Gwen
The storm raged around us like evil incarnate. We were underground and we still felt and heard the thunder and lightning. It was almost as if nature was trying to help the other side. Or, more likely, as if evil had taken over parts of nature. The daywalkers had been trounced by the enemy earlier in the day, and now we were fighting our enemy’s full force at night in a raging storm. We all knew this was winner-take-all.
Kieran insisted he go and fight. Abbott didn’t want him to, and yet, they needed every fighter with skills, so he allowed it. If Kieran went, I wanted to go as well, but he said it could be only one of us.
And I understood. If he lost us both, he wouldn’t have anyone he trusted handling his fortune. He had others who managed portions, a billion dollars to this person, half a billion to that one, but Kieran and I handled the funds for seventeen of his identities. We had to split it up, so he didn’t show up on those lists of the richest people in the world. And he isn’t our only client. Combined, we handled hundreds of billions of dollars. Most people can’t even fathom those amounts.
But none of that mattered while Abbott, Kieran, and nearly everyone else we loved fought for their lives in the rain and storm.
By this point, we were under the yard of a home near the coterie house. Everyone assumed we were in the basement of the coterie house, but we’d watched — via camera — the bad guys go into our main house a few times, searching for a way to the basement. Those who found the way, died. Abbott had too many death traps in that house for anyone to walk into it uninvited and then walk out alive. Still, he wouldn’t put top-tier people in a known safehouse unless there were no other options. And yet, our vehicles were parked there. It looked like we should be somewhere on the property.
Everyone had been levitated to this other location, so there were no scent trails to this safehouse. This combined with the rain meant we should be secure here, but we were still on edge.
Plus, we were all worried about those who’d left for battle. We knew everyone wouldn’t return.
And so much rode on the outcome. If our side lost, life as we knew it was over for probably four to six centuries. At least.
The hours we waited for the battle to end, for there to be a winner and a loser, were so damned hard. Without Ajax, I’d have been forced to turn into a royal bitch in order to keep from breaking down in tears and being seen as weak. Having my big strong werewolf at my side changed everything.
Abbott had told nine of us we were the last line of defense. We all had our preferred weapon, which in my case is a sword. We were also in an outer chamber, so we weren’t in the huge inner chambers with the hundreds of people at this location. We were nine people, watching forty or so video feeds of the area surrounding the coterie house and the home we were under.
We got sporadic news from the other safehouses. Cellphones wouldn’t work in our underground lair, and that was by design, so we couldn’t be found. However, enough of us had long-range telepathy with others we were close to, we could get news. We didn’t dare try to speak to those who were fighting, but we knewwhere the healing centers were, and we had contacts. Names went on a whiteboard showing who’d been taken to be healed. There was also a shorter list of those who’d died in a healing center. Most of those killed would be left on the battlefield until it was over, and no one would know of their death until then. If we won, they’d get a proper burial. If we lost, it was doubtful they would.
Seriously injured powerful vampires can be helped by strong shapeshifter blood. Shapeshifters, though, if they aren’t strong enough tochange, often can’t be helped. Right then, neither the Master Vampire nor the Alpha Werewolf had surplus energy to provide to their injured people. In fact, those not fighting were being slowly drained by Abbott, so our energy could go to those fighting. We didn’t mind. We’d have gladly given more than he was taking.
Those in the inner chambers were lying on their cots to preserve energy, so they’d have more to send Abbott. We weren’t being drawn from as much, because we were a line of defense. However, when he started pulling harder on us, we knew those fighting were in trouble.
All of this is important because the wounded weren’t being brought to us. Our hideout housed the largest number of people who couldn’t fight — human companions, lesser shapeshifters, young vampires, and those considered too critical to lose. No one came or left from our location.
At least, not until Fawn got an urgent message to take three people who could levitate to the backyard of the coterie house for incoming injured. Once she’d left, I received a message from Josef to prepare Ajax to heal Kieran.
Fawn sent three vampires from the inner chamber to retrieve Kieran. It was apparently important that whoever brought Kieran to us not see a vampire they knew.
We didn’t have to wait long before the young vampire streaked back to us, and I realized she didn’t just have the power of levitation, but of speed. She couldn’t be more than fifteen years turned. She’d be scary powerful in another century or two, but the thought barely brushed through my mind, because my beloved Kieran’s head was barely hanging on. The brainstem was still connected, but not much more.
