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That was one of the longest days of my life. I could hardly believe that only that morning, I’d been curled up in bed with Knight and the only thing I cared about was never getting dressed again.
Weary, and drained, I shuffled up the stairs in the early morning and almost fell asleep before I could get my door opened. Oh. The door was fixed. When did that happen?
All of the corpses were gone, that was good, and the blood had been cleaned up. Almost every inch of the pale vanilla carpet was now a pale shade of pink from the stains. I wasn’t looking forward to getting it replaced. My furniture was trashed, my birds...were gone? Of course they were. How could they not be with what had happened in there. My bedroom was mostly untouched, however, so that was a plus.
When I walked in, the room smelled like cherries and mint, and the bathroom door was open. Knight stood by the sink holding a fresh towel and looked like he’d just gotten out of the bath himself. The tub was full of hot water with the soapy suds of a bath bomb.
“Have you been in here cleaning this whole time?” I asked him in wonderment. He’d disappeared at least five hours before, but I’d assumed he’d gone to bed.
“No talking, only undressing,” he ordered, and I’ll admit, even as tired as I was, that brought a shiver up my spine. He checked behind me. “Where’s Kitty?”
“She fell asleep in my office, Balthazar is with her.” Knight took a ragged sigh and looked down at me with a heated gaze. He nodded towards the tub, so I slipped out of my jumper and handed it to him. My skin was covered in crusted blood. It was in my hair, under my fingernails. I slid into the hot soapy water and moaned out loud.
“Sssh. Stop making sexy noises,” Knight complained. He knelt by the tub and soaped up a sponge. I tried to take it, but he started cleaning me himself. The sponge wiped away all the grime, and stress. After my skin was done, he lathered up some shampoo and cleaned my long curls. The head massage made me even more sleepy, and I dunked my head underwater to rinse it off.
Most amazing bath ever.
My head back above water, I leaned it against the side of the tub. I was so sleepy, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Every attempt to open them again failed, and I drifted off to sleep in the tub.
It’s not the best way to wake up, remembering where you were when you fell asleep and knowing you’re in a different place. I panicked and had to remember how to breathe at first, then I noticed the familiar things around me and knew that Knight had taken me out of the tub and put me into bed. I looked for him and smelled him in the living room. He’d dressed me in a robe that had come undone. I tied it and took stock of myself in the mirror. My curls were full of derp from drying while I slept. I twisted them into a bun on the top of my head and put on a blouse and some capris with penny loafers.
When I finally emerged, I found Knight and Balthazar laying on the stained carpet beside Kitty. I almost ran to pick her up so she wouldn’t be playing on blood stains, but they’d laid out a large blanket for her. Knight’s idea, I had no doubt.
“Hey, you,” he greeted when he saw me. “I put out a blanket for her. I figured she might try to lick the carpet.” I smiled at him. He really knew me. “What? Did you want her to lick the carpet?”
“Not particularly. Has she fed yet?” Balthazar picked her up and handed her to me.
“Not yet,” he answered. “Everyone else is still asleep. It was quite a long day yesterday.” Judging by the sun, I’d slept half the day away already.
Kitty gently beat her fist on my blouse, demanding food. I pet her curls and slid the shoulder of my blouse down until the top of my breast was exposed. She latched onto the skin with gusto and drank until she fell asleep against me. I pulled her little fangs away from me, kissed her, and walked to place her in her crib.
“Do regular vampire babies breastfeed?” Knight asked when I’d come back.
“They do. She doesn’t. I tried, but she preferred biting into me, so she gets one feeding a day of my blood, and baby bottles the rest of the time. Speaking of which,” I pointed to Balthazar, “you’ll need to know how to do that. I’m not going to raise our daughter by myself.”
“I will learn everything,” he promised. “I hope you don’t mind if I move into one of the spare rooms?” I assured him it was fine, so he disappeared into one. I smelled Merrick and Cameron in one of the others.
I approached Knight with an apologetic grin. “I’m sorry I fell asleep last night.”
He slowly moved his hands up my arms. “I’m only sorry I waited so long to try and kiss you. You were asleep when I made my move.”
My finger trailed up his chest. “I’m sure I’m lucid enough now. How about you try again?”
He did. And it was glorious. With nothing immediate requiring my attention, the only thing I needed to do was stay in bed with my mate. Everyone needed a day off after the battle, to rest for things to come.
We awoke the next morning ready to begin our plan of attack. We got dressed, grabbed Kitty, and went downstairs. I went to my office to begin my work on getting volunteers while Knight joined the Hunters in the bigger drawing-room to work on their plan.
Marie’s flyers had surprisingly turned up good results, but it was probably because we were offering a lot of money to the humans. We had at least one hundred from the town that wanted to offer their bodies up for science (‘science’ wink), and that was after Marie had narrowed the volunteers down to ones that would end up stronger vampires or had combat skills. Most of them were men, some women, and all skilled warriors prepared to help us defend our species.
