Alpha Magic (The New York Shade Book 4) Page 3

  Every hair in my body stood at attention. It was Mason—the vampire of the Uprising, and he’d finally come for me.

  I’d expected it to happen at some point. It would have been foolish of me not to, considering our little history. I’d met this guy twice—the first time in the New York Shade. Back then, he’d been wearing a mask of a skeleton with horns on it so I hadn’t even seen his face. The second time, I’d met him in Estird, in the castle where he and Amina were fighting Damian. He’d called me delicious one, and vampires thought only blood to be delicious. Which meant he’d tasted mine—the twelve drops I’d foolishly sold for information to Madame Giselle, the vampire painter of the Shade. Back then, I hadn’t known what I was, which was an Alpha Prime, the highest level magic wielder known to the world.

  Yeah, it had been a mistake, but it was all for a good cause.

  Now, though, I could practically feel his hunger coming at me in warm waves in the cold night. My magic hummed inside my chest. My daggers were already in my hands before I realized I’d even moved. One of them I’d stolen from a private collector. It was the perfect extension to my hand, even though it was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen. The other was pretty standard. It fit me well, but now I wished I’d coated the blade in silver. Nothing hurt vampires more than silver, but it was too late for wishful thinking now.

  My heart beat steady in my chest, my mind completely blank. The vampire smiled. His teeth shone white—perfectly square, but they wouldn’t be for long.

  “Kit,” I whispered, and the next second, he climbed up my leg. “Take your family somewhere safe. We’ve got company.”

  But Kit didn’t take his family anywhere. He only squeaked—really loudly—and hung onto my jacket, warm tail wrapped around the back of my neck. I didn’t dare look away from the vampire to see if the other hellbeasts were moving away.

  Mason took another step forward, then turned his head left, just for a second. Fear gripped my insides instantly, because that look could only mean one thing—that he wasn’t alone. I looked, too, afraid I’d be attacked from the side and not realize it until it was too late, and there she was.

  Amina Gray, also known as Damian Reed’s ex-mate, and possibly the person I hated most on the face of the Earth. She just got to me, with that perfect face, her red lips and her gleaming green eyes that seemed to want to swallow me whole. I’m only a woman, after all. She was about thirty feet away from me, on my side of the street, her hands in the pockets of her black coat, her hair shining yellow under the light of the lamppost. She didn’t move, didn’t smile, didn’t blink at all as she looked at me.

  That’s when I realized that there were no people in the street. I could see plenty of them a street over, but they weren’t coming our way. I sniffed the air as if I was hoping to catch a smell, but I got nothing. Whatever spell they were using to keep people away, it was definitely working.

  My lips moved with the spell I had in mind. I’d planned it just for this occasion. It was an attack spell, one Aunt Marie taught me. I didn’t know the details because I didn’t need to, but the bottom line was, it hurt like a bitch. The species didn’t matter. It hurt everyone equally, and for a long time.

  Mason was walking to me now, hands in fists by his sides, a huge smile on his terrifying face. His eyes had become completely black, his fangs now in clear view. He was taking his time because he thought he had me—all alone and vulnerable. What he didn’t know was that I planned to be him in just a second, while he recovered from the spell I’d hit him with. He was a Prime vampire, which meant I would need thirteen seconds to replicate his essence. I’d timed it before—twice in the past month, hiding in the Shade, taking people’s magic like it belonged to me. It made me feel filthy—a thief—but I did it anyway because I knew I would need it.

  At least it felt good to be right.

  My fingers glowed purple as I put away one of my daggers to free my hand. Mason was just ten feet away from me now, and he was coming, slowly. Amina hadn’t moved from her place, and Kit wasn’t alarmed, which meant there was nobody coming for me from behind. There were probably others around us—this was the Uprising, after all—but it wasn’t going to make a difference. According to my experiments, I could be a Level Three supernatural for twenty-four minutes and seven seconds, but I could be a Prime for only thirteen minutes, thirty seconds. That was okay. Thirteen minutes was plenty of time to kill.

