Paz hissed.Leave me, vile vryko. Can’t you see I’m gobbling up soul leavings?
Kraft avoided the demon cat and arguing vampire and headed out looking for Riley. He found her fighting several lycans, which he found troublesome. Her own kind truly had turned against them. Then he saw a robed figure watching them from a distance.
Were the lycans bespelled? Or were they working with the sorcerers? Was the robed man a sorcerer as well? Perhaps even the dickhead from the bazaar?
Kraft watched the ferocity of Riley’s beast and felt his heart warm. He couldn’t explain it, even to himself, but the female beguiled him. Attracted to her strength of will and ability to deal damage, he studied her form as she tore into the lycans coming at her from all sides.
A vampire would never interfere with another vampire’s fight, so Kraft gave her the respect he’d give his own kind and stayed out of it.
Even outnumbered, she fought with skill and strategy, taking out her weaker opponents before moving onto the stronger ones. Her size twice that of a normal direwolf, Riley impressed not only with the beauty of her beast, but her inability to quit. Several times the others piled on, working in a pack, and each time she wriggled free. No matter how much damage she took, she gave it right back.
Until the sorcerer involved himself in a lycan battle. He disappeared and reappeared right behind her.
“Look out,” Kraft yelled and tried to move but couldn’t, hampered to normal speed by a thick haze in the air. And then it was too late. The bastard had already stabbed her in the back.
This time Riley went down.
Kraft raced as fast as he could to help, the scent of Riley’s blood both pulling at him and repulsing him because he caught the scent of silver close by. The sorcerer yanked out a blade and filled a small glass tube with Riley’s blood. Before Kraft could break the fucker’s neck, a group of lycans crashed into him.
The sorcerer glanced from Riley to Kraft. “To me,” he called his minions. “We’ll get her later.”
“Like hell you will.” Kraft crushed the two lycans closest to him and would have gutted the robed bastard, but the sorcerer used a spell to shove another lycan in Kraft’s path instead, giving him and his cohorts time to escape while Kraft dispatched the direwolf unfortunate enough to interfere.
A flash of light and the enemy, still living, vanished.
He turned to Riley, concerned when she didn’t move. “Riley? Riley, wake up.”
She lay there, a direwolf bleeding out. Her wound refused to close.
Though usually not one to panic, Kraft’s heart raced, and he felt a heavy press on his mind. He didn’t trust that what he felt wasn’t some other kind of spell left behind by that evil magic user. But he didn’t have time to think. At the rate Riley kept bleeding, she might very well lose her life.
He had a healing agent in his saliva, but he couldn’t staunch such a large, deep wound in time. Not with his tongue or spit. The damage went deep into her organs, he could clearly see.
Paz trotted into view and sat close by, watching Riley slowly fade.Give her your bloode.
“My bloode?”
It will help heal her.
“But she’s not a vampire. And I can’t lick enough of her blood to heal that wound.”
Then she’ll die.
Frustrated, Kraft snarled at Paz, who responded by licking himself without a care in the world save getting clean. Kraft swore as he ripped into his wrist then held it before her muzzle. When she remained limp, he shoved his hand into her mouth, catching his skin on her sharp teeth, forcing his blood down her throat.
After the longest minute of his life, she gave his wrist a small lick. Then another.
“Finally.” He swallowed down the pain as her rough tongue pulled his flesh apart to better get at his bloode.
She nibbled a little, but it felt more like a love bite than an attempt to eat him.
When she finally opened her mouth wide, he withdrew his hand, which quickly healed, the ache taking longer to disappear.
Riley sighed and began breathing easier.
Orion joined them and stopped, staring in shock. “What the hell happened here? What’s wrong with her?”
They watched as Riley slowly turned back to human in Kraft’s arms. She murmured, “Hmm. You taste good,” then passed out. Kraft turned her over to check on her wound, stunned Paz’s suggestion had worked. He’d never heard of another creature swallowing vampire bloode and not getting ill. Except for certain vampire mates, of course, who had bonded with their males and could then ingest the magical fluid.
