It took a few moments to collect the bodies into a heap in the privacy of the alley. With a little sigh he gathered energy from the sky and directed it toward the corpses now lying in the puddle of oil. Instantly there was a flash of fire and the stench of burned flesh. He waited impatiently, masking the scene from all eyes, even those of the police searching just down the road. When the dead men were little more than ashes, he directed the fire out and collected the remains. He then launched himself skyward and streaked away from the scene. Well out over the ocean, he scattered the grotesque, grisly ashes, watching the choppy waves, made hungry by a flick of his hand, devour them for all time. Losing six assassins, not having a clue as to their whereabouts or fate, would be a huge blow to his society of killers. With luck, his directors would crawl into a hole to regroup and remain inactive for months to come, sparing innocent mortals and vampires from their malice. Jacob turned
Jacob's white teeth gleamed in the night in a slightly mocking smile. So the boys thought it was funny to make fools out of people who loved and trusted them. He waited, his intense eyes molten gold, easily piercing the veil of darkness. His mind continually strayed to his lifemate. He knew that every male vampire knew the chance of finding a lifemate within their dwindling race was nearly impossible, their numbers being repeatedly decimated by the vampire and witch hunts in the Middle Ages and during the bloody Turk and Holy Wars. To complicate matters, the few remaining women had not given birth to a female child in years, and the rare children born in recent centuries nearly all died within their first year. No one, not even Kaden, their greatest healer, nor the Prince and leader of their people, had found the solution to these grave problems. Many had tried in the past to turn mortal women into vampires to continue their lineage, but the females had either perished or become der
Olivera stirred from her second sleep for the day, her eyes winding open and shut as she tried to comprehend where she was at the moment. Her wandering right hand grasped and held the bedsheets, and she moaned, enjoying the feel.She sat up straight, using her hand to take a wipe at her eye, wakening her up the more."Still here..." She muttered, taking in the room's interior.Not again. She thought, as her mind was assailed with thoughts of Raul and their sexual escapades. She still couldn't believe that she had been so brazen for a virgin. She had even egged him on. What had she been thinking? Jeremy would be so disappointed if he found out that she had been the one that had pushed the Alpha to the edge. Being forced into it was an entirely different case.But wasn't it better this way? She sighed, throwing her legs down the bed, willing herself to perhaps try the door again. She was hungry.Hadn't the man knew that sex caused a person's appetite to grow and linger? Well, at least
Dedari looked all around him and sighed, his mind remembering and pausing on the imagery he had seen before the attack had commenced on his sister; the old woman. He didn't really know her, but he had caught her staring at Zande sometimes, especially during their concerts. But this time around, he had seen her communicating with a young boy of not more than seventeen years old, before she had disappeared into thin air. Who was that boy? He wondered, even as he remembered the old woman who had taken them in during the destruction of their kind.During that turbulent day, he had noticed a peasant woman escaping unseen by the attackers. And since the sun did not affect the children of their kind as severely as it did the adults, he had awaited his opportunity, hiding five younger children from the murderous insanity. He managed, through sheer force of his will, to cloak the presence of the human woman and the children, even as he planted the compulsion in her to take them with her. Unawa
"We all have been unhappy," Amia pointed out as she firmly pushed Zande to a sitting position. "How could what Clent did to me, to all of us, leave us unchanged? But Dedari will not desert us. He would never do such a thing, not even in the guise of a carelessly received wound." "Do you think he was careless then?" That frightened Zande even more. If Dedari had been careless, it meant her fears were closer to the mark than ever. "Take my blood, Zande. It is freely offered to you and Dedari. I hope that it provides both of you with strength and peace," Amia replied softly. She opened her wrist with one sharp nail and held it to Zande's mouth. "For Dedari, if not for yourself." Zande fed, then leaned down to her brother, whispering softly into his ear. "Take from me what is freely offered, brother, what you need. Take it for yourself and for all of us who depend so heavily on you. I offer up my life that you might live." "Zande!" Amia protested sharply. "Dedari might not know wha
Zande knelt on the bed at the back of the bus and stared out at the scene of dwindling chaos. Ambulances and police cars were pulling away, the crowd was beginning to disperse. She hadn't thought to ask Dedari if any of their attackers had escaped. Knowing him, she doubted it, but he might have been so concerned with her, Prest, and Rich that he had allowed some of those guilty to escape his particular brand of justice. Amia drove the bus with surprising expertise, and Zane kept her eyes glued behind them, watching for any lights trailing the vehicle. Suddenly her heart was in her throat, pounding in alarm. For some reason she didn't want to leave the bar. She felt she was leaving behind her destiny. She needed to be where he could find her. He? Zande gasped and sank back onto the bed. "What is it?" Amia demanded, looking into the rearview mirror. She could hear Zande's increased heartbeat, her sudden gasp of alarm. The blood was pumping through her veins far too fast. She couldn't
