“Kitty,” she swore under her breath with a reproachful look.
My defenses rose but I tried to stay calm, certain she would understand. “When I take Night Shadow, I can see the face of the vampire’s blood it was made from. I figured if I ever saw yours, or anyone I knew, I could track down where it came from. Besides, don’t be all judgy. I found your blood in one stash, so don’t act innocent.” Her mouth was pressed together in a thin line, keeping her silent. “I followed that one sighting of Arthur for the past three years, until it led me here. To you.”
“I see.” She got up from the coffee table and sat back down on the couch with the cat in her arms.
“Mom, how did your blood end up in Night Shadow?”
“This town has many secrets, Kitty,” she deflected. “And eyes and ears everywhere.” Her eyes darted to the door that led to the hallway and her hands never stopped petting Shadow’s fur. The story Arthur had told me was slowly coming to light, and I was beginning to think that it was much worse than he’d guessed.
Knowing she wasn’t going to talk further, I struggled with trying to find something we could talk about. “Jason,” I said suddenly, and her eyes came to rest on my face. “What happened to him?”
“Hmm,” she mused with a haunted sigh. “We sent him away with Balthazar to keep him safe. That was the last we saw of him.” The question I’d asked Knight on the balcony came back to me.
Why hadn’t they left Salvation to search for us?
He hadn’t given me an answer, and I doubted she would either. I watched her pet Shadow with a hazed look on her face, and I realized her behavior reminded me of her father, the crazy Lucas.
Her face brightened quickly enough to startle me. “I bet you’re thirsty. Have you drunk today?” I shook my head, prompting her to stand. She brushed her hair back from her neck and waited for me to come closer to her.
She was offering me her blood? I hadn’t drunk from her since I was an infant. It felt like being offered baby formula. Still, I hadn’t had real vampire blood in so damn long. I stood, the wicker chair creaking underneath me with the effort, and I approached her, my fangs already dropping as the perfume of her blood called to me. When I was close enough to see the pulsing vein in her neck, she grabbed my arms and pulled me flush against her.
“Let me drink your blood, Kitty,” she whispered so quietly I almost didn’t hear. Even after twenty years apart, I trusted her, and I leaned my head to the side. Quickly, she dropped her fangs and latched them onto my neck, piercing the skin and causing a jab of momentary pain, making me wince. She was done in less than ten seconds, keeping me close to her when she’d finished, pressing our noses together.
“There. That’s better,” she said inside my head.
“What the fuck? Mom?” I thought back to her.
“Shut your eyes,” she told me, and I did so.
Immediately, I was transported into a white room where we stood facing each other. We were both wearing white pantsuits, a look I’d never have on in real life.
“Pretty neat trick, right?” she said with a grin.
“Are we in the Matrix?” I asked her, turning this way and that to see every angle.
She giggled. “No. I’m inside your head. We can talk without worry in here. No one will hear us.”
“When did you learn how to do this?” I shrieked out and flipped my hands around. “This is so cool!”
Her smile fell and she looked down at her sandals. “I’m afraid this particular skill was learned out of necessity.” Suddenly there was a white couch for us to sit on. She sat and patted the spot next to her. “You need to hear the real story about the night Arthur was taken away.”
17. Salvation with a cost
Kitty
Practically running, I sat on the couch next to her and watched her sigh a few times, shutting her eyes to steel herself for what she was about to say.
“We came to Salvation when Dreya was very small. I’m sure Arthur has told you this part. We thought it was a safe haven. Governor Hendrix took us in and promised us refuge from the drones in exchange for our service as protectors of the humans. Once more Lycans and vampires came, he quickly realized that they viewed me as their leader, even if I’d pissed off more than a few of them by going public to the humans. We had a good partnership for a time. And then…” she trailed off, fiddling with her fingers. “He started requiring us to all donate blood. Not the humans, just the vampires and Lycans. He said that the medical team was researching the healing properties of our blood, and no one thought it was strange until he asked for more, and more, insisting it was for medical purposes. I followed him to where he took the blood once it was donated, and I found a room where the humans were making Night Shadow. With our blood.”
“Fucking hell,” I swore, and it echoed across the white space.
She nodded, her eyes absent. “I confronted him, and I told him we refused to give him more blood. I threatened to take all the vampires and Lycans with me. And he…” The deep, choking sound she made echoed as well. “He burned Cameron and Merrick’s home to the ground. With them inside.”
I instantly got to my feet and paced across the white floor in a rage. “That fucking bastard. I’m going to chop his arm off and shove it up his ass, and when I’m done with him, no one will recognize his worthless corpse because I’ll have fucked it up beyond all god damn recognition.” Gripping my shoulders tightly, I screamed loudly enough I was sure the world outside my head would hear it.
Lisbeth was crying silently during my tirade and didn’t stop me. “After that,” she continued once I’d quieted down, still pacing angrily. “He made it clear that Dreya would be next.” I swore again “I packed up as much as I could carry in our bags and I tried to get us out. When the guards found us, they blinded me with a flashlight and forced three pills of Night Shadow down my throat. Hendrix knew that Arthur or Knight would take the blame, and if I was separated from either of them, he’d have my Achilles’ heel, because it would fuel any threat to taking the other away as well. And he was right.”
