Great sex and all. She heard humor amidst the pain radiating from her mate.
Hold on, Orion. I’ll get you out.
Varujan watched her while he broke the bones holding her fast to the altar, as if breaking through dry sticks. Once freed, she tried to sit up but couldn’t, feeling extremely weak.
Varujan helped her, lifting her from the altar.
“You brought friends and haven’t introduced us? Rude.” Pazuzu didn’t seem bothered by her escape. If anything, he looked happy to see Varujan. “The patriarch. Very good. Once I drain your kin, you will make a worthy replacement. And I see you’ve met my new bride.”
Orion’s growl grew louder.
Pazuzu blinked down at him. “Hmm. Something hiding inside you, boy. Is that what gives you such brute strength?” He squinted. “Now isn’t that strange. I feel something of the moon inside you, and the oceans. Many of them.”
Varujan looked from Orion to Kaia.
“Take her away. Now,” Orion managed to get out and stiffened, still on his knees as Pazuzu continued to crush his heart and absorb more of his bloode. The thick red stuff swam from Orion’s chest and up over Pazuzu’s arm, past his shoulder and neck up into his mouth. A horrific vision of sacrifice made even worse by the blood he’d already stolen from Kaia, which she could sense the demon using to power him into killing her mate.
Varujan patted her shoulder. “I have to get back. Orion, remember what Mormo said.”
He vanished, and Kaia stumbled and sank to her knees. She felt so weak, yet a storm within her woke, and the wind around them whipped in a fury.
“That’s what I want,” Pazuzu said with a sigh, his gaze on her. “You’re Becoming, my beauty.”
“Not... yours... ” Orion hissed and put his hands on the arm attached to the hand buried in his chest. “My mate,” he roared and opened himself, was all Kaia could think.
She had no idea why, but she thought he was yelling at her from deep inside himself to grab hold of him. She crawled to him, ignoring the wind and rain, the throbbing agony where her wrists tore open once more, her blood streaming into Pazuzu alongside Orion’s.
“What a lovely pair you make.” The demon laughed, his face morphing into that of dog’s, his skin turning black as his body changed from human-like to a demon’s. “My hunger has awakened,” he said, a deeper voice echoing, a new form taking shape from the shadow behind him.
A monstrous beast rose from Pazuzu’s shadow, clutching two struggling vampires in hands as large as cars, its scaled arms as long as semis. Then a giant wolf ran up its back and sank its teeth into the beast’s neck, and it shuddered and howled.
But not in defeat. In laughter.
“My return has been foretold,” it shrieked with joy.
The fuck it has, she heard in her head. Kaia, hold on.
Lightning spiraled down from the heavens. And then she saw a bright light, felt a burst of heat from within, and knew nothing more.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
Orion had never felt such suffering, not even when he’d been a fledgling and watched Spiro die a true death. Kaia was hurting, and something terrible was coming through to this plane.
He could see the line Pazuzu made, taking his bloode into himself, adding it to the rich life he’d already stolen from Kaia. Orion’s fury built, knowing how much his mate endured.
But the evil reaching toward him came not from Pazuzu, but from the shadow now made flesh. From Pazuzu’s sire. Hanbi—the king of all evil.
He had no idea where his kin had gone, but now he could see them, both Varu and Khent in Hanbi’s giant hands, being crushed to death, like Orion’s heart. And there, Kraft trying to bite into the demon and having no luck. Hell, from the demon god’s laughter, he thought Kraft might just be tickling it.
Mormo’s words came back to him. “Do not give it what it wants or it wins. But you may be able to bargain with Pazuzu.”
The real threat then, was Hanbi. Not his son.
Orion called upon the storm deep inside him, warned his mate to hold tight, where he’d do his best to protect her, and let himself open all the way up.
Before Pazuzu could touch the power inside him, the lightning, a blessing from several water deities Orion had annoyingly been pledged to at birth thanks to Alecta—Mother of the Vrykolakas—shot down and spread along his bloode into the creatures of darkness and evil holding him fast.
Hanbi roared and struggled as Varu, Khent, and Kraft took advantage of his temporary paralysis to ravage him. Black blood that oozed as if alive welled along Pazuzu’s body while divine rains whipped the demon god, the king of all evil, alongside the vampires who worshipped no one but themselves.
He felt Kimbazi, the Congo goddess of sea storms. Nephthys, Egyptian goddess of rivers and the night. Poseidon and Aegaeon, Greek gods of the sea and storms. And even Freyr, a mighty god of the Norse pantheon, of rain and life. Together, they and Orion seized the evil trying to take hold of the world.
Kaia hugged him, awash in love and protection, and smothered the taint of evil still trying to break free.
You’re almost there, Pazuzu said, his voice faint though he held on to Orion through bloode and blood—his and Kaia’s.
Orion had to ask now. I offer you a bargain.
Orion, no, Kaia cried. Don’t.
Your terms? Pazuzu said. Hurry, vampire. I cannot hold for much longer.
You wish for life. I offer you mine if you save the others and sever the tie to your sire.
But yours is not whole. And I cannot, as it’s tied to new life, which I am bound to protect.
Orion felt Kaia’s fear for him, knew his own confusion. and then he felt it. A small spark deep inside, a tiny meow in question. What the hell? He struggled to hold on, feeling his grasp on Pazuzu slipping, Hanbi regaining a bit of power, siphoned from the idiot gods offering the help he hadn’t asked for.
“Meow.” Shadow rubbed his fur along Orion’s bloode, the connection forged of affection and magic that shouldn’t exist yet did. Not real yet real anyway.
He’s tied to my magic. Kaia gasped and asked the kitten, Do I know you?
The cat purred and put a psychic paw on Orion’s mind through to the demon wanting a bargain.
A life, yes, Pazuzu agreed. It is done. Well thought, vryko. We will meet again.
Then the world imploded.
Hanbi screamed in rage as the gods tore him apart alongside the vampires continuing to bleed him out. Having been made flesh, he couldn’t hide in the shadows, and as the wind blew the clouds apart, moonlight speared the evil until it burned away and the rains washed it back into the earth and out to sea, cleansing them all with the purity of a powerful new White Sea Witch.
Kaia blinked at him. “Orion?”
He grinned. “We kicked its ass.”
Sadly, he passed out before he could explain, even to himself, what the hell had just happened.
Sabine laughed as she hid in Belyy Zamok in her plush bedroom in a secret bolt hole, watching through a mirror pond as her zombies and minions made short work of Will and his idiot friends. Such weakness. How had she ever thought she’d make something viable with that man? His morality had skewed so far from hers that they’d never been able to breach the distance between them.