I’d been so busy, I hadn’t noticed. I was so stupid and self-centered, how could I have missed this? At least Merrick had gone with one of the scouting groups so she wouldn’t be here to kill me.
“Oh, oh love, what do we do? What if we locked you inside a shed or something? Will you transform if the light doesn’t touch you?” Questions I’d never gotten to ask before then.
“I can manage if the light doesn’t touch me. It’s very uncomfortable, but I won’t shift without the moon. The best months are when it’s too cloudy to see the sky, though I pay for it the next time. It’s doubly painful if I miss a month, typically not worth it in my opinion.” He made it sound like missing a period.
I got up to start moving him somewhere the light couldn’t get to, but the moon had other plans. She found him, and she pulled him into her grip like she’d just thrown her line and caught a fish.
He stood up and fixed his eyes upon the only thing he loved more than me: his precious moon. It was the saddest love story one could think of. He only got to see his girlfriend three days a month, and then it was back to me, his side piece. Oh. I liked the idea of being his side piece. It made me feel wicked.
Arthur saw what was going on and ran to grab me away from my mate. I fought him but he held me tight.
“If he howls, we’re dead,” Arthur grunted in my ear.
Knight had begun changing. His skin sprouted fur, his nose grew to a small snout, and he grew long fangs. Once the transformation was complete, he was sure to howl at his moony girlfriend. I’d seen it happen every time he changed. He lifted his head to stare longingly at the moonlight.
Hey baby. How about I do that thing you like.
I ran into him like a freight train to interrupt his catcall. He skidded away from me and growled, claws out for attack, when he realized it was me. I saw the recognition in his eyes and held out my hand for him to smell. He leaned his furry, misshapen skull against my hand and rubbed it gently, his arms grabbing me by the waist and holding me against him.
He growled at Arthur protectively.
Really.
Though he was partly there, I knew it wouldn’t last long, and he’d probably run away and blow our cover. I had to do something. Still in Knight’s grasp, I shut my eyes and tapped into his mind. The power rose inside me until I could see a human Knight standing in a white room.
‘Knight,’ I spoke to him. ‘We need you. You have to wake up. Control the wolf. You can do this.’ I saw his eyes change as if he understood me.
‘It’s hard to stay focused,’ he confessed. ‘My wolf side doesn’t have much in the way of comprehension.’
‘There is no wolf side. There’s only you. You can control the beast because you are the beast.’
‘Does that make you Beauty in this scenario?’
‘Focus.’
I snapped back into my head, Arthur standing right next to us, ready to protect me if he had to. “Okay Tarzan, put Jane down,” I told Knight. He let me go when I pushed at him and stared down at me with his brown eyes, turned golden from the change. After a few seconds, the gold faded and they were brown again. “You still in there? Blink once for yes and two for no.” He made a face at me like I was stupid. “Definitely in there. Fist bump.” He brought his clawed hand up to bump me back.
“I noticed he was comprehensive, if only a little, that time I captured you. I thought it was a fluke.” Knight’s long wolf ears twitched and moved towards Arthur’s voice. He growled quietly until I elbowed him.
“He understands now. See? Sit, boy.” Knight shoved me over and laughed through his nose.
Alexander’s group was coming back in human form, and they stopped when they saw the transformed Knight beside us. His ears drooped at the sight of their frightened faces. They spared his life, but they still saw him as a monster. I took his clawed hand in mine.
“Status?” Arthur asked the Alpha, deflecting their attention from Knight.
“There’s a large building in town, seems to be the hotspot for activity. We’ve seen lots of vampires in and out of it involved in… various activities.” For humans, that meant booty. For us, it meant they were feeding, and openly.
“Security?”
“There’s a few with guns and some drones on the perimeter. I don’t think they’re expecting any attacks, it’s the perfect time to strike, while they’re… partying.” He glanced at me, and away.
“Alexander,” I told him. “We’ll set the humans free. I’ll wipe their memories and we’ll set them up in a nearby hospital until they’ve recovered.”
