Primal Kill (The Order of Vampires #5)

Chapter 35

CHAPTER 35

P ain radiated from Dane’s skull through his spine when he coughed, blood spilling from the deep grooves scored across his chest as his throat pulsed and burned. His eyes could hardly open. Fear sparred with feebleness as a blade angled toward him in the misshapen hand of the stranger glaring possessively at Gracie.

Lazarus lurched closer only to still when threatened by the heavily armed man. “Move any closer to her, and I’ll end you.”

Lazarus stilled his intent to offer Dane his vein. “There must be some mistake?—”

“There is no mistake. I’ll collect my mate. Then, you may carry on as you wish.”

Dane’s blood chilled to ice. The gash at the back of his head was deep and in need of attention. Words were jumbled, and he must have misunderstood what was being said .

Lashes heavy with blood, he scanned the cave. Juniper lay in a puddle of carnage on the floor. Adriel panted in a heap only a few feet away, her arm outstretched to reach her. Lazarus huddled before him, and Gracie stood between him and this dog-like creature.

What are you doing here, Grace?

Fury bubbled up inside of him, but a brutal cough seized his lungs the moment he tried to speak. Gracie stood in front of the man as he bared a wicked blade, her shoulders heaving as she caught her breath and stared at the dagger.

Gracie! Dane couldn’t get into her head.

Her dress was covered in blood. Was she hurt?

“Grace…” Dane sputtered through the gurgling coughs choking him. His damp shirt clung to his body, soaked through with his own sweat and blood. Weakness slowed him as much as pain, but he had to pull her back. “Gracie.”

A growl snapped from the man’s throat as his glowing green stare locked with Dane’s.

What was he? Part wolf, part man? Dane had never seen such a creature. And why was he looking at Gracie in such a possessive way.

“Grace, are you hurt?”

She glanced back at Dane as if she’d forgotten he was there. Uncertainty flashed in her eyes, and she glanced back to the rugged man holding the knife. She appeared unharmed. Was the blood on her his?

Looking down at his ravaged chest, Dane noted how much had spilled. He glanced back at Lazarus, who struggled to crawl to him. They needed to heal.

Adriel crept slowly toward June, but neither was capable of walking. Eleazar stood against the wall near Christian. They were all watching the stranger with the blade.

“Do you not recognize me?” the man asked, his eyes locked with Gracie’s.

She took a step back, her hand fluttering to her chest. The smoke cleared as the dust settled, and only Cerberus’s charred remains burned in the back of the cave. Adriel pulled herself closer to Juniper, the blanket dragging behind her. Regret flashed in her stare when she looked at Dane, and his addled brain slowly caught up.

No.

He looked back at Grace, who stared at the man.

“Who are you?” she finally asked, and Dane’s heart sank.

By the possessive way the creature watched her, he knew this was his enemy.

He was a maker of nightmares, a stealer of souls.

He was the reason she was called to this very place in time.

He came for one purpose only—to take her away from him.

The pain in Dane’s chest became unbearable. “No!”

She wasn’t meant to be here! She never left the farm, and yet, here she was. This had to be a horrific dream. He didn’t trust his blurred vision as his pounding head tried to process. There seemed a lethal wound tunneling through his heart, but he found no opening there.

“My name is Darius St?rm. I am of the shadow-wolves, and I’ve come a long way to find you.”

“Me?” Gracie took another step back.

“Yes. You’re the female from my visions.”

She shook her head. “That’s impossible. I’m immortal.”

“That is an unexpected complication but not one that will change our circumstances. You are my mate.”

“The hell she is!” Dane dragged himself up, only to slip and lose his balance in the puddles of blood.

Gracie instinctively reached out an arm to help him but froze when the stranger growled. “I wouldn’t.”

She scowled and turned her glare on him. “I haven’t had a calling?—”

“You keep your mind blocked. The gods guided me here.” He frowned at the burning body behind him. “Do you typically engage in dangerous crusades with lethal predators? Are you some sort of vigilante?”

