Death Before Dawn

by Amelia Hutchins

  It smelled of solvent and cleaner. I could hear at least fifteen people moving around inside the building, and a few weren’t here by choice. One woman was screaming, while someone else was laughing. They spoke openly about the Sentinels that were alerted to the news of my capture and were on their way.

  Shamus hadn’t been lying about being in cahoots with my mother. They were excited about what was coming. They talked about killing the rest of the elders, forming new laws, and taking out any who opposed them. One talked about killing Jaeden and his men, like they’d already decided to end their lives I wasn’t going to let them do it.

  I had to get free, kill them all and get home. I wanted to break down, cry for Azrael and allow the pain to take me, but first I had to be sure my people were safe, that this threat no longer loomed over their heads. My first priority was to get away; my second was to kill them all, no matter the cost. And last but not least, I had to get home and warn them, since some of Shamus’s people were still inside with them.

  “Go to the Ark,” Shamus ordered Astrid, and I wondered if she would do as he’d told her to this time. Both of them were ignoring me. I wasn’t considered a threat since I was in chains and vulnerable. Only, I could feel how weak the chains were; sense that while he pretended to not fear me, he did. They all did. They should.

  They’d taken a piece of my soul, and I was going to collect a piece of theirs in return. I was done playing around.

  He pushed the remains of my shirt and bra off of my shoulders, and I began to feel a familiar itch above my shoulder blades and along my spine. I tilted my head as I heard a door open and close, and knew Astrid was being a good little dog and rushing back to the Ark as she’d been told. By now they had to know I was missing.

  “Should I cut you open and then allow the men to use you, Emma?” Shamus asked, his words sliced through my mind. “Or, should I allow them to use you and then cut you open? Decisions, decisions,” he continued with glee.

  I turned my head and looked at him, really looked at him. His hair was greasy, his teeth yellowed from his lack of hygiene. He’d hidden it from us, showing us what we’d wanted to see in him. He wasn’t beautiful as I’d first assumed; no, if you looked beyond the façade, you could see the monster lurking in the depths of his soul. He was cold, and had an ugliness to him that was bone-deep. Cayla had tried to warn me, but she’d been tied to him; she’d freed herself by drinking my blood. Smart, she was very smart, which he took for granted, assuming she was damaged.

  He’d taken that girl from one abusive life and given her an even worse one, and acted like she owed him for it. She’d taken control back from him. Nery was perceptive; he’d been able to predict things and, for Cayla’s sake, I was so happy that he had told her how she could save herself. Having Jaeden change her was risky for both of them. Especially because the vampires all thought she was damaged, and the elders would have destroyed her if she hadn’t been tied to another vampire.

  “Bitch,” Shamus bellowed, raising his hand and slicing through my face with a scalpel. I felt the searing agony as it ripped through the skin of my cheek. I stifled a scream as pain burned through me, and slowly, carefully, turned to look at him through a smile. At least I think it was a smile; my cheek was flayed open, and skin gaped uselessly. “I asked you a question,” he smiled back as he admired his work. “I think I should let my men have you first,” he taunted.

  “I think you should die. Now,” I whispered coldly. My wings unfurled and I wrapped my hands around the chains and yanked with all of my strength, pulling until the wooden beam in the ceiling gave way and the hook came undone. I swung it towards Shamus; the hook and chains caught him in the face, tearing flesh with the sheer force I used to slam the chains against him.

  He cried out as he placed his hands on the torn skin and vanished. I screamed in frustration that he’d disappeared like a coward before I could give him the ass-kicking he richly deserved. I was slower than I had planned to be, but my limbs were numb from the position I’d been in for hours. I moved through the door, refusing to look at anything except the first vampire who waited for me just outside the door.

