House of Wrath: The Vampire Project Book 5
Page 4
“I’m okay, guys, really.” Jack shuddered, remembering his trip through the night air with Cherub. It had been one of the most exhilarating and frightening experiences of his life. Jack drew the wand he had holstered at his side. A green light lit up his wand and the night around them. “I’ve got this.”
The darkness was cool. In light of the coming war, the road from Azra to New Hope had been uncharacteristically quiet. Behind them, the faint image of the Azra walls rose up from the dark like a beached whale. In front of them, the landscape started to change from sandy dunes to rolling, grassy plains.
Jack concentrated touching his wand to each of his feet and silently reciting the spell. If all went as planned, he would be able to keep up with Aareth and Kimberly. Although Jack’s time had been brief at Azra, he had asked Croft access to her books. There, he had found what he needed, and the spell was called The Speed of Grenfell.
Created by a sorceress long ago, it would add swiftness to the user’s boots. Jack would still exert the same amount of energy as he would when he was walking, but now his legs would be running with mage power added to his every step. He didn’t know how long he could keep up the pace, but having his father in mind would give him the strength he needed to push on.
Jack holstered his wand and looked down at the bottoms of his glowing boots. A green light emanated from the soles of his shoes.
“All right.” Jack shouldered his pack. He looked over at Aareth. “Your turn.”
“He’s going to be in the nude when he reverts back to human form.” Kimberly shook her head. “Maybe you should undress yourself first and save your clothing so when you do turn back into a human, you have something to hide your shame with.”
“Please, you love my shame.” Aareth shrugged off his long jacket and took off his boots. “Turn around, this isn’t a show.”
Jack did as he was asked, turning forward and looking down the dirt road that would take them back to the battle of the mage engine. He had no desire to see Aareth as naked as the day he was born.
“Why? Are you ashamed?” Kimberly asked in a tone that sounded genuinely interested.
“It’s just chilly out here,” Aareth said.
Jack could hear the sound of Aareth dropping his pants.
“That sounds like an excuse.” Kimberly finally joined Jack with her back turned to Aareth. “He’s as shy as a young gargoyle maiden.”
The next sounds were noises of moans and grunts behind Jack, soon turning into growls and heavy panting. Jack and Kimberly turned around together to see a hulking figure out of a nightmare. Aareth was standing on two legs, his body a mass of muscle under a coat of black hair. He was one part man, one part wolf.
He grinned at the two and winked. Falling to all fours, he pushed his pile of clothing toward Kimberly.
“Yes, yes.” Kimberly gathered the bundle of clothing and placed it into a satchel she wore around her shoulder. “Anything to cover your shame.”
“All right.” Jack was still marveling at Aareth’s transformation, but he understood their time was short. The trail of their prey was already beyond cold. It would take a miracle to pick up the werewolves’ trail now, but pick it up they must. “Let’s go.”
Jack started off at a light jog. The boots underneath his feet now imbued with the spell felt like springs pushing him forward; every step he took was ten times more powerful than he would have been without the aid of the magical spell that propelled him forward. The hardest part was keeping his balance as he flew across the landscape, though in the dark it was difficult to see where he was placing each foot.
Two other noises penetrated the night around Jack: Aareth’s heavy breathing as the lupine creature bounded next to him on all fours, and the flapping of massive leathery wings as Kimberly flew overhead.
The three unlikely traveling companions charged across the path. Those travelers they did pass were already camped for the night, their sites marked by off-road flickering fires and faint voices.
To Jack’s knowledge, none of these travelers witnessed them pass or, if they did, they didn’t believe what they saw and chose to remain quiet. After all, if they actually had witnessed a dark wolf creature, a monster in the air, and a man with green feet traveling past them, would they say?
Over the next few hours, fatigue began to set in. Even with the aid of the speed spell, Jack could feel his calves and legs begin to cramp. They had covered miles of the terrain and were close to reaching the site where the battle around the mage engine had taken place, when the sun began to rise.
Kimberly came down in a front of them, calling a halt to their progress. She landed heavily on the dirt path. A cloud of dust kicked up on the trail, showering Jack and Aareth.
Jack nearly collided with her. Aareth came to a halt, his large, pink tongue lolling out from the left side of his mouth.
“We’re nearly there.” Kimberly reached into her satchel and handed Aareth his clothing. She pulled out the long, white robe with the Azra crest on it to cover herself from the sun. “The place where the battle was fought is only a mile away. I spotted it from the sky. But I must go the rest of the way on foot.”
“Because of the sun?” Jack wiped sweat from his face. He took out his wand and tapped the soles of his boots. The green glow around them disappeared without sound. “You’ll turn to stone?”
“That is correct.” Kimberly draped the massive robe over her head and wings that were now folded on her back. “I’ll only turn to stone in direct sunlight. I turn back as soon as I’m in shade again. It’s not too bad if a hand or a foot touches the rays, but if I’m caught in the sun, I’m done for.”
“Okay, I guess we can walk the last mile. It’s probably a good idea anyway to make sure we don’t pass over any clues.” Jack turned to Aareth for a consensus. As soon as his gaze shifted toward Aareth, he immediately closed his eyes. Aareth was buck naked, still transitioning from his beast form back to a man. He was in a weird phase of change now where his head was human but his chest was still black and hairy.
