VEILED Complete Boxed Set: A Paranormal Vampire Romance Thriller

by Victoria Knight

  Benali loved each and every one of the Guard's members. He had spent an eternity with them. Alongside them, he had seen civilizations rise and fall - had played a hand in the victories and losses of mortals and immortals alike. Now, it was time for another world to collapse: That of humans.

  Humanity's ruin would begin with the fall of Red Creek. What had once been Benton territory would belong to the Guard, and the land's power would feed the Guard's own. Thus strengthened, they would then make their way slowly through the state and then the entire country, doing to the populace what they had done to the handful of survivors they had found in Red Creek. Madness and chaos would soon swallow the petty continents of America, and from there....

  But that would come later. For now, Saul Benton and his ragtag little group—including the Marked—were the Guard's top priority.

  Benali had no doubt that the Guard would be victorious. There was no way a handful of vampires and a few humans could defeat beings who had lived through millennia, creatures who held the power of entire worlds in their hands. Yes, Dominiscus had been slain, but Benali refused to see the giant's death as anything other than a fluke. This time, they would be ready for the humans' primitive weapons.

  As the Guard's healing and meditative session came to an end, each of the Guard's members opened their eyes. They looked at one another, saying nothing but communicating more than sufficiently. They were all prepared. They were all ready. It was in their eyes, their combined strength a palpable presence in the air within the barn. It was more than confidence… it was as if the world itself was telling them that victory was theirs for the taking.

  Yet, the smallest seed of doubt lingered among them. Benali saw it most clearly in Moorcheh’s face. He also sensed it in Magdeline, a faint but very sharp barb in her usually cool demeanor. Aimon was the only one who did not look overly concerned. Fear simply was not in a demon's nature; Aimon didn’t have much emotion for anything, his entire focus on the evil that he could bring forth to any given situation.

  “Does anyone else feel that?” Magdeline asked.

  “Yes,” Benali said.

  “What is it?” Moorcheh asked. “I feel it but can’t identify it.”

  “Something is different,” Benali said. “There has been a shift in the way of things.”

  “Something to do with magic,” Moorcheh offered. “I can feel it.”

  “It can’t be Polyxia,” Magdeline said. “She was close to death when they made their retreat.”

  “Well, whatever it is,” Aimon said, “what do we have to fear? We killed Gestalt’s bitch. Polyxia is likely dead. They are as good as ours.”

  The demon’s confident words settled them all a bit, but Benali did not like the feeling within the barn. Something was different. And more than that, there was something else—something like a sense of being hunted.

  “We must prepare ourselves,” Benali said. “They are ready. I believe they may be on their way.”

  “Then let them come,” Magdeline said. “Let’s be done with this.”

  Aimon let out a slight growl of satisfaction and rose to his feet. He went out into the woods, waiting. The others followed suit and although Benali could feel the stir of electricity in the air that usually accompanied the field of any forthcoming war, there was still something he did not like.

  But he let it go.

  The time to fight was coming and he would not let anything distract him.

  Overhead, the sky rumbled a bang of thunder. To Benali, it sounded as if the heavens themselves were ready for this fight, ready to have the town of Red Creek rid of the darkness and violence that it had been harboring.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1

  The anticipation within Filth Camp was almost like a physical presence, and Kara was at the center of it. Saul, Jill, and Gestalt had spent the last three hours with her, keeping her confined to the farthest corner of the field. Saul did his best to focus on Kara, making sure that she was going to come through her Transformation as well as her limited time allowed. To his relief, she was doing remarkably well: She had only shown signs of being dominated by bloodlust twice, and had gotten herself under control very quickly.

  As much as Saul tried to keep himself focused on Kara, however, his mind was really on Nikki. He kept looking back at her, observing her from afar as she sat with the Marked. She seemed to be perfectly fine, acting as if the transfer of power from Polyxia had not affected her at all. It was only because Saul watched her so closely that he caught the looks of pure bliss that would come to her face from time to time. In those moments, it seemed that she was savoring something, enjoying some huge secret that only she knew and could enjoy.