Zande rubbed her forehead with the heels of her hands. Whoever he was, he would come for her, and she had to decide what to do. She could never leave her family. Especially not now, when Dedari was having such a hard time with his own darkness. "Oh, God," she murmured aloud. "What am I thinking?" "You are in pain?"Zande's head snapped up, and she looked around the bus cautiously. The voice was clear, arrogant, a velvet purr. Not Dedari. Her throat closed convulsively, making it nearly impossible to breathe. She felt a strength, a male's touch, his heart beating steadily, his lungs working easily, in and out, regulating her breathing as if they were one being. His voice was beautiful, and reached something deep in her soul. Yet he was using a mental path unfamiliar to her. The experience unnerved her. "Go away." She tried the path he was using. She heard soft laughter, taunting male amusement. "I do not think so, piccola. Answer me. Are you in pain?"Zande glanced around guiltil
Olivera's POV: I literally balked as the walls parted like the red sea in front of the legendary Moses. My heart beat increased as I noted the locked door which the parted walls had made visible and touchable to me.A secret door? Did the Alpha know about this? I wondered, unable to stop my legs from moving forward. I knew I should mind my own business, find the trick area on the wall so that I could lock back the walls, but my curiosity got the better of me.I will just take a peek, and walk away. I thought. Nobody will find out about it.The closer I got to the door, the higher and faster my heartbeat went. I took a deep breath to calm myself down before I escaped with a heart attack out of the room. The knob was so cold,... like it should be, silly. I mumbled to myself. I turned the knob but it didn't even shake or budge.Another secret lock somewhere? I mused, taking in the strange features of the black iron door. It had some drawings on it, more like carvings, and some funny sy
When they clambered to the surface of the ground, away from the lab, the girls breathed in relief, freed from the nightmares they had been subjected to for years. It was then that Olivera took a blood bag from the polythene in her arms, feeling better in the night hair, and took a sip, wary of how the blood would taste. She had heard Jacob talking about the heady feeling, worse if it came from an ancient. But it still hadn’t prepared her for the kick of pleasure. She found herself moaning as she greedily drank the blood, until she drained the bag. When she was done, she looked at the others. They were staring at her with unexplainable emotions on their faces. At least it wasn’t disgust. Olivera thought with a shrug, before handing the bag over to Miriam. When her friend hesitated in collecting it, she piqued an eyebrow. “You want to do the dismantling of the structure, without alerting the soldiers?” Miriam huffed, and took the bag. As much as she had great magic, she didn’t want
The first thing Olivera saw when she stepped into the hole where the passageway stopped was the largeness of the space, which could contain more than five thousand people. Then she saw the tubes, the boiling liquids and the lab rats. A modern lab.‘Where are you?’ She asked the girl, needing to get out of here; it was making her nauseous. Ten more minutes here, and she might be vomiting all over the place. And there was the fact that she didn’t know when the soldiers would be waking up. ‘At the far end of the cave…’Olivera nodded as if the girl was speaking to her physically. And gesturing with her head, for Miriam to follow her, she sauntered toward the end of the hall, making sure not to look at the tubes housing different organs and parts of an organism. What the hell! She screamed mentally when she saw a full brain at a table which looked like a butchering table. “Oh, my god…what are they doing here?” She heard Miriam ask beside her and sighed. Whose brain was that? A human
Miriam’s heart pounded erratically as she followed Olivera, who seemed very confident on what she was doing, and on where she was going. Three times she thought of grabbing Olivera and walking away from the region, but she also knew it would have been a futile attempt. Her friend’s mind was already made up. She watched as the latter walked past the last barrack, and stopped by a pole, the only pole in the backyard. Behind it were the gates towering them. They have come to a dead end. “Olivera, there is nothing here? Are you sure this girl is real?” Olivera gave Miriam no answer, instead she concentrated on looking around her, waiting for the signal. When she got nothing, she traced the vibration residue, touching the girl’s mind. A jerk in her mind path told her that the girl was surprised she had breached her mind guards. But should she be surprised? Or was something else at play here? ‘Where next should I go?’ She continued, because she knew she was at the right place, that t
