Bound to the Vampire Chapter 15

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CHAPTER 15

Kayla

Flames licked her skin. Foremages, she was going to burn the place down with them inside it. The wall of flames raced past them, readying to corner them in. Panic made her throat tight and her feet still.

“This way,” Garrick encouraged her past the paintings blackening to ash. He weaved them across the room to a door in the back corner.

They burst through.

Her lungs seized when the cool night air slammed into her chest. Thankfully, the flames didn’t follow, but her purple essence continued to cascade down her fingertips like a waterfall to the ground.

“Please stop. He’s not hurt anymore.” She rubbed her hands together in vain. Garrick jolted at her sudden outburst. Their eyes met. “I can’t make it stop.”

“We will find a way.” His bright brown eyes watched her with determination.

“How?”

He definitely wasn’t oblivious to the fact that her lava magic was threatening to ignite the city street. Speaking of, she looked around, more thankful than ever that humans found mage magic off-putting and steered clear of it. Otherwise, she would have exposed them all.

“We will find your…” His head jerked up; the black of his eyes deepened.

Beside her, Garrick suddenly inhaled, then his entire body lit in alarm. His gaze flickered to every available point on the street.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

He held is hand up and she fell silent. Heck, everything around her went silent as he sniffed the air again. Then, a growl, low and menacing, ripped through the air.

“It’s them. The shifters from the auction house.”

That was impossible.

Coal burned a hole in her chest. The magic coming from her hands scattered across the sidewalk in fiery embers.

The last time they’d matched with the shifters, they’d barely made it out of her father’s house in one piece. But that was miles away. How did they find her here?

“Where are they?” she asked, voice shaking as she watched for any signs of the pack on the vacant street.

“North.” Careful of her hand, Garrick grabbed her forearm and led her in the opposite direction.

Yet when they went south, her magic didn’t follow. It pulled against her, tugging her backward toward the cathedral as though someone had tied a knot through her belly button and pulled. She turned.

A hooded figure appeared in the middle of the street with their palm on the ground, calling her magic to them. Flashes of purple electric currents raced across his eyes. Her breath caught.

Foremages, it was him. The syste.

That’s how the wolves knew where to find her. He’d siphoned from her before taking her into the hangar. And according to her dad, once a syste tastes your power, they can track you. Just like the rogue tracked him.

This couldn’t be happening. The muscle in her chest bulldozed through her rip cage as adrenaline soaked her through.

“Garrick.” She nodded back to the figure.

“Run,” he said. He urged her forward. She broke out into a sprint.

But the farther they ran, the more painful it became. Sharp needles cleaved into her chest as the syste sucked her magic. Her lungs became raw as if she’d been running for miles non-stop. A coppery taste coated her tongue.

With every footfall, she felt like a hamster on a wheel that wouldn’t stop even though her muscles begged her to. The more exhausted she felt, the harder the syste yanked on her magic, consuming it faster than it could billow out of her.

“Hey, you’re slowing. You must keep going,” Garrick encouraged her forward, but she couldn’t. Her body was draining, losing steam. Her legs slackened and her knees buckled.

Understanding, he lifted her. She felt weightless in his arms and so small. Garrick cradled her to his chest and ran into the night. He was fast, the street past by them quicker than she could read the signs on the storefronts, but the pain spreading across her skin multiplied.

Her magic still streamed behind them as the syste pulled it into the ground to draw it to himself. The vibrance of her purple fissure veins weakened to lavender.

If he continued, he’d siphon until there was nothing left. Which was probably his goal. The syste loved the feeling of taking the last bits of mage power. He got high off it.

Inside her chest, a piece of her ripped away. She groaned, then burrowed her face into Garrick’s hard chest to find comfort.

“What is wrong?” He asked, but didn’t stop his pace.

“Hurts.” Her breaths were jagged and painful behind her ribcage. “You have to stop.”

Garrick slowed, searching her for wounds. When he saw nothing, he asked her what to do.

“We can’t outrun him,” she said through labored breaths. “We have to stop him.”

Garrick’s angular jaw clenched around his fangs, as he stopped like she’d asked and considered her words. He seemed split in his decision for their next move. “I cannot fend off the shifters when they come.”