We needed to evacuate the town and claim the one hundred recruits had been infected with a deadly virus that would spread if the town’s occupants didn’t leave. After that, the volunteers would be moved into one of the correctional facilities. It was the only building we knew could contain the newly turned and had the space.
I arrived in town with as many vampires as possible after the humans had been evacuated. Marie was wearing a fake CDC contamination outfit, as were a few others that had come along to assist. She took off her helmet and smiled at me, then finger waved to Kitty strapped to my chest.
“That was fun. The humans are on their way out, we have the Lycans helping with that. The volunteers are at the prison.”
Neat and tidy. That was Marie.
I reached out to high five her. “Best assistant ever,” I praised. She looked surprised, and high fived me. “Come on, assistant. The real work is starting.”
We led dozens of vampires to the prison. Every window had been covered to protect the newly turned before they could take the potions Toni had made. Olivier was there overseeing everything, and Cameron was helping pass out the little pills he’d made as another vampire came behind him passing out some of the blood we’d stolen from the town hospital. The humans stood crowded inside one of the cafeterias, each holding a pill and a pack of blood. I came to stand in front of them.
“Welcome, volunteers. By now you have been told what exactly you volunteered for. Immortality. With our new formula, you will walk in the sunlight, something turned vampires have never done before, and after you help us fight our war, you are free to go and live your immortal life wherever you like. There is nothing that can stand in your way now, not even death. But, I won’t lie to you. Becoming a vampire is a long, and torturous process. You will feel pain like you have never felt before. We try to restrain the newly turned in coffins to prevent them from hurting themselves, but today you will be locked in empty cells. With the extra space, you will try to hurt yourselves to escape. Some of you will die. We will not let you out until your screams have passed, otherwise, you can never learn to control your thirst. You all agreed to be fed from, then we will put you in your cells and lock the doors. You take the pill. You drink the blood. And then you survive. If you can. Anyone who would like to leave, you are free to go.” Not a one moved a single muscle. “Good. Then we can begin.”
My people were starving. I won’t deny the guilt I felt being fully fed and seeing their gaunt hungry faces. One by one, they drank from the humans, until every vampire had fed and every human had been bitten.
“To the cells,” Olivier shouted, her voice echoing off the metal walls. Kitty whimpered against me and I kissed her head to comfort her. Finally, I gave the nod for Olivier to lock the cell doors when the humans had all gotten inside.
“Take the pills,” I repeated loudly enough for everyone to hear. “Drink the blood. Survive.”
Olivier pointed to the exit. “Get the baby out.” I left just as the screams began, and the brief exposure to it left Kitty screaming along with them.
“It’s okay, baby,” I soothed while I rocked her. “They must feel pain to become strong.” I could still hear the screams as if I was standing right up against one of the cell doors, but they were less chilling in the air outside.
Olivier came out to join me. “Lisbeth, I have a request. With turned vampires back in our midst, I was hoping-”
“Renard can come home,” I interrupted. “And I’m sorry I made him leave.”
She nodded. “We wanted to become bonded.” Bonded? A Born vampire and a turned vampire bonded for eternity. It had never been done before. Maybe it should. The start of something new.
Joy filled me and I smiled. “That sounds perfect. We’ll do it when the raiding party comes back. The new turned will still be with us. We’ll show them how vampires party.”
But first, it was time for us to gain the upper hand.
Three days passed, and we stood inside the silent prison. The cells were a hell house. Some held only corpses, and the others were coated with blood. Many had not survived the process. Those that lived now carried that haunted look the turned carried with them. I was pleased to see many of the strongest were still alive.
“Those of you who survived, I welcome you to the immortal race of vampires. I’m sure you will be hungry. We have more blood for you, so don’t be afraid to ask. We’ll be returning to the castle as soon as you’re ready.”
Toni passed out the vials to everyone. They drank, and one stepped forward to test the potion. I removed a piece of cardboard from the wall, revealing the sunlight. He recoiled away from the brightness, but he didn’t turn to ash.
It worked. It really worked.
Cameron held out a fist bump to Toni, and she ignored him, so he leaned over to kiss Merrick on the lips. Knight was going to kill him.
A clean-up detail stayed behind to respectfully dispose of the bodies and mop up the blood. The rest of us began the hike up to the castle. It came into view, our symbol of strength and safe haven. In the clearing around it, we’d set up tents and trailers for the turned to live in. The Lycans set up some for them as well so they would be there if anything happened to us.
Half of the packs were staying behind to protect the castle, and the other half was going with the raiding party, along with our new vampires. We didn’t have the numbers, but we had a fighting chance now.
