Min's Vampire (20 page)

Min appeared on the opposite edge of
the forest, tall and strong and lovely, her raven hair streaming
like shadows as she stood in the coming wind. Her smile was crooked
and beautiful. “Should’ve known I couldn’t sneak up on a pack of
werewolves.”

They all turned toward her. Some
crouched, practically thrumming with otherworldly tension, muscles
jerking in anticipation of pouncing on her. But no one went for
her.

Günter raised his sword. “We wish you
no harm, Min. I know this creature has you under its thrall. Once
we have him and his vampire mistress in an ashtray, we’ll leave you
in peace.”

She laughed again, and it tickled at
the back of Luca’s neck. “You really don’t know me at all, do you?”
Min said thoughtfully. “Leave town now, and I’ll leave you the use
of your legs.”

Günter smiled, and brandished his sword
at her. “I don’t want to fight you.”

“
Why? Afraid you’ll
lose?”

There were snickers from the pack,
sounds that should never have come from the gnarled teeth and lips
of wolves.

“
I could end up killing
you,” Günter said, ignoring the pack’s taunts. “And I would forever
regret that.”

“
Right back at you, big
boy.” She pulled a long, gleaming sword from her side. It shone in
the moonlight with silver grace.

“
Nice sword,” the werewolf
said.

“
All the better to kill you
with, my dear.”

A near inaudible snick came from behind
Luca, and he felt the silver chains loosen. He fell forward
involuntarily, but a warm, familiar hand held him up. He opened his
eyes, trying not to call out as the chains were pulled out of his
flesh. Min stood before him, her eyes wild and scared, but her
mouth set in a determined line. Luca couldn’t believe that not one
of the pack of werewolves could not see, hear or smell that Min was
setting him free. And then it hit him. Magicks. His beautiful gypsy
witch had bespelled the entire pack. Just as she had sent him
running after no more than a glamour the night they’d met, she had
them all ready to fight a mirage.

She took Luca up under his arm and
helped pull him from the clearing, dragging him on his weakened
legs as fast as she could. Luca felt so weak. And his extremities
ached so badly they could well have been broken. But he pushed
himself to keep going, just touching Min made his battered body
feel better.

There was a terrible,
desperate screech. Luca looked back to see the female werewolf
spring into the air and attack Min where her image stood. She
passed right through her, not even disrupting the image as she did.
The pack broke out in a chorus of howls, shaking their heads, and
looking around themselves. All at once every wolf in the pack
turned in Min and Luca’s direction.
God,
they’re not even a hundred yards away.

“
Faster,” Min said in a
hiss.

“
Let them have me,” Luca
said. “I can’t bear the thought of them hurting you.”

“
Your faith in me is
heartwarming,” Min said with irritation, pulling him along with
her.

“
You can’t take them in a
fair fight.”

Min caught his eye with a sly sideways
glance. “Who the hell said I was going to fight fair?”

Luca could hear the pack closing in on
them, rushing down like a tidal wave of claws ripping through the
earth, howls and growls and excited yips slicing through the night.
Another heartbeat and they’d be upon them. He had to do something.
He felt such panic and pain at the thought of Min being killed, and
he believed that if he was dead she would be safe. He seized on the
only choice he felt he had. He would push her away and turn back,
letting the werewolf pack tear him apart. It was the only
way.

Luca felt his body tense as he tried to
get his arm from over her shoulder to behind her, so he could push
her away from him. But Min stopped in her tracks, straightened and
pushed Luca to the ground first.

He looked up at her. She had a haughty
expression on her face and her hands on her hips. “Suicide? Kind of
melodramatic, don’t you think vampire?”

Shit, she read my
mind!

“
Goes both ways, lover.” She
pulled her sword from her hip and turned on the approaching
werewolves, a ball of fire in her free hand. Luca gazed up at her
and shuddered at the brave power radiating from her being. The pack
ground to a halt, holding back, uncertain how to
proceed.

