Captiva Craving - Vampire Werewolf Menage (Six Feet Under Series Book Two) (26 page)

Sixten aimed high, nailing him with a throat punch. “It’s about time you dropped the sword, chick.” Slam. “I pick hand-to-hand with prison rules any day.” He punctuated with a killer head butt strong enough to send a royal pansy ass packing, but Gianni kept coming back for more.

“I will teach you to respect your betters.”

In Sixten’s long life, no one ever accomplished that. With a low spin, Sixten caught one of Gianni’s legs between his ankles, effortlessly bringing him down while delivering the universal jerk-off sign. “You can’t.” Kick. “Teach.” A fine uppercut Rave taught him before his first bar fight fit in perfectly, breaking Gianni’s nose. “Something.” Two taps to that nose to seal the deal. “That must be earned,” he finished with an elbow to the bastard’s trachea, irritating that earlier throat punch.

Gianni rolled, righted himself but then stumbled back, gasping for breath, his hands clawing at his chest. “W-what have you done? What’s happening?”

Sixten’s eyes narrowed, his palm filled with Gianni’s black heart, a trick not many could accomplish with a Dynasty Vampyr, and, apparently, his shifter enjoyed this particular stunt enormously. “If I kill you, she won’t care in the way you want her to.” He squeezed it. “But if you kill me?”

“Bastard.” Unable to stand until his heart regenerated, he searched for Blythe, eyes zoning in on her right away. “You need me in order to live,” he bellowed, his voice resounding over the sounds of battle, “not this hybrid freak, Blythe.”

“Pleading with the female while in a territorial battle? The mighty are weak. Of course, I already knew that considering you forced a bond on Blythe to keep her forever bound.” Sixten pushed the still-beating heart to his mouth, taking a bite, drinking whatever he could in the same way he had with poison. Dynasty Vampyrs’ fangs were universally toxic to all beings, except for Donors. Since Gianni’s first bite, when Sixten was in tiger form, he had sensed venom rolling through his body at an alarming rate, and he wondered if he would live. “I could have delivered a killing blow from the beginning, in my shifter form.” He’d wanted to negotiate for her future feedings, to force the Marchii’s hand regarding Blythe.

“Coward.”

“So you keep saying, but I’m not the one on the ground.” Sixten knelt down, gesturing around. “Your men are lost. Weakness begets weakness. You as their leader shortened their lives considerably. As for me, anyone, and that includes you, willing to take my female away will remember this.” He brought his hands wide, speaking in his native vampiric tongue, “All this death is on your soul, ancient fool.”

In a blurring movement, a dagger came up, slicing Sixten through the chest, splitting him wide. The Dynasty Vampyr still enabled without his heart, crouching in front of him and readying for the deathblow.

“No,” Blythe screamed while Rock held her back. “I hate you! No matter what I said, I’ll hate you forever, Gianni!”

With a pained smile, he said, “In death, pet, you will come to me, and it will be soon.”

A snarling Sixten jumped a fraction too late, unable to catch Gianni before he sliced his throat to his spine. That move, coupled with his missing heart, took him out permanently. “Fuck!” Sixten roared, staring at the carnage before him. “What a fucking idiot!”

Breathe in.
Breathe out
.
Breathe in
. Breathe…wasn’t going to work. He shook it off the best he could, calming his emerging shifter, and turned to stare up at his beloved wife. The rhythmic thumping of their helicopter neared for a landing. Jumping to the outbuilding’s roof, Sixten wrapped his arms around Blythe, touching her after what felt as though an eternity.

“You’re a mess,” he whispered, tenderly kissing the slope of her nose, his hands trembling as he grazed her cheek with the backs of his knuckles. Her pupils were tightening and dilating at an inhuman rate, not normal for her.

A frustrated sound left the back of Blythe’s throat. “I’m a mess?”

“Yeah.” Another kiss against her temple, even with Gianni’s scent all over her, she still smelled like the only home Sixten ever knew. And he took great pride in the claiming mark on her throat, one he put there.

“I hate to tell you this, Six, ‘cause, I know you have that ego thing working.” Her lashes fluttered lazily, her vision obviously tunneling. “But I can see your ribs, and it’s sick.”

