Joy filled me and I smiled. “That sounds perfect. We’ll do it when the raiding party comes back. The new turned will still be with us. We’ll show them how vampires party.”
But first, it was time for us to gain the upper hand.
Three days passed, and we stood inside the silent prison. The cells were a hell house. Some held only corpses, and the others were coated with blood. Many had not survived the process. Those that lived now carried that haunted look the turned carried with them. I was pleased to see many of the strongest were still alive.
“Those of you who survived, I welcome you to the immortal race of vampires. I’m sure you will be hungry. We have more blood for you, so don’t be afraid to ask. We’ll be returning to the castle as soon as you’re ready.”
Toni passed out the vials to everyone. They drank, and one stepped forward to test the potion. I removed a piece of cardboard from the wall, revealing the sunlight. He recoiled away from the brightness, but he didn’t turn to ash.
It worked. It really worked.
Cameron held out a fist bump to Toni, and she ignored him, so he leaned over to kiss Merrick on the lips. Knight was going to kill him.
A clean-up detail stayed behind to respectfully dispose of the bodies and mop up the blood. The rest of us began the hike up to the castle. It came into view, our symbol of strength and safe haven. In the clearing around it, we’d set up tents and trailers for the turned to live in. The Lycans set up some for them as well so they would be there if anything happened to us.
Half of the packs were staying behind to protect the castle, and the other half were going with the raiding party, along with our new vampires. We didn’t have the numbers, but we had a fighting chance now.
CHAPTER 22
With Balthazar and Kitty close behind me, I joined the raiding party in the bigger drawing room. Everyone was strapped to the hilt with artillery, swords, and the little bomb cocktails from Toni. Knight looked especially attractive in his camo outfit and protective vest. Noticing me, Arthur approached me as he shoved a knife somewhere in his belt.
“How did the turning go?” he asked casually.
“Swell. Also, I’m coming with you.”
Arthur and Knight had the same instant reaction, a resounding, “No!”
My smile flattened. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize either of you made my decisions.”
“Lisbeth.” Arthur took a step closer, trying to call upon our bond or something to get me to see reason. “You are the head of our Order. We look to you for leadership. If you put yourself in danger and get hurt, we would have to rely on someone else to build the alliance and help win the war. I don’t think anyone else here is up for that task.”
“You flatter me. I’m still going. Gimme a vest. I’m not wearing camo, just to be clear.” I had, however, worn a black outfit for the occasion so I could look like a cat burglar. Arthur wasn’t pleased, but he bowed to my commands all the same. He flicked some fingers and one of the Hunters brought me a box of goodies. A pistol, an assault rifle, three knives, and twenty bomb cocktails with a bag to hold them.
“Please, please, tell me you know how to shoot a gun,” Arthur said. I glared at him, pulled the pistol out, and shot at a painting on the wall, hitting it right in the codpiece.
“I might hate conflict, but I know how to use a gun, Jesse James.” I blew on the end of the barrel and tried to slip the gun into its holster, that I wasn’t wearing, and dropped it on accident. Both of them snickered at me. “You,” I said as I scrambled to pick the gun up. “Be quiet, knave. You saw nothing.”
“Is this why you dressed all black and leathery this morning? I thought it was my birthday,” Knight pouted. “At least…” He sauntered up to me and drew my hips to him. “I get a nice view.” My spine shivered when he leaned down for a sultry kiss.
Arthur cleared his throat, making me jump. “If you two are done, we have things to do. Gear up.”
Knight continued nuzzling my ear. “He’s jealous that the view is only for me.” It felt wrong to be teased because of Arthur’s little crush on me, the one I was never going to speak of out loud again. Not because I felt the same way, but because Arthur and I had a platonic bond. A trust. I relied on him to carry out my orders, and he relied on me to make the right choices.
I was also done thinking about that.