I had to wipe my face on my large white sleeves so I could see clearly past all the tears.
“He banished Arthur to the wastelands, and he confined me to this building. I haven’t been outside in thirteen years. Any step out of line, Dreya or Knight would die. I knew it. He knew it. And I was stuck here in these rooms while my babies were out in the world, lost and alone, and I couldn’t even tell my mate what was going on.” More tears trickled down her cheeks, and she sobbed as she took a breath. “Hendrix created my persona of the Countess, drawing from my family background so more of us would come in. So more of our kind could become his prisoners.”
I fell onto the couch and threw my arms around her, and we both cried together. I was certain that outside my head, both our faces were as wet as a faucet. Once we’d calmed down, she wiped at my face and sniffed a few times.
“Kitty, I’m pregnant.”
“Already?” How long had it been since Arthur had returned? A few hours? She couldn’t know yet, right?
She managed a small laugh. “No. It’s Knight’s baby. I haven’t told him yet. I wasn’t sure how to, knowing that it would only be another tool for Hendrix to use against me.” Her warm hands took my cold ones. “I need you to take Dreya away from here and find Jason. I won’t bring another child into this world with my life at stake, and I won’t risk rebellion with my children in the line of fire. Take her with you, and her friend Thomas. He’ll protect her.”
“We have no idea where Jason is at. He could be in a different country. It could take us years to find him.” The old farm house came to me and I gripped her fingers. “I had a dream about him. He was at an old house, holding a picture of us.”
She turned her head in thought. “Was it a white house? With a broken dining table to the left of the door?”
My head twisted in surprise. “How the hell did you know that?”
Her smile of relief lit up her face. “I kn
ow where he is.” A noise in the real world interrupted us. Lisbeth looked around the white space and back at me. “It’s Knight and Arthur.” Though my mind was engaged in the scene she’d created, my body felt her hand leave my side in the physical world, and the two men joined our circle.
They popped up beside us on the couch.
“What in the fuck is this?” Arthur exclaimed, taking it all in.
“Freak mind powers, baby,” Knight answered, leaning back on the couch with his hands behind his head. Clearly, he’d been here before. “My girl can do it all. Or, our girl, I should say.”
Lisbeth gave me a quick smile and then she related everything she’d told me about Hendrix and the real face of Salvation. It was worth noting that she’d left out her being pregnant. I suspected the thought of rebellion would turn both men against her plans if they knew she was expecting.
Knight’s first reaction was to stand and pace the perfectly white floor of the area. “You…” he started and stopped. “You kept this from me, this whole time. For thirteen years.” His knuckles popped as he made fists and let them go. I felt a shimmer of his inner wolf come out, here in our minds where it didn’t require the moon to show itself.
“If you’d have known, you would’ve freaked out,” Arthur noted evenly, as if he hadn’t just been dropped the same bombshell.
“You’re damn right I would’ve freaked out,” Knight ground out, shaking his finger at the other man.
Lisbeth had tears in her eyes again and she gave Knight a look that asked, begged, for understanding. “I couldn’t risk Dreya. You had to be in the dark.”
Puffs of hot breath came from Knight as he continued pacing, his fingers running through his hair so much that I thought he might pull it all out. The sound of his feet on the empty floor was deafening.
“I’m not mad at you, love,” he said finally. “I’m mad at myself that I didn’t see. You were holding this inside for so long and I didn’t fucking see. I mean, I suspected something was wrong when you stopped leaving the clock tower and started using your mind palace for every single conversation between us. But this… it’s so much worse than anything I’d imagined.” His feet went still, and he stopped next to me. “What now? How are we getting free?”
“Kitty and Dreya are leaving to look for Jason. Kitty had a vision about him, he’s at your family homestead in Texas.” Ohh. That’s what the old house was. “While they’re gone, we will do what we must to get away from Hendrix.”
“I’m not leaving,” Dreya declared once we’d brought her into the family meeting, in the real world this time. Lisbeth had been paranoid enough to bring us into her mind palace, but now that we knew the basics, she felt safe speaking out loud. Plus, we were already harboring a fugitive, so talking about this Hendrix dude wouldn’t get us in more trouble. “Darius won’t let his father hurt me, and I can do more at his side than I can outside of Salvation.”
“Somewhat unconvinced,” Arthur muttered, and Lisbeth lightly smacked at his arm to hush him.
“You’d be putting your life at risk, regardless of Darius’s involvement,” Lisbeth warned her, her purple eyes as serious as I’d ever seen them.
“I’m confident,” Dreya assured with a nod. “Trust me.”
And with an answering nod from Lisbeth, we were all in agreement.
18. Safe travels
Kitty
Dom and I left Salvation behind after several tearful goodbyes that I was trying to push from my mind. Shadow followed us out of the city and we continued down the road as the gates were locked behind us.
I’d been instructed to loop Dom in as soon as we couldn’t be overheard, and did so once the city was a blip on the skyline. He stopped, turned, and squinted at the horizon. Just barely, we could see the tallest buildings standing ominous and proud.