“I expected nothing less from you, I can assure you. It’s still unsettling to see.” Knight whined, and Alexander noticed it thoughtfully. “I saw him when he was a prisoner, he was wild as a wolf-man. I never thought I’d see him conscious like this. Must be you.”
Lisbeth, tamer of hearts, Hunters, and wolf-men.
Our objectives set, we moved the plan in motion. The other two packs joined us, reporting about the same as Alexander. Empty town, large crowd of vampires. We snuck down the empty streets that howled with ghosts of the humans that had been destroyed. This was not a small town by any stretch of the imagination, and the turned vampires had laid waste to it. Was this where the human drones had come from?
At the center of town was a coliseum, made for things like graduations and nerd conventions. The lawn outside of it had bodies lying forgotten in the grass. Dead bodies. Everywhere.
I knew, I knew that this was what the turned were doing, but seeing it was not the same. Tears sprang in my eyes, tears of anger. Knight whined quietly and put his claw on my shoulder. Rage built inside me, the purest I’d ever known. I wanted to wipe the planet with the blood of turned vampires, to let it soak into the ground where the only thing that would remember it was the plants that sprang from the earth above it.
I was the daughter of a killer, and by god, I was going to follow in her footsteps now. I flung my hands out until my claws were the furthest they’d ever been. My teeth dropped, my eyes glowed, and I growled with such wrath that everyone near me responded with their own snarls until it was a chorus of warning growls that grew until I couldn’t stay still anymore.
I charged.
My feet pounded down the road, up the sidewalk, past the bodies, and into the center of demons. The Coliseum opened out before me, and the inside made the bloodied lawn look like a fucking parade.
There would be no humans to save.
In the center of the room, on a makeshift throne that looked like someone had been watching too many medieval dramas, sat Wyatt. He lounged on the throne, one leg over the arm, his back against the other side, sipping something in a metal goblet.
Blood.
If my wrath could’ve grown more intense, even with it filling every inch of me, the sight of Wyatt drinking human blood like this was a damn Christmas party did me in. The revelries around me was distracting the turned so they didn’t notice me for several seconds, and by that time, my army had caught up to me.
“Kill them,” I growled over my fangs. “Decimate them into the earth. Get the humans to safety.”
Knight let out the mournful howl he’d been holding in, and we stormed the coliseum. Left and right, I sliced through the turned that came at me. I threw bombs up into the spectator seats on the upper levels and heard the appropriate screams when they exploded. Whatever came at me, I carved it to pieces. My eyes only saw one man. Wyatt.
Wyatt was the leader of the turned from my house, the ones who had stolen Othello. I’d killed the vampire that led them to rebel, and I enjoyed it. I would enjoy killing him too. He was still lounging on the throne, not a care in the world, looking up when he saw me.
“Well, well, well. Look what the cat drag—” I cut him off by wrapping my hand around his throat. “Don’t be hasty, oh fearless leader. You kill me, and—”
“This ends,” I emphasized with a squeeze.
He laughed around my hand. “You always were narrow-minded. When you kill
ed Randall, you were terrifying and beautiful. The long and short of it is, if you kill me, you won’t get Othello back.” His taunting about my leader sent a spike of rage through me, ending with another twist of my hand on his throat.
“What makes you think he wants to stay alive after what you made him do?”
Wyatt’s grin turned evil, sadistic, exactly like him. “Hmm. You should’ve seen him. We always waited until he was close to madness. Close, but not there yet. Sometimes you could see the moral dilemma in his eyes, but in the end, he always—”
I cut Wyatt’s speech short with a snap of my fingers, cutting his life short as well. You worthless piece of fuck. I hope there is a hell so you can rot in it for eternity.
Our few numbers were no match for the hundreds of vampires in the Coliseum, even with the bombs. The only strategy we needed to win was fear. I dragged Wyatt’s meaningless corpse to the center of the room and roared as loudly as I could to get everyone’s attention, half of them stopping to see what the commotion was.
