Page 73 of Fangbanger

Iwake to Karina shaking me. “Leah.” Her voice cracks. My lids flutter.

“Thank the Goddess.” Her head whips up. She growls. “Move again, vampire, and I will gut you, brother or no.”

I feel for my throat. The skin is new but whole.

I sit up, aching inside and out and heavy with magic. The he in question is nowhere to be found, and the bond—I reach inside me—its golden light is dim, like Marcus himself is dimmed.

Dread crawls at the edges of my mind.

Julian is pinned to one of the porch columns, straining against the magic I can feel tethering us. It survived my injuries somehow. Karina’s eyes blaze with power, ready to provide backup.

She’s in her underwear, hands clenched at her sides, standing over me like a protective mother bear. And Julian—I squint—he’s very much alive and looking very much sane and interested in my friend.

“Where is he?” I rasp.

Karina shakes her head. “I don’t know. I just got here. Apparently the guardian spell you activated with your blood is designed to summon the nearest member of my family.”

That explains the underwear, I guess.

“He’s dying.” Julian snarls the words, but his eyes stay fastened on my friend.

“What do you mean?” My voice sounds like it’s been put through a meat grinder.

Finally the vampire turns his silver gaze on me. He looks so much like Marcus that my chest aches anew.

“He completed the mating bond, that idiot, even injured as you were.” Julian shakes his head. “You should have died. Now your body is pulling life force from him to survive. He cannot heal his injuries and he will not wake. This is why we don’t bond with mortals. He will die. Slowly.” His gaze goes cold. “For a slayer, no less.”

“For me?” I manage the words. It is—unfathomable.

Julian scoffs. “Of course it was for you. You’re his mate.” The word is rasped. “He completed the mate bond to save your life and now he will die. My foolish, brave, good brother.” The words are both insults and compliments, and they make pressure gather at the back of my nose. He will die for me. Like my parents did. I would have loved you.

That pressure threatens to burst, and I blink furiously. He did love me. Does love me. I felt it.

I can’t let anyone else die for me. Not Marcus. Brave, foolish, good vampire.

I still need to yell at him for lying to me.

“Give me the apple,” I blurt. My insides feel pulped, sick and twisting every which way. Marcus can’t be dying. He cannot.

Karina sucks in air.

Julian’s head tilts. “Why should I?”

I rise to my feet, injuries forgotten and brimming with magic. It is heady and intoxicating. It wings upward at least ten feet in the air in a swirl of silver. I can sense that it won’t last forever, but for now I feel electric and strange, like I’m floating as I stalk toward him. I can feel the tether between us. Julian can’t move unless I will it.

“I should kill you.”

Julian, for once, is silent.

“You killed my parents,” I rasp, my throat burning. “You slaughtered them, actually. I watched them die.”

His face is blank.

“I hate you,” I say quietly, “But you are still Marcus’s brother, and if there is even a shred of a chance for redemption, I know he would want it for you, even if he claims not to. So I will let you live in exchange for his life. Give me the apple.”

“Do not,” Karina says sharply.

“Quiet, witch,” Julian snaps. “I’m about to make the deal of a lifetime.” The vampire’s eyes silver. “You think you can survive getting your heart’s desire? I’ve tried, you know. It drove me mad. I have nothing to show for it.”