Then Günter came, weaving through the
pack, still in human form. “Stop this madness, Min. You can’t hope
to win.”

Min sighed, her shoulders slumping.
“You’re right,” she said, shaking her head in defeat. She dropped
her sword to the ground with a metallic clanging, and the flames
perished from her other hand. Luca sucked in a breath of pure
disbelief. Even Günter looked shocked.

Chapter 20

Min about cracked up at the looks on
all their faces. Even Günter, the great huntsman, he actually
thought she was just going to surrender. She reached back over her
shoulder and grabbed her secret weapon, what she’d pulled from the
wall over her mother’s desk. The instant her fingers touched it she
felt the power still there, waiting to be put to use, yearning to
kill. As if it could sense that its prey was there for the taking.
In the near full moon the shotgun flashed a tarnished silver. It
looked as old fashioned as it was, though sleek and utilitarian in
design, and it felt as solid in her hands… no, more solid than any
weapon she had ever brandished.

And in less than a second she had it
cocked and aimed squarely at Günter’s chest.

There was a beat of silence. Min could
see the cool calculation in Günter’s eyes. He knew that a gun with
silver bullets could indeed kill a werewolf, if you shot it enough
times, and in the right places. But one shotgun against a pack of
over a dozen such beasts was ridiculous. She could see it in his
eyes, though; he knew there was something wrong.

The female werewolf he’d called Giselle
laughed, still monstrous in only her human form. “Idiot witch!” She
hurled herself toward Min, her hands suddenly transformed into long
sharp claws.

Min didn’t hesitate; she shot the
bitch. Silver hellfire burst from the gun, and shaved off both
Giselle’s legs, dropping her to the ground where she writhed,
cursed, and screamed hysterically. “You fucking shot my legs
off!”

Min looked down on the fallen werewolf.
“They’ll grow back, eventually.” She pointed the shotgun straight
at the werewolf’s face. “Unless you prefer I end you right
now?”

Günter looked down dispassionately upon
Giselle’s wounds. “Her legs have been burned off.”

“
Your point?” Min turned the
gun on him.

“
What the hell’s in that
shotgun?”

“
Not a thing.”

Günter sniffed the air. “Not
silver?”

Min raised her brow to him. “No
ammunition at all.”

He smiled slyly. “It’s the
gun.”

Min let it glint briefly in the light
of the moon, and then pointed it back at Günter. “A Bellini, and
enchanted with pure hellfire. There’s a piece of a dragon’s tongue
in the ammunition chamber, and a silver shard in the barrel. It
never needs reloading. Was my great grandfather’s, and then my
grandmother’s, and then my mother’s—now it’s mine.”

Günter stood there surrounded by his
pack; the look on his face was thoughtful until his eyebrows rose
with surprise. “So this is the Klashnov? The render of
wolves.”

Min nodded and smiled.

“
You never told me you
descended from the wolf hunters.”

“
What can I say? I like a
little mystery.”

Günter smiled through his exacerbation,
his hands on his hips as he threw back his head and laughed. “That
weapon has killed more of my kind than anything in history, and you
what, just had it mounted over the fireplace?”

“
Something like that…so do
you and yours walk away now, or do I really need to start tearing
you apart?”

Günter’s smile turned hostile, but he
didn’t move, didn’t say a word. Just stared into Min’s
eyes.

Min cocked the shotgun, her finger
pressed to the trigger, feeling the gun practically begging her to
pull it, its hunger for more death pulsing into her. “Well, wolf,
what will it be? I have an early morning, and this little stalemate
is eating up my beauty sleep.”

Min could feel herself relax, holding
the gun, ready to simply start slaughtering herself a pack of
werewolves. She never felt such peace, such tranquility. Her
willingness to kill made a shiver run up her spine. Part of her
wanted Günter to attack. By the pestilent gods she hungered for
it.

