She looked up at me, surprised, but then her expression relaxed. Between his actions then and now, it was pretty obvious that Julian was up to something. She shrugged. “He wants what he always wants. Arianna back.”
I nodded, suspecting as much. Nika swung my hand as she looked at the beauty of the night all around us. Crickets chirped, faint heartbeats thudded in the distance, and the moon white-washed everything. It was spectacular…and yet it didn’t hold a candle to her.
Glancing up at me, she continued. “He’s thought up some elaborate plan to finally win her over, but it involves a massive high school party that my parents are never going to agree to.”
I thought about that for a second, and then suggested, “Maybe I could get your parents out of the house for a few hours? Help him out a bit.”
Nika paused in her steps. “You’d do that for him?”
I held her gaze, fighting back the guilt that was creeping up. “It’s kind of my fault they’re apart. I owe him one.” Nika gave me a light kiss on the lips in answer, and my momentary gloom vanished. She loved me. I could do anything with her by my side. Even get her mopey twin back together with the girlfriend who had no recollection of ever being his girlfriend.
Julian was waiting for us on a covered bus bench; his eyes were locked in our direction and his expression was annoyed. He appeared even more irritated when I sat down simultaneously with Nika. He obviously wanted to talk to her alone. A part of me wanted to let him have his privacy with his sister, but I just couldn’t leave her side yet. “Took you long enough,” he mused, glaring at me like it was my fault we’d taken so long to get to him. “I was sure Mom and Dad would come collect me before you two even got close.”
Blocking Julian’s view of me with her body, Nika ignored his sullen comment and asked, “What was that about, Julian? Why the heck were you fighting to go to a meeting? You’ve never cared about them before. And why did you change the subject? I was just about to ask them about the party. I thought that was what you wanted?”
Julian slumped back onto the bench, defeated. “I know, and I do. I just…I panicked. There’s no way they’re going to say yes, Nick. I wasn’t ready to hear them say no. This is my last shot with Arianna before the summer. She’ll forget all about me. She’ll move on. She’ll meet someone new. She might have already…”
Seeing the despair on his face, and knowing I had to do something to help lift it, I leaned forward and said, “I normally wouldn’t suggest this to a couple of underage teenagers, but what if you don’t ask them? What if you just have the party without their permission?”
Julian gave me a wry expression. “At the house? I think they’d notice that.”
I hid my smile. He had a point. An idea started forming, a way that I could kill two birds with one stone, and I stopped hiding my grin. “I’ll keep them occupied somewhere else. You’ll have the house all to yourself.”
“And how are you going to do that?” Julian asked. He seemed skeptical. So did Nika. They both knew their parents a lot better than I did, and they probably knew that the hope I was offering Julian was just as unlikely as the two of them getting their parents to say yes to a school-wide party. I was fairly certain I could do this though.
My smile widened. “I’ll think of something, don’t you worry.”
Nika and Julian were concerned about their parents getting antsy and coming to get them, so we leisurely headed back to the house. Halina caught up with us along the way. She was being flanked by Rory and Cleo, and seemed none too happy about it.
The pair of industrious hunters were keeping an eye on our surroundings as they walked behind her. They acted as if we were all about to be attacked at any moment. I didn’t sense any danger around us—no odd, out-of-place heartbeats, no foreign smell on the breeze. It was a calm, quiet, beautiful night.
Rory nodded his head at me when our two groups met up. Any day now, I expected him to start saluting. Thankfully, he wasn’t quite there yet. Rory was a brick wall of a man—6’5” and solid muscle. He was surprisingly quick for his size though, and agile too, with a liquidity to his movement that made him a formidable opponent. Even though I had an edge with my enhanced powers, I was grateful he was on our side, and I didn’t have to fight him.
Cleo was very much Rory’s opposite physically—slender, with long, lean muscles, and a dancer’s lithe, graceful body—but she was just as eager to serve me as her massive counterpart. The dark-skinned girl moved to stand in front of me. With her arms behind her back, she looked like a solider awaiting orders.