He laughed so hard, so free, and then immediately winced in pain. “Yep,” he agreed, glancing down. “Ribs are amok.” An unmarked, not to mention illegal, chopper landed in a neat clearing. Sixten forced a considerable amount of endorphins through his fangs, lubricating them well for his wife’s special sleeping potion. “Don’t you know heroes can’t be pretty all the time? But I understand your confusion, since I’m always the exception to any rule.” She mumbled something incoherent right before he bit her. Thankfully, she was too exhausted to climax from his bite. Immediately, Blythe settled into a deep, healing sleep before he handed her back over to Rock. “With your life, Beast, protect her.”

He tilted his head, his werewolf was an awesome force. “She,” he growled, his hands clenching around her, “is one of us.”

Sixten fought not to take her when the werewolf’s jaws closed around her delicate throat, lifting her in the way werewolves carried their females. Somehow, Sixten held back and followed them, protecting what was his, until they were miles away in the shadows of the night. He didn’t have to turn around to know the Beta was behind him, waiting. “I know you only did it for Blythe, but I owe you everything.”

Ignoring that, Bane asked, “Can you mist in the shape you’re in?”

Yes, because his hybrid body’s complexity was baffling in an impressive sort of way. “I’m good. We’re you offering to feed me?”

A Beta’s warning growl, and then, “Jayce sent a text. Faction meeting’s just out. Feed, Sixten. Then get with Sayer’s locale before someone outs our bait-n-switch. They’ll be plenty of witnesses for her arriving on Jayce’s property with Rock. That Dynasty Prince has to believe Blythe’s under Pack protection, and, by our right, we retrieved her from his asshat of a cousin and rogue Habalines. If any of yours finds out you killed that stupid fuck Marchii, and not a shapeshifter, you won’t live to see another day. So get going. Plan’s in the homestretch, stick with it.”

“Of all your Beasts here, seriously, none will out me? Even about my ability to shapeshift?”

“Not unless they want to die by the Beta’s bite. Besides, I think you know how much we cherish our females by now,” Bane rumbled, his voice commanding even in small talk. “No werewolf wants Blythe to hurt. That shit just comes from your vampire cronies.”

It sure had. But that thought didn’t stop Sixten from releasing the first real smile he’d had in ages. “I can’t believe I put my trust and my mate in the hands of a werewolf.” He started dissolving on a glittery spiral, flamboyant and unnecessary.

“Show off,” he heard the Beta mumble before he headed back to help clean up corpses, the sort of stuff wandering humans could
not
find in the morning.

An unexpected sound of struggling helicopter rotors stopped them dead in their tracks. Sixten solidified with a wash of horror on his face as the chopper lowered on one side, weighted by something considerable.

Bane took off in a dead run, growling, “What the fuck is that?”

Sixten inhaled sharply.
That smell
. If only Kash were here to scent it. Could it be? “A Lovec?” It’s nocturnal body in full Species form, and then some. “I think, shit, it’s a Donor hunter.”

He didn't remember bolting off the roof to hit the next; his body parallel to the Beta’s changing form, but they were half running – half misting, unable to lock on the chopper.

Three breaths in, one slow breath out.

The Beta glowing red now, its skin flared with its fury. Bane risking all for Sixten’s Blythe, and a risk it would be.

A solid mass of black absorbing moonlight, this creature single-handedly pulled down a helicopter. A human-blooded Donor would never see this thing coming in a million years. And if she did, she sure couldn’t fight it. With eyes of glazed onyx, thin yellow slits marked its vicious pupils, and they locked on his wife. “It’s not hunting her, Bane! It’s going for…. Blythe! Oh, God, it wants to kill her. Why? And I put her to sleep.”

They skidded down a tin roof, the last building beneath the dipping chopper. It’s engines just picked up, though its werewolf pilot pressed against the windshield, his head caved on two sides. Sixten spotted Rock reaching around the pilot, trying to take control with one hand, while the other punched the hunter repeatedly.

Sixten tried to distract it. “Mine! Step off what’s mine!” When it wouldn’t turn to face him, keeping his carefully honed tracker senses fixed on his mate, Sixten snapped.
This isn’t happening again
. His shifter slammed his skull, wanting complete control, and he gave up freely. “I will not lose her to you!” And he reformed into a tiger, growling fiercely, warning the creature off his mate. That he was coming for her.

Bane gripped Sixten’s left paw and spun him out as he jumped high, whirling his body against the Lovec. Sixten dug his claws into its leg, barely holding onto its ankle. The Lovec’s skin was slick and oily. Sixten slipped all over the place. Even so, it didn’t deter him, or stop him from tearing into its greasy side, biting flesh and bone.