“Oh, come on.” Jack shook his head, trying to forget what he had just seen. “Some kind of heads-up would be nice. “We need a safe word or something.”
“Hide your shame, beast man.” Kimberly threw Aareth his clothes from the satchel that hung at her side. “No one wants to see that.”
“Hold onto your pants.” Aareth grabbed the clothes Kimberly had thrown to him. “You two act like you’ve never seen anyone naked before.”
As soon as Aareth had changed, the trio continued on their way. It was a good thing Kimberly had called a halt to their run when she did. There were already clues showing up all around them: churned dirt and broken blades of grass, discarded weapons and soldiers’ paraphernalia.
Jack rubbed at his tired eyes. The run had taken more out of him than he realized. But he needed to push on as long as he could. His father needed him, if it was his father at all.
The trio of trackers reached the battleground together. The scene was a mess of broken vampire bodies and destroyed tents. It seemed where the guards of Azra had taken back their dead, the New Hope regime had not felt the same need.
The stench that wafted made Jack gag. Dead, bloated bodies stared with unseeing eyes into the morning sky.
“The monsters don’t even bury their dead,” Kimberly said through clenched teeth. “They deserve a burial like anyone else.”
“Why?” Aareth asked over to their left. “They’re dead, they’re gone. Life’s been taken from these men and women; their bodies are only empty husks now.”
“It’s the honorable thing to do.” Kimberly stared at the bodies through saddened eyes. “Their families deserve to know what happened to them, where they died, that they were put into the ground instead of laid out for the birds to tear apart.”
Jack felt torn in both directions. Once Kimberly had mentioned the birds, he started to take notice. Crows were beginning to gather, plucking at blue lips and ripe eyes.
Jack
was saved from thinking more on the dilemma by the tracks he found in front of him. As Aareth and Kimberly’s debate faded into the background, Jack concentrated on tracking. Boot prints and unicorn hooves were everywhere. Making sense of a battle like this with tracks alone would have been nearly impossible. Jack was lucky he had actually been there, to help decipher what he read on the ground.
Out of the dozen of werewolf prints, one in particular stood out to Jack. It was only slightly larger than the rest, but it was heavier; it pressed into the ground and softened the grass with greater force. Jack leaned down and picked up a white hair from one of the heavier tracks. It had to be his father. The white wolf was the one he had been drawn to.
The heavier tracks ran to the east and disappeared near a hard patch of ground a few hundred yards from the battlefield. Jack called on his years of experience in tracking gained the Outland with his father. To the south lay Azra and the coast. To the west, the coastline traveled up toward New Hope and the mountains beyond. North was the way back to New Hope, but east … east led back to Term and the forests that surrounded it.
Chapter 9
Sloan
“I just don’t want you to be disappointed if you’re wrong.” Sloan shook her head, trying to find the words to express her feelings. Why was this so hard for her? Why couldn’t she just say what she felt?
“How many sabertooth shifters can there be?” Kade propped up his head with his hands, elbows on the table. He looked like he hadn’t slept all night. “But what if I’m wrong? What are the odds that my brother and sister have survived in New Hope all these years?”
“I don’t know. I can go and find out for you, if you’d like.”
“No, I should do it. I need to do it myself. I’m acting like such a pansy right now.”
“You’re not. This is a big deal. I understand the letdown you’ll feel if it’s not them. I heard they’ve been meeting with Theo and Cherub since they got back. They’re sharing with the Azra leaders information they’ve gathered in New Hope.”
“When I first heard two sabertooth shifters escaped from New Hope, I froze.” Kade ran his hands through his golden brown hair. “I just need to go see. It’s like pulling off a band aid right? The sooner I get it over with, the better.”
“Your brother and sister were taken from you at a young age.” Sloan took his left hand in her own. “Will you remember them?”
Kade squeezed her hand tighter.
“I can never forget. The New Hope soldiers came into our home and slaughtered our parents. They took my sister and brother from me that day. I never saw them again.” Kade paused. He swallowed hard. “Not until today … maybe.”
Sloan let a moment of silence settle across the small living quarters Kade shared with Edison and Elwood. The two sat in the tiny kitchen at the four-person table tucked in one of the corners.
“How’s your injury?” Sloan knew it was a poor attempt at taking Kade’s mind off his brother and sister, but she had to try something. “Feeling any better?”
“Yes, I’m back to one hundred percent.” Kade gave Sloan a look that said: I know what you’re doing, but I’ll let you distract me anyway. “I’m not sitting out another fight.”
“I know,” Sloan conceded his point. “I was actually surprised you let me talk you into staying here when we battled the mage engine.”
“I only did it because I understood you’d have a better chance at survival if you weren’t worried about your wounded boyfriend,” Kade admitted. “If it weren’t for that, I would have just disobeyed your orders and came anyway.”
“Yeah, you never struck me as the obedient kind of kitty,” Sloan teased. “You ready to go do this?”
“Do what?”
“Come on, we’re going to see if those two shifters from New Hope are your brother and sister.”
