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  Braden lifted both hands and engaged his own battle energy. Red sparks flew at Ian’s shield.

  Ian pressed back, holding his blue energy tight, but Braden’s power pulsed heavy and strong. Ian knew he couldn’t hold out against the vampire’s enhanced ability for very long. So, rather than waste his resources on holding the shield, he chose to let it go and slowly allowed the blue vibrating wall to disintegrate.

  But Ian had more than one reason for giving ground. He would be able keep Regan safer this way since he could then control the physical battle with Braden better. And he could buy time for his troops to arrive.

  Braden offered a slow triumphant smile in return. He moved forward, his maniacal, Invictus gaze fixed on Ian. “I’ve been waiting for this day a long time. So make it good, Ian. I want you bruised all to hell when I finally smash the last bit of life out of your face.”

  Ian, his arm muscles flexing, lifted both hands in a pair of fists, grateful as never before that he wore his rings. He’d need every single one of them this night.

  He began with a taunt. “Had to suck up to a wraith to get the balls you need to fight? Is that it, traitor?”

  Braden’s lips curled, and he launched at Ian. He moved fast and caught Ian in the stomach. Ian flew back, landing with a heavy thud against a support beam, but remained standing.

  Braden drew back enough to wind up for a serious right hook. But Ian had been around a few decades and before Braden’s fist could land, he smashed Braden’s ribs with two quick hits. As Braden doubled over, Ian levitated backward just far enough that when he swung his booted foot, he landed a powerful kick in Braden’s gut.

  Braden grunted, then in a swift flash of movement, tucked, rolled and gained his feet a couple yards away from Ian. Braden didn’t rush in again, as he had because of Ian’s taunt. Instead, though breathing hard and protecting his left side with his elbow, he danced on his feet, side-stepping several times.

  Ian knew Braden was doing a quick self-heal. He watched the large bruising on the vampire’s bare stomach diminish steadily then vanish. So much power.

  Ian held back, moving his shoulders slowly, fists up. His gaze never left Braden. Stalling was good.

  Braden moved in again, only faster than before. He swept past Ian on his right and in the same split-second turned and caught Ian in a choke-hold.

  Ian reacted instinctively by grabbing the heavy muscular arm pressing against his windpipe. But he’d never be able to break the hold with his hands.

  He mentally regrouped quickly, shifted sideways just enough to slam his elbow into Braden’s ribs. The jolt caused Braden to reduce the pressure on Ian’s neck.

  Ian caught Braden’s arm in a tough grasp, then with a jerk of his hips and legs, flipped Braden over his head.

  Braden landed hard on his back. Ian felt the vibrations up both legs since the entire building shook. Braden had to be close to three hundred pounds.

  Again, Ian drew back several feet, needing more than anything to buy some time. But the next second, Braden rushed him while levitating, spun and kicked Ian hard in the face. Ian flew backward, his head hitting the stone hearth in front of the fireplace.

  “Ian,” Regan cried out.

  Ian slowly rose onto his knees, shaking his head. The kick had hurt like hell and his brain felt like it was upside down. He couldn’t pull his thoughts together. He needed time. But he didn’t get it, since Braden offered up his own heavy boot and kicked Ian repeatedly in the abdomen.

  Ian drew himself into a knot, taking the blows, but he couldn’t do much more than that. His head throbbed badly.

  When Braden shifted, and began kicking him in the spine, the blows added a whole new level of pain to the mix.

  ~ ~ ~

  Regan had watched the battle with her heart in her throat. Because Braden kept pounding Ian with his boot, she knew she had to do something or Ian would die.

  Her forearms vibrated powerfully with Ian’s battle energy. He’d said to go with her instincts so without giving it too much thought, Regan levitated and flew at lightning speed toward Braden. Just before she made contact, she flipped, kicked out with both feet while in a horizontal line and connected hard with the back of Braden’s skull. He flew against the fireplace, his forehead hitting the mantel. Down he went.

  The force of her kick sent her flying backward. But she accessed her levitation skill quickly and broke her fall, landing not far from Ian.

