“Hard to believe, isn’t it?”
I looked sideways at Chris, who had joined me on what had been a battlefield twelve hours ago. The snow was more red than white, and there were three blackened circles where piles of vampire and crocotta bodies had been burnt.
I’d gotten up at dawn to assist with the job of loading the burnt remains on a truck so they could be taken miles away and disposed of. We would not desecrate our home by burying the bodies in our woods. It had been violated enough just having them here last night.
“I never thought I’d see this day,” I admitted grimly. “It kills me to say it, but Westhorne is no longer safe, at least not for Sara. As long as she’s here, the Master will keep coming.”
“I think you’re right.” His gaze swept the grounds. “Whatever you decide to do, I’m in. No one will get to our girl without going through us.”
“Thanks, Chris. I knew I could count on you.”
“Yeah. Besides, my life would be unbearably dull without you two.”
I smiled. “It’s hard to remember what life was like before Sara.”
“Very, very quiet,” he said, and we both laughed. The sound felt wrong after what had happened here last night.
Chris sobered. “Tristan called in three units to help with security until the Council sends more warriors. I’m going out on patrol until reinforcements get here. Want to join me?”
“Yeah.”
It would be good to go out and stretch my legs a bit. I didn’t need to get my sword. Like every other warrior here, I was wearing mine wherever I went today. Westhorne was still on alert. Although the chances of a daytime attack were unlikely, we were putting nothing past this Master.
It was late morning when we returned to find the stronghold a lot more crowded than it had been when we left. The twenty well-armed warriors were a welcome sight to everyone at Westhorne, and they immediately went to work, organizing themselves into patrols.
I was on my way to find Sara when Tristan stopped me in the hallway.
“I’m going to see Michael. He’s asking for Sara, so I’m going to ask her if she wants to talk to him.”
“Not without me.”
Michael had betrayed Sara and almost cost her her life. There was no way she was going into the same room with him unless I was there.
Tristan nodded. “I thought you’d say that.”
The medical ward was quiet after last night’s craziness. The healers had done an exemplary job of handling the dozens of injured pouring in here after the attack.
The worst were Sahir and the three who’d been attacked by the witch. I’d checked in on them this morning and found out they were all doing well. Ben had already been released, and Seamus and Niall would be good to go later this afternoon.
Only Sahir had to stay for another day or two. He had almost been killed by two vampires at the menagerie before he’d somehow managed to free the creatures. The wyvern had thanked him by saving his life.
I wasn’t surprised to hear Sara’s voice coming from Sahir’s room. Tristan went to get her, and I entered Michael’s room to find Celine there. We hadn’t spoken about what she’d said to Sara, and I’d decided to let it go with everything else going on here the last week, first with Nate and then last night’s attack.
I hadn’t forgotten it was Celine’s interference that was partially responsible for sending Sara right into my arms. I found it hard to be angry about that.
Michael sat on the bed, propped up with pillows, his wrist chained to the bed rail. He gave me a fearful look and ducked his head when I took up a position by the door.
It was hard to believe this frail young boy was responsible for the deaths of five people. If not for Jordan, Roland, and Peter, he would have caused Sara’s death as well. Sara thought he was mentally ill, but I wasn’t sure I could forgive him for what he’d done to her.
Sara entered the room behind Tristan, looking rested and recovered. Her eyes found mine, but she looked away when Michael spoke to her.
“You came? I didn’t think you would.”
“I wasn’t sure I would come either.” There was no anger in her voice, only sadness.
She walked over to the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“O-okay,” he stammered. “Sara, I-I’m sorry for what I did to you. I know you won’t forgive me, but I want you to know that I didn’t ever want to hurt you.”
“You didn’t hurt just me, Michael,” she corrected him in an accusing tone. “Olivia and Mark are dead.”
“Oh, God!” Michael began to cry wretchedly. “No one was supposed to die. They said if I gave them you, they would give me Matthew.”
“And you believed them?” she asked in disbelief.
“I had to. I messed up everything else, and it was my last chance of getting Matthew back.”
Everything else?
Tristan stepped forward. “What do you mean? What did you mess up?”
Michael wouldn’t meet Tristan’s stern gaze. “I-I was supposed to scare Sara and make her leave. I did things to make her want to go, but she never did.”
“What things?” Sara stared at him. “Did you have anything to do with us getting attacked in the movie theater?”
He ducked his head. “I only told them what movie you were going to see. I didn’t know they would sic demons on all those people.”