  He held a sword; his red eyes greedily looked at my breasts and then the blood that seeped from the wounds on my face, chest, and abdomen. He hefted the heavy blade and prepared to swing it, but I was faster. I used the chains as weapons, hitting him with the metal as if they were whips. The blade made a sharp sound as it cut through the chain, severing it into two separate pieces still held by each of my wrists. I pulled them back swiftly, and swung them out again, wrapping both around his neck. I pulled him close, watching as his mouth gasped for much-needed air.

  “You were born mortal, and you will die mortal,” I whispered as I wiped the blood that still flowed from my face with my fingers and dragged it across his tongue. He tasted it and then yanked back, as others moved forward, watching as he lunged towards me for more of my blood. Before I could stop them, they attacked, biting my flesh to get my blood. Azrael had told me that when my powers completely emerged, that my blood would more than likely smell like an aphrodisiac to vampires, making it difficult for them to ignore it.

  I cried out as they latched on painfully, sucking greedily until it hit them. I waited until the last one had drunk and pulled away from me as they coughed and gasped for air. My wings expanded, and I used them to shield my naked breasts as I watched them change, painfully and slowly. Some screamed, some cried and pleaded. None of them understood what my blood was doing to them.

  I looked around the room, seeing a lot of women that had been chained to beds and most had bite marks all over their bodies. They’d used this place for Shamus’s sick perversions. On the far side of the room, crumpled against the wall, I saw the body of the man I loved, broken and discarded like trash. I stood up, rising on my shaking legs, and moved towards the first woman. She shrank away from me, but her eyes were large, blue, and curious as she took in my wings.

  “Are you an angel?” she whispered, tears flowing down her ravaged cheeks.

  “I can save you,” I replied. “I can save you all,” I sniffed back a sob as the memory of the ravaged woman from the cannibals came rushing back with enough pain that I doubled over with it. If my powers had emerged then, if I had known what I was, there was a good chance that I could have saved her. “Do you want to be saved?” I asked, because some of these women were in pretty bad shape from what the vampires had done.

  “We do, but what they did to us…” one whispered, and I turned to her, noting her eyes were gone. I didn’t know if I could fix that, but I’d do my best. So far, my blood seemed to be a cure, I moved away from the women, finding the tools Shamus had been planning to torture me with, and sliced through the palm of my hand. I held it over a bowl, and made my way back to the women.

  “I know you’re not going to like it, but you need to drink this. It will help you and then we will get out of here, and away from this place. I have a bunker, and you will be safe there,” I said as I helped free them from chains that were similar to what I had been held with, and helped one after another to drink a few sips each of my blood. They didn’t question it, they trusted me. This would be a lot easier if my powers were fully emerged and I could just touch them and heal them.

  I heard something moving behind me, as the women started to cry out in horror. I turned and watched as Azrael sat up. While Shamus was toying with me, Azrael must have been healing with immense speed. He turned his head slowly, and his vivid blue eyes found me. He exhaled, and his wings shot out wide as he stood.

  “Emma,” he mumbled as I rushed towards him, and we hit the ground hard as I threw myself into his arms. I couldn’t stop the sob that exploded from my lips, or the tears that fell in relief as he wrapped his own arms around me, his armor covering his body as the women moved in closer to us. “Did they hurt you?” he asked worriedly, his hands searching my body for any sign
that Shamus had assaulted me. His fingers gently caressed the wounds on my face and chest where they had literally shredded my heart, along with the bite wounds that were all over my body. His eyes looked like they were full of pain and I sensed he was hurting because he wasn’t able to protect me from what happened.

  “No, but he’s working with my mother. We have to get out of here, now,” I informed him with urgency in my tone.

  “I heard a lot of what Shamus said,” he whispered as his eyes searched mine. “Some of it was fractured as I healed. It feels like it took hours.”

  “It did. I was afraid I lost you,” I said through the tears. “You can’t leave me, ever. It felt like I was splintered, like a part of me was just gone.”

  “I was gone, briefly. I told you, sweet girl, hard to kill.”

  “He said Trina told him how to kill you,” I snuffled, and he smiled as he wiped my tears away.

