Marked by Destiny

by C.M. Owens

  "I told you to keep your voice down," Rhia said.

  His glare swiveled from Rhia to Tessa and back again. "Maybe it's better this way."

  Tessa watched her mother draw herself up to her full height, in no way prepared to give an inch. "You will not question her right now. She's injured. Twice, I might add."

  "I know that. I'm not going to beat her, for Christ's sake," he muttered. "I just want to ask her some questions. Get some answers we need."

  Any other time, Tessa would have grinned at her father backing down in the face of her mother's wrath. Those two had been together for centuries. They knew just what boundaries they could cross and which ones they couldn't. The sooner everyone knew what had happened, the faster they could do something to save Jared. "Mom, it's okay. I'm fine."

  Her mother spun on her heels, frustration firing her voice with heat. "No, you are not fine. I want you to march upstairs and get yourself back into bed. And stay there. Do you hear me?"

  Tessa heard the words, and when she looked in her mother's eyes she recognized real fear behind the tone. Tessa smiled gently. "I love you too, Mom."

  Her mother's eyes filled with tears and she rushed over to hug her only daughter. "Tessa, you could have been killed. Do you understand that?"

  "Yes," Tessa whispered against her mother's blue-black locks.

  Her mother wiped away her tears and pulled back a little to look down at Tessa. "Please, wait until you're feeling better. I don't know much about the kind of injury you have. Maybe I should call a human doctor…? Taz." She brightened at the idea. "Yes, that's what I'll do. Let's go back upstairs. Taz will be happy to come."

  Tessa glanced over at David and Seth, who both rolled their eyes at her. "Mom. I'm not human, remember? And Taz isn't going to want to come into the house with this gathering going on." She motioned to the room full of black-clad vampires. "Though I might get injured a little more than the rest of you, and I might take longer to recuperate, that doesn't mean I don't have any vampire traits."

  Cody stepped closer. "And I'd be the first one to say I've seen more than a few of them in action over the last few hours."

  Her father glared in Tessa's general direction, effectively including the entire family and Cody.

  Tessa glared back, then winced. The tempo in her head clashed with the movement, and a fine tremor went down her spine.

  "Tessa?" Her mother crouched down in front of her. "Honey, please go back up and lie down."

  But Cody placed a hand on her shoulder. Heat crept up her face. Maybe she hadn't imagined those solicitous touches earlier. Did he really care, or was she just the little sister he didn't have in his life? What a depressing thought.

  "She can go back up in a few minutes. She's my daughter, not some weak lily-livered human." Serus's tone brooked no argument.

  Straightening her spine, Tessa stared at her father. Showing weakness hadn't gotten her anywhere with him before. Maybe showing some backbone would. "What do you want to know?"

  "I want to know what the hell you were doing ignoring my orders."

  Her chin jutted out on its own. Any attempt to force some stiffness into her spine was forgotten. It straightened on its own now. She wasn't going to put up with a dressing down for not listening to her father – not in this instance. Jared was in trouble. And if her father still refused to help her – well, she knew where the front door was. She refused to consider that the knock on the head might have had something to do with that answer. "I'm not even going to discuss that with you. Not here and not now." Tessa's words were quiet but clear as she stared her father down.

  His jaw dropped.

  She'd have laughed if the subject wasn't so important. "I came down here to make sure you weren't taking chunks out of Cody’s hide and to tell you what happened so you could help. But if you're just planning to tell me off, to ground me for doing what I felt was right…" she stood up slowly, her temper putting steel into her rubbery legs, "And to tell me thatyouwouldn't have done the same thing, then I'm leaving."

  Silence. Tessa didn't think she'd ever heard such an absolute absence of sound. She refused to tear her gaze away from her father, who looked like he'd been struck by lightning. The rest of the audience held their breaths, waiting for the explosion.

  "Tessa, that's hardly fair. You know your father needed to speak with the Council first." Her mothered hovered between them.

  "And second? And third?" Tessa scoffed. "While Cody and I tracked Jared's kidnapperandthe men – who attacked me, I might add – to the house where we found a human, chained and dead."

