Crimson Covenant (Onyx Assassins 1)

“Damn it!” the Scot yelled, but it was all so far away. Every beat of my heart pumped more of my life force out of the holes in my flesh, while something else burned in my veins, spreading quickly.

“Move, baby vampire,” Genevieve snapped.

“She’s the best healer there is,” Benedict urged.

Cool hands covered my belly.

My eyes searched for Lyric’s as her hand found mine, squeezing tight. Then those emerald orbs filled my vision as she forced a smile.

“You’re going to be okay.” She pushed my hair back with trembling fingers. “He’s going to be okay, right?” She glanced back over her shoulder.

“There’s too much blood loss,” Genevieve muttered. “Hold on, I think I can get…”

Icy relief spread along my wounds like frost, its tendrils sealing up veins and patching organs, but the burning only intensified, racing toward my heart like it could sense the witch’s magic.

“Oh, God, the Night Thistle. I can’t stop the Night Thistle,” Genevieve whispered.

“Kill. Me.” I managed to croak as the burn reached my throat.

“Never!” Lyric shouted, poising her neck over my mouth. “Feed!”

“Stop her!”

“No!”

“Fuck!” Lachlan roared, using both hands to pry Lyric off me. “He’ll kill you, lass!”

The burn gripped my heart, transforming it into a ball of pain as Benedict and Hawke lifted me, moving quickly toward a door.

“Let me go!” Lyric shouted, and I tried to roll, but my strength was gone. My entire body was cold, and my heartbeats were coming slower and slower. “I’ve fed him when he was starving before! I’m not afraid!”

“You’ve never fed a Night Thistled vampire, lass! He won’t stop. He’ll kill everything with a heartbeat!”

“Kill. Me,” I demanded, looking at Hawke. “Leave. Me. To burn.”

Being incinerated by the sun was far more merciful than what awaited me once the Night Thistle took complete hold, and it was close, creeping up my spinal cord with insidious fingers of flame.

“There has to be a cure!” Lyric shouted.

“You’re a Seer, aren’t you?” Genevieve asked, calm and collected.

“So I’ve been told.” Their voices faded as my vision blackened at the edges, tunneling me out. Good. Maybe I’d lost enough blood that I’d die before the Night Thistle had a chance to do its worst.

“We have to get him to Gabriel!” Benedict snapped as the cool air of predawn hit my face.

“Blood bags. Chains. We’ll do what we can to save our king,” Lachlan ordered. I’d chosen my second well. He’d protect Lyric when I was gone. He’d advise Avianna and keep the nobles from rising up against her reign.

“Funny that the demons always called you Seers when we always knew your kind as remediums,” Genevieve mused as Benedict shifted his grip, preparing to wend. “Maybe they just heard the ‘medium’ part and figured you could see through glamours so—”

“Cut the etymology lesson and get to the point!” Lyric snapped.

“Humans.” Genevieve snorted. “You’re the counterbalance. Figure it out, or you don’t deserve him.”

Ice and dark washed over me as the feral strands of madness wove through my brain, burning with so much pain I couldn’t even cry out from it. Couldn’t fight it.

Then Gabriel’s lights were in my eyes, and I felt incredible weight at my hands and ankles as I snapped my teeth toward the movement near my head.

“We’re going to lose him!” Benedict shouted.

I fought for rational thought. For logic. For anything besides the clawing, demanding need for blood that turned my throat into an inferno of thirst.

Blood.

Lyric. I loved Lyric. If I could just hold onto that bond—to her, I’d pull through this.

Agony prickled into every cell of my body like I’d been stabbed in every molecule with the thorns of the thistle.

Lyric! I called out to her along the bond one last time.

My vision went thermal, and I ceased to exist.

Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood.

20

Lyric

I slammed the tome on the table, the sound echoing throughout the library like a death knell.

My fingers trembled as I frantically flipped through the yellowed, crinkled pages. Dust floated around me, the light from the chandelier catching on the particles like a prism.

Remediums. Remediums. Remediums.

The word Genevieve had thrown in my face back at the Moorehouse compound pricked my brain over and over and over again.

You’re the counterbalance. Figure it out, or you don’t deserve him.

Her words echoed in the recess of my mind, each time ratcheting up my fury. The witch may have centuries of age and power on me, but this was my mate’s life. When he returned to me, and he would return to me, I’d have to remind Genevieve just who the fuck I was.

Queen of the Vampires.

Mate to the most powerful being of all—Alek.

But…later.

I willed breath into my tight, aching lungs, and focused all my rage-fueled energy into finding that word. A foggy memory, from my early days as a human in this estate, tempted me just beyond reach. I’d seen the term the witch mentioned before, and if I could just find it—