“How are we getting past that?” Olivera asked Miriam as they came to stand before a huge gate that towered many feet over them. She could now see why Miriam had wanted the journey to be done in the privacy of the night. As much as she could see—as they had zapped to this point—this area wasn’t open to the city dwellers, only to the special few. She looked around her again. Barracks with soldiers sleeping within. None was even standing guard at the gates. She didn’t believe such a thing would exist at this time. City gates. Where did it lead? She piqued an eyebrow when Miriam smirked. What was the latter thinking? “As if you don’t already know…which other way, if not by mist…there is no way I am climbing that. I don’t think I am ready to fly with you above it…” Miriam spoke, covering the distance between them, and wrapping her arms around Olivera, her mouth fixed in a pout. Olivera shook her head, yet unable to stop the smile that cascaded her lips. It seemed that her friend was g
A knock woke Olivera up from her deep slumber. After bathing and eating off the snacks she had bought earlier in the day, from the shops in the new city, she had fallen like a log of wood to the bed, and hadn’t even stirred after that. Still groggy from the smooth sleep, she let her hand search for her phone which was the only thing that had gone to bed with her, should Miriam call for her. She peered at the screen. It was one in the morning. It was time then. She yawned like a hyena, causing Miriam to chuckle from behind the door. The chuckle dissipated the remaining fog fostering around her head. Taking a deep breath in, she stood up from the bed, flung a sheet around her naked body, and walked to the door. When she opened it, she saw that Miriam was alone, and carrying a tray of steaming food. “You are a lifesaver.” She muttered, opening the door wider for her friend to come in; the rumbling sounds that emitted from her stomach in agreement with her. Miriam chuckled again, an
“Where are we heading next?” Olivera asked Miriam immediately they stepped out of the borders of the town, into a city sprawling with people. After they had left the males who had tried to detain them because of her eating habits, they had walked to the largest building in the town, because if Clooney was a big name, it was probably because the man was rich. They hadn’t been right in their deduction, but they had at least gotten away from the unsettling males. Olivera had taken her friend behind the building, and had quickly switched to her mist form, turning Miriam into the same, and together they had zapped the remainder of the city without stopping, till they were out of it, till they were in a new one which looked more modernized than the previous. She looked at Miriam, who was staring at the city with artificial skylights, and wondered if her friend had ever been here before. “I never get over the culture shock, you know, seeing the drabness of the town we just left. The cont
What now? Olivera thought, looking at the six males that couldn’t be a year older than twenty five years old. What were they doing in front of her? “State your names, and what you are doing in this town…” The male, slightly in front of the others, spoke with a steel voice, causing Olivera and Miriam to exchange furtive glances. What was going on?There was a minute hesitation before Olivera spoke. “I am Darcy. My friend is Lilian. Who are you?” She patted herself mentally for names well cooked and delivered. Darcy and Lilian? How had she come up with those seemingly true names? She watched the male that had just spoken, looked to his comrades behind him, and judged that he was the leader of this small group. Were they the police? She looked at them again. They didn’t look like the police. Vigilantes? Maybe. But why were there vigilantes in the town? She kept a seal on her thoughts when the male returned her attention to her. “My name is Luke, and these are my associates. Our job is
“We will kill him right?” Miriam asked, as they stepped out of the camp, and turned around to look at it again, reliving what they had seen in there. “We need to. He is evil. Why will a sane man work with a vampire? Is he crazy?” Olivera just couldn’t understand the foolishness, no matter how much she tried. Why would one make a deal with an almost eternal wickedness? Had he no fear for his life, for his family? “I think he is crazy. Evil-y crazy. But that’s by the way. What are we going to do now?” Olivera looked around the camp, and spat in disgust. “We will burn it down. We will burn it until it’s nothing but dust. We will eradicate this curse from the face of the earth.” Miriam couldn’t agree less, but then she remembered that the ancients might have use for the materials in there. Olivera, having sensed the latter’s thoughts, shook her head. “They won’t be needing it. I’ve already transferred the necessary details to Raul, and Jacob. They can take it up from there. The mater
“Do you think anyone is in there?” Olivera asked Miriam, immediately she shifted to human self. Miriam looked at her clothed self and smiled. “Seems you have gotten the best hang of shifting, and still keeping your clothes on.” Olivera shrugged her shoulders. “There was no other choice. I can’t keep going up and down with my clothes in my hands or mouth. Since I’m part ancient, I have to improvise.” She took in a deep breath, inhaling the air tainted with magic and something else. “This place is tainted with magic. You smell it?” She shook off the imaginary dirt on her clothes, just in case, whilst waiting for Miriam’s reply. When she looked up, her friend was smiling. “What’s tickling your fancy? I don’t think my question has that much prowess…” Miriam cackled. “I never thought riding on a wolf would be so exhilarating. If I had known, I would have befriended a werewolf, and snagged rides every week at least. It’s quite freeing and therapeutic.” Olivera nodded. It was just as