by D. N. Hoxa
“I have no idea, but it was red,” I said, just as my senses warned me of the presence of a supernatural close by, but whoever it was, they were too far. Nothing to concern myself with.
“And where is it now?” Arsenal continued.
Since I was feeling unusually lucky, I saw no need to lie to the guy again.
“My veins.”
I grinned. Arsenal’s raised brow said he wanted to ask—desperately—but he also didn’t think it was a secret worth putting his life in danger for. Smart man.
“Now, you know how to contact Kyle, the guy who found you. I’ll be with him the whole time. As soon as you have a place, send it to him immediately. In return, I will give you a picture of Samayan that I guarantee you’ll love so much, you’ll want to frame it and keep it as your desktop wallpaper forever.”
He knew what kind of picture I was talking about.
“And remember. No one will know about this, Arsenal.”
“I gave you my word.” He nodded, his eyes still on the small flask I’d given him. He had, and I trusted him. I trusted his need for revenge.
Just like that, I had one less item on my to-do list. Impatience breathed down my neck with every step I took back to Aaron and the others. I couldn’t wait to get to the Base.
I felt the bunch of supernaturals before I saw them. Not only that, but to my surprise, I felt the same energy that I’d felt at the hotel with Arsenal. It was definitely a shifter, though still too far away to say what he shifted into.
My curiosity piqued, I slowed my steps, and the energy immediately began to grow stronger, meaning the shifter was growing closer. And I didn’t believe in coincidences. No, I was definitely being followed.
I took a right and stepped into an alley. It was still noon, but the buildings were tall and the alley dark. I hid behind the red brick wall, and I waited, heart in my throat.
The shifter grew closer, and my senses hyperventilated. I felt the distinctive energy, a power I’d know anywhere. Why? Because it was one of a kind.
And Kai was barely ten feet away from me.
My lips stretched into a smile as I waited patiently for her to come closer. She’d found me. I didn’t know how, but she had. The day kept getting better and better.
Five seconds later and she stepped into the alley. She looked exactly the same, with that black cape around her shoulders, her green eyes wide and her blond hair cut short.
“Raven.” She said my name like she was in a rush.
“Kai, my old friend.” I was going to say that I missed her, but I didn’t want to stretch it that far. When I came out of where I was hiding, she looked surprised.
“What have you done?” she asked, recognizing the look on my face. She’d seen it many times before. The pure look of victory. I raised my brow at her.
“Now, now. It that a way to greet an old friend after so long?” It wasn’t like I was expecting an answer, so I continued. “How did you find me, Kai? Please tell me you had a feeling that I was soon going to come looking for you. That would mean we’re more bonded than I thought.”
“I’m going to have to take you with me, Raven,” she said. Still not one to play games, not even to indulge an old friend.
“Then what the hell are you waiting for?” I waved for her to come closer.
That was why I both loved and hated Kai. She never wasted any unnecessary time. I saw her go for her knife a quarter of a second before I leaned to my side and it flew right pass me, its velocity blowing a breath of air against my cheek. I drew out Bob and jumped forward, welcoming the fight.
I’d missed fighting with Kai. She was as sneaky as Aaron, probably because they were both cats. I grabbed her by her thin hair and was going to smash her face against the brick wall, but she bent over and moved back, trying to do the same to me. I moved my arm in time, and Bob caught her on her thigh, pretty deep. Blood soaked her black pants immediately.
She flinched from the pain before she came at me again, her fist and one small knife ready. Before she could hit me, I grabbed both her wrists lightning fast and pulled her to me. Her stomach connected with my raised knee, and once all air left her body and her green eyes began to take on that yellow hue, I knew what was going to happen. She was going to shift.
Kai was one of the few who could control her animal. Not completely, because nobody could, but better than ninety-nine percent of all the shifters of the world. I’d never fought her leopard before, and I couldn’t wait to try it. I couldn’t wait to test myself.