I had her settle him in a large tub, and I demanded they bring the young girl who’d fed him two evenings before. Kieran had fed from Ajax before leaving for battle, but he’d still have the young swan’s blood flowing through his veins as well. Most of the swans had been taken to Faerie to be safe. I had no idea why one was with us, but I didn’t argue. I didn’t remember the swan’s name, and I looked into her head to get it. Arabella. Abbott had ordered all vampires who’d be fighting to drink from three different animals on the three nights leading up to the battle. The bear he’d fed from was fighting, but the swan was here.
We bled both Arabella and Ajax into the tub, with their blood streaming over Kieran’s throat and brainstem. Once the tissues were saturated, other vampires held his head in place, but it could take days or weeks for him to heal this way.
IchangedAjax to wolf and back when his blood ran low. Someone would need to have sex with Arabella so she couldchange, but she said she was fine and didn’t need to yet. Both sat down to eat, and I considered how to assure I got my Kieran back. I couldn’t lose him. He’d probably be okay, but I couldn’t wait days or weeks to be sure. Icouldn’t.
I waited until about fifteen minutes after they stopped eating, and I gathered Arabella and Ajax to me. Some rules can be bent during times of war, and I broke one I knew I may have to answer for later with the Swan Queen and king, but I did it anyway. I jabbed a claw into Arabella’s arm, Ajax’s arm, and mine, and then I ordered the two shapeshifters to drink fromeach other and then me. I took a few sips from Arabella so I’d have her blood in me, and then walked us to the tub.
Ajax had been given Kieran’s blood, but Arabella hadn’t. I poked a hole where I knew I’d only get a few drops before his arm healed, and then touched those drops to Arabella’s tongue. She’d need a few moments for the vampire DNA to create a reaction in her body, but it was going to take a few minutes to get us all in position, so I kept things moving.
Vampires aren’t afraid to get bloody, and Ajax had been raised around our kind. I wasn’t so sure of Arabella, so I tried to give her the least bloody position, but once she realized what I was doing, she climbed into the tub with me and Ajax.
I sat on my husband’s thighs while the shapeshifters stood with their feet beside his upper torso, their bare toes tucked up under his shoulders since the tub was rather narrow. Someone had put a brace around his head and shoulders to hold it on in the proper alignment.
I’d felt various Master Vampires perform this little ceremony over the centuries, but I’d never tried to pull it off. I started by pulling power from Ajax and Arabella into myself. But then I moved the power, so it went from me to Ajax to Arabella and back to me. Each time it came to me, I saturated Kieran with it, from my crotch to his. I scooted up, so our genitals had a direct link and the power went from my root chakra into his. Eventually, I envisioned it going up, through all his chakras. I envisioned his throat chakra as whole and healthy, so the power finally streamed up through his seventh chakra.
I’m told we did this for over three hours. In some ways, it feels as if we did it fifteen minutes, and yet in other ways, it felt as if we did it for days on end. Twenty minutes in, everyone in the room reported they felt thepower of threekick in. This means the three hours we worked were the equivalent of twenty-seven hours, but it felt like more. Arabella’s energywas included, along with someone else’s, so the math works for more. Whatever we did, it worked, because a little over three hours later, my love opened his eyes and gasped. The second he did, Ajax leaned over and placed his arm at Kieran’s mouth, and my love drank, and drank. I pulled Ajax away before the life force completely left him, and I noted a young wolf, one of the new members of Abbott’s flock, leaned down and offered her arm while I took Ajax to the side andchangedhim to his wolf. I took a chance and dropped to my knees in front of Ajax’s wolf — eye to eye. “You and I are going to be friends. It might take some time, but it’s going to happen. I’m sorry we can’t spend more time together now, but I need Ajax back. Thank you so much for giving him strength. I know what you did.”
With that, Ichangedhim back to Ajax, but I saw the wolf’s eyes in Ajax’s human ones. It was a mere second, but he held on to look back at me before the magic pushed him down. It felt like an acknowledgement. An agreement.
What had he done? He’d boosted ourpower of three. He’d understood what we needed, and he’d given his power to it as well. The wolf likes Kieran. He wanted to help.
Kieran stopped drinking from the young female wolf before he was in danger of taking too much. He’d taken in enough to bring him back to his right mind, and he sat up in the tub and felt his neck. “Damned demons were fast, and it was five against one. I’d taken three of them out so it was merely two on one, but then reinforcements came.” He sighed, grasped the sides of the tub, and pushed himself up so he stood in the blood. “Who brought me here? Abbot should not have risked the security of all these people just for me.”
