Cherishing Destiny (A Dangerous Destiny)

by Blakely, Noelle

  ∞∞∞

  In the three days it took the Chief to get back to Syracuse, he rode two horses into the ground, and the third was looking like he may not make it either, when they reached Gates.

  “Get your men together. The wolves are right on our heels,” the Chief shouted to Gates as he dismounted dragging Destiny with him.

  “Where are the others?” Gates demanded, ignoring the Chief’s order.

  “Back there somewhere,” was the Chief’s retort.

  “And the other prisoners?” Gates was angry and was not about to let the Chief leave with the only prisoner, especially not the Vampyrum. He stepped in front of the Chief as the Were-panther was preparing to march off with the girl. The Chief saw his escort of a dozen Warlocks waiting silently by the edge of the property. They approached when they saw him with the girl.

  “Your other prisoners will probably be riding through your front gates any moment at the head of a Were-wolf hoard. Why don’t you go capture them, yourself?”the Chief snarled.

  “You arrogant little fuck! No one talks to a Vampire elder like that.” Gates and the Chief were at each other in the blink of an eye, years of bottled hate for one another boiling over.

  Destiny struggled against her bonds while the Were, and Vampire fought. Just then she was scooped up by one of the Warlocks, who promptly turned and walked away without waiting for the Chief or trying to lend him any assistance. The silent creepy men moved swiftly and were nearly out of sight when the Weres with Alex and Aurora arrived in a fury. Gates had failed to heed the Chief’s warning, and, as a result, his Vampires were unaware of the danger until it was upon them. The battle was vicious and brutal.

  The Chief realized that the Warlocks had left with Destiny, and he yanked himself free of Gates only to turn and find himself face to face with an enormous black wolf. The Four Walker! It was all he had time to think before the jaws of the beast closed on his throat and ripped the flesh out with one powerful thrash of his massive head.

  Gates stumbled back away from the beast and bumped solidly into Alex. He roared his frustration and attacked. Alex struggled with the half mad Vampire as Aurora chased after the Warlocks who were almost out of sight.

  Ryan dropped the Chief’s limp body to the ground and lit out after Aurora as she was just about to catch up to the Warlocks. By the time Ryan arrived Aurora had already knocked the creep, that had been carrying Destiny, to the ground, and she had put herself between them and the bound child. The Warlock she hit was already climbing back to his feet, and the others were closing. Ryan’s wolf stood shoulder to shoulder with Aurora, and he growled with a sound that sent a chill down Aurora’s spine even though they were on the same side. The Warlocks didn’t even blink. Aurora shouted at Ryan. “Take Destiny and run! I will hold them!”

  Ryan hesitated. He couldn’t leave Aurora to face these ghouls alone, but his heart and soul were screaming for him to save the girl, just as Aurora was doing.

  “Go!!” Aurora screamed in the face of the wolf.

  He turned and snatched Destiny’s coat in his teeth and fled with the precious girl. He wanted to take her to safety, but everyone was fighting and there was no safe place for him to leave her so that he could turn back for Aurora. A pair of Vampires came at him, and he put himself between them and Destiny and fought to keep her safe. He dispatched the two and looked over toward Alex just in time to see the Vampire throw Gates to the ground, put a knee in the middle of his back and rip the head from Gates shoulders with his bare hands. The Ancient Vampire roared his triumph in the throes of his blood lust. Ryan shifted and called to Alex several times before the Vampire snapped out of it and looked at him. “Aurora is fighting the Warlocks. Stay with Destiny,” he shouted, meaning to race after Aurora. But, the first part was all Alex needed to hear, and he was tearing after the Warlocks, who were out of sight, to find his beloved. Ryan cursed and felt helpless, but he wouldn’t leave Destiny.

  As the fighting came to an end, it was clear that the Weres had the won the battle. The Vampires left alive were mostly young and had never fought before. They were outmatched by the wolves. Elvis and Alex had talked many times and Elvis knew that the animosity between the Weres and the Vampires was being perpetuated by Gates, but that others, like Alex, believed in working together for their future. Elvis ordered the violence to an end, and any remaining Vampires were taken prisoner without injury. He went to try and talk to the council of elders, but found them in a state of disarray. Lily said that they appeared to be under the influence of some kind of spell when he called for her to examine them. Her opinion was that it would eventually wear off and so he would have to wait to make peace with the council.

  Alex came back, walking dejectedly until he saw Ryan. He approached the Were in shock. “I lost her trail,” he said woodenly. “I can’t find her.”

  Ryan pulled Alex into a hug, patting his back and reassuring him. “We are going to get Aurora back. We’ll find her. Don’t worry. We are going to find her.”