“They may not be there when we get back,” he said absently, more to himself than me.
I tilted my chin and stared at the distant city with a venomous sneer. “If they’re gone, I’ll raze that city to the ground like fucking Godzilla. With a smile on my face.”
When I looked back at Dom, he was appraising me with a surprised, and dare I say impressed, look. I will jump your damn bones, boy.
“Arthur said your mom was intense. I guess you are too.”
I humphed and turned back around, my shoes crunching on the dirt as I continued walking. “Spent a lot of time with that one? He’s not much of a sharer. How much do you even know about him, I wonder?”
Dom shrugged his shoulders underneath his large camo back pack. “Arthur is a complex person.”
“Is that polite speech for weirdo?”
He snorted at me and picked up a pebble to toss off a towering rock formation next to the road. “He’s kind of your dad now, isn’t he?”
The image of my mom doing it was back, so gross.
“Bleh, gag, don’t remind me. I have three dads now. That sounds like a very bad sitcom.” I had plenty of time to get used to it. Assuming they were all still… alive… after all this was over.
By nightfall, we made it back to the Lycan camp where I’d left my motorcycle. Simon took the news about Arthur and Salvation in strides, and he promised to keep his eye out for anyone coming from the city. I spent a restless night in my tent with Shadow curled against my back. It felt like I’d just closed my eyes when Dom shook at my tent to wake me up. I didn’t put Artemis in his face, so he got off lucky.
We packed up some jerky from Simon before saying goodbye, and with Shadow zipped up into my jacket and Dom sitting behind me on my cycle, we sped off across the dusty road.
According to Knight, his old homestead was somewhere in the mid-west part of Texas. He couldn’t give an exact area because he hadn’t been there since roads were invented, but we were certain that if Jason was still there, he’d have marked his territory pretty well. From bleeder chatter I’d heard, Texas was swimming with sharks. No bleeders to speak of. It was why I’d never searched there before now, and I felt like a fucking dumb ass for leaving out the one place where Jason might be. He was a pack animal by nature, so if there weren’t other Lycans or bleeders around, why would he be way out in the middle of nowhere?
Questions we would discover. Hopefully.
As Lisbeth hadn’t actually let me drink from her, I was beginning to feel the ache of hunger from going several days between feedings, not to mention the bullet holes that had finally healed, taking more of my blood for the effort. I needed blood soon or this trip would go sideways fast. Dom was still clutching at my middle on the motorcycle, unaware how hungry I was, and that he was probably on the menu if I got too starved. Drink dispenser, indeed.
I pushed the hunger away and tried to focus on something good. Something worth celebrating. I’d found my family, and I was on my way to find Jason. Finally. Thalia had been right. Pushing on and never giving up had paid off.
My eyes closed for a split second and I remembered the way she used to smile at me. I missed her so much. Even after all the years of her being gone, I’d never actually spoken aloud a single word about her. Maybe I never would.
“Eyes on the road, kitty cat,” Dom snarked in my ear as he slapped his hand on my shoulder to wake me up. My eyes popped open and we were swerving off the road, easily corrected with a twist of the handlebars. “Thinking about my dashing good looks?”
The words came easily, despite my mood. “Better. About a gorgeous woman.”
“Oh, that is better! Do tell.”
I shook my head and pushed my foot onto the throttle, picking up speed down the road. We covered a lot of ground before the sun set and the bike engine stopped working for the night. We got off and I rolled the bike down the highway with Dom on the other side. Shadow wiggled around in my jacket until I let him out so he could follow us.
“Hope we find humans tomorrow. I’m mighty thirsty. How about you?” He raised his eyebrows at me with a smile.
“I’m fine,” I lied. No need to worry my food supply. I imag
ined all the ways my mom would scold me if she heard me talking like that. The night air quickly turned colder, but we kept walking until we found an abandoned motel. With no sharks within sniffing distance, Dom used a jimmy he had in his backpack to open the glass motel doors. Once we were both inside, we closed them again and they stayed put with a whoosh.
The lobby of the motel was covered with a thick layer of dust that puffed out with every step we took. We went past the breakfast buffet area and down towards the rooms. Several doors were open, letting in all the dust, but we found one that was sealed tight. Dom used the jimmy again and got us inside before I shut the door, locked it, and put up the chain locks. No sharks could get inside now.
Dom leaned his backside against the sink that waited right outside the door, looking me over slowly in a way that heated my cheeks. “Too bad there’s no running water here. I could use a bath. Maybe we could share?” Ignoring him, I turned and walked over to the large king-sized bed and dumped my bag on it. “Sorry if I’m bothering you,” Dom apologized, coming into the bigger part of the room.
I paused and looked up at him, seeing his face had turned very serious, a look I could tell he wasn’t used to. “I’m not used to… flirting. Or people for that matter. I’ve been on my own for a long time.” Shadow jumped up onto the bed and I scratched his head while unpacking a few things from my bag before removing my jacket.
The Born Vampire series: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (The Complete Series, NSFW Edition) Page 76