Struck (A Vampire Novel) ✔

Fifty-One

I wasn’t sure how long I stayed in Jacobi’s arms, feeling his caresses both on my flesh and on my spirit. I knew, despite Zachary no longer being alive, that I still wasn’t safe from him. I could still feel him, his spirit having been absorbed by mine. I could hear him among the voices of the dead, bound within my spirit as though they were birds captured in a small cage. They suffered and in return I suffered. And still I wanted more. I wanted to feel that power again like a tsunami crashing onto the shore and swallowing everything in its path.

“Don’t leave me alone,” I whispered to Jacobi, “Don’t block me out…” I won’t survive, I wanted to add.

“I won’t,” He replied reassuringly. For a moment longer, we stayed like this. Then he shifted in his seat, his spirit shifting as well. I could imagine him as an animal, his ears perking up at something he heard in the distance. Only Jacobi was very much human and couldn’t hear anything as well as he used to. Instead, I decided it was his coterie.

“What’s wrong?” As I looked at Jacobi, he hesitated.

“I can hear the souls within you, so I have an idea of what you’ve done…,” Jacobi told me before glancing around the room. “My coterie is attacking the reservation now that it’s weakened. They’ve been waiting from afar. Both Corentine’s bond to you and my coterie’s bond to me left the place as a beacon. Either reckless or cocky on Zachary’s part…”

I lifted my head up in order to listen for sounds of Jacobi’s coterie attacking the reservation in order to rescue us. It took me a moment to focus through the souls within me, but then I could hear the distinct noise of fighting above ground. While I had wiped out half of the hunters on the reservation, there were more, but none were within close range of where I was. I had done enough damage to give Jacobi’s coterie an advantage, at the least.

Many of the dead hunters had been children. The truth shook me and made me freeze in time.

“Lysa, come back,” Jacobi called me to carefully, touching my face with affection in order to draw me back from another place I hadn’t noticed I had slipped into. When he had my attention again, he continued, “Do you know where Aveline is? Xander?”

I nodded slowly, “He… Zachary… he made Xander…” I leaned my face into Jacobi’s hand, wincing at the memory of Aveline’s screams. “I’m sorry I asked you to reverse our bond. I didn’t know it would cause that…”

There was a distinct crash nearby, muffled by the walls but my sensitive ears picked it up rather quickly. The coterie was coming closer and quickly. Jacobi seemed to think over my words with confusion. But then his eyes hardened impossibly, putting together the pieces.

“He forced them to break their Mate bond,” Jacobi growled, a whole other level of rage erupting from within him. “He deserved a worse fate than what you gave him.”

I swallowed carefully, “They’re nearby… I can try to do what I did with Corentine to bring Xander back, but you understand what that means... He’d be one of mine. I don’t know if he’d even be able to reconnect his bond to Aveline…”

“I understand your fears, but you have to try,” Jacobi didn’t appear to be worried or stressed, but now that he had his spirit open to mine I could feel his own fears thickening my soul. I didn’t understand the depths of being rogue; how sufferable it was or the terror that awaited Xander other than the moment I had with a rogue Corentine. But Jacobi, in his centuries of existence, no doubt had plenty of experience with the illness. It reverberated in dark memories that coated his mind.

“I’ll try,” I promised. I shifted from Jacobi’s embrace, finally preparing myself to face my future beyond this point. Jacobi stood with me, hesitating in his mortal form. As I peered at him, I felt anxious about his weakened state. We were surrounded by surviving hunters and vampires. Jacobi appeared to be more like a wilted flower in comparison. I watched him as he looked to where I knew Eve lay lifeless on the floor, dead by the hands of me, her true daughter.