Hot Blooded (Jessica McClain #2) 0

I lunged upward. “Wrong, Selene,” I said as I grabbed hold of her legs and pulled. She went down. I rolled on top. “I’m not dead yet,” I snarled. She struggled to wriggle out from under me, muttering a spell under her breath. My physical size was much bigger than hers. No wonder she always chose to vanish. “No more spells.” I whipped my fist back and smashed it into her face. She screamed. I had effectively stopped her spell midsentence.

“You biiiiitch!” She squirmed under me. Her head was damaged from the blow, but her body was healing it at an alarming rate. Damn, goddesses.

“No, Selene, you’re the bitch,” I snarled. “And this is for harming my mate.” I smashed my fist into the other side of her head, extremely satisfied when her eyes rolled back into their sockets and she did a little convulsion of her own. “And this is for hurting my new friend.” I slashed my claws down the front of her chest, raking it open, leaving deep furrows in her cream skin. “Do you hear me? Now you’re the one who’s going to die, Selene!”

“Jessica,” Rourke moaned. His chains rattled as he rocked in agitation. “Please… get away from here.”

At the sound of his voice I jumped off of Selene and ran without thought. I leapt, catching the wall, pivoting my foot off the rocks and landed on his chains again. I slid down to him in half a second, the feel of him electrifying me. “I’m not leaving you,” I growled. The pain he had to be enduring must be unfathomable. “I’m never leaving you, so get that through your thick skull. We leave this place together, or not at all.” My wolf howled her agreement, clacking her jaws happily.

I forced myself to glance down the length of his abused body as I pushed my power into the spelled chains once again. It was hard to process how he was even functioning in this state. His lungs filled with air, quivering as they fought to keep working. “Hold on,” I murmured as I scanned the domed roof for coupling hooks where the chains should be attached. There were none.

The chains hung in the air attached to nothing.

If we pour enough power into the spell, I think we can break it. Then we jump before he falls and catch him. It was risky because of the shape he was in, but I had nothing better.

I shot power into the connection as Selene gasped in a big breath and moaned on the ground. No more time.

“Jessica, please… go,” Rourke said on a small breath. He was getting weaker, struggling to stay awake. He was fighting whatever Selene had done to him, but I could feel his power leaking out. So strong. He must have broken one of her spells when he’d heard my voice. “I want you to… live. Please… Jess…”

“Rourke, listen to me.” I lined my voice with as much power as I could. “I’m staying here and we’re going to make it through. I’m going to break this chain and catch you at the bottom.” Movement caught my eye. Eamon again. We can use Eamon. He stood at the edge of the alcove, his sister’s lifeless body in his arms. She was free of the awful netting, but covered in dried blood. “Eamon,” I shouted frantically. “You have to help us! If you do, you will be free of any vow you owe me or your sister, even though you deserve death for your betrayal.” As Naomi’s protector, I had the right to waive a debt. But if he complied I would deal with that separately. I changed the tone of my voice to appeal to him. “Please help us. We’re running out of time.”

Eamon spat, “I will never help you. I am grateful you will meet your end here.” His eyes cut to Selene on the ground. She sputtered and moved her legs. Goddammit. “I never should have come back here.”

“Eamon.” I pinpointed Selene’s spell on the chains and my wolf threw all the power she could into it. “Once your Queen finds out you’re a traitor, that you’ve spent the last few centuries helping Selene, your life is forfeit. Help me now and I will make sure you live. I swear it on my life.”

“I don’t need anything from you,” Eamon sneered. “We will go far from here and my sister will be well again, away from you, away from your dirty mind tricks. We will survive on our own just as we have done before.”

“I highly doubt it.” Strands of my power snaked their way into the chains. The spell weakened by the second. I was going to have to jump soon. Hold on, baby. “Eamon,” I called. “You’re forgetting your sister swore an oath to me and—unlike you—she’s someone who will honor it to her dying breath. How long before she leaves you and comes back to avenge my death? She’s going to be furious with you. Fix it by helping me now. You have a chance to make yourself worthy.”

“I don’t answer to you!” Eamon screamed, his emotions ragged and raw. He moved to the precipice, still holding his sister. Feelings were clearly not something he was used to dealing with. “I will never help you.”