“Two new recruits are waiting at the house. Avery is with them. The others are waiting nearby and will enter the meeting place once you’ve had your say.” She smiled, showing a row of perfect, white teeth. “So as to not create suspicion with the newbies.”
I nodded, pleased that at least a couple of hunters would be converted tonight. Every new person we touched now was one less person we had to worry about later, and they were also a pipeline to more hunters. And getting new hunters to come to the meeting place to be compelled was of critical importance. Having the numbers was the key. If we had more people on our side than against us, then we stood an even better chance of truly making a difference.
Our slightly larger group finished walking back to Nika’s house to pick up the others, then we all started out together. Tracey had a death grip on Ben’s hand as he pulled her along. I made sure to walk as far from her as possible, but my sharp ears still heard her say, “Can’t we drive there? Just the two of us?”
Ben answered her with, “It really is faster to walk. And then the hunters won’t hear us coming.”
She swallowed, and her heartbeat quickened. “Why does it matter if they hear us coming? I thought this wasn’t dangerous.”
Turning my head, I answered her question. “The unconverted hunters are still dangerous. But they don’t expect to see a vampire tonight, let alone several, so we’ll be able to disarm them very quickly. You won’t be in harm’s way. One word from me will freeze them in their tracks.”
She only stared at me in response, so I turned away and let her dwell on that in silence. I supposed it was a lot to take in.
As always, Nika held my hand as she walked beside me. Julian kept pace alongside her. He seemed deep in thought. Whether that was about what we were doing or Arianna, I couldn’t say. My old home came upon us faster than my wandering mind expected it to. It was still a girly shade of pink, and was still mostly empty inside, although I had recovered my father’s and my stuff from storage. Soon after the very first meeting with hunters, I’d found the landlord and had him re-rent the house to me; I’d had to compel him to do it, since Dad and I had sort of trashed the place, then left in a hurry. Since I didn’t have a paying job, Halina and the others paid for it. I felt a little guilty about that, but I needed a neutral meeting place for this…and I just wasn’t ready to part with the last house where my father and I had lived as a family. A place that had started to feel like home to me, especially when I’d opened up and let Nika into it. I thought my life would change for the better when I’d moved here and met her. It hadn’t happened in quite the way I’d expected, but I’d been right—my life had changed for the better.
Being a pair of nonthreatening humans, Rory and Cleo entered first. They left the front door cracked open, and I could hear the sound of curt greetings from the living room. I paused on the doorstep with Nika. “Halina, Nika and I will go in next. The rest of you wait out here until I give the word.”
Like he always did whenever he came with, Teren stepped forward. “I’m going with you.”
Like I always did, I let him. Halina entered first, then me, with Nika and Teren a few steps behind us. We used to spread out and enter the house at different locations, but now that the compelled hunters were on hand to “herd” the new ones into one place, we didn’t worry so much about surrounding the enemy.
I wasn’t sure what vibe I gave off to humans that immediately alerted them to my
otherness, but I wasn’t in the living room five seconds before the two new hunters were pulling guns on me. Maybe it was just due to the fact that they didn’t know me yet. Maybe Rory and Cleo had been greeted with a barrel in their face too, and it just hadn’t fazed them enough to say anything.
It took me one word to make them harmless. “Stop.” Neither man in the room so much as twitched. Voice gentle but firm, I commanded, “Lower your weapons.” Both guns slowly drifted to their sides. “Put the guns away. You will not harm anyone here tonight.” Both men complied, and tucked their guns back into their jackets. The sudden tension in the room began to dissolve as the threat was neutralized. Over my shoulder, I called out, “It’s safe, come on in.”
Ben came through the door first, followed by Tracey, Emma, and Julian. Tracey looked ill, Emma calm, and Julian curious. He’d never witnessed me compelling a group. I sort of wished there were more than two new hunters here now. It was much more impressive with six or seven.