“And I can’t outrun the syste. If he steals all my magic, I’ll die.”

It looked as though a hundred thoughts raced through Garrick’s eyes before he settled on one with a nod.

“I will hide you here and take care of the mage.”

“But,” she began to protest but he silenced her.

“Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

Gently, he nestled her between the bumpers of two parked cars. Someone would have to be standing on top of the cars to see her. In a blur, Garrick disappeared into a nearby alleyway.

With him gone, the street became too silent. Off in the distance, there were signs of life. Based on the honking horns and yelling, it seemed like the humans who’d been carefully avoiding this place were caught in a late-night traffic jam. She’d kill to have one of them break from that route and head her way so she could convince them they were in trouble and needed a lift.

If they protested, she was sure Garrick would yank them out of the car and hightail them out of there. But that was a pipe dream. There weren’t many people like Breanne who didn’t find magic off putting. Not that Kayla had much of her magic anymore.

The syste had taken a large share of it.

“Hey,” someone, or rather, something said. The voice wasn’t human. The words sounded like they were barked out, raspy, distorted, and barely understandable. “Kayla?”

Her back went straight, but she leaned over to see what was coming. Except the street was eerily vacant.

Then, just at the edge of the alley Garrick had disappeared in, a body materialized from a deep hazy green mist. Kayla’s gaze traveled from army style boots, up ripped jeans, and onto a wide face and a mop of auburn hair of one of the women from the cathedral. At least she hadn’t killed her with the second hell she’d created in the cathedral, but she was a hundred times freaked out by her sudden materialization.

“You… you’re not dead?”

“No,” she said, “and neither are you, which is good because we need to get out of here.”

“Can’t.” She motioned to the magic leaving her body and burrowing itself into the ground in streams. “The Syste.”

The dimples in the woman’s cheeks became more pronounced as she studied the streams of magic.

“A syste’s doing this?” The question was rhetorical but from the look on her face, a syste wasn’t supposed to be that powerful. “Don’t worry, I’ll handle this.”

A cloud of greenish-gray magic shot from the woman’s fingertips, then collided with the junction of where her magic was pulled into the ground. The streams didn’t stray off its path as the woman tried to break the flow.

“Stubborn bugger, isn’t it?” More of her magic came out and joined the mix. The woman huffed as though she was hauling granite at a quarry. Sweat formed on her brow as she worked to untangle the syste’s hold.

Kayla stared at the woman wondering why she was helping her? Their first meeting did not end on good terms. Why come back?

“Why are you doing this?”

The woman paused. There was an answer on her tongue, but the woman didn’t offer it up. Instead, she asked, “You don’t want me to help you?”

At this point, she’d take all the help she could get. With a nod, she watched the woman work her magic at another angle to get the leverage she needed to break the syste’s hold. The woman’s magic worked its way around hers, then smothered the connection until it broke.

When the connection fizzled, the sensation of being ripped apart stopped. Kayla could finally take a breath that didn’t feel like her lungs were being punctured by her ribs.

“There,” the woman caught her breath but her face filled with worry as she looked her over. “Foremages, you’re so pale.”

Pale? She must’ve looked like a starfish that had washed up on the beach in the middle of a hot summer—completely dried out. The woman’s hands, which were soft and cool like the underside of a pillow, touched several points on her face and neck.

“We can fix this.” The woman’s palms glowed, then she paused for a second. “This isn’t going to feel great, but it’ll help jumpstart your magic.”

The woman placed her hands on her chest, then pushed a shockwave into her body. The last of Kayla’s muscles tightened as the current tore through her.

“Ow, that hurts.”

The woman apologized with a sheepish look. “Sorry, it does, but it works.”

When the woman drew back, Kayla felt the spindles of something work inside her. Her body started to warm again, the way it did when her magic came out of dormancy, but it didn’t boil to hot. Just simmered.

The woman’s eyes dashed around her.

“The syste took a lot. You’re going to need a plume.”

“A what?”

