Read Online Healed by Fire by Catherine Banks - Free Book Online

and I will face a hundred Vampire Kings
before I let something as simple as death make me hesitate in
getting you back.”
    The conviction and feeling in his voice was
overpowering and I would have fallen if not for Blu’s tail catching
me. “She needs to rest.”
    The werewolf prince smiled at me and said,
“I’ll be back. You don’t need to worry about me.”
    I moaned in pain as a memory of a weaker,
non-magical me stood on the porch of someone’s house watching the
werewolf prince leave somewhere and say those exact words to me.
Blu whisked me away from the princes and into my tent before I
could say anything else. He laid his head on me and sang until I
fell asleep.
     
     
    ~~~
     
ACHILLES
     

Chapter Five
     
    I couldn’t believe that we had finally found
her. She looked even more beautiful than I remembered and yet I
could see that she was not herself. The need to touch her was
incredible, but I resisted so as not to cause her pain. She was so
strong and yet so fragile since she had not found herself yet. I
gripped Ares under the arms and jumped out of the Lair, letting the
wind catch us.
    “Could you please not jump,” Ares
said angrily as his heartbeat quickened.
    “I had forgotten that you were afraid of
heights,” I said.
    He growled. “I’m not afraid of heights, I’m
afraid of you dropping me.”
    We landed on the ground and I patted his
shoulder. “I wouldn’t drop you, Brother.”
    Ares grunted, cleared his throat and then
howled as loudly as he could. I wished I could see the process of
his vocal chords and throat changing shape when he went from a
human’s throat to a wolf’s throat. Although I doubted slicing a
man’s throat in half to watch would then allow the process to
complete.
    A bat screeched nearby and I smiled. Victor
loved being a bat when he could. I think he just liked being
smaller and able to fly.
    A small black bat came to hover in front of
us and then changed into a six foot tall, black eyed man. If you
were human you might think he was simply imposing, but it was just
his raw, incredible power. Victor was one of the few vampires I
genuinely trusted and did not fear. He shook out his body and then
looked at me with a smile, showing just the tips of his fangs. “I
do enjoy being smaller and being able to fly.”
    I pointed at him. “Stay out of my head.”
    Ares sighed. “If only that were
possible.”
    We’d known each other so long that most
times we knew what the other was thinking without the use of
telepathic abilities so Victor’s abilities were not as intrusive as
they once were.
    Being one thousand years old made years seem
like a human’s minutes, but the last one hundred years had felt
like a lifetime. I had finally revealed myself to Artemis in
Lyngvi, trying to claim her, only to come up against Ares and the
bond they had already developed. Then, after many fights and
binding her to save her from Hera, I had told her that I loved her
and showed her my memories only to have her taken from my by my
mother. I understand why Hera had done it, but it didn’t make the
pain at being separated from Artemis any easier. Especially when we
hadn’t been able to find her where Hera claimed to have left
her.
    And now Ares had been the first to find her,
the first to make contact with her. I hated that he had been able
to find her first, but I could not direct that hate at him. I’d
watched him suffer each night with only Koda there to console him
as he lost the ability to hold shape and turned into a wolf. Not
being able to maintain shape was something very uncommon for the
Prince of the Werewolves. Every night he dreamed of her being taken
and then turned into a wolf, howling his grief until he passed out
from weariness.
    A wolf’s grieving howl was the most eerie
and heart wrenching sound I’d ever heard. It made it that much
worse to feel the same pain and sorrow echoed in my own heart. My
soul howled right along with his as we ached to see and touch
her.
    The