Page 10 of Queen of Vampire Hearts

“I saw what you did,” he muttered.

There was no way he saw me do that spell. I was just going to play it cool. “You mean scrub down this bar like it’s my life goal?” I joked. My voice trembled slightly, but I hoped to distract him by gesturing to the still dirty bar. I was going to act like nothing was wrong, and maybe nothing would be.

“You’re the witch.”

Well, there went that hope.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I asserted, trying again to keep my voice neutral. He gripped my wrist hard, moving faster than humanly possible. Shit! He was an immortal!

I flinched as he grabbed me, his grip tightening as I attempted to yank my hand away. He didn’t even react, and my wrist remained locked in his. A little fun tidbit about witches? We were among the physically weakest species of immortals. We didn’t have super strength, eyesight, smell, or any of the other fun abilities that most other immortals had. So I was kind of fucked.His tight hold on my wrist heated, and the stench of sulfur escalated. Okay, scratch that, I was really fucked.

“Who are you?” I snapped, pulling a ball of battle magic into my free hand. I chanted the spell I’d invented in my head and slammed my hand into his chest, throwing him into the wall behind us. His body hit with a thud, but he recovered quickly, too quickly for me to power up another spell. His dark complexion flickered, a flash of flame playing beneath his tanned skin. The sulfur scent I’d noticed before became distinct and identifiable as brimstone.

On his feet again, he snarled, displaying the jagged fangs filling his mouth. “There’s a big bounty on you, witch. It will be mine.”

Witch Enemy Number One.Thanks again, Council!

His form rippled, and the flames beneath his skin grew brighter. His veins glowed, and the attribute finally allowed me to identify his species as a Cherufe. I brought more magic into my palms, desperately trying to recall what I knew about Cherufe as I did. They were evil humanoids, man-eaters, native to Chile.

He lunged at me, and I yelped, throwing myself over the wooden bar. Bottles crashed as he hit the bar behind me.Shit! Shit, shit!What else did I know about them?It was a little difficult to think about obscure Chilean lore when my life was on the line.

He regained his feet and, instead of circling around the bar, he reached out to touch the wooden fixture with a smoking hand. I gaped as he reduced it to ash within a couple of moments.Shit! Think!Okay, Chilean, mountains, volcanoes, lava.Lava! That’s it!Some enchanted magma core powered Cherufe, making them virtually invulnerable to harm and able to reform limbs almost instantly. However, without the core, they crumbled.

The floor smoked as he stepped through the molten remains of the bar. I was forced to stumble back, frantically trying to recall a spell that might help me. Lava had to be molten to move, so I needed ice. I could think of several spells that could work, but none were powerful enough alone to stop him. I needed to do what I did best, which was make shit the fuck up.The power built in me as I muttered under my breath, pulling from several spells and merging them together before throwing the magic at him. No one could ever say that I couldn’t think on the fly.

The second the magic left my fingertips, I collapsed to my knees, the sound of them hitting the scarred wood floor making me wince. Every spell required my energy, my very essence, to power it. The more powerful the spell, the more energy it took and throwing six spells into a super powerful one to take out a mythical beast took quite the toll. Black spots were already swimming in my eyes, and exhaustion settled on my shoulders, trying to force me to the ground.

The amalgamation of magic hit Luis square in the chest, causing the magma in his veins to freeze. His steps forward slowed before coming to a stop.

“Youbitch,” he growled out before the spell hit his mouth, preventing him from speaking.

I let out a shaky laugh, tears of exhaustion wetting my face. Hate burned in his eyes, and I realized he still wasn’t dead. Did no one die anymore? It took me three tries to get to my feet and stumble to the remains of the bar. I rummaged around for a weapon, finally grabbing the short paring knife we used to cut up limes and lemons.

I gripped the handle of the knife tightly and tripped back to his frozen form, fumbling as I plunged the small blade into his chest. His eyes glowed with pain, twining with the hatred, yet I kept eye contact with him even as I carved out his enchanted core. It was him or me, just like before.

Luis crumbled without his core. His form changed from the tanned visage I’d worked beside for the last couple of months to a cold lava rock in the shape of a man. I yelped when the enchanted core dropped into my hands. The heat made me drop it, and it burned a perfect circle in the wood floor before falling to the grass below. The sight of it smoldering filled me with rage and pain, tears filling my eyes. I screamed and slammed my fists against down on either side of the hole.

Rule No. 1: Don’t Trust Anyone.

VI

The Realm of Mortals.

Întuneric Castel, Romania.

ERIK IS AN ASSHOLE AND A MORON,I told myself again. The strange female from that night in Tír nAill was not my mate, orconsort, as was the formal vampiric term. She couldn’t be. I could not possibly have met the one person deemed by fate to be mine. The one person destined to rule beside me, the one woman I could sire children with, and the de facto Queen of the Vampires because of our connection. It couldn’t have been her. I could not have made an utter ass out of myself in front of my queen. I could not have been utterlyghostedby my queen.

Erik was delusional because I’d cut off his air supply. It must have been the hypoxia. Of course, that was it! Erik suffered brain damage, and that was why he thought the female was my mate. There was no other reason.

That logic worked for about eight hours, and then I tried to feed.

My fangs hovered over the throat of a willing donor, but they refused to extend. Even when I pricked her soft skin, allowing the blood to spill and drip down her neck, nothing happened. My fangs were useless in my mouth. I was forced to scarf down a blood bag, almost hurling in disgust. It was foul and left a bitter aftertaste. If I weren’t already low, I wouldn’t have been able to manage it.

Maybe I was having a slow day or something, or I’d caught some kind of immortal flu. My fangs were lifeless, but the rest of my body was primed for action. My cock had been hard as steel since the night I mether.No matter how many times I stroked myself, my cock would spring back to life almost instantly after spilling my seed. I considered finding another female to screw, hoping to relieve some of the building tension, but the thought made me almost physically ill.

Fuck me. She’s my mate.

The delayed recognition had hit me like a ton of bricks when I first pulled out her panties and caught her scent again. My body had shot tight with hunger, the smell of her wiring me with need yet soothing my mind at the same time.

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