A Cursed Embrace

Shayna went to work following her initial shock. She tried a faucet from the old broken sink and the chains supporting the beds, but the alloys proved too thick and she remained too weak to transform them. Emme thought to use a piece of broken bedspring. I pried it loose and dropped it in her hands. After several efforts to draw her power, Shayna’s gift triggered and released between her fingers. A glimmer of light spiraled along the metal, changing its shape into a tiny sword, slightly larger than the plastic kind used in cocktails and with a blade thick and deadly enough to slice through stone. Yes, that will do.

Shayna panted and paled, immediately slicing the ropes that bound my wrists. I freed her and Emme, and then Emme unlocked our cell. Their efforts wiped them out, but there was no time to waste. We hugged each other quickly and headed for the door leading out of death row.

I peered through the small window. Only four vampires stood guard by the door. The lockdown unit boomed loudly with manic cackles and famished hisses, loud enough to distract the vamps from noticing me. Uncertainty punctured through to my skull until I spotted the locking mechanism closest to where the infected vampires were housed.

Emme stood at my urging and nodded when I pointed to her target. I held my breath and watched, praying she had enough strength left. Her face reddened from her grueling effort, but the latch did move, inch by agonizing inch. Finally she gave one last mental heave and about thirty cells popped open.

For a moment, everything went quiet. But then the bloodlusters recognized their golden opportunity. And took full advantage.

They broke through their chains and out of their cells, turning the unit into an all-you-can-eat buffet. Mayhem erupted. I grabbed my sisters and hauled them along. It was hard. I limped badly, but still fared better than Emme. She barely managed to stay on her feet. We crept along the walls until we snuck behind a huge werebison pummeling his way toward the exit.

Misha, if you’re coming, now would be a good time to show up.

No one noticed our escape at first. I’d just caught the first whiff of fresh air when a werecat clinging to the rafters yelled and pointed our way. By chance, the only attention he received was from a charging bloodluster. He tackled the werecat and brought him down to the cracked concrete, cutting off the cat’s gurgled screech in one voracious bite.

We hit the yard and I immediately dragged my sisters behind a row of bushes. The expanse was too open to cross without being seen, so we adhered to the shadows and shrubbery along the building until we reached the rear of the prison. I peeked around the bushes. No one seemed to be around, but my senses remained too dulled for me to be certain.

I tried shifting into the ground, hoping to transport us beneath the wall and away from this nightmare. Except my body remained stubbornly aboveground, and my head pounded from the effort. I gathered my prowess and turned to my sisters. “Okay, you’re going over the wall. Stand on my hands and I’ll throw you to the top.” I knelt by Emme and cupped my hands to show her. “Try to roll as you land. It’ll help absorb the impact and prevent you from getting hurt.”

Emme glanced toward the high wall. “What about you? How will you get over?”

Emme’s eyes widened the longer it took me to answer. Shayna grabbed my arm. “You aren’t coming with us, are you?”

“I can’t, Shayna.”

Her breaths released in short, horrified bursts. “Is it because of Aric?”

“No. It’s because I want you to live.” I swallowed hard. “It won’t take the Tribe long to discover we’re gone. If I can distract them from finding you, I will.”

Emme flung her arms around my neck. “Celia, we can’t leave you.”

“You have to.” I ripped Emme off and held her away. “Just go. Misha will find me in time.” I dragged them to the wall before they could argue.

Tears slicked Shayna’s face. “What if Misha doesn’t show?”

I stilled, knowing Misha might not arrive in time. “Then don’t let me die in vain.”

Shayna allowed me to toss her, though she continued to openly weep. In my weakened state, I barely managed to get her to the ledge. She hung on with her good arm and used her legs to climb the rest of the way. Her thighs straddled the wall as she waited for Emme.

I sent Emme soaring, only to have a demon child catch her midair while another swooped down and captured Shayna. We had come so close!

“Going somewhere?” a grotesque voice gurgled behind me.

I spun around. A clawed hoof caught me in the chest and shoved me to the ground. To my right, demon children restrained Emme and Shayna. They cried when the creatures hissed menacingly and snapped at them with their fangs.

The demon that held me dug his dagger-sharp nails deeper to gain my attention. I let out a pained grunt. “I am Matar, the Tribemaster,” he said. “Father of your unborn children.”

Chills pelted my body like sleet. Matar’s voice triggered a memory I’d long since suppressed. I’d been wrong. The demon Aric fought in Death Valley had not been the one to possess Misha. That one, and the one I’d killed, had lacked the speech capacity and the shrewd gleam dominating the demon lord that held me. The Death Valley demons had been more hungry carnivores, in search of food. Matar . . . his red eyes blinked back at me with the keen intelligence of a true predator.

Jesus.

Matar towered eight feet above me. Hideous yellow fangs glowed against his silver-scaled body and wings, wrinkling in the grooves of his face and giving him a scarred appearance. And to complete the scary-monster- from-hell look, he flaunted a snakelike tail that whipped around to caress my cheek. “I’ve been watching you since first learning of your exoneration from vampire court.” Matar motioned to the side, where the damned wereweasel who’d photographed Aric and me snickered. If I wasn’t pinned down and terrified, I would have killed the shifty bastard.

My head angled back to face off with my captor. Aric feared his presence would place me in danger. Here, I’d managed to do that on my own. Yet I failed to feel regret just then. What I did feel was resentment, and hate. Matar and his band of goddamn misfits had tortured, kidnapped, killed, and raped, spilling enough blood and horror to overflow a river. My jaw clenched. “What the hell do you want with me?”

“I told you. I want to breed with you, Celia. And your sisters.” Matar’s voice reverberated with desire. His clawed fingers tugged the waistband of my jeans. “The problem was stealing you from those who guard you. I tired of waiting and ordered my tribe to take you yesterday. No matter the price.” Matar’s face twisted into a gruesome smile. “I’m only disappointed they failed to obtain your other sister. She sounds delicious.”

Matar’s sentence structure was casual, very unlike the sinister tone of his voice, which rumbled as if he gargled with broken glass. God, he literally looked and sounded like hell.

I tried to squirm, but couldn’t budge under the weight of his foot. “Why us?” I choked.

The claw on Matar’s big toe poked my already injured shoulder. I gasped, biting back a scream. He frowned, displeased by my lack of suffering. “Like all my brothers, I am the product of a demon father and a witch mother. Our mothers’ magical strength makes us indestructible and allows us to spend unlimited time on earth.”

Matar’s head tilted to the side as his toe dug deeper into my flesh. This time I couldn’t squash my shriek. Matar smiled, satisfied. “Powerful magic wielders are scarce, Celia. We’ve fertilized mostly humans, giving us spawn, but none that matched our power. Then you and your sisters came to my attention.” His body shuddered with obvious arousal. “With your magic, and my spores, the unimaginable will rise from your wombs.”

“Oh my God,” Emme whimpered behind me.

I knew how she felt. Every hair on my body stood at attention and begged for a quick death. “Why destroy the weres and the vamps?” I asked in hope of distracting him from our apparently enticing wombs. It didn’t work. The scent of his increasing arousal reached my human nose and clenched my bowels.

“We can’t conquer the world without killing those who guard it. And the vampires will never bow down to us.” He let out a ghostly eerie cackle, flapping his wings with apparent delight. “Ironic, isn’t it? Their own outcasts will aid us in their destruction.”

“Excuse me for interrupting, Tribemaster.” A trembling vampire knelt beside Matar, his head bowed low