MacRieve (Immortals After Dark) Read Online Free

footprints toward the forest.
    With each step, Da was turning, his Lykae beast surfacing. His fangs and black claws lengthened, his face angling into a more wolven shape. His muscles burgeoned, the shadow of his inner wolf rising to hover over him: a vicious, towering creature with maddened white-blue eyes.
    Will could see his da struggling to keep the feral beast at bay, to think clearly, to reason.
    To best protect his mate.
    Will and Munro began to lag behind their desperate father’s pace. Two young Lykae in the Woods at night. They had not reached their immortality yet, couldn’t regenerate from injury.
    As the storm strengthened, shadows closed in on them, snow swirling, trees shuddering. The winds howled, disrupting Will’s hearing andsense of smell. Gusts brought confusing scents all the way from the sea he hadn’t yet beheld.
    His teeth clattered. Pain throughout his body had merged until he couldn’t distinguish one area of agony from another, his aching bones from his splitting head. . . .
    Will squinted through the snow as they ran, barely making out Da as he closed in on Ruelle’s cottage. Between painted shutters, the windows glowed, softly lit and fogged.
    Da barreled through the door. Even over the winds, Will heard his roar.
    Of anguish.
    No! Ruelle couldn’t have hurt Mam. Will’s mother was a she-wolf in her prime, fierce as this storm. Ruelle was weak and helpless.
    The brothers burst through the splintered doorway and froze at the sight before them. With a sheet secured around her, Ruelle stood trembling behind a terrified lad who looked not much older than Will.
    — Vampire. —
    Their natural enemy. Here, this far north? Will had never seen one, just knew he needed to kill the creature.
    The leech was brandishing a bloody sword to protect Ruelle against Da—whose beast was completely risen. It shadowed over him, monstrous and shocking even to Will.
    No wonder the vampire was terrified. But why was the male half-dressed? Whose blood coated his sword? Where was Mam?
    Will edged deeper into the cottage. Behind a settee . . . he saw her.
    Part of her.
    Shock robbed him of breath and muted his thoughts. Dimly, he wondered, Where is my mother’s head?
    Da roared, shaking the cottage until dust rained from the rafters.
    The vampire could have traced away, teleporting to safety in an instant. Yet he seemed bent on protecting Ruelle—as if he loved her. With a broken yell, he attacked, tracing around Da, landing blows that the older immortal didn’t seem to feel.
    The leech disappeared again and again, until Da predicted where he’d appear next. With one swipe of Da’s flared claws, the vampire was no more.
    When Da turned on Ruelle, she backed away. As if from a well-pump, her tears flowed at once. “We had n-no choice. She attacked us, had come to destroy me.”
    As Da stalked her with a murderous look in his ice-blue gaze, Ruelle eyed the vampire’s sword, could have reached it; instead she clasped her hands to her breast, pleading to Will, “My love, help me! He will kill me!”
    She would forgo a weapon in order to plead?
    Will realized she still possessed her most powerful weapon: her guile. She looked fragile, defenseless, and so damned beautiful. Even now, the urge to protect her seized him.
    “My love, I beg you! Do something!” Her eyes glowed green.
    He was horrified to realize that he was stumbling over his mother’s body to reach Ruelle. I’ve done wrong. Though he knew he was no match for his father, Will rose up in front of his female—
    Da bared his fangs and backhanded him, connecting with his jaw. As Will reeled to the floor, Da raised his hand once more. With another slash of his claws, he decapitated Ruelle.
    Vision swimming, Will watched as her head tumbled. But her body collapsed slowly. Even in this, she was graceful.
    With her death, Will’s bones instantly ceased to ache, the fever leaving him. His body was free. But his mind . . .
    Sorrow, guilt, horror,