My gut hardened in anger, but I stayed where I was. Losing my temper was not going to help us.
Sara looked a lot calmer than I felt. “What about the vampires at the party we went to? Did you tell them we would be there?”
“I didn’t even know you were going to a party. I swear,” he said.
“What else did you do?” Tristan asked.
“I gave Sara some drex venom,” Michael answered in a small voice.
He looked at Sara. “It was supposed to make you sad and depressed so you’d want to leave. It’s not supposed to make people sick. I didn’t know what to do when you got so sick.”
I looked from Sara to Tristan. She’d been ill? When? Why hadn’t Tristan told me?
Drex demon venom made people have hallucinations. It normally didn’t make them sick. But then most people weren’t half Fae… I swore silently. Demon blood and venom were poisonous to the Fae. It was no wonder Sara had gotten sick.
“You did that to me?” Sara asked in disbelief.
Celine spoke for the first time. “Where on Earth did you get drex venom?”
“They keep a lot of venoms in the medical ward for making antidotes,” Michael replied.
It was hard to stay calm when I thought about how many kinds of demon venom we had here. If he’d used too much drex venom, or if he’d used a different one Sara couldn’t fight off, she might have died. It didn’t matter that he had no idea she was half Fae. He could have killed her.
“What else did you do?” I bit out.
He flinched and looked down at his lap. A minute or two passed before he answered.
“I-I let the hellhounds out so they would scare her. I did it when there were lots of warriors around to keep her from getting hurt.”
Tristan sent me a warning look before he addressed Michael. “How did you do that without anyone seeing you?”
“They let me hang out in the control room sometimes,” he told us. “And I saw Ben entering in his security code when he was on duty. After that, it was easy to log on from my laptop.”
I thought back to all the times I’d been in the security center with Dax since I’d returned. I had seen Michael in there on at least one occasion. Dax hadn’t seemed to mind, so I hadn’t mentioned it.
“You set the karks on me, didn’t you?” Sara asked accusingly.
Michael bit his lip. “I sprayed some scarab demon pheromone on you. I used just a drop to get them worked up. I had no idea they’d go nuts like that.”
It was all I could do to keep my anger in check. For weeks, this boy had played dangerous games with Sara’s life. People were dead because of him, and Sara could have been one of them.
Sara threw up her arms. “I don’t get it! The vampires wanted me dead and you had so many chances to finish me off. Why didn’t you just kill me and be done with it?”
He gave her a horrified look. “I couldn’t do that. I never wanted to hurt you at all. I just wanted you to leave so they would see I did what they asked me and let Matthew go. And they said they wanted you alive.”
She stared at him as if she didn’t recognize him. “So after all that, they suddenly decided to come here to get me themselves. Why?”
He looked away from us at the far wall. “They asked about your uncle…and I told them he was human again. They wanted to know how, but I didn’t know how it happened. That’s when they told me I had to bring you to them or Matthew would die.”
A needle of ice stabled my chest. If they knew Sara could make vampires human, they’d do anything to get their hands on her. I had to take her away from here as soon as possible.
I’d take her to Miroslav. It was the most fortified stronghold in the world, and the Master would have no idea where we were. It was a bit early to introduce Sara to my parents, but –
“No!” Michael’s screams pulled me from my thoughts. “He’s alive and now he’s going to die because I couldn’t give them you. This is all your fault. Why couldn’t you just leave? You killed him, Sara! You killed my brother.”
Sara’s eyes filled with tears, and she backed away from the bed with her hand covering her mouth. Two healers ran past her and sedated the crazed boy.
I started toward her, but she shook her head.
“What will you do with him now?” she asked Tristan hoarsely.
“We have a facility in Mumbai where they’ve had some success rehabilitating some of the older orphans we’ve found. I’ll contact Janek and have him take Michael there.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Sara, what he said…”
“He’s delusional, I know.”
Celine stood. “Please tell me it’s not that easy to get to our children and turn them against us.”
Sara turned to glare at her. “He’s sick and they used that against him. How about a little compassion?”
Celine huffed. “You expect me to show compassion to the person who betrayed us?”
“The welfare of the boy was our responsibility, Celine, and we failed him,” Tristan said wearily. “I don’t believe our young people are at risk. This was a special case. And I think we should continue this conversation elsewhere.”
“I’m done here,” Celine said, striding from the room.
Sara followed her out. I stopped Tristan before he could do the same.
“Michael told the vampires what Sara did to Nate. This changes everything.”
He looked back regretfully at the unconscious boy. “I know.”