To push her to shift faster, I pulled her head down and kneed her right on the nose. She lost the little balance she had left, and so it was easy for me to kick both her feet from under her. She fell hard on her back.
I jumped up and was going to land with both my feet on her stomach, but she rolled over and jumped to her feet too fast. She threw her knife at me, and the blade buried itself in my left forearm. I felt the sting, but it was nothing compared to the fun I was having. I took the knife out and threw it at her, catching her other thigh.
She fell a step back, and I followed.
“What the hell is going on?!”
Aaron’s voice from behind Kai reached my ears in a rush. The smile on my face should’ve told him that everything was all right, but he came to me running anyway. Good thing Kai didn’t attack him, not until Aaron grabbed my arm.
“Who’s this?” he said, voice low and deadly.
“That’s Kai, the leopard I told you about.” I was about to jump forward and catch Kai in the gut with my foot while she was still recovering, but Aaron stopped me for whatever reason.
“She’s…she’s poisoned,” Kai whispered before I could ask what the hell he was doing. “She’s got Nephilim blood in her. It’s driving her mad with power.”
Excuse me?
Aaron’s grip tightened around my arm.
“She’s lying,” I said, a second before I remembered that I was talking to probably the best lie detector in the world.
“Star?”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t have any Nephilim blood in me! I have a potion,” I hissed. I’d seen the damned thing, and I would’ve recognized it if it were blood.
“A potion made of Nephilim blood. It’s the truth, I swear it,” Kai said and that just pissed me off more. Because I knew Kai enough to realize when she was telling the truth. I cursed Samayan under my breath as I jerked free from Aaron’s grip and made for Kai again. The fucker had given me blood. What the hell did he think I was, a filthy vamp?
Kai was ready for me when I attacked, and she gave me a kick on my knee before the small knife I hadn’t seen in her hand scratched my collarbone from one side to another.
“She needs that thing out of her, or we’re fucked,” Kai said to Aaron, as if I wasn’t even there, trying to hit her but failing. Suddenly, it felt like she moved faster than I remembered. I didn’t like how the end of that great morning was looking now…
“Star, stop!” Aaron called from behind me, and the distraction he caused Kai earned her my foot under her chin. She fell to the side, and I was finally going to be done with her, but then Aaron wrapped his arms around me before I could go step on her pretty face and break her jaw.
“Let me go, Aaron,” I hissed through clenched teeth.
“Don’t let her go! You need to get that blood out of her. I saw all of it. She met with the Council’s old tracker just now, and she gave him something that belonged to Master Samayan to find out where he is,” Kai said in a rush.
So she hadn’t been after me at all. She had been looking for Arsenal, and judging by the video of last year’s SKO conference, Kai had no doubt planted a bug somewhere in his room.
I elbowed Aaron in his stomach. It was so unexpected, he actually let me go. Good thing, too, because I needed to silence Kai immediately. Another one of her knives buried deep in my thigh, but it didn’t stop me. That is until Aaron kicked my feet from under me, and I fell to my knees.
“Star, stop. Please, don’t m
ake me hurt you,” he said.
I wanted to laugh. He could certainly try. I turned around, and with a single push on his chest, I threw him against the wall.
“She needs that blood removed, now!” Kai cried hysterically.
“She needs that blood removed, now!” I mocked. “You’re pathetic. Nothing’s getting removed from me, ever.” Even if Samayan had really given me Nephilim blood. For a second, I wondered if any Nephil’s blood would do the trick. It would make things a hell of a lot easier if it did…
For now, I grabbed Kai by the hair, and Bob was ready to cut her throat in my other hand. Her eyes gleamed yellow and the air around her sizzled with energy. Bob’s bloodthirsty blade was half an inch away from her skin when Aaron grabbed my wrist and pulled me to him. I lost balance and fell against his strong chest.
“Please, baby. Stop this,” he whispered against my mouth and took my face in his hands.