  Sitting up quickly, she placed a hand on his forearm over what she now thought of as blood tattoos. She gathered her healing vibration and let it flow. She was stunned by the level of power she was able to release and could feel it moving into Ian in a swift wave. A few seconds later, Ian sat up, his gray eyes wide as he stared at her.

  Holy shit, Regan. Your power. You’re healing me.

  She nodded, but her attention was caught by Braden next to her, now righting himself and levitating. She had to get out of the way and started to rise up when hands caught her from behind.

  Suddenly airborne, she realized the bonded wraith had engaged the battle as well. She launched Regan with tremendous Invictus power toward the windows.

  Regan would have hit one of the steel frames, but she was able at the last moment to reverse her course, charting a safer trajectory back into the room. Even so, she hit the floor hard.

  Shaken, she still forced herself to levitate, to gain her bearings.

  Ian was back to battling Braden, but where was the wraith?

  She caught sight of a red flash above her. The next instant, the wraith screeched and fell on Regan, pushing her on her back as she took her down to the wood floor.

  Power flowed from the wraith, a vibration she knew was all vampire because the woman had blended her being with Braden. She sat on Regan, pinning her down and using each of her hands to keep Regan’s arms from moving. Regan was completely helpless against the woman’s superior physical strength.

  She lifted Regan’s arms and crossed them at the wrists. Using only one of her hands, the wraith grabbed both wrists, holding Regan captive. In a clever maneuver, the wraith used Regan’s hands, pressing them to Regan’s face in order to force her head to the side.

  No. Oh, no. Sweet Goddess, no!

  From her peripheral vision, Regan saw the woman’s sharp fangs emerge. Invictus wraiths, given their maniacal state, were brutal feeders. The next moment, the wraith struck Regan’s throat with a swift, hard, painful blow. Opening the vein, she began to drink in deep gulps that had Regan crying out in agony.

  Wraiths took blood the same way vampires did, except that an Invictus wraith drank until there was so little left the heart stopped beating.

  Worse. Each sip powered the wraith even more.

  Fear became a cloud in Regan’s head, paralyzing her mind and preventing her from doing anything.

  Regan could hear Ian and Braden battling, so she knew she couldn’t rely on help from that quarter. She had to do something, or she would die this very night and she didn’t want to, especially not by the fangs of a heinous bonded wraith.

  She forced her breathing to ease and despite the pain and fear, she entered a meditative state. Slowly, her mind began to function again and her thoughts started coming together. Each fae had a different set of abilities. Vojalie had said she didn’t excel at spell-making, but Regan did.

  She also had something else: Ian’s blood tattoos on her arms offering her power to tap into.

  She focused on these things and a moment later new thoughts emerged. For one thing, her blood. The wraith was drinking her blood.

  Regan kept the power of the tattoos flowing and combined those strong vibrations with a focus on the bile in her body. She conjured a simple spell and though she might be ill afterwards, she could feel bile filling her stomach. With the power she now had through the blood tattoos, she let the bile leak into her blood stream a little at first, then a lot.

  A few seconds later, the wraith leaped off her, spewing a mouthful of Regan’s blood. A shriek f
ollowed, then she fell to the ground, rolling back and forth.

  Regan was unsteady as she levitated. Once more, Braden had the upper hand and pummeled Ian. She had to intervene. If she could kill the wraith, the vampire would lose his bonded power and Ian would be able to defeat Braden.

  Searching through the jumbled living room, she found a heavy pewter candlestick, flew toward it, and as soon as she had it in hand, turned and headed back to the wraith. Though gasping for air, the woman gained her feet.

  Regan pathed to Ian. I’m taking the bitch down. Be ready.

  Though she was sick to her stomach and her veins were on fire because of the bile, she jerked the candlestick up in a swift arc, and caught the wraith beneath her chin. The wraith flew backward, eyes fluttering. Her head connected with one of the steel window frames and she sank to the floor, unconscious.