Gracie nearly choked on a laugh. “I’ve never even left the farm…” Her words faded as her frown deepened. “I’ve had no symptoms.”

“I said stay back.” The shadow-wolf’s glare cut to Dane as he struggled to his feet, gripping his side and wavering from blood loss.

Fuck this guy. “Only true immortals can be called.”

The corner of his mouth curled in a half smile, a sharp canine fang flashing as he scoffed. “Who told you that?”

“It’s true,” Gracie argued. As someone who let faith mold her entire life, she would know.

The shadow-wolf frowned. “No, it’s not.” He looked at the others. “Someone has lied to you.”

“Bullshit.” Dane lurched forward and staggered back when a sharp dagger plunged into the cave floor, a mere inch from his boot.

“One more step, and you’re in the fire.”

Dane’s stare found Gracie’s. What the hell is going on? Grace? Gracie! But her mind remained locked to him.

Lazarus shifted with a grunt and pushed off the ground. His arms and legs were drenched with blood, making it impossible to see where his injuries began. The shadow-wolf growled, but Lazarus held up his palms. “I must check on my mate.”

They held their collective breaths as he lurched to the cave entrance. Lilias threw herself at him, coming out of nowhere and speaking frantically in their ancient language, already pushing her wrist at her mate, insisting he feed.

Lazarus stilled her hand and met the Bishop’s stare. “Thank you for protecting her and providing blood when I was unable to meet my duty and she was in need. I am forever in your debt.”

“There is no debt, friend.” Eleazar’s gaze returned to the shadow-wolf. “It is unusual to see your kind this far east.”

“I do not plan to stay long.”

Lazarus and Lilias stood back, hands locked and their longing stares protectively pinned on their daughter. He drew his mate’s arm closer and casually started to feed.

Did no one care that this stranger was planning to steal Gracie away?

“Eleazar, did you hear what he wants?” Dane snapped. “Is anyone going to say something?”

“We heard, Dane.” The Bishop looked at Grace, then at the shadow-wolf. “May I?”

The shadow-wolf considered Eleazar for a long moment, then nodded. The Bishop approached her slowly, never attempting to touch her or stand too close. “Grace, do you recognize him?”

Jaw trembling, she looked up at the Bishop with shimmering, trusting eyes, desperately seeking council. She shook her head.

“Have you opened your mind?”

“There’s nothing to search!” This was ridiculous. “He’s not like us,” Dane snapped.

The shadow-wolf scoffed. “Not like you , half-breed.” His attention returned to Grace. “I had a vision of you standing where you’re standing now. I come with only honor and integrity in my heart. ”

Eleazar frowned. “Why are you here, Grace? You did not have permission to leave the farm.”

Fear filled her eyes, and her chin trembled. “I was worried. Dane said there would be great danger. I know it was reckless, but I felt compelled to follow you. It was only out of concern.”

“Compelled or called?”

Darius held up his hands. “There has been no compulsion on my part. My visions started months ago.”

“How is this possible?” Her whole body shook like a leaf. “I’ve not had any symptoms, and he’s… not like us.”

“There are always exceptions to the rules, child?—”

“This is horse shit!” Dane snapped. “Since when are there fucking exceptions?”

“Easy,” Lazarus warned with a staying hand. “This shadow-wolf does not want trouble, Dane.”

“Fuck him! Grace, you do not have to go with him.”

“Grace,” the Bishop said in a much calmer voice, which she responded to. “An unexpected calling is no less righteous. If it is God’s will, it is your sacred duty.”

She looked down, tears shimmering in her eyes. “I know my purpose.”

“Then you must honor it.”

Dane’s body vibrated with uncontainable rage. “Gracie! Don’t listen to them! Eleazar, what the fuck are you telling her? This is not your goddamn purpose, Grace. You don’t even recognize him!”