“Surrender to us now, or you will end up like your leader.” I hoisted his body over my head and tore it in half with my claws, the blood spraying out in front of me.. “You were all once human, and humans fear death more than anything else. Do you want to die? Because I will slaughter everyone here if I have to.”
Their answer was a resounding ‘no’ on the surrender. Arthur was knee deep in bodies and quickly making more, but he saw me nodding to him. It was time to blow the building up. Knight had been making the most headway in the ranks of our enemies, having made it to the second floor. I saw him on the edge of a balcony laying waste to five vampires at once. I’ll admit, it was a major turn-on. I whistled to him and he jumped down from the balcony to my side. Mounting his back, I called out to our soldiers.
“Retreat!” We led the way out the doors with Arthur last so he could close them before twisting a piece of metal to keep the doors closed and holding up the detonator, waiting for my nod.
Go time.
He clicked it, and the explosions started going off, one by one, all over the building. Arthur rolled down the sidewalk to stand with us. We watched the Coliseum burn to the ground. Still on Knight’s back, I called Arthur and Cameron to me.
“There were too few,” I said, my eyes flicking around the structure in case there were any survivors trying to escape.
“That’s all there ever was,” Cameron insisted. Merrick came to his side, trying to catch her breath from the fight.
As always, Arthur understood me. “No, she’s not talking about that. She means there are more turned vampires than this. On the planet. There should be several thousand. That was barely one.”
“Maybe most just bolted and didn’t join the army. I do remember the alchemist making extra sunlight potions and sending them somewhere. He said we had other brothers that weren’t in the fight,” Cameron said, shrugging.
Something felt wrong, and I didn’t like it. I’d always assumed that every turned vampire had joined the rebellion against us. Now to learn that a mere percentage had, I feared the consequences if we were wrong. I had no evidence to believe I was, and I couldn’t keep an army together on a feeling.
“Check for survivors, vampire or human. Begin the coverup. Plan N.” N meant no humans left, the last ditch scenario. I didn’t know what it entailed, but it was utterly thorough so the humans wouldn’t ask questions. “The cleanup crew stays. Everyone else, head out.”
23. Is it him I’m looking for?
It was late, and we were exhausted. None of us wanted to stop until we got back home. We’d lost many warriors in the battle, but what I saw on everyone’s faces wasn’t just sadness. They were relieved. They all believed this was over.
I wanted to believe it. I did. With every ounce of my being, I wanted this over. Only I couldn’t shake the fear, no matter how hard I tried.
The road led us home at the earliest light, when the sunrise began to peek over the mountains that dotted the horizon. Knight stepped back, lifted his bag from my hand with a claw, and nudged me forward to go on without him. He needed to shift back once the moon was gone. I let the army go ahead, Arthur stopping when he saw me waiting, and he came to stand beside me.
“I can’t shake this fear, Arthur,” I said to him. We’d barely spoken since I came back from Europe, and I was so tired I almost leaned against him. “This isn’t over, I know it. I feel it.”
Arthur hadn’t answered by the time Knight came out of the trees, fully changed into a man again. He didn’t say a word, just walked straight to me and folded me into his arms.
“Glad I’m me again,” he said as he pet my hair.
“You’re always you. Just sometimes you actually have body hair.” He chuckled at me and kissed my head. Despite my fear about our future, I felt safe in his arms. Not enough to erase the feeling creeping over me, but enough where my body relaxed a little, and I peered at Arthur over Knight’s shoulder. “What if I’m right? What if they come again and again until there’s nothing left of us?”
“Ssh,” Knight soothed, kissing my hair. “We won.”
“Today.”
“Today,” he conceded gently. He let me go and turned as he knelt on the road. “On my back. Let’s go home.” My tired limbs were basically useless. Arthur had to help me onto Knight’s back, the werewolf secured my legs with his hands, and we were off, the three of us headed back home.
The warmth of his back coupled with being up all night, I knew I would fall asleep, and I was right. I drifted off with my men beside me, the morning sun on my face lulling me to sleep.