While Ben rubbed Tracey’s back, he turned on her loud, rock music so she was immune to my compulsion. That had been Ben’s request; he wanted his wife to come to accept vampires naturally. Seeing they were ready for me to begin, I returned my attention to the hunters. They were still rigidly standing in place, eyes wide open, hearts pounding with adrenaline. I realized I’d disarmed them, told them they couldn’t hurt anyone, but had never assured them that they wouldn’t be harmed as well. I frowned. This wasn’t my first time, and I knew better than to leave them lingering in a fearful state. I wanted peace between the species, and to have that, I needed their innate sense of mistrust gone.
Holding a hand up, I told them both, “Please, sit, relax. No one here is going to harm you. We just want to talk. We want peace.”
One of the heartbeats started slowing as the man attached to it sat down. The other man didn’t move. His pale eyes flicked to his friend, and his heart started thudding in his chest. My frown deepened. This hadn’t ever happened before. If I told them to relax, they did. If I told them to sit, they did, without hesitation.
Stepping toward him, I again repeated, “Relax. Sit.”
The man’s jaw dropped as his breathing picked up. I could see beads of sweat forming on his brow, could feel the fear and tension emanating from him. Seeing that I wasn’t having any luck, Halina tried. “Sit, human.”
The hunter’s face slowly swiveled her way, and then he finally started sitting. I relaxed a bit, seeing that he was finally complying. Kind of odd that he hadn’t right away. He wasn’t wearing any protection from trancing. I should have had him from the first word.
Knowing she was probably a second away from bolting, I threw on a bright smile and twisted to Tracey standing next to Ben. “See, there’s no danger here.”
No sooner had I said that, then the man Halina had commanded to sit shot to his feet. I jerked my head around just in time to see his arm shoot out in my direction. From within the folds of his loose jacket, a sharp stake exploded into the air. Shock kept me frozen, staring at the projectile in disbelief. I compelled him to sit, not to harm anyone. He shouldn’t be able to do this.
Tracey screamed as the entire room burst into action. Nika shoved me back at the same time Halina blurred in front of me. I felt completely useless in my stunned state, but I snapped out of it the second Halina grabbed the wooden weapon out of the air; it was centimeters from burying itself into my chest.
Dropping my fangs, I growled at the man who’d just tried to kill me. Reason went out the window as I momentarily imagined ripping him limb from limb. I lunged at him, but he reached into his jacket pocket and blew something at me. A small cloud of grey dust drifted over Halina, Nika and me. Silver. It burned as I inhaled, and, crying out, I clawed at my face and throat. It was like someone had just sprayed me with acid. I hear Halina and Nika cry out in similar pain, saw both of them falling to their knees. I struggled to remain standing, to fight against the torture and defend the women I loved, but the burning sensation was too powerful. All I could do was drop to the floor and curl into a ball.
Amid the sounds of screaming, mine as well as others, I noticed that the compelled hunter was idly watching the deadly showdown; he wasn’t taking part in murdering us, but he wasn’t stopping it either. From the corner of my eye, I watched the free-minded hunter grab a stake from a strap at his waist. He raised it high, preparing himself for the death blow. The silver had made its way into my lungs at this point, and my stomach was clenching as I resisted the urge to upchuck blood. As my insides sizzled, I almost welcomed death.
With all the strength he possessed, the hunter brought his arms down toward my chest, since I was closest. I thanked whatever gods were listening that he was aiming for me and not Nika. Surely, one of the others would stop him before he could kill her.
Just as his momentum was past the point of no return, a body rammed into his stomach and knocked him to the ground. I tried to struggle through the pain to see what was happening, to maybe help in some way, but I lost control on my stomach and started heaving blood. After that, I didn’t care anymore.
EVERYTHING HAD HAPPENED so fast, I almost couldn’t comprehend it, and, as a vampire, I was used to things happening fast. One minute, Hunter was telling the strangers to lower their weapons, and the very next second it seemed, people were screaming and Hunter, Halina, and my sister were sprawled on the ground coughing up blood.