He might not be a full-bread immortal capable of a calling, but he’d dreaded this outcome long enough to learn how these things work. This jacked-up, dog-looking mother fucker was not part of her destiny.

“You have a family waiting for you at home.”

“Now, she has a pack. That’s all she needs.”

“A pack? Fuck your pack!”

The wolf growled, and Lazarus clasped a hand on Dane’s shoulder before he could take another step. “Excuse my friend.”

The wolf curled his lips, then sniffed the air and smirked.

“What the fuck are you grinning at?”

His fanged sneer stretched wider. “They don’t know, do they?”

Dane jerked his arm, but Lazarus’s grip was unbreakable. “Know what?”

“What you are. They think your immortal half is like their bloodline.”

The blood rushed from his face. Gracie looked at him with deep concern. Dane couldn’t speak. He wouldn’t lie, but he also couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“Should I tell them?”

He looked to Lazarus, who had protected and accepted him. And the Bishop, who—despite their differences—gave him a safe place to live and advocated to keep his sister alive. Was this the last time they’d look at him like a normal person? The moment they pieced together his draugr roots, they would view him as a parasite.

His stare returned to Grace. He didn’t want her to know. It was bad enough he was already a half-breed. He couldn’t bear to become anything less in her eyes.

The wolf’s stare followed his, and understanding dawned. “I see.” He closed the distance, softening his stare as he looked into her confused eyes. “It’s Grace then?”

“G-Grace. Or G-Gracie,” she stammered.

His smile gentled. “Gracie.”

The wolf looked back at Dane triumphantly, challenge in his cold green eyes. One wrong move, and he had the power to ruin him with only words. Turning back to Grace, he held her stare.

“I want you to open your mind, Grace. You’ll find me there.”

She looked nervously at Dane, then the Bishop. Eleazar nodded. Gracie shut her eyes and swayed. The wolf steadied her.

“Tell me what you see, min p?rla ?”

Her breath hitched and her lashes fluttered open. Tears filled her eyes as breath rushed past her trembling lips. “I don’t understand.”

“What has you confused?”

“I…saw you, but I can’t read you.”

His smile fell and his brow creased. “Try again.”

She closed her eyes in concentration. Lifting her hand, he pressed her palm to his chest. “I’m here. My mind is open to you.”

Her frown deepened, then she blinked and shook her head. “There’s nothing.”

“Because he’s a shadow-wolf,” Lazarus explained. “They’re unreadable to immortals.”

Darius frowned. “My pack brothers will explain it to us. Perhaps there is something to be done.”

“No way,” Dane argued. “If she can’t read you, there’s no calling.”

“Dane.” The Bishop’s tone carried heavy warning. “What did you see, Grace?”

“I…” Gracie glanced at the Bishop then back to the wolf. “Us. It was hazy, but he was there. We both were.”

“Where, child?”

“A castle hidden deep in the Alps, buried by long winters and protected by cold winds. I saw stone walls and lavish tapestries. The scent of fire and fur.”

“Yes,” the shadow-wolf agreed. “Winters are long, but the privacy is cherished and our blood runs warm. There are plenty of acres for hunting, and the locals rarely bother us.”

Was anyone really buying this?

“What about my family?” she asked and Dane gaped at her. “My possessions…”

When the shadow-wolf closed his hand around hers and she didn’t immediately pull away, Dane knew they were in trouble .

“My family will become yours, min p?rla.”

“Your family will be happy for you, Grace” the Bishop assured. “And your belongings can be shipped.”

Any doubts she might harbor hid beneath a mask of duty and submission. She lowered her stare and nodded. “I trust that God has chosen this for me.”

“Has everyone lost their fucking minds?” Dane snapped. “Dude shows up, kills without question, and we’re just going to stand here and let him kidnap Grace?”

“He killed Cerberus, Dane. This man is not our enemy,” Lazarus reminded.

Lazarus’s acceptance was the hardest to swallow. He was not like the others. He was modern and a free thinker. The moment Dane lost his support, he knew he was on his own.