  “Yes, I am sure that whatever that type of bullet was, a shot to the back of the head would kill the average Sentinel. Lucky for you, there’s nothing average about me. It took me down, but it couldn’t keep me there. I told you, Trina doesn’t know enough about me. You made friends?” he asked, looking at the women who had gathered around us. “Where are Shamus and Astrid?” he questioned before kissing me hard. His arms tightened around me, and I groaned as my chest wounds opened up again. “You are hurt,” he chided. His body moved away from mine, and he looked around until he spied something and strode to one of the carts where he pulled out bandages and medical tape.

  “Flesh wounds,” I lied. “They’re healing, and we have to go; whatever Shamus is planning includes the Ark. We have to get there now. I can’t lose any more people.” He shut me up as he pushed me down and swiftly bandaged the wounds for me like I was a child, at one point smacking my hand out of the way when he thought I was interfering with his ministrations.

  “That should hold until you heal enough on your own.” He patted the bandage on my chest gently and then helped me up.

  The women who had crowded around us stepped back to give us some space and I saw movement at the other end of the room. “Azrael, we’re going to have to kill those ones,” I said with a nod in the direction of the vampires who were now mortal. “They were all part of Shamus’s sick plans and helped him torture these women. If Shamus gets his nasty hands on them again, he will turn them back.” I remembered his and Hayden’s words about the Guardians of Death and Life, and realized that Azrael and I were meant to work together as a team. I never truly trusted another person enough to really consider myself as part of a team. This would take some getting used to. “I mean, could you take care of them?” I smiled. “Please?”

  “As my lady wishes it,” he smirked playfully. “It shall be done.” He pulled his gloves off and touched the people I had indicated that, up until twenty minutes ago, had been vampires. After he’d finished with the last one, and his hands were once again covered in gloves, he turned to me and smiled weakly. “Let’s find a car and get home.”

  Outside was a van, and once we’d tested it to be sure it worked, we loaded the women up and headed off in the direction of home. My heart was in my throat as I worried if we would make it in time to save everyone.

  “We have a big problem,” I mused after I’d relayed everything that Shamus had disclosed to me that Azrael may not have heard as he healed.

  “And that is?” he asked. His blue eyes met mine, and I felt hot tears prickle behind my eyes as I looked at the face I never thought I would see again.

  “My father was under compulsion when he built the Ark, which means it’s not safe. We can’t stay there. Shamus could have told him anything and he would have done it unknowingly, like the codes. He could have the override code, and it’s one that can’t be reset. If you try to reset it, my father put in a failsafe that poisons the water and the air supply. He added that in case it was ever taken over by force.”

  “So Shamus can get inside the Ark at any time with the codes?” he clarified.

  “Exactly, we can’t lock him out. I’m the only one who is supposed to have the override code besides my dad, and if I was Shamus, I would have asked him what it was. I would have made sure I had all the codes to gain control of the place. I mean, he planned to take control from the beginning, so it makes sense.” I frowned as I realized that he hid this from Jaeden and used the lockdown of the Ark to get Jaeden to find me. The bastard probably figured that I didn’t have the guts to really leave the main group. The entire time, Shamus was just letting me have the illusion that I was going to Provo of my own free will to get my brother. In reality, he was manipulating every situation he could, like some sort of demented puppet master, to keep me as a prisoner until he was ready to hand me over to my mother.

  “I have a place your people can go; it’s secure and secluded. It’s also got a medical facility, which your people will need with the pregnancies. I made it with you in mind.” He gave me a small smile.

  “The same house where you took me?” I asked, my heart kicking up a notch with hope.

  “No, that place was so I could get to know you better alone, without the others around. That was designed to keep you in, just in case; this one was for our future. If we had one,” he said sheepishly. “It had been almost two years since I had last seen you. I wasn’t sure who you would be, or if you’d accept me and, honestly, I wasn’t sure I would let you leave if you chose to.”