  Soft gasps rippled through the house.

  "I know perfectly well how incompetent and incapable you believe me to be. I, however, won't let your opinion stop me from helping someone I care about. Whose predicament I feel responsible for."

  Dimly, in the back of her mind, she felt Cody's withdrawal. She'd have to reason that out later – right now, in the vampire den, she dared not show weakness. "There are times when you just have to stand up for what's right. This was one of them."

  Her piece said, the steel morphed into marshmallows and she collapsed back into her chair.

  "You care about this…this human?" The question came from her mother's sister. Aunt Rosha was cold, hard, and a bitch…but all bitches had families and she happened to be part of Tessa's.

  Letting her lip curl in disdain, Tessa cut through the implication hanging in the air. "Yes, Aunt Rosha. He's a friend."

  "A friend?" she asked delicately. Her tone implied so much more.

  And just like that, Tessa had enough of it all. Of Aunt Rosha's innuendos, her criticisms, her belief that Tessa was stupid and naïve – the constant nastiness Tessa had endured from this relative. "Think whatever you want, Rosha. You will anyway."

  Her mother's shocked gasp at her side would have made the old Tessa cringe in horror at being so bold. This Tessa, the beaten, chased, and now attacked-on-all-sides Tessa could no longer afford to be anyone's doormat. "He's a friend. That means he's someone I go to school with. Someone I went to the movies with. He's not my lover." More murmurs wafted through the room. "He's a friend."

  "Interesting," Rosha murmured, studying her long nails, a sneer on her face.

  "Yeah, it's a human thing and a friend thing. Obviously, you wouldn't understand."

  David, who came to sit on the armrest of her chair, gently nudged her shoulder. Tessa half leaned into his touch, accepting both the comfort and the warning. At least for the moment.

  Her dad knew his sister was being insulted and it was obvious he didn't know what to do about it. "I think it's time Tessa went to lie down."

  "No, Dad, it's time for someone to help me find Jared." She took a deep breath. "Before whoever took him kills him, like they did the other man."

  "That's human business," murmured someone from the back of the room.

  "Who said that?" Tessa snapped, glaring at the blank looks turned her way. "It's not human business. It's vampire business. It was vampires who took him, vampires who killed the other man, and vampires who have Jared right now."

  "Of course we only have your word that this other man is dead." Rosha smirked at Tessa.

  Tessa turned to look up as Cody stepped forward. His temper showed on his lean, dark face. "Not true. I also saw him."

  Then Tessa remembered the evidence she'd gathered. Standing up again, she reached into her back pocket for the man's wallet. "Here. His name was Carstairs Wallace." Her voice gentled as she looked down on the wallet she'd taken. "I hoped we might help him, too. Someone somewhere will want to know what happened to him."

  She wanted to give it to her father, but as there was no give in his face, she handed it off to Cody before sitting down again.

  As Cody walked forward, an oversized vampire stormed into the room. Goran's temper moved ahead of him, automatically clearing a space. "What the hell is going on here?" He spun around in a circle, his gaze taking in everyone in the room in an instant. When his eyes lit on Cod
y, some of the anger drained from his face. "There you are. What's this all about?"

  "It's a long story, sir."

  "Then you'd better get started."

  As succinctly as he could, Cody relayed the evening's events for his father. It made interesting listening for Tessa, who could only vaguely remember some of the details and none at all about the fight or that he'd defended her. Her insides turned to mush at the thought. Tidbits of memories flashed through her mind, some of them heating her insides and making her face flush.

  "Are you warm, Tessa? Your face is turning pink," David asked in concern. Tessa rolled her eyes. That was yet one more human trait the others couldn't understand. Maybe that was a good thing. Blushing wasn't something she wanted to be advertised.

  "I'm fine," she murmured, keeping an eye on the two most powerful men in this part of the world. Her father and Goran had been friends forever. They held the same beliefs, followed the same code…and generally viewed life from the same vantage point. If Cody's father sided with Tessa's father, then Cody and she could both end up in deep shit.