“Grace, you do not need to go with this guy.”

Regret flashed in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Dane, but it’s true. I cannot read him, but I sense that I’ve seen him before. Something pulled me here. At first, I needed to protect you . But now… Perhaps it was the calling guiding me all along.” Her eyes welled as she looked up at the shadow-wolf towering over her. “My soul recognizes yours, Darius St?rm.”

“And mine recognizes yours, min p?rla .”

Seething, Dane glared at the two of them. “He’s a stranger to you!”

“Not for long.” The promise in those cold green eyes would haunt him forever. He’d barely touched her, yet his claim was clear.

“This is what you choose?” he turned his anger on Grace. “Say it! Tell me you choose this dog over everything else, Grace. Your family. Your life. You don’t realize what you’re saying!”

“I choose him.” Her whisper cleaved through him so fast he staggered back, sure he’d never feel whole again.

“Dane,” Lazarus’s call was lost behind the ringing in his skull.

“Fuck all of you!” He shoved past the others, turning his back on the lot of them.

The Bishop caught up to him the moment he made it outside. “Dane.” He caught his shoulders, stilling his escape. “This is her calling. You always knew it would be this way.”

“I never knew it would be this way. And neither did you, so I’d appreciate it if everyone stopped acting so goddamn calm like this is fucking normal!”

“I understand you’re angry and disappointed. But that doesn’t negate the fact that this is how it was always meant to be.”

He shook his head, emotion clogging his ravaged throat. “I’m so sick of this.”

The Bishop’s brow furrowed. “Let me help you. Take my blood?—”

“I don’t want your fucking blood!” He shouldered out of his grip. “It’s just one more way to control the situation, so you can track me. ”

“I only want to help you, Dane. You’re injured.”

“I don’t want your fucking help.” His jaw locked as he glared at Eleazar, no longer able to believe this man was a trustworthy friend. “You all have an agenda. You instill your bullshit rules on the females to keep them obedient to the men, so they trust you to protect them.” He pointed angrily at the cave. “Do you honestly feel like she’ll be safe with him?”

“He’s her mate, Dane.”

“He’s a fucking wolf, Eleazar! A wolf who cut a draugr in half with one swipe of his claw and ripped out his heart with the other!”

“And you should be grateful he did. Cerberus would have killed all of us—including Gracie, who should not have been here! Do not be so naive to think she followed you all this way. Grace has never ventured far from home. Something pulled her here. Only a calling could compel an immortal so strongly.”

“You don’t know that!”

“I do. Because I lived it. He will kill you as quickly as he ended Cerberus if you interfere in his destiny. We are alive because of him—because he saved us and because he permits us to live.”

“What if it was Larissa?”

A low growl vibrated from the Bishop’s chest. “You’re upset, so I’ll forgive you this one time for posing questions about my bonded mate, but if you ever suggest such a thing again, my kindness will end and you will meet a side of me you do not want to know. Gracie is going to leave with that shadow-wolf and you are going to let her. This is her calling, Dane. Your obsession with her has no basis for comparison. She has chosen to abide God’s will, and I will not let you stand in the way of her destiny.”

Seething with uncontainable rage, his eyes narrowed. “There is no fucking God.” He shoved past Eleazar with no intention of ever looking back.

Drifting toward the coast, he slipped on a muddy slope and winced as his injured body twisted painfully. He’d rinse the blood away in the frigid sea, then see what see to his own damn injuries. If he needed blood to heal, he’d hunt a fucking rabbit because nothing was getting him back up that hill.

Dabbing the back of his pounding head, disturbed by the warmth, Dane pulled his hand away and scowled at his blood-drenched his fingers. “Damn it.”

Dawn cast a golden glow over the water and birds started to sing. He was in the middle of fucking nowhere with no clue where the nearest hospital was. A gaping wound in his head, a severely bruised larynx, and probably a concussion—yeah, he was screwed.