Selene rose to a sitting position, her face almost completely healed. “That’s right, my darling,” she purred, her head swiveling toward Eamon. “You won’t help her, but you will help me. I was foolish before, remiss in not rewarding you for bringing your sister to me, mon chéri, please forgive me.” She stood easily, her black leather corset flapping open where I’d slashed it with my claws. “Come here and remind me of our love. It’s been too long and I have forgotten. Come, Eamon, remind me of our wedded bliss, the love we once shared together.”

Wedded?

Eamon paused, confused once again, his face considering. His expression betrayed how badly he wanted what she was saying to be true. Pain and stark need etched across his features in a tide of longing. I so didn’t want to feel any pity for him. Shit. He never had a chance. “Eamon, you have to be kidding me. Wake up!” I snarled. “She’s going to eat you up and spit you out. Are you really that stupid?” He didn’t so much as blink in my direction. I pushed more power into the chain, my wolf snapping and growling, flooding us with more adrenaline. She was laser-focused on the task of freeing our mate.

Eamon made his decision, glaring at me from across the cavern. The candlelight made his bone-white face flicker in the shadows ominously. Naomi hadn’t twitched so much as a pinky finger. I prayed she’d wake up soon. I didn’t think she was dead. Selene would want to play with her, making sure she endured multiple tortures, before she finally gave her true death. He turned and gently set Naomi down behind him, tucked into the corner.

Once he turned back, he stared at Selene, waiting for his orders. He’d made up his mind. Selene knew it too. He was hers. He’d always been hers in a twisted, tormented way. “That’s right, mon chéri,” she purred. “Come fight with me and I will reward you. We will go back to the beautiful place we had before, just you and I.”

She was good.

And I was disgusted.

The chains quivered. My power had wrapped itself around the spell, smothering and choking it. We’re almost there. My wolf barked. “Eamon!” I yelled, trying to snap his attention back to me. “You’re a fool and I’m going to make sure you regret your choices. All of them.”

Selene stalked across the floor, her fingers dancing with red. “Sic the bad wolf, Eamon,” she said. “Do it for me and we will be lovers again.”

Eamon lofted himself from the ledge, right at the same time the spell holding the chain snapped.

Rourke fell, but I was already in motion, one step ahead.

A split second before my mate landed in my arms, a voice hit my consciousness.

Jess, we’re here. Sorry we took so long. My brother’s voice flooded my mind like a Welcome Day parade. We ran into complications getting though this maze and I had to change back to human. One of the boulders near the far side of the room lurched forward as I wrapped my arms around my mate, the force pummeling me to the ground.

Then another voice rang through the room, loud and angry.

“What the hell is going on in here, Hannon? Looks like you could use a little help.”

24

What’s Ray doing here? My brain boggled as I gently laid Rourke down. But before I had a chance to do anything more, Eamon rammed into me at high speed, the two of us smashing into the wall ten feet away with a booming crash.

Selene wheeled on her new intruder. “Human! How dare you come in here.”

All conscious thought left me as I shoved control fully to my wolf. I was done. She wasted no time launching us at Eamon, who had rolled away from the impact. Rourke was hurt and we were going to finish this. Everything else vanished. Rage bubbled inside me as we flew through the air.

The world slowed, almost as if Eamon’s movements came to a standstill.

He glanced up slowly, his faced vamped out and cruel. The hatred in his eyes was paired with a cold sneer of satisfaction. I adjusted my trajectory slightly and slammed into him, my arms locking around his throat. I twisted without thought. He was no match for my strength; his resistance felt childlike. But he wasn’t a child; he was a cruel, powerful supernatural who’d just made the wrong choice.

For the very last time.

His neck cracked and his body went limp beneath me. I dropped him like a bag of garbage.

“Jess.” Tyler ran to me. “Holy Christ, what happen to the cat?” He gestured to Rourke, who was on the ground ten feet away.

I raced back to Rourke, Tyler following. I swallowed. “She cut him open.”

There was a scuffle and then a thunk from the other side of the room. “Did you just hit me?” Selene’s rage tumbled around the cavern, making the rocks quake. “With a rock? What do you think I am? A fucking squirrel?”

“Lady, you’re no squirrel, but you certainly have some anger issues to work on. I heard you bellyaching from on top of the damn mountain,” Ray stated evenly.

“I don’t bellyache!” Selene screamed. Another rock hit its mark, thunking off flesh before it hit the ground. “You will die for that, human.”

“I’m hoping someone will put me out of my misery soon,” Ray groused. “But first you’re going to have to go through a few wolves.”