  I was ready.

  My hand was raised and my magic was ready to slip right out of me as the last words of the spell left my lips. The vampire was going to move—he knew what I was and how much power I had after tasting my blood, so I expected him to move to the side. Which was exactly why I wasn’t worried. Aunt Marie’s spells were meant to be safe. They didn’t care about where the target was, and lucky for me, Mason and Amina had made sure there would be no innocent humans nearby that I could accidentally kill in the process.

  Bright purple light wrapped in purple fog left my hand as Mason leaped in the air, impossibly high, arms wide by his sides as if he was coming at me for a hug. The light started as a ball barely the size of a Ping-Pong ball, but within a second, it completely covered my vision. I couldn’t see if it hit Mason or not—he’d jumped really high—but I heard it when his body hit the ground.

  I didn’t waste a single second. I used the surreal feeling I had this entire night to my advantage. To be honest, everything still felt like a dream, but even in my dreams, my magic was there, humming, waiting, moving exactly the way I needed it to. My eyes were closed as I stepped back, searching for Mason’s essence, and I found it easily. It was like a blinding white light enveloping his torso, impossible to ignore if I tried. He was really powerful, lucky for me.

  “Thirteen seconds,” I reminded Kit. “I need thirteen.”

  He squeaked and jumped from my shoulder. I didn’t know how much time it would take Mason to get back up or whether Amina would join the fight, but Kit would have to keep them away for thirteen seconds while I became a fucking vampire. I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but I’d known it would eventually. It was fine. There were no people close by that I could hurt—just these assholes.

  My magic worked rapidly. I opened my eyes to see that the purple fog was barely there, and Mason was still on the ground, teeth gritted as he tried to push himself up. Aunt Marie’s spell was designed to last long and cause incredible pain that would paralyze the target. It was apparently working. Amina was still where I’d left her, looking behind her at the street and the humans every once in a while, but she had yet to join us.

  Seven seconds. My magic was already making a copy of what it saw. It was replicating it and it looked exactly like Mason’s. Another few seconds and my essence would swallow the replica whole, become one with it, and alter itself, too. Then, it would be show time.

  Kit squeaked. I looked to the side. Amina had taken her hands out of her pockets. She took a step closer. She was looking behind me. Her green eyes darkened in a second while I looked at her.

  Then, she disappeared.

  I didn’t move—I still had three seconds left, but I saw. I saw it when she hit something—someone—then flew back at least ten feet and hit the ground on her back.

  Through the corner of my eye I could see him, sword in hand, eyes black, fangs extended.

  Damian fucking Reed.

  The feeling of the whole situation being a dream vanished into thin air, just like the essence of Mason my magic had worked so hard to replicate. It required my focus, and I couldn’t focus for shit now. Stunned, completely paralyzed, I just watched him run over to Mason, aiming his sword at his throat. Kit squeaked, rushing up my leg again. He scratched my ear lobe, as if he thought I couldn’t see. I could—with perfect clarity.

  Mason had grabbed Damian’s sword by the blade. Dark blood dripped down it as he made an effort to stand up, then Damian kicked him in the face and sent him back, sliding on the asphalt. Then he turned to look at me for a split second.

  He
hadn’t changed at all, except his hair. It was a bit longer than the last time I’d seen it, and unfortunately for me, it suited him perfectly. His cheeks looked almost flushed, and even though his eyes were pitch black and I could see my reflection in them, I could still feel the colors hiding behind that perfect facade. My knees were already weak. I hated how my body reacted to him, even more so when I had no control over it whatsoever. This was the guy who practically played me for a fool every time he was around long enough for me to send my inhibitions to hell and surrender myself to him. And I let it happen, over and over again.

  No more.

  He turned to Mason, who was already on his feet. I ignored the beating of my heart. I didn’t want to see this. I didn’t want to be here, damn it. I didn’t want to be in any place where Damian Reed was. He terrified me so much more than a thousand Masons and Aminas coming for my head in the dead of the night.

