Chapter 21 Francois #2
But as if she knew, Maeve took my hand, entwining our fingers as she listened to the rest of what Kayla had to say.
“I can’t brew the spell to unravel the magic because I need the final ingredient.”
“Is it hard to get?” Maeve moved forward on her seat. “Is it something I would have heard of?”
Everything to do with our world seemed to fascinate her, which made it ironic that she would resist when I wanted to bring her in and immerse her completely. But I couldn’t think about that. I needed only to be grateful for what I did have after so long without.
Kayla’s mouth tugged into a grimace. “Yeah. It’s not the easiest. We need powdered leaf of the corpse plant—Rafflesia arnoldii. It only grows in the South Pacific, and only a few countries.”
“Have you tried talking to Temple?” Sam asked as she opened the fridge and perused the blood in there.
“When Kyle and I were on a mission for Nic recently, Temple put us in touch with a botanist who helped us bring down a nest of rogue vampires with some sort of concoction. I have no idea what was in it,” she added, as she grabbed a mug.
“Sam!” There was a note of outrage in Kayla’s tone. “What the hell, dude?”
Maeve snorted but Kayla was too focused on talking to Sam to stop her stream of words.
“How come you didn’t tell me about this before?”
Sam shrugged, not fazed at all by Kayla’s frustration. “You didn’t ask.”
Kayla sighed then grinned. “I didn’t know to ask.
But I could use a botanist because I need this powdered leaf.
And I need it…” She folded her arms and tapped her foot as Sam continued to move casually around the kitchen, not a hint of hurry in anything she was doing.
“I need it as soon as possible to finish this spell.”
“Okay, okay…” Sam grinned and blew her hair off her forehead. “I get the message. I’ll go give Temple a call now.” She grabbed her mug from the microwave and sauntered back to the living room, already pulling her cell phone from her pocket.
“What about the rest of the spell?” I returned my attention to Kayla as she lifted herself onto one of the remaining barstools.
“Oh.” She waved a hand. “Another ingredient I haven’t got yet is the blood of one of the Ancients themselves.”
“What?” That sounded impossible. Forget a corpse plant and its powdered leaves, forget Temple and his botany connections. “How the hell do we get hold of their blood?” Did those decrepit, desiccated beings even have blood?
I shuddered. How would any of us get close enough to bleed one of them? They wouldn’t be vulnerable until we’d done the spell and surely we needed them vulnerable to harvest their blood…which we needed to do the spell.
It was like some kind of impossible Escher painting with no end and no beginning.
“Ah.” Kayla leaned closer, her eyes gleaming as she spoke. “That element, I have a plan for.” Her face fell a little, her eyes clouding, and a small pit of dread settled in my chest. “But it requires bait.”
“Bait?” I screwed my mouth up in distaste. I didn’t like even saying the word. There was something sinister in it.
And plans with bait never seemed to have a guaranteed outcome. Too much was left to chance. Well, maybe that was unfair. Things worked if all the dominoes fell where they were supposed to.
“What bait?” Maeve asked. I’d been so lost in my thoughts I’d almost forgotten Maeve was also listening, even though her fingers clutched mine ever tighter.
“Us,” Kayla whispered, the only clue that she didn’t feel good about this, either. “Me, Sam, Ciara, and you.”
“What?” I repeated the question from before, only louder and with more outrage this time. I’d only just found my mate. No way was I risking her as bait in some sort of plot to bring down the most powerful vampires in existence. “No way is that happening. Not now, not ever. Not on my watch.”
As the last word left my mouth, the others entered the kitchen.
“What’s going on? Why are you yelling at Kayla?” Sebastian’s cheekbones were already becoming more prominent as he prepared to defend his mate from me.
I held my hands out. “Sorry.” There was no point in enraging him further but neither could I sugarcoat what was happening. “Kayla has a plan to defeat the ancients using the women as bait.”
“What the fuck?” Sebastian turned his attention to his mate, his anger barely cooling. “What did this asshole just say?” He jerked his thumb toward me in case anyone in the room was in any doubt as to who the asshole was.
Usually, that would have grated, but I was too irritated by Kayla’s proposal, and I hadn’t even heard the whole thing.
As if the other guys had taken valuable seconds to process the idea that Kayla was planning to endanger their mates, the yelling didn’t start for a few moments, and then there was no way to make out individual curse words, although Maeve shrank back from the sudden atmosphere of angry vampire.
I put my arm around her and pulled her closer. “Shut up, you fuckers.” My voice boomed out of me.
“Thank you, Francois.” Kayla nodded at me as though I’d silenced everyone for her benefit rather than to keep Maeve from being scared.
Then she turned to Sebastian, Kyle, and Jason, where they still stood in a small group, emanating vibes that said not to push them on this.
“Guys, with all due respect, this really isn’t your decision.
It’s a decision for us.” She turned to Maeve.
“Are you willing to trust me and help bring down the Ancients?”
I tightened my arm around Maeve again, willing her to say no, trying to telegraph my need for her to refuse. Kayla wasn’t being reasonable. There had to be another way.
But to my horror, Maeve nodded.
“Yes,” she murmured. “Let’s do it.”
“What?” I looked at her but I didn’t get chance to protest further as Sam walked in and Kayla spoke immediately.
“Sam, you going to help with my plan to finish the Ancients?”
Sam didn’t even ask for details. “Fuck, yes.”
Kayla looked at the guys. “That’s three out of four,” she said. “Want to take bets on what Ciara will say?”
Jason frowned and jabbed his finger in the air toward her. “Don’t you da—”
“What Ciara might say about what?” Ciara strolled into the kitchen and paused to give Jason a kiss on the cheek before pulling away and looking at him. “Are you okay?” She glanced at everyone else. “What’s going on?”
“We’re discussing how to defeat the Ancients,” Kayla started.
“And we’re not doing it.” Sebastian stepped forward. “I’m regent here, and I say fucking no way.”
But Kayla only shook her head, a small smile on her lips as she watched Sebastian. “I think you’re superseded by your king, my love, and he wants to bring down the Ancients by any means.” She looked at Ciara. “You in?”
“Oh, yes.” Ciara’s eyes flashed briefly, a reminder of her shifter side, and I withheld a shudder. Hybrids were almost mythical, and there was always something strangely feral about her that worried even me.
She wasn’t a vampire mate that I wanted to be on the wrong side of. None of these women were. Each of them had powers that were almost unheard of in mates, as if the Duponts were creating a new breed.
Except Maeve.
My mate was still human.
Still fragile.
I couldn’t take the risk. “You can’t—”
But Kayla shot me a look, her eyes narrowed.
“We do this as a group,” she said. “It’s the only way.
The Ancients know that if they take a mate or two or more, you’ll come for them.
Your mates are too valuable to you. It’s akin to summoning you.
So if we’re out there in the open, The Ancients will come for us.
They won’t be able to help themselves. I also suspect they underestimate us.
” She rested her hands flat against the bar, her spine ramrod straight as she spoke, aware that so many in the room disagreed with her stance.
“We only need to trap one of them and find out more, and then take what we need. It’s essential for the spell and for getting rid of all of them for good so they no longer threaten us or our existence. ”