I buckled my holster and strapped on the knives, hoisted the assault rifle over my shoulder, and posed for effect. Knight started drooling. The assault rifles wouldn’t kill vampires, they were for any drones we encountered. If we wanted to kill vampires, it was either with our bare hands or fire.
For fire, we had explosives. Our plan was to find their new base of operation, rescue any humans, and blow it sky high. Our public relations team was even working on what they would tell the human world about what happened to whichever town the base was at, depending on how much devastation the turned had caused.
Kitty reached for me from Balthazar’s arms and my heart tore. Leaving her, again, even for a day was hard. I suspected that after decades in his homeland, the only thing Balthazar wanted was to spend time with his daughter, and this was the perfect opportunity.
“Olivier will feed her blood every morning, you have the bottles and diapers, you’ll be fine,” I assured him.
His skin looked slightly pale. “What if she runs away?”
“She’s a baby, not a cat. You can handle her.” He looked doubtful, but smiled at me anyway. I hugged him and Kitty both and kissed them on the forehead. “Mommy will be back.”
“Okay, Mommy,” Balthazar replied.
“Don’t push it.”
My goodbyes said, we filed out of the castle. Knight and I turned to wave at our friends and family staying behind, and then we took each other’s hands and started towards the rest of the group. Arthur swung his arm to show what direction we were going, and we were off. Arthur and Knight ran on either side of me with Cameron and Merrick just ahead, and the rest of the group behind us. My mate, and my commander at my side. With them, I could do anything.
Cameron directed us this way and that, until we had to leave the pavement and go off road. We went deep into the forest, so far I wasn’t sure there was anything here except bunnies and the occasional crunchy hippie family. (For the record, I’m not calling hippies crunchy, though I’m sure dragons would disagree, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.)
The path Cameron and Merrick took was odd, but deliberate, and seemed like it was designed by a paranoid crazy person with turns and backtracking, and several jumps over running water. It eventually led to caverns hidden deep inside a rock formation, the perfect hiding place for those that used to have sunlight issues. That was still the weirdest thing ever that the turned could be out in the sun. It was the equivalent of aliens landing here.
I wonder how aliens would feel about vampires…
We followed Cameron inside to find… nothing. A large empty cave lit only by our superior eyesight, littered with garbage, and stains on the floor I knew had to be dried blood. I stepped to one and scraped off a few flakes, brought it to my nose to smell.
Human blood.
There were as many stains as there were plastic containers, papers, and soda cans, and there was enough of those to fill three garbage bags. This wasn’t just where the turned hid and ate take-out, this was where they tortured humans and drank without consent. My stomach turned over and I struggled not to throw up. The horror before my eyes was unimaginable. I met Cameron’s knowing gaze and felt everything. He’d been here and endured all of this for us. Even Merrick gave me a knowing look of horror, and I saw her study me, as if she hadn’t expected my reaction.
Righteous overlords we may be, but we would never hurt humans in such a manner. It was utterly disgraceful. No one had any words as they absorbed the scene around them. The Lycans lit up torches for posterity’s sake, and hung them on mounted holders that were already there. Cameron walked over to a hole near the edge of the room. He knelt i
n front of it and seemed to be searching in its depths for something.
“Someone hand me a torch,” he asked with a wave of his arm. Merrick took a torch from the wall and handed it to Cameron. He threw it in to the pit and we all waited for it to hit the ground. A bottomless pit it was not, and several beats later the torch hit the stone floor with a crash. Cameron looked both disappointed and relieved at the same time. He sat back on his heels and looked up when I approached him. “They held Othello in here. I was hoping they’d left him.” I knelt beside him. “They made him insane with thirst so he’d give them information. Every week they threw a human down to feed him.” From the light of the torch, I saw shadows I didn’t want to look at. Bodies.
