Much Ado About Vampires

through his body and left him breathless with the need to scream, but he knew that would be a wasted effort.

Instead, he pushed the pain down, fighting to keep his mind clear of the agony that threatened to consume him. Only when he was in control of it did he open his eyes and look up at Kristoff as his arm was bound to his chest.

“Thanks,” he said, his voice coming out cracked and rough with pain.

Kristoff gave him a smile, but was immediately pushed out of the way by Pia, who bent over him, her face wet with tears, as she said, “Alec! Don’t speak!”

“Hello, Pia,” he said, summoning up a little smile for her.

“Hush! And stop trying to move. Kristoff has bound up your neck and shoulder, but you shouldn’t try to move anything until after the healer comes to take care of you.”

He was touched by the evidence of Pia’s tears, but his thoughts, inevitably, turned to Cora. What had she thought when she first believed he was dead? Was she angry? Sad? Relieved?

Try devastated beyond human belief, and if you don’t do what Pia says and relax so you can heal, you’ll find out just how cranky feelings of devastation make me.

Alec relaxed, smiling once again to himself at the gentle caress of her mind, ignoring both the hunger that gnawed deep inside him and the pain that lingered even as his body struggled to make whole once again that which had been destroyed.

He drifted for a bit, jerking back to awareness only when some vague sense of danger finally permeated his dulled senses.

With tremendous strength, he shoved himself away from where he was slumped against the wall, staring with growing fury at the scene before him. “You would do this now? ” he snarled in a rough, almost unrecognizable voice as he struggled to his feet, one arm still bound to his chest. “Kris, you should have stopped Sally.”

“Oh, for the love of god,” Pia muttered, hurrying over to him. “Don’t distract Cora! Sally said it’s very important that no one disrupt the process, or she’ll lose control of Bael.”

Beloved, what the hell do you think you’re doing?

Cora shot him a startled glance before facing the monstrosity that snarled and screamed in front of her. I’m helping get rid of Bael. You’re the one who said that’s what needs to be done. Why are you up? How do you feel? Are you in pain? You are, aren’t you? I can feel you hiding something from me. Lay back down, you silly man, and I’ll feed you as soon as I’m done here.

“I am not a child that you must order me around,” he answered, trying to wrap his dignity around him, but it was difficult to do so while listing heavily to one side.

Cora must have noticed the list. “Sit down before you hurt your owies.”

“I am a Dark One!” he said, managing to stand upright at last, ignoring the pain and tearing feeling on his left side. “We do not have owies! We have grievous, nearly fatal injuries!”

The entity that was Bael in his true form writhed and twisted upon itself as it cursed in Latin.

“Seriously?” Sally said, tsking and shaking her head at the horrible sight. “I don’t think you’re in any position to make threats like that.”

“Pia,” Cora said, not taking her eyes from the nowconstantly morphing figure of Bael, his form changing from human to demonic and all variations in between. “Would you please get Alec a chair before he does more damage to, or topples over from, his grievous, nearly fatal injuries?”

Bael shifted his form from that of a horned, pustulated, slimy demonlike being to the form he wore previously. “You will suffer as no one has ever suffered,” he told Sally, his eyes literally glowing red. “Do not think that my generosity with you in the past will affect my punishment of this insurrection.”

“It’s mutiny, I think. Isn’t it?” Sally asked Diamond.

Alec lurched over to Cora’s side, wrapping one arm around her protectively. Do not fear, Beloved. I am here to protect you.

My fear is for you, not me, silly, she answered, but with her words came a warm rush of love so great it almost brought him to his knees in profound gratitude. You idiot man, you.

“Death will seem like heaven by the time I’m done with you,” Bael snarled at Sally, impotent to act, clearly bound by his own power that Sally was using against him. The three Tools stood in a semicircle before her, their hands touching, providing an arc through which the power was focused directly at Bael, bathing the demon lord in a blue-black light.

“Here, Alec, sit in this.” Pia dragged the mangled remains of a chair over toward him. He didn’t spare it so much as a glance.

“Your death, when it pleases me to end your torment, will be my most exquisite act yet,” Bael promised her, his voice stretched thin as he fought the bonds of his own power. “I will make you wish that no woman had ever pushed you from her body!”

Diamond giggled.

“Oh, Bael, and I hoped we could do this without threats and name-calling,” Sally said, sadly shaking her head.

“Hope has deserted you,” Bael growled in a voice that made Alec want to push Cora behind him.

“You think?” Sally tipped her head to the side, and smiled. “You know, for one of the most powerful beings on the planet, you’re awfully careless about what goes on in Abaddon, specifically . . . but no, you probably aren’t interested.”

“Careless? I am never careless. Every action, every detail, has been part of my master plan.” Bael looked almost insulted at such an accusation. “Do not allow your ignorance to confuse lack of attention with indepth schemes the like of which you will never understand.”

“Really? ” Sally gave a one-shouldered shrug. “So then you knew all along who I am?”

Alec heard something in her voice that had him (painfully and with much stiffness) turning to look at her. Kristoff’s eyebrows were raised, indicating that he, too, had picked up on it. He glanced at Cora. She seemed perfectly in control, her expression serene.

Bael’s eyes narrowed until they were little black slits. “Your role in my plan has always been minor, and thus, your origins concern me not.”

“Oh, you say things like that and I just can’t resist showing you,” she responded with a light, tinkling laugh, and for an infinitesimally small fraction of a second, a golden flash of light blinded Alec. It was gone before he could even blink, but he knew by the expression of profound disbelief on Bael’s face that he hadn’t imagined it.

“You . . . that can’t . . . how . . .” Bael got a grip on himself and took a deep breath, obviously in preparation for what was likely to be a group-wide curse. Alec couldn’t risk Cora being injured, and lurched toward the demon lord to stop him.

“Silence!” Sally commanded, her voice a whipcrack that was almost painful to hear. Alec hesitated, glancing at her. “As delightful as it would be to chitchat more, Diamond has things to do, and Cora’s Dark One appears to be under the misimpression that he is well enough to stand, so I’ll cut this short and simply say that Bael, known also as Beelzebub, premiere prince of Abaddon, ruler of seven hundred legions, by this light, by my virtue, by my being, I do banish thee.”

Bael’s scream of pure hate was a horrible thing to behold, the rage in it so great, it slammed through the room with the impact of a small bomb. Alec staggered backward, doing his best to protect Cora from it despite the pain that seared through his still damaged body. He gritted his teeth, fighting to keep from losing consciousness, determined with every atom of his being to protect her or die trying.

So melodramatic. Are you going to be like this when you get a cold? Because my ex-husband used to be the biggest baby in the world whenever he got sick or hurt, but he has nothing on the sort of thing you’re thinking right now. As if I’d let you die.

You seem to be confused about our roles, he answered, slowly straightening up as the last echo of Bael’s scream faded. He helped Cora over a small table that had been sent flying toward them. I am the Dark One; you are the Beloved. I protect you. That is my role in life.

And here I was hoping it was to provide me with never-ending highly erotic nights, she said with a faux sigh, her arm sliding around his waist as she leaned into him, the scent of her making his head spin with need and happiness and hunger.

“That’s . . . that’s it?” Pia asked as she and Kristoff slowly picked their way across the furniture that had been