CHAPTER 28
Iro
Iro did not have a plan. If she just burst in, and Cassia was holding Arwen, she’d either kill or turn her, if she hadn’t already, so Iro had to operate on the idea that Arwen was all right and Cassia was making an idle threat in order to draw her back to her.
It would also not surprise her if Cassia had lied to Zara about the plan to turn Arwen.
Cassia lied to everyone. Iro used to believe that it hadn’t applied to her because they’d shared everything, but if Zara was correct and Cassia had an ability that she hadn’t shared with her, it meant that Cassia had been lying to her as well.
Although, in this case, Iro did find it a bit strange that Cassia hadn’t told every vampire she met about her ability because vampires with abilities were revered in the community, held up on metaphorical pedestals, and treated almost as gods, and Cassia was the type of person who would have loved to be treated as a god.
A god among the humans she used as her blood bags and the ones she turned was one thing, but being a god in the vampire community would be another.
On the way to the address Zara had provided her with, Iro thought about what she would do if she had to in order to protect Arwen.
She would do anything, which meant that if Cassia agreed to let Arwen go, she would have to stay with Cassia to keep Arwen safe.
She’d stay at least until she could come up with a new, better plan.
As it was, she took in Cassia’s house from across the street and behind a few large trash cans.
She probably looked ridiculous, in a T-shirt with a vest over it and jeans, taking cover behind the trash cans, but she didn’t care.
If someone noticed her and wondered what was going on, she’d deal with it.
She wished she had worked to hone her vampire senses a little more before today because she could really use them right now.
She breathed in the air and could tell there were no vampires nearby; at least, not on this side of the street.
She also couldn’t hear any of them talking to each other, but she didn’t use her enhanced senses often, and it showed.
There was one thing she could do, though, so if it worked, she might be able to get Arwen out of there, but it was a risk because it, too, was something she hadn’t practiced.
The back door was probably her best bet, so she had planned her way out the front just in case she needed to and assumed that Cassia would have Arwen upstairs somewhere.
The house had three stories, and if it was built like the one she lived in, the bedrooms would be split across two floors.
Hers had been modernized pretty substantially, but Cassia liked the old things, so it was likely that this one hadn’t been.
Iro crossed the street at the end of the block and made her way over walls and fences, through backyards, until she got close enough.
Then, she pulled out her phone, found the address on a real estate site, and located pictures of the house.
Cassia wouldn’t have thought about this.
That was one of the dangers of preferring the ways of old, not thinking about how someone could look up the plans online and find the best way to get in without detection.
Iro tried to map the house in her mind by looking at the photos and surmised that Cassia would be keeping Arwen in her own bedroom.
It would be more poetic that way. Cassia would want Iro there.
She would want her to see the consequences of her actions: Arwen lying in Cassia’s bed, dead or already turned by Cassia’s blood.
Cassia would undoubtedly find it funny, and she would walk into the room laughing while Iro took in Arwen’s body. Iro’s stomach roiled at the thought.
“She’s still alive,” she told herself in a whisper.
She tucked the phone away and noticed that there was a ladder in the backyard she was currently standing in.
It was lying on the ground as if someone had used it one day and had forgotten all about it.
A few weeds had grown between the horizontal pieces of metal, and she thought for a second about how it would make an interesting garden if they used it for that.
Iro shook her head then, needing to refocus.
The ladder was easy to carry, so she lifted it over the fence separating the yards and let it rest there for a second so that she could jump over and lower it down on the other side slowly so as not to make too much noise.
She would have to be careful, but if she did this right, she wouldn’t have to use the items in the vest she was wearing, and no one would have to get hurt.
She could figure out the next steps in the plan to keep Arwen safe after that.
It would likely involve them skipping town as quickly as possible and explaining everything to Arwen once they had new names and were safe on some island somewhere until Iro could find them a more permanent home.
She hadn’t seen anyone guarding the back of the house, but they could be inside, out of sight, she supposed.
If that were the case, she would do whatever she had to in order to get past them and to Arwen.
She moved quickly but softly in the grass, aimed the ladder at the window she believed to be Cassia’s bedroom, and hoped she was right.
She knew real estate, both commercial and residential, and she understood how the house would have to be set up on the inside to form the outside, but there was still a chance she could’ve gotten it wrong, and Arwen would suffer, which she couldn’t let happen.
Climbing the ladder was easy. It was metal and seemed relatively new, so it made no loud sounds as she climbed up it.
Some small creaks, yes, but she took her time to minimize those.
When she was able to look through a window on the second floor that showed one of the bedrooms, Arwen didn’t appear to be in it, but there were two women having sex on the bed.
It made Iro seethe. Arwen was being held captive, and these women didn’t care; all they wanted was pleasure.
This was the life that Cassia wanted them to have together: pleasure only.
Iro didn’t want that anymore. She wasn’t sure she ever really had, but now that she had Arwen, she knew she could have more.
She only hoped that she would be in time.
As she climbed farther, hearing all the sex sounds and noting how loud they were, she hoped they could help cover up her presence, and she climbed until she could peer into the next window from the very bottom, letting her eyes see, her ears listen, and her nose smell for anything nearby.
“No,” she whispered when she saw her.
Arwen was lying on the bed, and her eyes were closed.
Her arms were crossed over her body, and she looked dead.
Iro would’ve assumed she was, were it not for the IV stand and a blood bag hooked up to Arwen’s arm.
It was a little-known vampire fact, one that Cassia had taught her.
Once turned, a new vampire had to wake up, and that often took hours.
Sometimes, only two to three. Other times, it took all night.
It depended on the person, and Iro had always suspected that it depended on what needed to be healed within them first to be reborn without injury or disease.
To make the whole process go faster, though, they could be fed human blood because, as their body transitioned, the blood helped speed up their healing.
Now, based on how little blood was left in the bag, it was possible that Arwen could wake at any moment, so Iro needed to get her out of there first.
She knew opening the old window would likely be a challenge – it had a cracked wooden frame that could creak and groan as she pulled it up – but she had no choice.
She just needed to be fast. Aiming her left ear down, she listened for the two women and waited.
When one of them yelled out as she came, Iro yanked the unlocked window open.
Hubris was always a bad thing, she thought as she climbed through it and stopped to listen again.
Cassia never locked anything out of fear because Cassia didn’t fear anything, and Iro was determined to make her pay for that.
She hurried to Arwen’s side and detached the IV, pushing the smell of human blood out of her mind and focusing on Arwen’s scent, which was still sweet, but it had changed.
Iro didn’t have time to wallow now, though.
She had to get them out of there, and the only way out was the way she had gotten in, so she lifted Arwen, slung her over her shoulder, and carried her to the window.
Turning back to see if anyone was on their way to stop her, she, thankfully, saw and heard nothing, but the ladder would make too much noise if both of them were on it, so she didn’t have an alternative.
Arwen was in transition, so she would be fine.
The only thing that mattered was that Cassia hadn’t killed her.
Iro told herself that over and over again as she shifted Arwen until she was sitting on the edge of the windowsill and moved to sit next to her, grateful that they both fit, though barely.
Then, she turned to Arwen, pulled her body into her own as much as she could, and she jumped.