  I took a step back and looked ahead. Mason and Damian were going at it, too fast for me to make out any concrete movements properly, but Amina was no longer in the fight. She stayed on the other side, a murderous look on her face as she watched me. She watched me and I could see her mind working—how sure was she that she could take me?

  I smiled just to spite her even though my whole damn face ached already.

  Damian and Mason stepped between us and I could no longer see her. But I could see Damian had Mason by the throat, the tip of his sword an inch away from his Adam’s apple. I took in a sharp breath. I waited a heartbeat—a very fast heartbeat—and…

  Damian stopped moving.

  I blinked to make sure that I was seeing right. A loud sigh left Damian’s lips and he closed his eyes.

  What?

  His sword fell to the side, clinking on the asphalt. Mason smiled. He was surprised, too, but he recovered much faster than I could. I watched as he slammed his fist into Damian’s face and sent him back, flying.

  Something was wrong.

  I saw it all play before my eyes, but I couldn’t make sense of any of it. Damian on the ground. Mason sitting on his stomach. His fists slamming into his face without stop, too many times to count.

  “Mason, stop!” Amina screamed, but Mason didn’t stop.

  My knees shook again, this time threatening to send me to the ground, too.

  “Do something!” I shouted at the top of my voice before I could control myself.

  Damian’s head fell to the side, covered in blood, his skin almost completely torn. He looked at me and I could clearly see the defeat in his eyes. What the hell was he doing? Why wasn’t he fighting? I took a step closer to him, all reason abandoning me. Whatever our differences, I wasn’t going to stand by and watch him die. It was physically impossible for me to stop myself from chanting.

  But I never got to finish this spell, either.

  “No!” Amina screamed, but she hadn’t moved from her place at all, like her feet were stuck to the asphalt.

  It made me wonder if she’d lost her damn mind for a second—her and Damian, too—but then something moved at my side. It was just like the wind. It felt like it, too, but when it stopped, it wasn’t the wind.

  It was a man.

  A mountain of a man, over six foot five, shoulders twice as wide as Mason’s, head full of ash blonde air, and he was looking down at the two vampires like he couldn’t understand what they were doing. Even my heart stopped beating for a second. So much power. He radiated it, like heat coming from the sun. Kit was perfectly still on my shoulder, too. He wasn’t moving, not an inch, as he watched. Amina finally moved and she was behind Mason now. She grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him off Damian.

  What. The. Fuck.

  Mason growled as Damian stood up, painfully slowly, and looked up at the newcomer. He reached out his thumb to his left cheek and flinched with pain.

  My mouth was open. My eyes refused to blink, afraid I’d miss something, even though I was already missing…..yep, all of it.

  “I don’t want any trouble in my City,” the newcomer said, and his voice made me imagine ice shards. Big grey ice shards that could kill you as easily as a sword. “This is trouble.”

  “We apologize, Yutain,” Amina said, her arms still wrapped around Mason’s, who looked at the newcomer like he wanted to tear him to pieces. His hands were balled in fists and he was going to attack any second now.

  But wait…did Amina say Yutain? Wasn’t that the vampire that Malin’s mother had talked about? The one Malin thought was just a myth?

  Holy shit.

  Damian looked at me. He smiled. I looked away.

  “Go,” the newcomer said, waving his hand at them, just like that. Then, he looked at Damian. “I need a word with you, my friend.”

  “Of course, Yutain,” Damian said with a nod.

  Yutain. I hadn’t heard wrong. This was the mythological vampire Ms. Arnon had talked about. I’ll be damned. Just when I thought I was getting close to knowing how things worked around here, stuff like this happened and threw me off my game.

  Yutain put an arm around Damian’s shoulders and pulled him to the side, turning away from Amina and Mason. Then, he looked at me.

  Remember when I said his voice was like ice shards? His eyes were exactly the same. They were grey, lifeless, death in two sockets. Breathing was out of the question. Who needed air when he looked at me like that? Curiosity sparked in his eyes, then he raised a thin blond brow, and proceeded to walk to the side with Damian next to him.