  Saul rushed through the self-imposed tests he used to gauge Kara’s abilities. Her sense of scent was impeccable and she was incredibly fast. She had the same sort of ferocity and speed that all newly-turned Vampires possessed. In a footrace, she’d easily be able to beat Saul. But when it came to her tenacity and endurance, Kara was still too unsure of her new powers to take advantage of her full potential. She was on edge and looked as if she had a very bad case of jitters brought on by too much caffeine. Her eyes looked wild and she kept clenching and unclenching her fists.

  Four hours had passed and the level of anxious anticipation within the field continued to grow. Kara had tested her speed, strength, and had even embraced each member of the Marked to not only make sure she could suppress her cravings for blood, but to sincerely thank them for their help to this point.

  They gathered at the edge of the field, standing at the faded spot along the ground where the dirt road began and wound out into the back roads of Red Creek. They stood in a united group and let the silence sink into them. The sense of finality was strong in the air, almost as powerful as the anticipation that was now so potent it was making Saul feel as jittery as Kara looked.

  Ray, Penny, and Paul all carried guns. Before today, Sal would have thought that guns would have been useless against the Guard, but those very weapons had killed Dominiscus rather efficiently. Saul had never used a gun in his life but respected what the human machinery was capable of—especially now.

  Nikki and Jill were carrying crudely rendered stakes that they had made from fallen branches. Nikki had gone as far as to make a rough sling out of an old shirt, carrying four more stakes on her back. Gestalt was armed with a small timber axe which he had brought back from his excursion into town the night before when he had gotten groceries. Kara, so far, had opted to go without a weapon out of fear that it might slow her down.

  “As the leader of this group,” Saul said, his voice like thunder in the silence, “I think I have to give everyone this one last chance. If you want to turn away and not be involved in this, it has to be now. Once we’re in the thick of it, there’s no turning back. I think the fight yesterday proved that.”

  Saul looked to the ground, giving the others the opportunity to move away without his eyes upon them. But no one moved. They were connected now, more deeply and intimately than Saul could even understand. The Marked coming together was almost like the fulfillment of some sort of prophecy. And the fact that the Guard were now here, in mortal form to wage a war, was the equivalent of all of the Roman gods descending from their thrones to duke it out.

  It truly was monumental.

  “Okay then,” Saul said. He reached out and took Nikki’s hand. When she squeezed it with her own, it hit him for the first time: she could die. They all could die. It made his heart tremble.

  “What’s the plan?” Gestalt asked.

  “I don’t have much of a plan at all,” Saul said. “But here’s what I’ve got.”

  He told them his plan and as he explained it as best as he could, he understood at once that he would have never made a great battle strategist. Still, going into the fight with such dedicated fighters and at least some semblance of a plan made him feel that they most definitely had a chance at victory.

  2

  They walked through the
forest without trying to remain quiet. Saul figured that if he could feel the anticipation of battle in the air, so could the Guard. They’d know he was on the way as soon as he started walking through the forest; any attempt at sneaking up on the Guard would be futile.

  They walked in a curved U-shape with Saul in the center, and Jill and Nikki to either side. Saul began to get the sense that even the mortal members of the Marked seemed to have a degree of calm among them. Paul in particular carried his rifle as if he had spent his entire life with it in his grasp.

  The barn was a little over two miles away, but Saul sensed that the Guard was no longer there. He could feel a shift of power in an indescribably way, almost like a wind that comes through and pushes clouds along the sky. The Guard were certainly no longer in the barn… but he had no idea where they had moved to.

  This idea struck him as peculiar just as he caught a brief flicker of motion out of the corner of his left eye. He thought it was Jill at first, but then realized that it was coming from further off and it was approaching them with rapid speed.