  “That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me,” I said sarcastically with a hand over my heart.

  “Sleep, smartass, you need to heal. Your face looks like hell,” he smirked, and winced when I glared at him.

  “See, you just know all the ways to give me the feels, don’t ya?” I replied as I moved to lay my head in his lap, enjoying the way he groaned when I did it. “Now I’m going to bleed all over you, and you’re going to like it.”

  “Indeed,” he smiled down at me, the love in his eyes taking my breath away as the emotions warred inside of me.

  I loved him; it was that simple. I wasn’t sure when it had happened, but the idea of losing him had torn me apart. Seeing his dead body had torn something inside of me to pieces, and I never wanted to feel that kind of pain again. Ever.

  Chapter 36

  The Ark was silent, no movement from inside or outside as we slowly approached it. We had stopped along the way to clean up and find supplies. Clothing for me and the rest of the women was our first priority. Now, my goal was to get inside, get Addy safe, and rip Astrid’s head off. As we got closer, I noted a few who I knew to be included in Shamus’s group, but what surprised me were their shadows. Jaeden’s men were close by, their eyes watching me as I made my way to the door.

  “Bjorn,” I acknowledged, watching as he nodded but kept silent. I knew something was off, it was in the way Bjorn stood, and his stance was ready to lunge if the need arose.

  The question was who were they watching, me or them? I moved inside the first set of doors. My eyes searched for Jaeden and found him as I walked right in, because I owned the place, at least, I did for the time being.

  “Lachlan,” I whispered, barely above a breath as the wolf turned to look at me. My face was washed, but the healing damage was still visible and I didn’t need words for him to understand what I needed.

  His green eyes turned, located Liam and, before I had to ask, Addy was being pushed back into a room, the door locked as Astrid strode into the reception area where we were gathered. She didn’t have the brains to figure out that everyone else had stopped moving as my face came into view, or that it was quiet enough to hear a pin drop.

  “No, find him and make sure Shamus has what he needs,” she snapped at some poor sap that was too busy watching her boobs bounce with every step she took. She paused; her eyes darted to Jaeden’s and followed them to where I stood.

  “Where is he?” A
strid demanded, her eyes filling with hatred as she noticed we were unscathed and I had a very much alive and breathing Azrael standing next to me. “Where is Shamus!? Attack them!” she screeched, and a few vampires lunged, while others, Jaeden’s crew, watched.

  “He’s a traitor! To you and every vampire in this place,” I yelled, focusing on Jaeden’s eyes as Azrael countered each attack from the vampires. “He handed your maker over to my mother to gain his power when she killed him, he told me so,” I shouted to be heard over the fighting as Jaeden moved towards me, anger radiating from him.

  “She’s lying, Jaeden baby. You know Shamus wouldn’t do that!” Astrid cried. Big fat alligator tears rolled down her flawless cheeks. “He is law; he wouldn’t have harmed him! He’s his master; he was trying to save him.”

  “You lying bitch, why don’t you tell him about what you two did with Cayla? How you helped to torment her while his men took their turns hurting her! Why don’t you tell him that?”

  “She’s insane, I would never,” she hissed. “Shamus was called away by the elders, and I was told to protect this place from her, because she is evil! She’s on their side now. She plans to kill us all!”

  “He’s away with the elders? Did Shamus leave to meet them before or after he told me how Jaeden allowed him to taste me?” I sneered.

  Jaeden blanched, and his eyes held mine with a look of apology. Then he lunged, and grabbed Astrid as Azrael moved to intercept her shadow, the Arabian Moor who she always had close to her.

  “This is for our child, sweet wife,” Jaeden growled as he reached up and twisted her neck, and then literally threw her towards me. “Make her mortal, Emma. Bjorn, kill the others. Any who follow under Shamus die,” he shouted, and the chaos erupted as vampires fought each other, and werewolves protected the mortals by creating a wall between them and the chaos.