I lowered my voice as we left the room. “If they know what Sara did to Nate, they will stop at nothing to get to her.”
“I’ve already spoken to the rest of the Council. We are doubling our force here and bringing in five special teams to hunt this vampire.”
“It’s not enough,” I argued. “You saw the small army he was able to assemble and send against us. One child Hale witch brought down half our sentries without blinking. I’m shocked it hasn’t been tried before. You can be sure they will try to use them again now that they know how effective they are. And the only person who can go up against a Hale witch is the one we are trying to keep safe.”
Tristan stopped walking. “What do you propose?”
I looked at Sara who was waiting for us in the main ward. She wasn’t going to be happy with my plan, but she’d see it made sense once she had time to think about it.
“We need to move her to a new location, somewhere known only to a handful of us. Overseas would be best.”
Shock crossed her face, but she quickly recovered. “Hold on. I’m not moving again, especially not to some strange place where I’ll be on lockdown twenty-four seven.”
“Nikolas makes a good point, Sara,” Tristan said in a conciliatory tone. “It would not be permanent, just until we deal with this Master.”
She crossed her arms. “That could take years. I am not going to spend the rest of my life running and hiding while you two hunt this vampire. Forget it.”
“Actually, I will be coming with you.” As much as I wanted this vampire dead, I couldn’t be away from her that long. I didn’t want to, and my Mori would never allow it.
My words were meant to reassure her, but if anything, they made her angrier.
“So, I’ll be back to having a bodyguard again. Why don’t we invite Chris along, too, and it’ll be just like old times?”
Ah, so that was it. She’d hated us watching over her back in Maine, and she thought it would be like that again. She had no idea how different it would be.
I tried to diffuse her anger with humor. “We can bring Chris if you’d like. He likes to travel abroad.”
“What if I don’t like to travel abroad?” she shot back.
“You can hardly say that when you’ve never left US soil. I’m sure we can find plenty of places you will enjoy. We can even bring your two beasts if you want.”
I’d travelled all over the world, and there were hundreds of places I wanted to show her. We could spend years travelling and never visit the same place twice.
Tristan laid a hand on her arm. “This would be the best way to keep you safe. I promise we will do whatever we can to end this and bring you home soon.”
“But what about Nate?” she asked desperately. “I just got him back. I can’t leave him like this, especially if he’ll be in danger here.”
Tristan smiled. “I’ve already told Nate he has a home with us as long as he wants to stay. But if he wants to go with you, he has that option.”
Her chin quivered. “How can you expect me to run away like a coward and leave everyone else here to face this? Please don’t ask me to do that.”
“No one here would ever call you cowardly, Sara, especially after what you did last night,” Tristan said. “But being a warrior means you must also know when to retreat. This is one of those times.”
She gave a jerky nod, but I saw the hurt on her face as she turned away. God, I’d handled this all wrong. I should have waited until we were alone and explained it better.
“Sara, please understand,” Tristan said to her retreating back.
“I’ll talk to her. She’ll come around,” I said.
She spun back to us, her eyes blazing. “I will never be okay with this or having no control over my own life. If you don’t know that, then you don’t know me at all.”
Tristan heaved a sigh after she left. “That went well.”
“I should have known she’d react like this. She blames herself for the attack and her friends dying.”
His brows drew together. “Why would she think that was her fault?”
“Because the vampires were after her,” I said as we left the medical ward and walked toward his office.
“I’ll talk to her.”
“No, I’ll go see her.” I had to be the one to talk to her and explain. “She’s upset now. I’ll give her a few hours to cool down.”
Tristan shook his head. “I think this might take more than a few hours.”
“I know.” I rubbed my eyes. “I screwed up. But it doesn’t change what we have to do.”
He opened his office door and I followed him inside. I sank into a chair as he went to his desk and fired up his computer.
“I’ll start making arrangements,” he said. “When do you think you’ll leave?”
“Day after tomorrow. I don’t think we can wait longer than that.”
He tapped several keys on his keyboard. “Are you going straight to Miroslav?”
“Yes.”
“Does Irina know you’re bringing Sara there?”
“Not yet.” I smiled, imagining my mother’s reaction when I told her. She would be ecstatic to hear I was coming home with my mate. I already knew she’d love Sara.
Tristan chuckled. “Well, if anyone can get Sara to forgive you, it’s your mother. No one can resist her for long.”
“I hope so.” I rubbed my jaw. “I’ll need all the help I can get on this one.”