  Saul had just enough time to throw up his guard but by then, the object had struck him. It hit him hard in the left shoulder and sent a flare of brief pain through his arm. Despite the lack of real pain, whatever it was hit him hard enough to knock him from his feet and sent Saul colliding into Nikki. They both went hard to the ground in a pile. As Saul started to get back up, another flying object sailed by. It came with a shrieking sound through the air, like a small rocket. This one missed Gestalt by less than a foot and Saul was finally able to see what it was: a large rock.

  The one that missed Gestalt had been about two feet wide. He realized that if the one that had struck him had hit Penny, Paul, or Ray, it would have likely killed them.

  “Down!” Saul screamed.

  Everyone followed his order, hitting the ground quickly. The one exception was Kara. She stayed on her feet and peered out into the woods, in the direction of where the large flying rocks were coming from.

  “This is how they almost killed me before,” she said. “Only last time it was with a log.”

  As she said this, another one came whizzing by. It was aimed directly for Kara but she sidestepped it easily. Her speed truly impressed Saul; it made him yearn for the days when he had been so freshly turned. Still, it was not good to be so blindly confident. He feared for Kara as a second large rock came blasting through the forest but, at the same time, was in a slight awe as he watched her duck underneath it without much effort.

  Saul knew that they couldn’t stay in the same place and wait for the Guard to exhaust themselves with their little catapult game.

  Apparently, Nikki felt the same. As Saul watched Kara, Nikki slowly got to her knees beside him, peering out in the same direction as Kara. Saul reached out to pull her back down before another boulder came rocketing towards them but then he saw the white light trickling from her fingers and building around her hands.

  Nikki held her arms out and acted as if she was pushing against something large. As Saul watched, two hurtling rocks that were about five feet away from striking her stopped in midair. Then, with a shout of fury, Nikki made a hard slapping motion with both hand. The white light erupted from her hands and the rocks went sailing back the other way. They tore through trees and made a whistling noise as they were sent back with more force than they were delivered with.

  There was a shout of surprise in the distance, followed by a low growl. Saul was pretty sure these sounds had come from Magdeline and Aimon, respectively. Following this, the forests went quiet. Saul looked behind him and saw that the human members of the Marked were on the ground with their weapons aimed in the direction the rocks had come from.

  “Saul,” Getsalt said from his right. Saul turned and saw the Rogue pointing up into a tree.

  Saul looked up and didn’t quite understand what he was seeing until it was too late. Several of the branches seemed to be bending down, as if made of rubber. The branches took on the structure of arms, reaching down towards them. As he finally registered what was happening, he saw that several nearby trees were doing the same thing.

  That’s when he heard Penny cry out. Her gun clattered to the ground as she was pulled off of the ground by one of the branches. As she screamed, a thin sprout at the end of one of the branches went into her mouth.

  “What the hell is this?” Ray asked.

  “They’ve cast some sort of protective spell on the forest,” Saul said. “We have to get out of the forest and to the streets.”

  “You mean to run again?” Jill asked.

  “No,” Saul said. “We can take the fight with us this time.”

  “How?” Gestalt asked.

  Above them, Penny was fighting against the branches, still screaming. Another branch swept low and nearly knocked Ray on his ass.

  Saul looked around in a panic. “Gestalt, Nikki, and Kara… come with me. Ray, can you and Paul figure out some way to get Penny down? I don’t think this spell can be broken unless we distract whoever is casting it.”

  “Sure,” Paul said, his voice thick with doubt. He looked up into the tree like a man that was having a very bad dream.

  Saul hated to leave the three humans to fend for themselves, but he didn’t see any other way to carry out his plan. If all went well, they’d only be on their own for a few minutes.

  “Nikki, do you have something in you that can cause even the slightest bit of confusion?”

  “I’m sure I do,” she said. “It’s all just sort of coming to me. I’m learning as I go.”

  “Okay. See what you can do. This enchantment on the forest has to be coming from Moorcheh. I don’t think Magdeline has the power to do something as vast as this. Or it could be a group effort between all of them. So we all need to go after Moorcheh. Go for the kill. Be merciless.”

