer either her soothing touch or her urgent mental pleas.

Garrick hadn't stirred since the day before.

More alarmingly, his presence had faded then disappeared from her mind too.

She hadn't told Luc. Hadn't dared. Mating to Garrick, it was she, rather than her guardian, who now had the stronger connection with the elder vampyr. As Garrick had weakened, Kate's link with him had outlasted Luc's, but no matter how she'd tried, she hadn't been able to reach Garrick for hours. Already fighting against a hunt to restore his blood, Kate had used her intimacy with her mate to conceal their increasingly dire circumstances from Luc. So he would do what she could not. If he'd known, there was not a promise or threat in the world that would've parted Luc from her.

So far, so good.

Garrick was still dying, but she'd persuaded Luc to relent. To hunt.

Voraciously.

She kept a loose connection with her guardian in the background of her mind. Not because he'd insisted on it, though he had. Not to ease his acute and mindless fears, though it did. Definitely not to quiet her alarm and trepidation. Nothing could do that now except Garrick's survival.

Kate maintained the link to monitor Luc's hunt.

She felt the thrumming increase in his pulse when he found and fed from his first human. If she trembled when her guardian moved on to a quick second and third victim, if her heart clutched in horror to be so exultant at his success, nobody knew it but her.

The shivery, soul-numbing terror she'd felt, too, when she'd been stalked as human prey faded in comparison to Garrick's overwhelming need.

But as Luc's body vibrated with the influx of energy, of life, when he hurried on to track another victim, Kate tucked her head into the crook of Garrick's shoulder for comfort.

Because his deadweight, the slackness of Garrick's body, tore at her more fiercely than the unmitigated panic of the humans Luc fed from. In her guardian's head, sharing his thoughts, she'd felt their fear. Their apprehension.

She should be revolted.

Sickened by the efficiency of Luc's merciless pursuit of blood.

She wasn't.

She was too relieved.

Luc's quarry sacrificed only a unit of blood each, a short ten minutes of their lives.

Garrick's death would cost much more.

Besides, it wasn't all that bad for Luc's prey.

Kate had also shared their crushing relief, had known their peace when her guardian had mesmerized them to complacency for the feeding. The memories Luc supplanted to replace those of the hunt weren't anything like Kate's horrendous experience when she had been bitten.

It's not like the humans were being callously traumatized.

Kate's snuggled closer to Garrick, basked in the warmth of his body, the comfort of his scent.

Maybe it was time she finally admitted, if only to herself, that something inside her had shifted. In the past days and hours, she wasn't sure when, she'd changed. Fundamentally.

She couldn't lie to herself.

Not anymore.

She was no longer human.

Oh, if she stepped back, tried for a little clinical self-evaluation, finding pieces of herself that held on to her non-vampyr sacred cows wouldn't be difficult. Her heart still seized in fright at the vampyr that had mysteriously become as important to her as her next breath, wondered in stunned dread that Garrick had become so vital to her so quickly. Drinking blood was just as gut-wrenching, the werewolves equally bizarre, and she absolutely detested either Luc or Garrick crawling around in her head. Those things bothered her. Those things shook her to her core.

Other things didn't.

And should have.

Luc hunting for blood?

Nope.

Garrick needed it, so Luc preying on humans wasn't just an absolute necessity—it was a welcome development.

Connecting with her guardian?

Even when doing so meant sharing his thrill of the hunt?

She sighed.

That didn't bother her at all.

If anything, she encouraged and prodded Luc's feral anticipation to hasten him along.

Kate wasn't human anymore, no.

She was a vampire.

She shook her head against the cradle of Garrick's neck and shoulder.

No, if she was going to do this, she'd do it right.

She wasn't a vampire.

She was vampyr.

And as long as it'd taken her to come to terms with that, it was time both Garrick and Luc realized it too.

When Luc had glutted himself on so many humans his body shuddered with the power infusing it, Kate lifted over Garrick's chest.

The wolfsbane Peter had flung on his open wounds had raced into his bloodstream, polluted his body, saturated his tissues and organs. Burning pain had progressed to prickling weakness that had hardly been slowed by the blood she'd given him. His pulse had dwindled to a shallow, thready rhythm. His chest struggled to rise and fall.

At least after caring for Garrick and sharing his experience through their link, she knew what to expect when the wolfsbane hit her.

Kate leaned close to his neck, listened hard for the failing beat of his heart.

Killing him would be easy.

The trick would be reviving Garrick before the poison paralyzed her heart and lungs along with his.

She frowned.

No, the trick was timing it to ensure Luc returned to Pridemore in time to fetch the antidote the pack had adamantly refused Garrick.

The weres had denied treatment that would help her mate.

But they wouldn't deny it to Kate.

Not after they'd sworn their loyalty to her.