“What, now?”
“Uh, yeah. I’m not going to let you sit here and worry yourself into an early grave. I kind of like you, if you haven’t noticed, and want to keep you around for a long while to come. Let’s go, on your feet.”
Kade reluctantly rose from the table. “You said they were busy in meetings and stuff. Maybe we should just wait until—”
Sloan grabbed Kade by the wrist and started to drag him out of the apartment.
“Ugh, I hate how strong you are.”
* * *
BOOM! BOOM!
Sloan rapped on the thick door of the capitol building that led to the main conference room.
“Well, looks like no one’s here.” Kade turned to leave. “They must have already gone. Too bad for us. I guess we’ll never know.”
Sloan reached out and grabbed Kade by the back of his shirt.
“Come in.” Theo’s deep, familiar voice reached them through the door.
“Let’s go,” Sloan coaxed Kade, as she directed him back to the door. “I’ll be right here.”
Sloan opened the door and pushed Kade inside.
The shifter stumbled forward.
Sloan followed behind. The room with descending theater seats lowered in front of them. Kade stumbled down the stairs, prodded along by Sloan who waved to the three figures below.
Theo sat in a chair next to a pair of crutches. Bruises marked his face, along with a white bandage that wrapped around his head like a turban. His right leg was in a splint. The wound had come from a particularly large vampire soldier who had clawed into him during the mage engine battle.
Seated on either side of Theo were Sasha and Saber, the two New Order leaders who had escaped the city with Jack and Abigail. Sloan and Sasha had officially met; Saber she had only seen in passing.
All three of the members in the meeting were hunched over a large map of the Outland. When Sloan and Kade had walked into the room, their chatter had ceased. The two sabertoothed shifters below never took their eyes off Kade.
As soon as they walked in, Sloan knew they were a part of Kade’s family. They had to be. They all had the same tanned skin, the same large features, and the same eye color.
Kade walked to the bottom of the amphitheater as if he were in a trance. Saber rose, his one good eye staring at Kade as if it were never going to leave.
“Kade?” Saber whispered in a tone so thick with emotion that if Sloan allowed herself the luxury of emotions, she may have cried. “How?”
“Is that really you?” Sasha looked like she wanted to stand but didn’t trust her legs to support her weight at that moment.
“You’re going to have to tell me.” Kade looked back and forth between his brother and sister. “I was so small when you were taken. My memories are like nightmares more than thoughts.”
Saber walked around the table and grabbed his brother. Tears fell so fast from his one good eye, they streaked down his face like a river. “We looked for you. When we escaped, we tried to find you, but there was no sign. We swore to take down Leah Nobel then. That’s why we stayed in New Hope. I swear, we looked everywhere for you, little brother.”
Saber sobbed into Kade’s shoulder a moment longer. Sloan understood what the moment meant for the reunited family. She took a seat in one of the rows of chairs, waiting for them to finish.
Sasha finally stood and joined her brothers. Though tears found a place in her orange eyes, unlike Saber, her voice was clear and free of emotion.
“Let me see him,” Sasha instructed Saber, who obeyed, finally letting Kade go.
Sasha placed a hand on either side of Kade’s face. She examined him from forehead to chin the entire time, a Cheshire smile creeping across her full lips.
“It is you, Kade.” Sasha lost control of her emotions as a fresh wave of tears cascaded down her high cheekbones. “I’ve missed you so much.”
All three members of the Hyde family were hugging, laughing, and crying. Sloan took Theo’s lead as the bear shifter hobbled up the stairs.
“I think they deserve a moment alone,” Theo whispered to Sloan. He put too much weight on his injured leg and almost fell.
“I think you’re right,” Sloan said with a final look behind her. Seeing Kade so happy, she knew she must love him. She’d never felt this way about a man before, and she didn’t think she would ever again. “Let’s get out of here.”
If Sloan knew what the future had in store for the shifter family, she would have stayed and enjoyed the moment with them.
Chapter 10
Leah
The vampire army spread out in front of her like a sea of black. Leah stood on the high walls of the city of New Hope, watching as the future itself evolved in front of her. Her army was ten thousand strong. Only a handful of vampire soldiers had been left in the other Outland cities to maintain her rule.
While news of restless New Hope citizens reached her ears, Leah knew their cries could do nothing to stop her. It seemed there was a large portion of the city that didn’t care for the new direction she was taking. Even with her justification for her actions pegged on the murder of her sister, some of the bleeding hearts still wanted an outside investigation to take place. Others wanted peace talks with Azra.
Leah was lucky this wasn’t up to them. She had mobilized the army and set out before anything could dissuade her plan. Even now, in the morning sun, her army of vampire soldiers led by Commander Steel marched in unison. Across their black uniforms they carried an assortment of weapons ranging from mage swords to rifles, but the truth was, they were the real weapons.
The experiments done to them in the palace laboratory had made them so much more than they could ever be as humans.
Off to her left, the mage engine puffed to life. Purple smoke rose from various stacks as it prepared to join the marching army. The lead mage engine was now hooked up to a long train of cars. These cars carried slaves taken from Outland cities to finish the track once they reached the end of the line, as well as supplies for the vampire army.