  ∞∞∞

  Elvis decided to stay in Syracuse until the Vampire council recovered from whatever influence they were under, and Ryan, Alex, Tyler and the L.T. started tracking Aurora and the Warlocks. Destiny’s leg was already healing. She was like the Vampires in that respect. But still, Lily kept Destiny by her side day and night. Lily felt horrible and guilty for letting Sue Ellen take her place on the day of the attack, and she knew after looking at Sue Ellen before they left that she was not likely to make it, and if she did make it, she would not be the same person at all. Lily also hated and punished herself because the first thing that popped into her mind when she thought about Sue Ellen dying was that Stephan would be free. Oh, good spirits, I’m a despicable, sick person. She hugged Destiny a lot over the next few days and cried.

  Ryan tracked Aurora and the Warlocks a hundred and fifty miles to Buffalo, where a village had been established for some time, and the area was relatively safe. The Warlocks were not exactly low profile, so they were able to get information from witnesses when they couldn’t use their noses. They eventually ended up at a wharf on the shore of Lake Erie, and that’s where the trail ended. A toothless old man, repairing nets on the dock, informed them that the Warlocks sailed, but he had no idea where, and he didn’t remember seeing a woman with them, but he hadn’t really been looking either. With hundreds of miles of shoreline, they had no idea where to begin, and they decided it would be best to go back and regroup. Alex was lost. He didn’t speak for days. Sara arrived in Syracuse with several others when Elvis decided that they should relocate now that the settlement wasn’t secret anymore, and even, she could not snap him out of it. So, she spent her time helping Lily and consoling Stephan who was also grieving over Sue Ellen. Sara was holding it together for everyone, but Ryan heard her crying softly at night sometimes. He wasn’t sure if it was for Aurora or for Alex that she cried, but he was sure that she loved them both.

  Forty-one

  Destiny stretched and tried to see if she could tell how well her bones were healed. She had been in the cave more than two days, and she was getting stir crazy. She was growing weary of the past, and she wanted to forge ahead into her future. Besides, if she kept following the forked trail of her own memories and those of her mother from that time forward, there was a lot of sadness and heartache to sift through. She shook her head as if to clear the sadness, and she smiled when she thought of her friends and of Hope. Those were the things that made all the hardships worthwhile. Her mother felt the same way about her father, Alex, and in her last years, she felt that way about Destiny and Sara too. A tear trickled down her cheek, when she thought about how she missed her friends and family. She was indulging in self-pity, and she knew that it had a lot to do with spending too much time in her mother’s head. Old Vampires were prone to depression that they called melancholia and her mother struggled with it sometimes, she knew. When she took on her mother’s memories she took on a serious side that she hadn’t really known before.
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  She just needed to get out of here and quit thinking about it. She went to the cave entrance, a gaping hole in the side of an enormous cliff was a more appropriate description. Down was an impossible drop into a canyon that might take weeks to get back out of. Up was a two hundred foot climb, up a vertical face, with only the canyon below. She could see hand holds, but they were small, and this was going to be treacherous. She paced back and forth at the entrance and finally slapped the cave wall in front of her in frustration. The pain in her wrist from that childish outburst, confirmed that her wrist, and probably her ankle too, were not ready for that harrowing climb. She needed to wait a little longer, wait and face the memories of her childhood.

  Epilogue

  One afternoon, when they had been in Syracuse for nearly three weeks, Ryan walked by Alex’s bedroom carrying three year old Destiny in his arms. The door was open, and Ryan could see Alex sitting on a window seat in the sun. He wasn’t looking out the window. He was staring at his hands. Destiny tapped on Ryan’s shoulder, a signal to be put down, and when he set her on her feet, she went to her father and climbed up onto the seat. She held his face in her little hands and waited for him to look at her. He did look at her, but there was an emptiness in his eyes that gave Ryan the chills. Destiny just smiled and said, “Eskimo kisses.” She was better at saying it now. Alex just blinked at her without any comprehension, but she was not deterred. She leaned in and touched her button nose to his and rubbed them together. Ryan saw Alex’s lips part and felt electricity in the air. He couldn’t see anything, but he knew what she was trying to do. He knew that she could not take life force from Alex as Greta had described his spark as the absence of light, a black hole always needing and taking. She said it was the nature of a Vampire, but Ryan could see Alex’s eyes waking and coming more alive, and he suspected that the nature of a Vamphyr was as much about giving as taking, and he knew that Destiny’s light shined brightest of them all.

  Author’s note

  I hope you enjoyed Cherishing Destiny (Book 1 of A Dangerous Destiny). I feel a little guilty about leaving Destiny in her cave, but there is so much more she needs to face before she leaves it and I could not cram it all into this book. But, if it will make you feel better, the next book in this series, Following Destiny, will be fast on the heels of this one. Book 2 practically wrote itself while I typed away at book 1. Every time I paused for air, I had to take notes on all of the things that I knew were going to happen in the future. My notepad is full of book 2, and I won’t make you wait long, I promise.