  Regan moved swiftly to where the wraith lay. Her spine was twisted and she was barely breathing, but she was still alive.

  Regan had never been presented with this kind of problem before. She held the candlestick in her hand and had to make a decision, maybe the hardest she’d ever made.

  She’d never killed anyone in the course of her life, but did she dare let the wraith live?

  Her heart slammed around in her chest. Wraiths by nature weren’t evil, only when they’d been turned by Margetta’s foul means into an Invictus being.

  Holding the candlestick in an iron grip, she turned to see how Ian fared. An Invictus pair gained strength from each other in a constant flow of energy. Because the wraith was unconscious, Regan could tell that Braden had lost a good portion of his power. Ian now sat on the man’s chest and threw punch after punch, his rings helping to deliver a well-deserved beating. The mastyr was also nearly unconscious as well.

  She also heard sounds of a battle heating up outside the house. Relief flooded her since she knew the troops Ben had sent had finally arrived and were now engaging the rest of Braden’s Invictus force.

  Ian, she pathed, turning in his direction. I can’t do this. I’m sorry, but I can’t kill her.

  Ian rose up. Braden lay on his back, his face bloody, and he wasn’t moving.

  Ian was breathing hard as he looked at her over his shoulder. I wondered why Braden had suddenly succumbed. And you did this? He waved a hand in the direction of the prone wraith.

  Yes, through the power of the blood tattoo, but I can’t finish her off.

  I understand. What I want you to do is to put your hand on top of her head and release a small flow of battle energy. I’ll do the same here. That will keep each of them unconscious until we can get a retrieval squad from Bergisson over here.

  Really? Tears burned Regan’s eyes; she wouldn’t have to kill the woman after all.

  Yes.

  Are you sure?

  I am. Absolutely. I know how much this would hurt you and what you’ve just been through is bad enough.

  In all her long-lived life, Regan had never made use of her battle vibration until tonight. Earlier, she’d made use of Ian’s, but never her own. With it, she could stream energy powerful enough to hurt and even kill others.

  She placed her hand on top of the wraith’s head and let the smallest amount possible leave her hand. When it entered the wraith, the woman seized, moaning faintly, then her whole body went lax.

  Regan sensed the wraith would be out for hours.

  Shifting to glance at Ian who stood over Braden, she could see that Ian had put the traitorous vampire in the same state as his bonded mate, as though resting in a deep trance.

  It was over.

  She had blood all over her clothes from the wraith spewing Regan’s tainted blood. Ian was bleeding from several cuts and was bruised in a dozen different places.

  But they were both alive.

  “Regan, I’m sorry you had to go through this.”

  She crossed to him and when she drew close, he opened his arms. She all but threw herself against his chest and held him tight around the waist. She didn’t care they were both a mess. She let the tears flow.

  She was also nauseous from the bile and needed to cleanse her blood or she’d really be ill. For now, though, she needed Ian’s comforting embrace more than anything.

  Ben’s voice flowed into the space. “We’ve got the Invictus out here contained and Ethan’s team is on its way. A number are dead, but I’d say we have ten pairs we’ll be sending on to Bergisson Realm. Eleven, including these two.” With her face buried against Ian’s chest, she couldn’t see Ben, but she knew him well. He was Ian’s number-two Guardsman and almost as powerful as Ian. Camberlaune was fortunate to have two such powerful mastyrs serving the realm.

  “That’s good.” Ian’s chest rumbled as he spoke, his deep voice easing her a little more.

  Later, when the retrieval team arrived to take Braden and his bonded mate away, Regan went into the kitchen and drank two large glasses of water. She then invoked another spell and set about removing the bile from her blood. She also encouraged Ian to be with his Guardsmen especially since she needed some time alone.

  She went into the bathroom of her guest room, intending to wipe down. But when she saw how much blood spatter she had on her face, neck and in her hair, she stripped down and stepped into the shower. She let the warm water flow, then focused inward on her blood to continue the cleansing process.

