Devotion

time he'd asked me about mind signatures in the last fifteen minutes, and his own tone was full of impatience. 'Are you sure you can't get a cell signal?'

I'd asked him the same thing more than four times. For some reason, pushing buttons felt like the solution for relieving the pressure in my head.

'We're in the middle of fucking nowhere, Alexis. Do you see a tower anywhere nearby?'

Apparently, he felt the need for an argument, too, and the overwhelming urge to fight consumed me.

I threw my arms in the air. 'You're the big toy collector. Why don't you have one of those fancy satellite phones that get signals everywhere … even in the middle of fucking nowhere?'

'And when did I have time to buy one since leaving Hell?'

 'Well, let's see … maybe during that whole week doing whatever the hell you wanted before you came back to me?' I yelled.

He shot a vicious look at me and, for a brief moment, I expected to see the old fire in his eyes. That was a low blow, and I knew it. I didn't apologize, though. I didn't feel like it right now. I wanted to strangle anything I could get my hands around.

'So what now?' I asked sharply. 'Should we go back to Jax's?'

'Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you?' Tristan sneered.

'What? What's that supposed to mean?'

'I saw you ogling him out at the pond.'

'I wasn't ogling him! He was naked and standing right in front of us!'

'Which you didn't mind one bit, did you? Or the way he looked at you?'

I stopped in my tracks and stared at him as if he'd slapped me. What's wrong with him? This was not my Tristan. My Tristan was sweet and caring and definitely not jealous. He had no need to be. He was the center of my world, and absolutely no one could ever compare to him.

'I spent seven-and-a-half years waiting for you,' I spewed. 'It's always been you and no one else. How dare you!'

I glared at him, my fists balled on my hips. He glared back. Well, if he's going to be that way …

'At least Jax would be able to find this place. I trusted you to know what you're doing, and now we're lost.'

That did it. Tristan's perfect face twisted and contorted as several emotions tried to take over at once. The gold in his eyes sparked–not like they used to, with real flames, but like anyone's eyes when they're overcome with anger. My trust in him was sacred ground, not something to be thrown around lightly.

But before he could settle on any single emotion, something behind him caught my eye. The air itself wrinkled. I first thought it was the heat rising from the ground, but as I watched, it did it again and it was definitely … not normal.

'Oh! Tristan! I think we found it,' I shouted, my anger replaced by surprise and jubilation. 'Over here!'

I tugged on his hand, pulling him with me. We took two strides toward the wrinkle when a large Jeep burst out of that space, charging right at us. A musical laugh chimed over the grinding of tires on sand and gravel as the Jeep slid to a stop twenty yards in front of us. Tristan and I spun back around, but had nowhere to go. We were surrounded. Six Jeeps encircled us–some drivers and occupants with fangs, some with wands and yet others quivering, about to transform.

'Sorry to spoil your spat,' Vanessa chimed. 'I was quite enjoying it, and it kept you nicely distracted.'

Tristan squeezed my hand, and I knew he was about to flash and I was to follow him. But before we had a chance, the air around us whooshed upward and our surroundings suddenly changed, like an abrupt scene change in a movie. We stood in the center of a wide road, a handful of old, brick buildings and squat houses spread out beyond the Jeeps. Kuckaroo. Vampires, Weres and mages surrounded the jeeps that surrounded Tristan and me.

'These two are mine but the rest are fair game,' Vanessa yelled.

Chaos erupted. The vampires became blurred streaks as they flew at each other. Daemoni Weres changed on the fly as they lunged at their enemy cousins, bits of skin and goo–were-pulp–raining down on us. Magic spells shot around and across the circle. Jaws snapped. Buildings and Jeeps burst into flames. The screech of metal against stone echoed off the buildings.

Vanessa laughed maniacally, then lifted her arms and jumped toward me, flying across the twenty yards between us.

I knew what she planned to do before she did it, but I saw a chance to retrieve my necklace wrapped around her gloved arm, so I didn't stop her. Just as she was close enough to touch, her fangs bared for the bite, I ducked out of her way and reached for the pendant. My fingers brushed her ice-cold shoulder, and a spark crackled as they barely touched the ruby. Damn it! I missed, but her fangs didn't–they sliced across the inside of my arm, from wrist to inner elbow.

I didn't have vampire skin, but close enough, and, just as they can cut through their own skin, vampire fangs could cut through mine. Vanessa's left a deep gash that didn't heal instantly, and they couldn't have been more precise on the vein. Blood spurted to the rhythm of my speeding heart.

And I was suddenly surrounded by ravenous vampires. Including ours.

If there was any blood even Amadis vamps with the highest control couldn't resist, it would be mine. Owen had called it an energy drink for vamps–and that was before the completion of the Ang'dora. Now it was more powerful, and the vamps could smell it. They closed in on me.

Tristan growled deafeningly, and the vampires flinched. At once, he held one hand out and hit the Daemoni vampires with his power, and with his other hand, grasped my wrist, lifted my arm to him and ran his tongue along the gash. I could feel it starting to heal before, but his saliva sealed it instantly, stopping the blood flow.

'Well, isn't that sweet,' Vanessa sang right before Tristan swung his hand toward her. She disappeared with a pop.

Her retreat signaled the rest of the Daemoni. The vampires, disabled by Tristan, disappeared first. He hit the Weres the best he could without hitting our own as they fought, and the evil Weres ran away. We both aimed at the mages who shot spells everywhere, some hitting buildings, some hitting our people. We blasted them together, cutting off their spells, and they finally flashed, too.

The air hung still and silent long enough for me to take in the destruction–burning buildings and Jeeps sending smoke plumes skyward, injured Amadis moaning with pain and crumpled bodies lying motionless on the ground. But not long enough for someone to finish yelling 'Shield!'

Popping sounds filled the air as a new round of Daemoni appeared. After all these years, I still recognized the leprechaun face of Ian, the former Amadis who'd told me about the arranged marriage between Tristan and me, and the narrator of the beheading video. He quickly threw his hands in the air, as if in surrender, as he'd done with Tristan so many years ago.

'Just deliverin' a message,' he said with his Irish accent. 'You two stay 'ere, we keep attackin'.'

'You have no right,' Tristan yelled. 'These are innocents!'

Ian laughed his sick ogre's laugh, his red hair shaking and his pale blue eyes crinkling. 'But you ain't! And … so's ya know … the boy is ours.'

My breath caught. Dorian! The realization that he and Owen were supposed to be here slammed into me like a Mack truck. The thought of them in a burning building or among the bodies drained all of my sensibility.

'Dorian,' I yelled, turning around in circles, the obliterated village spinning in blurs. 'Owen! Dorian!'

A female vampire knelt in front of me and took my hand. 'They're not here, Miz Alexis.'

I turned to Tristan, jerking my arm away as the vamp sniffed at the drying blood. The gold in his eyes was dim, the green dark, his expression unfathomable.

'They have him?' I shrieked with near hysteria.

Ian laughed. And I couldn't help it. Every time I saw the disgusting ogre, he was laughing at my heartbreak. I didn't electrocute him, though. Ian hated the Amadis in a different way than other Daemoni–he held a vendetta for his own heartbreak by my mother, who rejected his advances. So I pushed all my Amadis power through my hand and directed it right at his chest. Love, hope and faith … everything good wrapped into a thick rope of energy that I jammed into his heart. He fell to the ground, writhing.

Maniacal laughter–laughter at his misery–bubbled in my chest, but I managed to suppress it. I'd torture Ian until he begged for mercy and would only let up long enough to take what I needed from his mind. And then I