When I woke up, I was lying on one of the couches in my office, coincidentally the one I’d been on when Arthur and I first kissed, a blanket over me and my shoes on the floor beside the sofa. Still hazy and trying to find where Knight was, I heard my name being spoken.
“We have no reason to believe that the other turned are part of the rebellion. You killed them, it’s over. Now we can live in peace.”
“You are blinded by fear,” someone argued passionately. “Look at her.” Her? Who her? “She has taken the entire race of Born vampires on her shoulders because all of you were too afraid of your own shadows to lead your people. You outcast her, and she still protects you with everything she has. I would rather trust her instincts than trust any of you with ordering a fucking happy meal.” Who was that? He sounded like Arthur, but he was too emotional for the stoic warrior I knew.
“The Council has voted, and we will not continue asking the Lycans or the newly turned to stay here. They will attend the festivities in two days, and then they will leave. That is the end of this discussion, Arthur. And next time, make sure this meeting is exclusive. Good day.”
My sleepy haze started to lift once the room was quiet, and I moaned as I tried to get up. Knight was there to stop me from falling over in a dizzy spell.
“How long did I sleep?” I yawned and rubbed my eyes. I heard Glenda whirring around somewhere.
“Not long enough,” he remarked with a sigh.
Arthur was there too, looking the tiniest bit sheepish as he met my eyes. “You heard?”
“You singing my praises? Mm, yes.” I stretched, not caring that he was watching me. “They’re right,” I said, still yawning. “We have no proof there are more in the turned army.”
“There’s still the alchemist,” he offered. “I asked the Council if they knew him. Oddly enough, it was Olivier who recognized the handwriting. She said it belonged to a turned vampire named Alistair.”
That name sparked at least some recognition. Alistair was in the back of my memories, but I’d never spoken to him directly. Those days, the turned had to stay far underneath the castle in England, so any memory I had of Alistair was him skulking around corners or catching my eye as he passed. There was no clear picture of his face in my mind, beyond black hair and maybe a mole on his cheek. Not enough to go on.
“Alistair was a turned vampire. He lived with us in England,” I told them w
hen I resurfaced from my memories.
“What happened to him?” Knight asked, but sadly I could only shrug because I hadn’t paid attention at the time.
“He didn’t come with us to America. I haven’t seen him since.” Standing, I picked up my shoes and wrapped the soft blue blanket around myself. “I want to believe it’s over. Maybe if I believe it hard enough, it’ll come true. Keep the scouts on alert, just in case. Lisbeth, out.” I shuffled out of the room and didn’t hear or see anything until I was back in my bedroom and could flop onto the bed. Knight was there for me to snuggle against and fall back asleep.
When I woke up later that day, Knight was gone, probably off getting food for himself. I was thirsty, but I could manage until I saw him. After a bath and a change of clothes, I checked on Kitty in her nursery. Balthazar held her against his shoulder in the rocker I’d gotten. He looked like he was about to fall asleep as she cooed at me, trying to wiggle away from him. I slipped her quickly from his grasp and held her in my arms.
“I wasn’t sleeping,” he croaked. Kitty looked happy to see me, and she wasn’t dead, so that was a plus. “She’s starting to hold her head up.”
“But she’s so young!” I marveled at her, and as if she knew what we were saying, which she probably did, she demonstrated her mad skills for me. She braced herself against my shoulder and held her little head up on her own. It plopped back down not two seconds later, and she sunk her fangs into my shoulder, content with herself as she gnawed on my skin like a chew toy and drank from me at the same time.
“She’s over a month old,” Balthazar noted, smiling at our baby. “Well past time for a young vampire to hold her head up. I expect her to know her letters before lunchtime. We won’t have slackers in this house.” She snorted at him as she drank from me. “You came in very messy this morning. Are we safe now?”
The feeling I still had curled my mouth into a frown. “That’s what they’ve agreed to believe.” Sleep hadn’t dulled my mood, and I pet Kitty’s curls, kissing her cheek and drinking in her smell to relax me.
The Born Vampire series: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (The Complete Series, NSFW Edition) Page 53