Heir (Bloodline Vampires 2)

Alive.

I exhale slowly. I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, and then they backed over me a few times for good measure. Everything hurts. Not just muscles and bone, but down to a cellular level. My throat feels like someone took sandpaper to it while I wasn’t paying attention. It takes me three tries to speak. “What the hell was that?”

“Fucking seraph bonds,” Rylan murmurs against my throat. I can’t tell if he’s angry or just exhausted. “Apparently there’s more to this bag of tricks than I realized.”

I blink at the ceiling, waiting for his words to make sense. They don’t. “Please explain,” I manage.

“Later.”

As much as I want to argue, he’s right. I don’t have the strength to form more than a few words at a time. They start to shift, and every one of them is moving like they feel as terrible as I do. What was that?

Rylan rolls off me, and I try to sit up. I get as far as planting my hands on the floor and the sight that greets me has me staring blankly. Surely those aren’t my hands? Except they can’t be Rylan’s because I can see his hands where he lays next to me. “Um.”

“Um?” This from Wolf. He’s thrown his arm over his eyes as if even the light of the fireplace is too bright for him.

I flex my hands. They move. Which means they’re mine, after all. I swallow hard. “I have claws.”

“Cute.”

I flex them again. Each of my fingers is tipped with a shining silver claw. They’re almost pretty, dainty and deadly with a wicked curve that’s designed for slicing and tearing. “No, I mean I literally have claws. Like Rylan.”

“Funny story…” Wolf lifts his arm off his eyes and flicks his fingers. Sparks dance in the air above him, morphing into a ribbon of flames. It dissipates almost immediately, but there’s no denying that it was there.

That puts the strength back into my body. “What the hell is going on?”

Rylan’s arm shifts to some kind of large cat and then back to human. “I still have my powers.” He frowns. “But I can feel the flames, too. And the blood coursing through all three of your bodies.”

Now that he mentions it, I can as well. The fire sounds almost like a siren song. It makes me want to reach out and…

The flames flare up in response.

I silence the thought and they die back down to normal levels in response. “This is bad.”

“Is it?” Malachi hefts himself up to lean against the couch. He looks as exhausted as I feel, but there’s a contemplative expression on his face that means he’s thinking six moves ahead. “This will be incredibly useful.”

“If Cornelius gets ahold of us, it will be useful to him.” Rylan doesn’t sound as icy as normal. He’s too busy toying with the flames of the fireplace, making them surge and flow. “This is fascinating. It feels so different from mine.”

I start to wrap my arms around myself, but stop when I scratch my skin with my new claws. “How do I put them away?”

“Concentrate.” Rylan’s still distracted with the flames. “Picture it and they’ll retreat.”

How am I supposed to concentrate when my world has just been turned upside down again? Having seraph powers is one thing—I still haven’t come to terms with it. Having Bloodline powers? My throat gets tight and panic flutters in my chest. “I don’t know how to control this.”

“Mina—”

“I don’t have training. I can’t shield. I have no experience.” My voice is getting higher and higher with each word, but I can’t make myself stop. “This is too much! I’m going to get us killed.”

“Mina.” Malachi crawls to me and pulls me into his arms. “It will be okay. This is a good thing.”

“It doesn’t feel like a good thing. It feels like I’m a fucking freak. How am I supposed to deal with this?” I wave my hand, and it’s as if my powers snag on every drop of blood in Wolf’s body. He jerks several inches to the side. “Oh my gods.” I clench my fists and bury my face in Malachi’s chest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

Wolf laughs, the sound a little hoarse. “Kinky.”

“It might not be permanent,” Malachi says slowly. “Relax. Let’s get cleaned up and we’ll figure it out like we have everything else up to this point.”

“By fighting and snarling at each other?”

His chest moves against my cheek in a soundless laugh. “Together.”

The chair is ruined and blood has stained the rug. There’s no cleaning this up. I dread what replacing those things will cost, but the men don’t seem overly worried about it. When I ask, Rylan gets a strange smile on his face. “The owner of this place has cleaned up worse messes than this. It will be fine.”