Bound By Blood

“Hell, no. Have you?”

“From time to time. Nadiya has left him in charge of Kaitlyn. No doubt she has ordered him to kill anyone who tries to enter the house.”

Zack glanced past the man to the woman who had come up behind him. She was about the same age as the man. She also carried a shotgun. It was a ludicrous picture, the short, rotund rosy-cheeked woman wearing a long blue flannel nightgown and carrying a shotgun that was almost taller than she was.

Zack looked sideways at Sherrad. “So, what do we do now?”

“See if we can override Nadiya’s compulsion.” Summoning his preternatural power, Drake stared into the man’s eyes. “You will forget whatever Nadiya Korzha has told you,” he said firmly. “Whatever threats she has made are no longer in force. Do you understand?”

The man lifted the shotgun and leveled it at Sherrad’s chest. “Go away or I will kill you.”

“Uh, I don’t think it’s working,” Zack muttered.

The man eared back the hammer on the shotgun. Unless the gun was loaded with silver and penetrated Drake’s heart, the blast would be painful and messy, but not fatal.

Sherrad was little more than a blur as he reached forward and wrested the gun from the man’s hand, then choked him into unconsciousness.

“Maybe you’ll have better luck with the woman,” Zack said dryly.

“Maybe you will shut up,” Drake growled.

“Maybe I’d have better luck.”

“Be my guest.”

“Excuse me, madam,” Zack said. “May I have a word with you?”

She looked momentarily confused, then nodded.

“My name is Zack and I’ve come to tell you that you don’t have to be afraid of Nadiya anymore. I’m releasing you from her spell. Do you understand?”

“What spell?”

“Nadiya is a sorceress and she put a spell on you. But it isn’t effective any longer. So why don’t you put the gun down and take care of your husband?”

She glanced at the man sprawled facedown on the floor, then looked up at Zack.

“He needs help. If you invite me in, I’ll help you carry him to bed.”

The woman stared at her husband, and at the gun in her hands as if she had never seen either one before and then, with a sob, she lowered the weapon and dropped to her knees beside her husband.

When she looked up at Zack again, her eyes were clear. “Please, come in and help us.”

Zack looked over his shoulder at Sherrad and smiled smugly.

“Don’t say a word,” Drake warned.

There was a shimmer of power as Zack stepped inside. It always amazed him that something as innocuous as a threshold had the power to keep him outside. He didn’t know why it was so, but it was.

When he started past the woman, she grabbed his pant leg. “My husband . . .”

“I’ll be right back, I promise. Why don’t you get him a drink of water?”

He didn’t wait for a reply. Opening his vampiric senses once again, he followed the blood link through a door that led down into a basement. Kaitlyn’s scent was strong here, and then he saw her, sitting on a filthy mattress.

“Kaitlyn!” Sherrad hurried past Zack and enfolded his daughter in his arms. “Are you all right?”

“I am now.”

Zack rocked back on his heels. It was all he could do to keep from pushing Sherrad aside, but Kaitlyn was the man’s only child, after all. He contented himself with looking at her. Aside from the fact that her dress was wrinkled and her hair was tangled, she seemed none the worse for wear.

Sherrad brushed a lock of hair from Kaitlyn’s cheek. “We must get you out of here before Nadiya returns.”

“I am afraid it is too late for that.”

Zack muttered an oath at the sound of the familiar voice.

Sherrad put Kaitlyn behind him, then slowly turned around.

“How very clever of you to find her,” Nadiya said. “I am afraid I underestimated your resourcefulness.”

“We’re not leaving without her,” Zack said. “So you can move aside and let us pass, or I’ll rip your heart out. And believe me, I know how to do that.”

“I did not come alone,” she said imperiously.

Zack crossed his arms over his chest. “Bring ’em on, witch!”

He had no sooner said the words than Nadiya vanished from sight and a dozen men—both vampires and drones—swarmed into the room.

Chapter 33

There was instant pandemonium as Zack and Drake were surrounded by a dozen men intent on destroying them.

Zack summoned his power, felt it flow through him, making everything seem sharper, brighter, as he changed into his wolf form. Fangs bared, he sprang at the nearest vampire, felt a rush of exhilaration as he tore out the man’s throat. The smell of blood and death rose in the air, exciting the beast within him. Returning to his human form, he ripped out another vampire’s heart and tossed it aside. A split second later, he resumed his wolf form and attacked another man. This one was human. Easily killed.