I hugged Cameron and stood up to address our army. “If you doubted what we said before now about the devastation the turned will bring, take a good look around.” I took a deep breath to gather myself. “Alexander, please search for survivors. Arthur, I want someone in that pit and those bodies taken care of.” He was already pulling a rope from his bag, and preparing to rappel down the hole. Everyone went to do their tasks, while Knight and I stayed to help Arthur and Cameron. I watched Arthur’s face and couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride. “To think,” I said quietly. “When you came to me, you had no respect for humans. And now you’re ready to help bury bodies of people we never knew.”
He was busy tying off and clipping the rope to him, but he still looked over at me. “I’ve seen the opposite of respect, and if I have to choose between respect and utter disrespect, I will choose the former. Not because I care. Because I’d rather care than not care.”
Arthur being poetic, everybody. He’ll be here all weekend.
Knight gave Arthur a bro pat on his shoulder. “That was nice, man. Wanna hug later?” The vampire Hunter flipped him the bird before jumping off the edge of the hole. I reached behind me for Knight’s hand and waited for Arthur to hit the bottom. Less than a minute later, we heard his boots crunch on gravel.
“Made it,” he yelled up. I saw the shadow of his face in the torch light, looking this way and that in the pit. “Othello was down here a good long while,” he commented loosely. That was Arthur speak for, there’s a ton of bodies down here. Too many to bury.
I leaned further over and Knight’s hand came to keep me steady. “Burn them.”
Arthur nodded, and got to work. His shadow danced here and there as he built the pyre in one corner. What was the air like down there? Could he see very well? Was it scary? I moved away from the edge in fear. The click of a lighter and he tossed it into the pile of bodies. The smell of burning remains wafted up the hole to permeate the cave.
Gross.
“Lisbeth,” Merrick called from the other side of the cave. she was standing next to a table, and when Cameron noticed it, he came to join us.
“This is his table,” Merrick said.
“He who?” I asked.
Cameron picked up some papers to look for clues. “The one who made the potion. He never said his name, or why he was here. He wasn’t in charge either. He was just… here. He seemed to hate Othello quite a bit, I will say. If that helps.” It didn’t. The table had stacks of papers in as many different languages as the planet had, some dead and some forgotten. There was something about the handwriting that drew my attention. It wasn’t that I couldn’t grasp the memory, like the little glimpses I had of the castle I was born in. This was more like I’d never paid attention to what I was remembering.
“You know him?” Knight said, noticing me studying the papers.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I… the handwriting is familiar, but I can’t place it. I remember seeing it in the castle in England, just not who wrote it. I could discount it as not noticing, but I remember everything, and this I don’t remember.” Gaps in my memory were like gaps in my teeth. I felt it at every second. And this wasn’t even a gap, I just didn’t have the memory and I knew that I should’ve. I should’ve known who this man was, and I didn’t. I folded the papers together and stuck them into my jacket. Arthur came to join us, and we nodded to each other. “Noses alert for any scent. It’s time to track them down.”
CHAPTER 23
With four wolf packs, plus our newly turned, we numbered around three hundred. That’s three hundred noses to catch a scent. Cameron and Merrick knew the people related to the smells, so they would be best at catching even the smallest whiff. Cameron walked around the cave entrance searching for something. Anything.
We split up to search in all directions, using any type of tracking to try and find where they went. Then I realized we were looking in the wrong direction.
“Back inside,” I ordered my group. We went to the cave again and searched there. Sure enough, we found a small exit that Cameron hadn’t known about, and it led further into the formation before coming to the surface far from the entrance. A quick text, and the other groups met up with us.
Merrick sniffed around carefully and howled when she found something. Everyone came to the spot to get a good whiff, and we were off. Though we were on foot, we made good time now that we had a scent to track.
Seeing all that blood and the bodies they forced Othello to murder had enraged me, and only spilling worthless rebel blood would assuage me. I was done with this. I was done with them, and I would be damned if I let them continue their murder spree for one more day.
The packs started to howl as the scent got stronger, and more scents were thrown into the mix. One by one the Lycans turned into wolves and we ran side by side with those that used to be our brothers, and were once more.