  Goran's heavy brows beetled together. His gaze lit on Tessa once before bouncing to Rhia then off to stare at Tessa's father.

  "So what are we going to do about this, Serus?"

  "Hell if I know. I'm trying to get to the bottom of this mess."

  "Pssshaw. You and your talking. This is a time for action. If vampires are breaking the treaty we have to stop them. That's all there is to it. We can't go back to the war zone we once lived in."

  Serus shook his head. "No, we can't do that. However, we don't know who took the humans."

  Goran turned to study his youngest child. "Cody?"

  "I can show you the house and the vehicles. I'd definitely recognize the vampires again..." He hesitated. "One called the other Benj, but I've never seen them before."

  "Imported?"

  Cody nodded. "I think so."

  "What?" roared Serus. "You never mentioned that."

  "I didn't get a chance, sir."

  Goran stomped his feet, a big grin splitting his face. The bones of the house quaked with the movement. "Well, boy, what else did you not get a chance to tell?"

  Cody glanced down at Tessa. She frowned. He was holding back something…but what? That it had to do with her was obvious, but what it was she couldn't imagine.

  "What? Just say it," Goran urged.

  Cody hesitated. He looked over at his father. "I'm not sure they were normal vampires."

  For the second time that night, silence overtook the room.

  Serus, his voice tempered steel, asked, "What do you mean by that?"

  Everyone in the room leaned forward to hear Cody.

  "They didn't know anything about my family line, and they didn't know Tessa."

  Serus frowned, not understanding.

  Goran whistled. "Now that's interesting."

  Seth stepped forward, surprising Tessa. She hadn't seen her oldest brother since she'd made her way downstairs. "Why does that matter? Not everyone knows Tessa. Or your line, Cody."

  Frowning, Rhia stood up and walked over to stand in front of Cody. She searched his face carefully. "When you say 'normal', are you suggesting they were 'turned' vampires?"

  Tessa sat back, stunned. The practice of turning victims into vampires had been outlawed centuries ago. That was considered an even worse transgression than kidnapping humans, and if the two went together… She whistled softly.

  "Exactly, young lady." Goran nodded, despite the serious anger building on his face.

  Cody frowned. "I couldn't be sure, but there was something very odd about them."

  "In what way?" Rhia stepped closer to Serus, new worry creasing her face. Serus wrapped an arm around her shoulders, hugging her close.

  "They looked wrong." Cody shrugged, not knowing how else to say it.

  "Come to think of it, they smelled wrong and they did look different." Tessa pondered just what it was about them that made them that way.

  Goran pounced on her. "Different?How?"

  Closing her eyes, Tessa tried to retrieve the memory of what had bothered her. She'd managed to see the attackers through both kinds of vision. What had been so different? "Their energy trails."

  Silence.

  Serus reared back, then scoffed at her, "Energy trails. What are you talking about?"

  Rhia spun back to Tessa. "You can see energy trails?" Shock and disbelief didn't cover the interest in her voice.

  "I think that's what they're called. When I open my vampire vision at the same time as my human vision, I can see the energy coming from everyone."

  David interrupted. "Everyone?"

  She nodded. "Yes, everyone. At least, I think so. I haven't tried it all that often, but I see both vampire and human energy."

  Goran and Serus exchanged glances. Some silent message moved between them.

  "Like that," Tessa said, nodding toward them. "I can see the energy move between you two as you communicate."

  Rhia spun around to face the two elders. "You were mindspeaking?" she asked incredulously. "I thought you said you couldn't do that."

  Both men looked uncomfortable, but they looked down their long noses at Rhia. "We've been able to do it for some time now, but only with each other."

  Rhia narrowed her gaze at Serus. "We will speak of this later. But for now…"

  All three adults spun around to stare at Tessa. She shrugged and leaned back to close her eyes. Her headache was returning. And so what if she could open both visions at the same time to see energy trails? It's not like it helped her in any way. In fact, it made her even more 'odd.' Great.

  "Could you identify the men by their energy?" Rhia stared at Tessa, confusion in her dark eyes.