He had no idea how Drake was doing, didn’t have time to check on Kaitlyn, but he knew she was alive. He could hear the rapid beating of her heart, smell her fear above that of the men trying to kill him.

He turned to confront another man, felt his foot slip on the bloody floor, heard Kaitlyn’s scream as he went down. Snarling and snapping, he sank his fangs into the man’s ankle and jerked him off his feet. Before the man could recover, Zack crushed his windpipe.

Caught up in the lust for blood, Zack killed another man and destroyed another vampire.

In a momentary lull, he glanced around the room, noting that there were only three vampires still standing. He looked for Sherrad and saw him standing amid a pile of bodies at the other end of the room. Kaitlyn’s father was splattered with blood from head to foot, his eyes wild, his lips drawn back over his fangs.

Zack grinned. Kaitlyn was right. Her father could be scary.

The three remaining vampires pulled back. They glanced at each other, their expressions uncertain.

Zack resumed his human form. “Come on,” he said, motioning them forward. “Let’s finish it.”

“She can fight her own bloody battles,” the tallest of the three said, and vanished from sight.

Zack grinned at Sherrad. “One for you. One for me.” He lunged at the nearest vampire, his hand penetrating the man’s chest, ripping out his heart, before the vampire knew what hit him.

The last vampire glanced from Sherrad to Zack and vanished from the room.

Zack took a deep breath, the urge to kill fading. He glanced at Sherrad, but the vampire was looking at his daughter.

Zack swore under his breath. Dammit! What must Kaitlyn be thinking? How would she ever think of him the same way after what she had just seen? The fighting had been brutal and bloody and he had gloried in it, would have killed a dozen more to protect the woman he loved.

Fearing what he might see, Zack turned around.

Kaitlyn stood with her back pressed to the wall, her face fish-belly white. Drops of bright crimson glistened wetly in her hair, on her face and her clothing. A drone lay at her feet, his neck broken. Had she killed him? Lord, he hoped not.

Sherrad approached his daughter. Taking hold of the iron bolt in the wall, he jerked it free, then, ignoring the chain dangling from her ankle, he pulled Kaitlyn into his arms. She sagged against him, her face buried against his chest, her shoulders shaking with the force of her tears.

Were they tears of relief, Zack wondered, or regret for killing a man? He shook his head. Whether she wanted any more to do with him or not, she was safe and that was all that mattered.

Sherrad looked at Zack. “Let us go.”

“You go on. I’ll take care of the bodies.”

Sherrad nodded.

A moment later, Zack was alone in the basement. He picked up two of the bodies and carried them up the stairs, came to an abrupt halt when he reached the living room.

Someone—most likely Nadiya—had killed the elderly couple who owned the house. Their bodies lay side by side on the kitchen floor, both drained of blood.

Zack stared at them for several moments. He hadn’t killed many people in the course of his existence as a vampire. Sure, there had been a few early on, before he learned to control his strength and his hunger. And a couple of hunters he had killed in self-defense. But he had never killed wantonly.

“You’re going down, Nadiya,” Zack muttered. “Sooner or later, you’re going down.”

Every dark cloud had a silver lining, he mused as he dropped the two dead vampires on the floor. Thanks to Nadiya’s cruelty, he wouldn’t have to bury the bodies. He found two cans of gas in the garage and carried them inside. He used the first can to douse the bodies of the vampires, splashed the second can on the floor of the living room and the kitchen, and set fire to the place.

He stood outside for several minutes, watching it burn, before transporting himself back to Wolfram Castle.

Kaitlyn stood in the shower, eyes closed as the hottest water she could stand sluiced over, washing away the blood and tissue that had splattered over her. Never in all her life had she imagined her father was capable of such violence, such brutality. She had seen Zack destroy Marius, of course, but still—the scene in the basement had been like something out of a slasher movie. So much blood and gore.

And she had killed a man.

She washed her hair twice, her body three times, and wondered if she would ever feel clean again.

Stepping out of the shower, she dried off, then pulled on a furry bathrobe. Too restless to sit still, she paced the bedroom floor, unable to dispel the images of Zack and her father from her mind. She had grown up among vampires and never known they were capable of such carnage. She had watched her father change from a cat to a man and back again and thought it cute. But there had been nothing cute about Zack’s transformation into a wolf. She hadn’t been able to take her eyes off of him as he battled one attacker after another. In wolf form or his natural form, he had fought with a kind of lethal beauty that had been as mesmerizing as it was horrible.