The sun was starting to set when we arrived at a town that was overflowing with the scents we’d been tracking. Jackpot. It was time to scout and plan our moves wisely. We sent off groups of both wolf and vampire to check things out. My group found a spot higher up so we could see into the city.
The first thing I noticed was how little humans, as in none even after an hour of watching, were roaming the streets. The second was how much Knight was sweating.
I approached him and put a hand on his forehead. “What’s wrong, my love?”
“I thought it would be okay, I thought the clouds were going to be thick tonight,” he groaned, and his breath caught in his lungs. I almost asked what he was talking about, until I saw something peeking out through the clouds.
The moon. The full moon.
I’d been so busy, I hadn’t noticed. I was so stupid and self-centered, how could I have missed this? At least Merrick had gone with one of the scouting groups, so she wouldn’t be here to kill me.
“Oh, oh love, what do we do? What if we locked you inside a shed or something? Will you transform if the light doesn’t touch you?” Questions I’d never gotten to ask before then.
“I can manage if the light doesn’t touch me. It’s very uncomfortable, but I won’t shift without the moon. The best months are when its too cloudy to see the sky, though I pay for it the next time. It’s doubly painful if I miss a month, typically not worth it in my opinion.”
He made it sound like missing a period.
I got up to start moving him somewhere the light couldn’t get to, but the moon had other plans. She found him, and she pulled him into her grip like she’d just thrown her line and caught a fish.
He stood up and fixed his eyes upon the only thing he loved more than me: his precious moon. It was the saddest love story one could think of. He only got to see his girlfriend three days a month, and then it was back to me, his side piece. Oh. I liked the idea of being his side piece. It made me feel naughty.
Arthur saw what was going on and ran to grab me away from my mate. I fought him but he held me tight.
“If he howls, we’re dead,” Arthur grunted in my ear.
Knight had begun changing. His skin sprouted fur, his nose grew to a small snout, and he grew long fangs. Once done, he was sure to howl at his moony girlfriend. I’d seen it happen every time he changed. He lifted his head to stare longingly at the moon light.
Hey baby. How about I do that thing you like.
I ran into him like a freight train to interrupt his cat call. He skidded away from me and growled, claws out for attack, when he saw that it was me. I saw the recognition in his eyes, and held out my hand for him to smell. He leaned his furry misshapen skull against my hand and rubbed it gently. His arms grabbed me by the waist and held me against him.
He growled at Arthur protectively.
Really.
Though he was partly there, I knew it wouldn’t last long, and he’d probably run away and blow our cover. I had to do something.
Lucas had said we were connected, that I could summon his mind whenever I wanted. I didn’t know how to control that power, but now was a good time to learn. Still in Knight’s grasp, I shut my eyes and tried to tap into his mind. The power rose inside me until I could see him standing inside his mind.
‘Knight,’ I spoke to him. ‘We need you. You have to wake up. Control the wolf. You can do this.’ I saw his eyes change as if he understood me.
‘It’s hard to stay focused,’ he confessed. ‘My wolf side doesn’t have much in the way of comprehension.’
‘There’s no wolf side. There’s only you. You can control the beast, because you are the beast.’
‘Does that make you Beauty in this scenario?’
‘Focus.’
I snapped back into my head. “Okay Tarzan, put Jane down,” I told Knight. He let me go when I pushed at him and stared down at me with his brown eyes turned golden from the change. After a few seconds, the gold faded and they were brown again. “You still in there? Blink once for yes and two for no.” He made a face at me like I was stupid. “Definitely in there. Fist bump.” He brought his clawed hand up to bump me back.
“I noticed he was comprehensive, if only a little, that time I captured you. I thought it was a fluke.” Knight’s long wolf ears twitched and moved towards Arthur’s voice. He growled quietly until I elbowed him.
War of the Chosen Page 15