  "I think so, and by their smell." Tessa shrugged. She couldn't explain it.

  "You can differentiate the smell of human from vampire and other animals?" Rhia's gaze widened again, making her eyes appear jet black.

  "Of course. So can you," Tessa said wearily. "These two smelled more like an unusual animal species. I didn't recognize it, but it wasn't human or vampire. The two men had smells distinct from vampires, but also from each other."

  Literally everyone in the room stared at her. She glared back at all of them."What?"

  It was David who filled her in. "Vampire sense of smell isn't very acute, if you remember. It's mostly blood that stirs up our olfactory senses. And of course, our senses are strongest when we need to drink."

  Tessa stared at him in puzzlement. "So?"

  "We can recognize an animal from a vampire, but I highly doubt most of us would be able to tell any individual animals apart within one species. For us," he motioned to those in the room and then at her, "and for you, humans are animals. That you can smell the differences between them is very unusual."

  It didn't seem unusual to her. "That would be from my human throwback genes then," she murmured quietly.

  "No, I'm not so sure about that." Rhia walked over to stand in front of Tessa. She stood there for a long second, her finger tapping her chin thoughtfully. "How long have you known you could do these things?"

  "Mom, I never noticed. They are natural to me. I've always done them."

  "Hmmm." She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Have you tried to fly?"

  "Ah, I'm missing something important here, Mom – no wings, remember?" Geez, everyone was looking at her oddly now. Even her father.

  "What?" she snapped, hating the attention. "Why are you all staring at me? Don't I get gawked at enough without having to put up with it in my own home?"

  "Who gawks at you?" Serus bristled.

  "Oh Dad, everyone does. Even you."

  Tessa slumped back and stared out the window. What difference did all this make? They'd grab any excuse to stay off topic. Jared might already be dead for all she knew.

  Exhaustion settled in on her shoulders. She wanted to weep. How could she be this tired? What good was she to Jared if she didn't have the energy to go out agai
n and rescue him?

  "Where's the house, Cody?" Goran asked, all businesslike.

  Cody filled them in on the details, adding the warning he'd been given – that this situation was bigger than it appeared and that he wouldn't get away with interfering in their business.

  Goran frowned at the threat.

  Though the conversation flowed around her, she blanked it all out. It's not like anyone would do anything tonight. Everyone would talk about it and then discuss it some more. How couldshefind those assholes?

  They hadn't been able to fly, yet they'd had wheels. She couldn't drive. The rest of her family could though. In the background, she dimly heard Cody ask her mom about the flying stuff. Like what kind of question was that? Cody had wings, thus Cody could fly. Tessa had no wings, thus Tessa couldn't fly.

  Easy.

  Rhia spoke to her. "My great grandmother on my father's side was a Leant. One of the originals. She couldn't fly, but she jumped like you wouldn't believe."

  Jumped?Tessa sat up straighter.

  "I never saw her, but apparently she could jump to the tops of trees and rooftops. Something to do with her spine and leg joints. She was hell on wheels, that woman. Serus is classified as a glider, whereas she'd be classified as a jumper – with a style of her own."

  "Where is she now?" Vampires were notoriously long-lived, so where was she and why was Tessa just hearing about her now? She desperately wanted to meet this relative.

  "She, along with most of her family, was killed during one of the uprisings. The townsfolk administered some kind of sleeping drug during a big celebration, then they went in and sliced off all their heads." Rhia paused, her face drawn with the painful memories. "She was a beautiful woman."

  "Tessa jumps." Cody spoke up helpfully.

  "What?" Rhia spun around to look down at her. "Do you? Really?"

  "No, not really." When her mother's face fell, she couldn't help but modify her statement, unable to let go of that little bit of pride in her mother's face. "At least not that well. According to Cody here, I kind of crab walk through life." She glared at him and his remembered insult.

  He grinned back at her. "It's pretty freaky looking. If I hadn't seen that it was Tessa, I'd have thought we had a new breed of vampire out there."

  "Maybe it's not a new breed as much as the return of an old breed." Rhia brightened with excitement. "I must speak with someone."