“Dane.”

He spun, startled to find Lilias and Lazarus approaching. “Go away.”

“We want to help you.” Great empathy filled Lillias’s green eyes .

“I don’t want help.”

“You’re bleeding. Why suffer?”

He scoffed. Like his suffering would stop with the bleeding. “It doesn’t matter.”

Lazarus crouched at the banks and rinsed the blood from his arms. “The shadow-wolf said something interesting up there, something I hadn’t considered.” He glanced over his shoulder then returned his attention to washing out his wounds. “Cerberus was your father. That makes you half draugr. ”

Ice formed in his veins. They offered help a moment ago, but maybe that was a ruse to get close to him, so they could kill him.

Dane took a step back and then wondered why he was fighting it. Death would be a peaceful change. He was exhausted by more than this day and he welcomed an end to his pain. Any sense of survival abandoned him.

Lilias placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he flinched. “We won’t hurt you, Dane. We’ve vowed our protection, and our word is our bond.”

He didn’t feel relief the way a normal person should. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore.”

“It’s clear she was someone special to you.”

“ Was , yes. That’s over now.” His anger with Gracie burrowed deeper than he could follow. He didn’t want to think about her anymore. He wished he never met her. “She’s nothing to me.”

Lazarus rose from the banks. “It’s known that draugen can become obsessive about the past. It’s why Cerberus would not let Lilias go. He spent centuries torturing her and rejected the natural order of things. You don’t want a life of torment like that for yourself.”

Was that why he couldn’t move on? Dane assumed it was natural grief, but perhaps it was some sort of genetic defect. First, his obsession began with his mother’s death at the hands of Isaiah. Then, his grandmother’s life mysteriously ended when she left with Jonas. After that, he lost Cybil. Gored by the bull, and transitioned into something heinous. She was there but gone. Lost.

They were all lost. Yet he couldn’t let them go.

And now Grace… It was more than he could take.

He crossed to the banks and pulled off his blood-soaked shirt, welcoming the frigid cold. “I’m done with the past.” He plunged his shirt into the water and it clouded like mud. “I don’t care anymore—about any of them.”

Let her run off with some fucking dog. He hoped they were happy. She deserved everything she got.

“Dane, no one judges a broken heart.”

His heart broke long before today. She just finished it off. Wringing out his shirt, he stood. “They’re not my family. I’ll get over it.”

“What about Juniper? She needs you. She told us so.”

“Look, Juniper has Adriel now, and Adriel has you guys. I’ll be fine. I’ll figure out a place to live and start a new life. It’ll be good.”

“What if that new life was in Greece?” Lazarus asked, glancing at his mate.

Dane stilled and Lilias stepped forward. “Juniper will not go back to the farm where Adriel lived. We plan on helping them start over. In Argos. We would like it if you joined them.”

He blinked, unable to process what they were offering. “You want me to live there?”

“We own plenty of land. You could have your own place and the freedom to live your life as you please,” Lazarus explained.

Lilias smiled and took her mate’s hand. “Adriel is our family. We want to be close to her.”

“Not just Adriel, all of you. Families should stay together.”

“What about all the draugr ? — ”

“We don’t care that Cerberus was your father. There’s good in you, Dane. We only see the good.”

He lowered his stare, unsure what to do. In one breath, he wanted to reject them, but when he looked up and saw nothing but sincerity in their eyes, his resolve shattered. They didn’t care that he was different or half-mortal. They accepted all of him. Saw him as family.

Throat tight, he nodded, as the pain in his chest slightly retreated. Unable to voice his acceptance, Lazarus read it in his mind thanks to their earlier blood exchange .

“Then it’s settled, son.” Lazarus held out his arm. “I offer you my blood and protection.”

The boulder in his throat crushed his words, but he managed to force his gratitude out. “Thank you.”

A shaky smile crossed Lilias’s lips. “Thank you for finding us and giving us a family again.”