Günter slowly raised his hands and
backed up a step. “You win, Min. We will leave the city
immediately.” There were hisses and growls from the pack, but they
all followed Günter’s lead and slowly backed away. “Just know I
won’t soon forget this, Min. There will be retribution. And tell
that vampire bitch—”

“
Elaina isn’t with us,
Günter,” Min interrupted him irritably. “You can chase her to the
ends of the earth for all I care. Kill her, you have my
blessing.”

“
He is bound to her,” Günter
growled. “I can smell it on him. She made him.”

Min smiled. “He won’t be, not if you
kill her.”

“
He is still a soulless
monster.” He looked at her with such disbelief.

Min smiled. “No one’s
perfect.”

Günter snorted, a rueful smile pushing
the disgust from his features. “Yes, you snore.”

“
I do not!” Min had to will
herself not to pull the trigger.

Luca laughed, clutching at the wounds
on his chest. “You do. It’s like a chainsaw.”

She shot both men with savage glares,
not sure which one she wanted to shoot for real first.

“
I could almost like him,”
Günter said as he disappeared into the surrounding trees, laughing.
“If the smell of him didn’t make me want to puke.” And he and his
werewolves were gone.

“
Goodbye, Günter,” Min
whispered into the night. “Happy hunting.”

She stood there, quiet as the tomb,
listening to the surrounding woods, to the sounds of cars
encroaching from the city that surrounded the park, sending out her
senses to check for any preternatural presence, until she was
satisfied that the pack had indeed left.

She moved to Luca and helped him to his
feet, but the sight of him lying there, bleeding from so many long
tears in the flesh of his chest stopped her in her tracks. His
wounds weren’t healing. “What’s wrong?”

Luca chuckled painfully as he pulled
himself clumsily to his feet. “Silver heals almost human slow for
vampires as well as shapeshifters. But it will heal, in
time.”

~*~

Min took Luca home. After she warded
her home from the werewolves with more than overkill, and blacked
out the windows of her bedroom with blankets, she crawled into bed
with him and shivered against his cold body. But finally fell
asleep as she felt Luca fade from his body. Vampires really did
just turn back into beautiful corpses when the sun came up. A tear
fell from her eye to his smooth pale chest. But he would come back
to her the next night.

~*~

When Luca came too, the sun had just
set, the sky still had the slightest blue to it, and Elaina was
standing, staring at him through the window with that maniacal
smile on her face. He saw her lips move, but couldn’t hear her
voice. But he didn’t have to. She was ordering him to the front
door of the house. He rose from the bed that held Min, passed out
of her room and down the hall, down the long staircase and then to
the front door of the house—no control at all over his movements,
just doing as Elaina commanded.

He opened the door and walked out onto
the porch. He was naked, and Elaina chastised him; though, she was
laughing as she did it. “Could you not take the time to pull on a
pair of pants? My, my…you really do not have any resistance to me,
do you?”

Luca wanted to resist her. He’d tried
to pull himself from her control every step of the way, but as it
had always been, he had no control over himself once his mistress
gave him a command. He sucked in the night air, trying to stanch
the fear that was welling up inside him, threatening to drown him.
If Elaina didn’t just outright kill him there and then, she would
most assuredly command him to go back into the house and kill Min.
The thought made him tense all over, his blood turning cold as he
desperately tried to break free. It became all the cooler as he saw
the inevitable: that he was hers to control, no matter what she
wanted him to do. He was but a slave to her whims,
again.

But instead of giving Luca any further
orders, Elaina started talking.

“
It matters not how long
it’s been since we last laid eyes on each other, or how so very
long since we have enjoyed each other’s touch.” Her cold, hard,
dainty hand slid down the flesh of his chest, brushing over the
smooth skin, and digging into the wounds the silver chains had left
behind. “I will always have absolute power over you,
my Luca
, and there is not
a thing you can do about that. It is as unchangeable as the
seasons, as the passing of time. It is finite.”