From the look she’d gotten back from the redhead, plumes were common knowledge amongst mages. It was yet another thing she didn’t know. Without the sigh of impatience Kayla knew would come from Marnie, the woman tucked a strand of her auburn hair behind her ear and explained.

“It’s a ball of rebound magic. In this case, mine. It’ll help your magic come back faster. Yours will try to fight it to protect you from it. While it does, it’ll help fortify your magic, almost like a battery.”

 The woman sat up on her knees and formed a giant ball, the size of a beach volleyball, of mist between her hands. When she’d deemed it large enough, she tightened it into a sphere.

“Now, this is a plume.”

“Looks like a bowling ball.”

“It does. It can also cause a lot of damage if you hurl it at someone. But don’t, you need it to get better. Your body’s going to want to expel it. Hold it until you can’t anymore. Got it?”

The redhead didn’t wait for her response. She forced the ball of greenish-gray magic into her chest and hands. It felt like she’d launched a watermelon into her ribcage. Holding it felt wrong. She could feel her magic work against it. The woman noticed.

“Good, it’s working. Now, hold it as tight as you can. I’m going to help you stand, so we can go.”

The woman lifted her to her feet. Just as their heads popped up above the cars, a vicious snarl echoed against the buildings.

At an intersection, a very big, very scary russet wolf spotted them.

“Oh shit.”

The woman looked at her, then back at the wolf. “I’m guessing he’s not a friend of yours?”

Kayla shook her head as several more trotted into the alley. She’d never seen a pack so large. There had to be over a dozen of them, working as a coordinated unit, coming after them.

The woman turned to the large russet wolf, her green eyes flashing with her magic.

“You’re encroaching on sacred ground,” she said to the alpha. “Leave now of face the mages of Sun City.”

The alpha looked around the street to weigh the truth of her declaration. When an army of mages didn’t appear, he barked what Kayla could only describe as a laugh, then bared its teeth. He didn’t care about sacred ground, just winning this fight.

“Have it your way, then,” the woman said. A jet of her magic shot to the alpha, wrapped around its torso and threw it into several others in its pack. It howled in pain as it rose to its feet. The woman turned to her. “You’ll need to run. Hold the plume as tight as you can. I’ll take care of this.”

That was not a great plan.

She couldn’t outrun a pack of wolves. She didn’t have the stamina nor the talent. She’d never done enough cardio to outlast anyone and her chaos magic never allowed her to compete in any sports when she was younger.

“But—”

“Just go.”

As instructed, Kayla turned and ran. There wasn’t any need to tell her about her lack of athleticism. She needed to find Garrick and get out of there. The pack splintered into two groups. One doubled back, while the other went for the redhead.

The pack darted up the street as they attacked. Flashes of the woman’s magic scattered across the street as the wolves pressed forward but Kayla kept her focus on the magic in her hands and the street ahead of her.

Kayla pumped her knees into her chest, letting her adrenaline fuel her through her exhaustion. The magic in her hands threatened to slip as it fought to jump out of her grip, but she managed to hold on.

She just needed to make her way to the human traffic jam a few blocks away. She could expel the plume, convince someone to let her get in and circle back to find Garrick. Magical secrecy would be broken, but they’d have their lives.

Her plan was set. She forged forward with renewed vigor. Claws scraped against the street as several wolves ran behind her. She was working off pure adrenaline at this point, but she chanced a glance back.

The pack split. Some ran down the alley Garrick had just been, several when after the woman, and three came for her. Whatever the woman planned to do, she needed to do it quick or she’d be wolf dinner in a matter of seconds.

Kayla refocused on the street ahead of her, but suddenly a ball of fur collided with her shoulder.

She toppled. It was everything she could do to keep the plume steady.

A large gray wolf growled close to her ear.

Oh shit.

She scuttled away, regaining her footing. Then several more wolves appeared in front of her. They’d stalked her through the shadows and surrounded her without her noticing.

She stopped, then backed away, but the three wolves following her from the initial pack came up the rear.

A thousand thoughts raced through her head, but a solution didn’t appear.

Because there wasn’t one.

She was cornered and completely surrounded.

Author’s Note: Out of the frying pan and into the fire with these two! New chapter is up next!