“You don’t understand,” I said, but when he said please, I just couldn’t bring myself to send him flying against the wall again.
“Star, this isn’t you! You need to come to your senses,” Aaron said, but my focus was on Kai. She was the one responsible for all this. She and that big mouth on her.
She stood at my side, a gun ready to fire in her hands. No, not a gun. It was a plastic thingy with a small syringe, as small as my pinky, right in the weird-looking barrel.
She fired. The syringe’s needle entered my chest, right above my heart.
“You have got to be kidding me!” I cried. Seriously, were they ever going to stop using those things?
Aaron had already let me go, so I had more than enough time to kick her hard in the face. The plastic thing fell from her hands. I felt a little dizzy. Aaron came from behind me and took the syringe out of my chest.
“Where the hell did you get this?” he asked Kai while he wrapped his arms around me again.
I tried to break free, but my brain was going in circles now and I didn’t feel strong enough.
“Comes with the costume. Hold her,” Kai said, standing again, her face bloody.
I pushed my foot back in attempt to get Aaron’s crotch, but I missed and only caused him to tighten his grip more.
“Aaron, let me go, right now,” I breathed in barely a whisper. The view in front of me started to go black. Panic filled me from head to toe. I couldn’t lose it now. I couldn’t.
“I’m sorry, baby. This is for your own good, I promise. Just relax,” Aaron whispered in my ear, just as something poked my gut—no doubt another one of those syringes.
“We need to get out of here, now…”
Kai’s voice was the last thing I heard before my body fell limply in Aaron’s arms and unconsciousness claimed me.
8
——————————
My heart seemed to have moved to the back of my head, and it beat there like a hammer. My jaw hurt as if someone had introduced it to their foot. As if that wasn’t enough, my chest felt like it was on fire.
Kai’s face took over my mind, and my eyes popped open. Thick iron bars were all I saw in front of me. I blinked a few times, and as the view cleared, so did my ears.
“You have to do it now,” she said, her voice still a little shaky.
I took in everything around me. Too many lights and too much white. We were definitely in an RR Base.
Who had been so stupid as to bring Kai of all people into one of the Bases?
“This is insane,” someone whispered. It was Ella.
My ears searched for her and found her on the other side of the bars, standing next to Aaron and Jack.
“How are we going to do that? Shouldn’t we call Horatio or something?” Jack mumbled. He was trying to keep it together, but everything about him screamed panic.
“I don’t care. You’re a vamp. You can do it,” Kai hissed. It was unmistakably her. They had really brought her to the Base.
I made an effort to stand up. I was sitting on the cold metal bench of the cell. My hands were tied with thick iron cuffs, and as far as I could tell, they ran deep under the building.
“You mean like, suck it out of her?” Aaron asked, narrowing his brows.
Suck it out. I shivered.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get me out of here, right now,” I hissed, and when I moved, the thick chains of my cuffs made the most annoying noise. I couldn’t wait to get rid of them. If I could just clear my head and connect to the earth, I would be free in mere seconds, but that was going to take me a little while longer. Whatever Kai had given me, it had knocked me out pretty bad.
“I thought you said she’d be out for hours,” Jack complained, looking at the cell next to mine.
“I know, you idiot. She’s worse off than I thought. Her system fights the drug faster. The enchanted Nephilim blood in her fights it faster.”
Kai’s voice came from there. So they had been dumb enough to bring her to the Base but then smart enough to lock her in, at least.
“Aaron, now,” I warned, and I put all of the energy I had gathered so far into my connection with earth.
“Star, just relax. This will all be over soon.” He wouldn’t meet my eyes. He just kept shaking his head like he had no idea what the hell he was going to do.
“I’ll do it.”
All eyes turned to Ella. Every hair on my skin stood to attention. She was not going to come near me. I looked at her, standing tall and proud, her eyes gleaming as she watched me. She really meant it.
“No, I will,” Jack said, and he reluctantly took a step towards my cell.