When the stranger attacked, lunging toward Hunter with a sharpened stake, all I could think about was stopping him from hurting my family. Using the strength my heritage blessed me with, I tackled him the way I’d watched the footballers at school tackle each other. It was surprisingly painful to knock someone over. The jolt of it ran across my shoulder, down my side. It made the healing wound in my leg throb, but I didn’t care. I was stopping this madman.
I grunted in pain when I landed with him on the ground. My first thought was Yes, I did it! My second thought was Crap, he’s still armed. Ignoring the tremors of discomfort running through my body, I attempted to hold him down and keep him from staking me. I was stronger than he was, but he was squirmy. Just when I almost had a hold of him, he twisted out of my grasp. I managed to wrestle the stake out of his hands, but before I could clamp onto his wrists and bind him, he reached into his other pocket and grabbed something shiny. I swear the man was a walking armory.
He held a metallic cross against my face, and I blinked at him in surprise. A cross? Wow, that was old school. But the cross was definitely silver, so I guessed it was an effective weapon. For a pureblood. I wasn’t a pureblood though. The silver pressed against my skin was no more an irritant than the wood against my palm had been. The hunter’s eyes widened in shock. He’d been so sure I was a vampire, but now he was doubting himself. I took his momentary distraction to firmly subdue him. Grabbing his arms, I shoved his hands to the floor, on either side of his head. I sat on his chest, hoping he couldn’t kick me off. Then, because I was irritated at him and concerned for my family, I lowered my teeth and hissed in his face.
“You are one of them!” he snapped, his tone condescending. He glanced at the cross still in his hand. “That should have sent you flying across the room in pain. How are you immune?” His demanding eyes returned to mine; he clearly expected an answer.
My father stepped to my side, his shadow partially blocking the hunter’s face. I could sense my mother at Nika’s side, helping her through the pain, and I could hear Ben assisting Hunter; Tracey was whimpering near the front door, her rock music still blaring. I was a little surprised she was still here.
Dad squatted down and the man pinned beneath me grudgingly looked his way. “You avoided following a direct order. How did you do that?”
The man smirked. “Like I’d tell a monster like you.”
Dad looked up at the compelled man, still sitting where he was told. “Do you know this man? Do you know how he ignored being compelled?”
I looked over at the man Dad was questioning. He frowned, his lip
s compressing into a thin line, but he didn’t say a word. Hunter had compelled him to sit and relax, but he hadn’t ordered him to cooperate with vampires and answer all their questions. And from all he’d seen, he must assume Dad was a vampire like the rest of us. Well, like most of us.
Sighing, Dad looked back at the man below me. “Well, we’ll find out how you did this, one way or another.” Dad looked up at me, then over to where Nika was still struggling with losing the contents of her stomach. “We need to know what happened here, and make sure it never happens again.”
Standing back up, Dad motioned for me to get off the man. I was hesitant to let him go, but Rory and Cleo were already moving in to take my place. Rory looked steamed that someone had gotten so close to killing Hunter, and he hadn’t been quick enough to do anything about it. Cleo looked like she was ready to tear the man’s head off. They pounced on him the second I stepped away.
The pair of ex-hunters yanked him to his feet by his jacket, then Rory not-so-discretely socked him in the stomach. The man doubled over in pain, wheezing for breath. It was sort of how my grandmother sounded at the moment, so I wasn’t too upset that the creep couldn’t breathe. Dad interceded before there could be any further abuse though.
“That’s enough. We have rules in place for this very thing. No vengeance, on either side. The panel will convene and we’ll decide what’s to be done with him.” The rest of the members awaiting the meeting had filtered into the house by this point. They took in the chaos around them with calculating eyes. As far as I knew, this was the first attempt made on another species since the league had been formed. This was going to be the first panel trial then too. And Nika said tonight would be boring.
My thoughts on my sister, I turned to head her way. Mom had Nika sitting up now, and was rubbing her back. Mom had somehow urged Tracey to help her, and the shaking blonde was wiping blood away from Nika’s chin. Nika had blood-red tears running down her cheeks from where she’d been crying. It broke my heart to see her in such pain, but a microscopic portion of my soul was grateful that I hadn’t had to share it with her.