Or vamp blood.
Pulling one of my partner’s blades, I sliced Two’s shirt off and raked his inner arm with my claws. His blood smelled horrible. I hesitated and then licked a claw. The taste was even worse, burning my tongue.
I spat it out, remembering the first time a sane-ish vampire caught my scent. The first time I smelled their blood, like sulfur and nitric acid, something caustic. Awful. And then Bethany healed me. Everything changed when I was healed by Bethany. Why?
Beast likes blood. All vampire blood is strong. But not for littermate.
There had to be a... a “come to Jesus moment” between paranormal predators before scent and blood taste were acceptable. Leo had accepted me and that made my scent acceptable to his people. I let Bethany heal me with her blood.
I was the Dark Queen. That supposedly gave me power and gifts, probably accompanied by lots of things I should be able to do, unknown gifts. I was the freaking, dang Dark Queen of the fangheads. That had to mean that I could, theoretically, claim bloodsuckers. I’d done it once. With Edmund.
I didn’t want another vampire servant.
Eli’s heart skipped a beat. It stuttered fast. Skipped.
I tore my wrist with my fangs, deliberately missing nerve and artery, and held the welling wound over the vamp’s mouth. I reached for the Gray Between.
Skinwalker energies burst from my chest and rose around me. I reached for the magics that were mine and the magics that were other—witch and vamp—and gripped them together in my mental hands. Power strummed through me, heated against my palms. I pulled the magics away from the star pattern of my middle. They gave a soft twang and realigned into two figure eights, one in each mental hand. One blue-gray, one scarlet, both pulsing in time with my heartbeat. Okay. That was new.
I studied the energies of life around me. Eli was the stagnant stink and dark reddish brown of death, with only flickers of living blue and purple. His life force had almost bled away. The vamp’s energies were darker, deeprose in tone, and smelled of ginger. Despite the ash wood in his belly, he was still undead. I touched one finger of my free physical hand to the vamp’s chest and tapped the vampire energies. They rang with a note like a fingernail striking a crystal glass.
The first drops of my blood dripped into his mouth. A version of words that I vaguely recalled from Leo came to my mind. I snarled as best I could with my Beast-mouth, “My blood to your blood. Your heart to my heart. Your loyalty, I demand.Now.” And I reached for his mind. His heart.
His soul...
I ripped out the ash wood arrow. The vamp swallowed.
His brain was a kaleidoscope of shadows and light, pinks and purples and a burst of what looked like glitter in black light. His name was Klaus. He was sixty-two years old, born in East Germany. He was weak. A lower-level vamp.
I remembered the silver chain that once bound Leo, king of the U.S. vamps. I fashioned a silver chain of the Gray Between and wrapped it around Klaus’s energies. Tied it to myself, in my soul home. I realized that wouldn’t help Eli. I reached for Eli’s energies and braided a second tiny strand of my skinwalker magic to Eli’s will to live. “Just a minute or two,” I whispered. “I’ll break it as soon as you’re stable. I promise.”
I held Klaus’s wrist so that blood dripped into Eli’s mouth. “Drink,” I pleaded. “Please drink.”
The blood dripped in. I feared I’d choke him to death. A cold breeze swirled through the SUV, stealing what warmth there was. Ten drops into Eli’s mouth. Twenty. Finally Eli swallowed. He managed five small mouthfuls without coughing.
I dripped vamp blood into Eli’s torn flesh at each of the wounds, watching as they closed. I sliced a cut along the vamp’s other wrist and went back to Eli’s mouth, feeding him. After three swallows, he turned his head away, grinding out the words, “God-awful. Worse ’an greasy grimy gopher guts.”
A small gulping sound left my throat. “Gastronomicallygruesome,” I agreed, the boil of relief simmering through me again. The vamp groaned and I shoved the arrow back into Klaus’s belly, rolled the vamp against the sidewall, and dressed Eli’s wounds by placing layers of gauze over the top of each. I secured them in place with stretchy wrap.
“Sick,” he muttered. I rolled Eli so he could vomit, and my partner’s stomach emptied. The stench was blood and stomach acids. The vamp blood looked clotted and slimy.
I wiped Eli’s mouth with his cold coat. It wasn’t very absorbent. “I’m getting you home. Hang in there.”
“Silver shackles in the... metal chest,” he managed.
“No time. I’m getting you home.” There were blankets and a down quilt and even an electric heating pad that ran on the car battery in the sidewall compartments, and I wrapped my partner in the folds and turned on the pad to combat the shock, which killed people faster than simple blood loss. Tucked his feet and his body between the crates and chests and loose gear, his feet higher than this heart.
“Babe.” He stopped and exhaled slowly. I thought he had passed out. Then he finished. “Get clothes. You got... hairy boobs.”
“If you’re looking at boobs you aren’t going to die.” Chuckling, I broke Klaus’s neck with a vicious twist, slammed the hatch, and raced to the front, where I turned on the SUV and set the heater to max. Then I negotiated a six-point turn and eased up even with the red Rover. I stopped and got out, opened the other driver’s door. Found a key fob in the console and tossed it in Eli’s SUV. With my partner’s knife, I sliced through the sidewall of the driver’s-side tires. Then I pulled through the dark and headed to the inn, calling Alex on the way.
***
I felt the SUV cross a magical warning system when I turned into the snow-blanketed drive. Thehedge of thornswas a half mile ahead and it dropped as I made the last curve to the inn. It was huge, the biggesthedgeI could have imagined. The moment we crossed it, Lincoln Shaddock himself raced from the front porch and into the snow. He nearly tore the hatch off its hinges getting itopen, and his wrist was already bleeding. He held it to Eli’s mouth. Thema, who had followed him into the snow, lifted Eli like a baby, side by side with Lincoln, carrying my partner inside. I had dressed as I drove, so I wasn’t an embarrassment to myself or anyone else. And when Bruiser opened my car door and stepped close, I turned and lay my head against his belly. And burst into tears.
My honeybunch stroked my head and massaged my neck, which was unexpectedly pelted, and brushed behind my ears, all the while murmuring soothing sweet nothings. After too long a time for a badass woman with fangs and claws, I pushed away. He let me go.
“I passed the outgoing team. Did you find them?” I asked.