  By the time she toweled off, put on fresh clothes, and set about drying her hair, she felt more like herself, just really sober, even grief-stricken from having gotten this close to the war.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A half hour later, Ian hovered in the air near the gorge cliff. The retrieval team had come and gone and now his men were doing a search for those Invictus who’d been struck down midair and fallen into the gorge.

  Three trolls, already planted in the afterlife, had been brought up and now lay in a row at the edge of the cliff. Their bonded wraiths lay near them as well, also dead.

  There would be more to come.

  It was tough seeing them stretched out. Each Realm-person had most likely been abducted and the bond forced on them. When it happened, these men and women became beast-like versions of themselves and anxious to make war.

  The Invictus fought with a ferocity matched only by trained Guardsmen or those shifters belonging to any of the Nine Realm Brigades.

  Aware how much he owed his second-in-command, Ian stood next to Ben. “Thanks for getting the troops here as fast as you did. You saved my ass.”

  “Grateful as hell we got here in time.” He glanced at the house. “But you’ll need new digs.”

  “I’ve thought of that. I’m going to take Regan to my cabin.” He should have taken her there in the first place. It was in the far northeastern part of his realm and high in the mountains. Given the distance from Margetta’s fortress on the border between Camberlaune and Stone’s realm, he was pretty sure he’d be free from any kind of Invictus attacks.

  No one knew where his cabin was except for one fae caretaker who lived several miles to the south of the dwelling and could be trusted to keep the place a secret.

  He hadn’t even shared the location with Ben, or the name of his caretaker, and he intended to keep it that way. He often went to his mountain retreat after a grueling night when too many of his people died and not enough Invictus had been saved to send to Bergisson for rehab.

  Right now, after almost dying at the hands of a wraith-bonded mastyr, he wanted Regan in his arms and the wind in his face as he flew northeast for about seventy miles.

  Stone appeared suddenly, topping the edge of the cliff, a dead female troll in his arms. Ian understood the hard expression on his face, especially since the troll wore slave chains pierced through her ears and nose. A lot of his Realm-folk were abducted and forced into slavery first. Later, they’d have to endure bonding with a wraith and the subsequent vaporizing of personality, long held beliefs, and basic Realm decency. As a result, most of those wraith-bonded would eventually die during a battle with
his Vampire Guard or his Brigade.

  Ian needed the war over.

  Stone laid the body next to a wraith. He rose, but remained where he was, his eyes closed. He was probably offering up a prayer of supplication to the Goddess to take her servant despite the sins of the wraith-bond. Ian had done the same thousands of times over the centuries.

  He crossed his arms over his chest and stared out across the gorge to the opposite cliff, beyond the tree line and into the southern night sky. A bright glow of stars burned along what he knew to be the Milky Way.

  His world shared the earth’s universe on a separate yet joined plane. His access point was Harrisburg, a city in Pennsylvania. He had a communication center there. Ben had seen to the construction and later the overall operations.

  Yet very few humans visited his realm anymore, not with so many Invictus attacks in Camberlaune.

  Stone moved to stand on Ian’s right. “Looks like they were after you or maybe Regan.”

  “I’m thinking both of us. I knew the mastyr; he’d served in my Guard for a long time. When he disappeared several years ago, I thought he was dead. Instead, he’d joined Margetta’s army.”

  “Fuck.” He then glanced at Ian, frowning. “How the hell did you defeat him? His power must have been off the charts because he was wraith-bonded.”

  “It was and actually I almost bought it, but Regan intervened. I’m not sure how she did it, especially since the bonded wraith attacked her.” He held up his arms. “We’ve been sharing power, though, because of these.”

  Stone peered at his arms. “What the hell is this?”

  Ian explained.

  Stone shook his head slowly. “And this allowed Regan to defeat a wraith. Sweet Goddess.”

  Ian turned to glance at the house, at the shattered windows. Regan was inside somewhere. “To my knowledge, this is the closest she’s ever been to a battle.”

  Stone sighed heavily. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand this whole blood rose thing that puts our women in harm’s way. It’s not fair to them.”