Phew. Jack was perfectly fine. I could kill him before he even managed to touch me.
“Don’t be stupid. She’ll kill you before you can touch her,” Ella said as if she’d read my fucking mind. Goddamn it.
“Ella, stay away from me!” I warned her.
The anger cleared my focus, and finally, the connection with earth clicked into place. I called upon it immediately. I pulled at my cuffs as I asked for the stupid concrete to release the iron chains buried deep in it. The ground started to shake a bit.
“You need to hurry,” Kai said.
I wished I could just cut her tongue out already. Like would be a lot easier for all of us.
“You two, get out,” Ella said to Jack and Aaron.
“Ella, no. You need to stay out of this.” She didn’t care about me, though. She pushed Jack and Aaron to the door.
“Are you sure you can do this?” Aaron asked. He looked worse than after he died back in Texas.
“If there’s a vampire that can get close enough to her without getting killed, it’s me,” Ella insisted.
Was she right? Was she going to take my power away from me? Was I going to let her?
“We’ll be right outside,” Aaron said reluctantly and finally walked out the door in a rush. I pulled on my cuffs and ordered earth again. The concrete was just too stubborn, and I was still not completely clean of whatever Kai had given me, probably because it had gone directly through my heart.
“Remember, you can't drink it or you’ll become like her. The blood is enchanted, extremely addictive, especially for a vampire.”
Kai’s voice came through while Ella opened the door in one second. and closed it with us inside before I thought to blink. I wasn’t used to her being so fast yet.
With every step she took, I lost my grip on the connection with earth because of the panic. This was my sister. She was the reason I became the one I now was. I couldn’t actually hurt her. Not even if I knew how badly she was going to hurt me.
“Spit it as soon as you suck it. Leave her only enough to survive and regenerate,” Kai said, as if someone actually asked her anything.
“Shut the fuck up!” I shouted at her and then turned to Ella. She was towering over me now. “Ella, please. I don’t want to hurt you. Please, leave now. Just stay away from me!”
Instead, she avoided my eyes and pushed my hair to the side. I jerked away from her hand.
“Ella, please…” I pleaded, desperate now. Earth wasn’t even trying to help me! Before I knew it, I’d given up on it altogether. Ella leaned down, staring at my throat, her eyes almost completely silver now. I’d never been more afraid in my life, of both hurting her and not hurting her.
“Star, this has to end. I can't stand to look at what you’ve become anymore. You’re going to let me do this.”
The disgust in her voice formed a lump in my throat. With her extremely cold hand, she pushed my cheek to the side.
Just then, by some miracle, the earth groaned and the chain holding my left arm broke.
I pulled as hard and as fast as I could, but Ella was faster. I didn’t even see her fangs, but they tore through the skin of my neck fast as lightning. She went in deep, and she began to suck my blood from me. The blood that was filled with the potion Kai claimed was made with enchanted Nephilim blood. All that power…
I grabbed Ella’s arm tightly, and I squeezed with all I had. I felt it the second her bone broke, but she never let me go, though a cry escaped her throat. I did it. I actually broke bones in my sister’s body, and it didn’t matter that she was going to heal before this was even over. I hurt her.
And that knowledge alone took all my strength away from me. My hands fell limp to my sides.
“Ella, no…” I breathed, and when she pulled her fangs out of me, I thought she was going to stop.
She didn’t. She simply spit out blood on the white tiles of the cell floor, and without pity or even another look my way, she dug in again.
As the blood left my body, my power flowed away with it, from me to Ella’s mouth, and then onto the white tiles. My power, all of my power, it was gone now, just garbage on the floor. I started to shake, but my fingers felt numb. I couldn’t move my lids. It was getting harder to breath. Ella didn’t need to hold me anymore. I had completely frozen.
I managed to get a glimpse at her silver eyes for just a second and shuddered. They were wide, like two spheres of silver moving around their selves.
One thing I remembered thinking the second my eyes closed: unconsciousness blows.