“I want my youngling!” It snarled, swatting at Sixten, as though he were a nuisance. But that window of opportunity allowed Rock to slice through the Lovec’s throat with the precision of a rusty saw. Jagged flesh spewed all over the place while white blood sprayed out, coating them all.

Bane smashed the other side, peeling the metal back as though it were a tin can, and then shredding Blythe’s safety harnesses and jumping. That left Rock hitting the Lovec full force, all canines and claws, he toppled him forty feet to the ground.

“She’s mine to kill, a weakling!” It kicked away, rolling until it hit a patch of tree stumps. As it stood, it grew impossibly taller. “My child,” he screeched, pointing at Bane carrying Blythe in an all-out run, his body blurring red across the grove. “Give her to me! No more suffering for her!”

Sixten couldn’t believe his ears, but he didn’t stop. Though right before he took another leap, going for the hunter’s throat, Rock wrapped steely bands around his waist and reared back with an inconceivable strength.

The Lovec was getting away. Sixten reformed into his truer self. “What’s wrong with you?” The Marchii’s venom had weakened him considerably, and he struggled with the werewolf – a first for him.

“Wait…” he panted, still in a full bestial form, “for it.”

“Wait for…?”

Boom!

A flash of orange as the helicopter barreled to the ground. Blades still rotating, it clipped the hunter before whirling him over in a fiery torture device. “That’s gotta hurt,” quipped Sixten, relief in his voice. He easily pushed away from Rock’s arms, the werewolf then morphing into a smaller, human-like size.

Blythe still needed a ride. As this was an alleged werewolf raid, Sixten wasn’t supposed to be here. And since werewolves couldn’t mist humans, Blythe had to arrive at Jayce’s property in a legitimate fashion. He searched around, keeping Bane and Blythe in his sight, watching as the few remaining werewolves went back to clean up after their latest inconvenient scourge.

Rock flicked a casual glance at the carnage before focusing on the largest shed and an old pickup. “We’ve got some hotwiring to do.”

“Please, mojo láska, wake up.”

“I’m going to douse you in gasoline and find a blowtorch!”

“Although I’ve been known to indulge in the kinky, that’s pushing it.”

“Help me!”

“Wake up,” a smoldering voice warmed with love coaxed. “My shirt’s off and I know how much you enjoy these pecs of mine, so why miss out?”

Blythe blinked a few times and looked up. Familiar eyes stared down at her, pale green like frost coating evergreens. “Hello.”

“Hi.”

She cleared her throat, glancing around at their old bedroom on Captiva Island. At least, it was supposed to be their home when Sixten originally proposed. Everything seemed so vivid, so real. Blythe wondered if she had died, and this dream was actually her snippet of heaven. “I used to have nightmares about
him
.” She stretched underneath a vision of her one true love, surprised at how sore she was. She never felt pain during those nightmares of Gianni and wondered why this was happening in a dream with Sixten. “Now I have dreams about you.”

“A lot of women dream about me.” He shrugged, his broad shoulders bunching. “And I’m their father’s worst nightmares.” One arm circled the small of her back, bringing her against his chest. “Well, I used to be before you loved me.”

“I can’t think of a day that I haven’t loved you, even when I thought you betrayed me.”

“Of all the years I’ve lived, I count no days when you weren’t beside me, filling my heart.” He drew in another deep breath. I killed Rave,” he whispered, his drugging breath against her throat. “No one will ever betray you or cause you pain and live for bragging rights, not even my flesh and blood.”

She pushed the hair from her eyes, wondering why this didn’t feel like any other dream. Her heart was beating fast, skipping at random intervals with increasing pain shooting throughout her body. “I never have a doubt that you were my own personal slayer. You’re brave enough for the two of us.” She pressed her hands against his chest, drinking in his warm flesh through. So real, she thought, so very real. Usually, though, he was dressed in leathers or for a night out. Now, he was sporting only pale, low-riding jeans.

“I would never let anything take you away…well, scratch that, keep you.” He licked her ear, sucking on the lobe. “When it comes to you, I have so many things to work on, especially bettering your protection.”

“Sixten?”

“Yes, angel.”

“You…” She remembered leaving her gilded cage, barreling up a flight of stairs after that manacle was removed, and tearing through Florida orange groves as Gianni bellowed from behind. Running as he closed in on her, she would have never gotten away on her own. She gasped in shock. “You’re really here.”