  Kit dug his claws in my earlobe, and I didn’t even feel the pain. But I saw when Mason jerked his arm away from Amina and started running with a growl.

  “Mason, no!” shouted Amina, and my heart all but leaped out of my chest. Damian’s back was turned, and he didn’t have his sword with him. I was too far away, at least six feet, to reach him in time.

  But then Yutain turned.

  It happened so fast, I’m sure my imagination filled in the gaps because I couldn’t have seen it all with clarity. Yutain turned and raised his arm at exactly the right split second. His huge hand wrapped around the top of Mason’s head and stopped him in his tracks. He looked down at Mason, confused—like he couldn’t understand what kind of a creature Mason even was.

  “Yutain, please,” Amina begged, though she didn’t dare approach them. “He’s young, he’s—”

  She never got to finish speaking. Yutain was suddenly behind Mason, his hand still around his head, and then he…put his foot on Mason’s back? I’m not even sure, but he pulled back his arm, and Mason fell forward—just not all of him. His head, his neck, and his entire fucking backbone tore from the rest of his body, like when I took the bones out of a dead fish before cooking it.

  Blood. Flesh. Organs—all over the ground. I held onto my own fists. Yutain looked at the head, still in his hand, and moved it to the side, as Mason’s backbone moved from one side to the other. Then, he threw it to the ground, too. He didn’t flinch, didn’t even look at the maimed body.

  “Clean this up,” he told Amina, who’d fallen to the ground on her knees, her hands shaking as she looked at what was left of Mason. Yutain put his hand over Damian’s shoulder again. “Shall we?”

  Damian looked at me for one last time, his smile huge. Most of the tears on his face had closed, but the blood was there. It still didn’t hide the sparks in his now colorful eyes.

  He crossed the empty street with Yutain, completely relaxed.

  I, on the other hand, had yet to take control of my mind. Kit helped. He kept squeaking and squealing and pulling at my earlobe until I came to my senses. I looked at Amina. She looked at me, still on her knees, still shaking.

  Did we want to do this now? Yutain and Damian had already disappeared somewhere but how far away would they be?

  I don’t want any trouble in my City, he’d said. Who the hell was I to argue with that?

  I turned my back to Amina and walked away. I’d kill her another time. Or she, me. I had a lot to think about, too many things to try to erase f
rom my mind, anyway.

  Chapter Three

  There were seven hellbeasts in my apartment. I didn’t know what to think of it, so I tried not to. I just told Kit to take them in Sonny’s room, grabbed a beer from the fridge, and sat on the couch.

  My eyes closed on their own accord and images flashed in the darkness. I’d killed before, would probably kill again, but what that vampire had done—it was the most brutal thing I’d ever seen. He’d literally ripped Mason’s head along with his backbone from his body. How much strength would one need exactly to do something like that? So fast? So effortlessly?

  I still hadn’t abandoned the thought that it had all been a dream. There was a good chance—the night was just too fucked up to be real. But when I opened my eyes, I was still in my living room, beer in hand, weird noises coming from Sonny’s bedroom.

  God, I missed my brother. If I could just talk to him right now, if he’d been here and not at the Academy, maybe it would all make sense. Just a little bit of it, at least.

  I thought about calling Malin or Jamie, but I didn’t want to freak them out. It was two in the morning after all.

  I drank my beer.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Shivers covered my skin completely. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. I knew who it was already. I didn’t need to use my Talent to search for his essence. It was Damian. Just eight feet or so away from me, behind a wooden door.

  Another knock.

  I still didn’t know what to think but I knew this: I did not want to open that door.

  I held my breath as I waited. Would he go away?

  Too much to hope for. Another knock.

  That goddamn door. It wasn’t its fault that I didn’t want to see Damian, but I hated it still. I didn’t want to see him, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking that I couldn’t handle him, either. I needed to prove to him that I could, to prove to myself that I wasn’t weak. I am not a coward.