  Gestalt, Jill, and Nikki all nodded.

  “Nikki, how about that distraction?”

  A look came over Nikki's face - an expression that reminded Saul of the way a young child might look as she suddenly grasped some grand secret. Nikki looked at her hands and clapped them together. She then placed them on the ground and rubbed them back and forth along the dirt and leaves. Within seconds, an enormous wind came out of nowhere. To Saul, it seemed like it had come out of the ground. It blew upwards, pushing debris into the air in a small cyclone of leaves, twigs and dirt. Nikki then extended her hand and the wind blew back out towards where the rocks had been coming from.

  “Get behind it,” Nikki said. “Get ready to run, because it’s going to be fast.”

  No sooner had she said this than the wind picked up in speed and velocity. Trees groaned against it as Nikki, Jill, Saul, Kara and Gestalt fell in behind it. They all dashed forward, leaping over fallen limbs and squinting at the dirt that the wind was blowing back towards them as it blasted through the forest.

  It took less than twenty seconds before Saul caught sight of the Guard. They were scattering, taken off guard by the strange wind. Aimon was roaring in frustration while Magdeline was furiously looking around for some way to escape the maelstrom that was headed their way.

  Moorcheh and Benali were standing side by side and spotted Saul and his group at the same time. When Saul saw the hesitancy in their stance, it lit a spark in him that felt like pure adrenaline. They had been taken off guard. They were actually in a panic.

  “Everyone on Moorcheh and Benali,” Saul called.

  He sprinted forward and that adrenaline spiked a bit when he saw the eagerness on his friends' faces. They raced in behind the windstorm that Nikki had created, ready to start the final fight.

  3

  When Penny felt the branches tightening around her waist like snakes, she thought that she was going to die. She had managed to gnaw through the one small sprout that had worked its way into her mouth, but it had done nothing to the tree. She felt it trying to position her in a way where a branch could wrap around her neck but before it could, something changed.

&
nbsp; The wind was deafening, so when Ray screamed up to her, she barely heard him. He was saying something like Hold on, but by that time the tree had started to loosen its grip on her. She wondered if Saul and the others had started their attack. When she felt the grip loosening, she rolled hard to the left and felt herself falling from the branches.

  Penny went into a free-fall, plummeting fifteen feet to the ground. Paul did his best to catch her but they ended up going to the ground in an awkward heap. Paul cried out as they slowly started to untangle themselves on the ground.

  “Are you okay?” Penny asked as she got to her feet.

  Paul got to his knees, grimacing. He slowly made it to his feet but was unable to apply much pressure to his right leg. “My ankle…I think I twisted it.”

  “Can you walk?” Ray asked.

  “I guess I have to, don’t I?” Paul replied with a nervous grin. He gathered up his rifle, which he had dropped to break Penny’s fall, and looked up towards where the wind was still churning in an odd formation.

  The three of them started forward together, an unlikely trio of heroes, when an enormous roar tore through the forest. It sounded like the death throes of some large animal from the bottom of the sea—a forgotten beast that could swallow cities whole. It was so abrupt and powerful that it knocked Paul and Penny to the ground. Ray would have fallen as well, had he not stumbled back into a tree.

  “What in God’s name was that?” Penny asked, horror on her face.

  “I don’t know,” Paul said. “But it sounded like something that might have been in our favor. Whatever it was, it sounded hurt.”

  “Yeah, it did,” Ray agreed.

  “Well then, let’s go see if we can hurt it some more,” Paul said.

  He started forward as Penny and Ray fell in behind him.

  The Marked fought their way against the wind that Nikki had stirred up, having to squint against the grime and debris that had been tossed airborne. Penny managed to glance ahead long enough to see Moorcheh lying on the ground, shuddering in spasms that looked like some sort of violent fit. Gestalt and Jill stood over him, looking scared.