Chapter 28 Maeve
Maeve
Sebastian had entered Kayla’s spell room like someone had set him on fire and told him to run. His eyes had burned dull red, and his cheekbones had been sharp.
But the sight no longer unnerved me. Either I’d seen it often enough or my new knowledge of my lineage helped to take away my fear. Possibly it was a little of both.
He’d sighed when he saw her. “She used too much energy,” he said as he strode toward her. “She needs to take more care.” But his voice softened as he said that last part, and his love and concern for his mate was clear.
“Francois said not to touch her in case of residual magic.”
He swung a steely gaze in my direction. “I’m taking my mate to rest.”
I stood and watched as he scooped her from her awkward position then cradled her against his chest. He dropped a quick kiss into her hair.
“Can I sit with her until she wakes up?”
“Yes. I should get back to the others.” His reply was gruff but I might have also detected relief there. “We’re still working out how best to get close enough to the Ancients to target them with the arrows.”
He’d set Kayla on the bed, made her comfortable, and left me sitting in the chair beside her. What if he and Francois were wrong?
I watched her closely at first, but her condition didn’t change. She simply lay in the bed and slept. I rested my head back in the armchair as fatigue stole over me. It had been a busy time recently. Abduction, vampire bites, transition to vampire hunter. I closed my eyes.
When I woke up, I checked on Kayla. She was still exactly as I’d left her. Shit. I’d slept. I was supposed to be watching over her, and I’d slept. Thank God Sebastian or one of the others hadn’t come in and found me.
Perhaps it hadn’t been long. I leaned forward to check on Kayla again when I stopped. Something…something was wrong with me. My head throbbed like drums were beating inside it, like multiple hearts had taken up residence in my body.
But they weren’t quite heartbeats. They were slower than anything I’d ever heard in a human or probably in the vampire lying alongside me. It was as if the heartbeats were suspended in time or running in slow motion.
Kayla woke with a gasp, sitting upright as soon as her eyes opened. “Shit,” she breathed. “What the hell is that?” Then she turned to me, her eyes wide. “They’re here.”
Kayla didn’t stay for even a second in her bed. “I need to get back to my spell room.” Then she was gone, using her vampire speed to move through the apartment.
I left the room to find Francois. He needed to know the Ancients had arrived.
Fear propelled me forward and my breath came in rapid spurts. My thoughts were a buzz of white noise, and adrenaline thrummed through me.
I ran through the sitting room and down the other hallway before the sound of male voices behind a closed door brought me to a stop.
I burst into the office, and didn’t even pause for breath. “They’re here.” I used the same words Kayla had used when she woke up, but we all understood what they meant.
Nic took the lead even though I’d really directed my statement to Francois. “How do you know?”
“I can hear them.” I stopped and thought about it. “Kind of. I feel them more than hear them. It’s like their heartbeats are inside me as well as inside them.”
“Mon ange.” Francois stood, his eyes dark in his face. Bleak. “You must go to the bedroom and hide. Maintenent. Now. Run! Hide!”
“No way! I can’t go anywhere and hide. I have to help. I have to stay and fight.” I couldn’t do anything else.
My blood was the thing that was going to start killing them, and I had to ensure we took out as many as we could. Otherwise, this nightmare would never end.
The Dupont vampires would be constantly at risk of being hunted and picked off or wiped out otherwise. Perhaps other vampire families too. Maybe humans. I had no idea what the Ancients might do, and I couldn’t take any chances.
“Maeve, listen to me.” Francois’ cheekbones sharpened, but I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. He had more control after drinking my blood, so maybe he’d been right all along.
And I had more control in this situation.
My hands found my hips as I stood my ground. “I don’t think so, and you can’t make me.” I sounded like a petulant teenager but the sentiment was so much more than that. I could stand against these vampires independently. I was a vampire hunter. “I’m so much more useful than you think.”
“You’re my mate.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I can’t risk you.” Usually his mussed-up hair made me crave him, but this time I only wanted to fight with him to get my own way. I wasn’t being unreasonable. I was realistic.
“And I’m also powerful in my own right. I’m going to fight.” I wouldn’t be fought with on this.
Before he could argue against me again, Kayla barreled into the office, her speed making her entrance even more dramatic than mine.
“Here are the arrows,” she said. “I’ve attached the heads I made to the shaft.
We can use them like this.” She looked at each of the men.
“There are six arrows. Nicolas, Sebastian, Kyle, Jason, you’ll each have one.
You’ll take the last one, Francois, but you need to wait until I’ve unraveled the magic of the first four before you target the fifth Ancient.
Their magic is held together by powerful bonds, and this delay will ensure all of the bonds are broken.
As soon as you shoot the final Ancient, I can cast the spell that will take them to their final death. ”
I shivered. Something about the way Kayla explained everything so calmly still made me feel like a cold-blooded killer, like I should have a TV show made about me or something.
For a moment, I mourned my blog. I’d thought I wanted to know all of this. Right now, as we discussed killing the oldest beings on Earth, I just wanted my naivety back.
Francois gripped his arrow and took one of the bows that Kyle collected from a closet in Nic’s office. He wasn’t saying anything anymore, which was a bigger indicator that he was nervous than anything else I’d seen.
“I’ll be right there,” I whispered. “I’ll protect you.” Those words were among the truest I’d ever spoken. I had the power to protect him.
He was my soulmate.
Before any of us could say anything further, there was a loud bang from upstairs, and plaster flakes rained down from the ceiling.
“They’re fucking inside my fucking nightclub,” Sebastian growled.
“Have you just missed this whole conversation? They’re here.” Kayla turned to him frustrated.
“We can rebuild. We’ve rebuilt before.” There was something reassuring in the way Nic spoke to his brother. “But now, we need to fight. We got this?”
Sebastian nodded. “You know I’ll always serve you.”
“I do know.” Then Nic led the guys out of his office, and their mates met them, forming each of the pairs before they split off in a predetermined pattern before Nic led the last of us up the stairs and into Nightfall.
As we reached the top of the stairs, fear trickled through me. None of this was under my control now. It was like the climb on a rollercoaster and the pause before the drop. Everything inside me tensed, but I kept my gaze steady and my step didn’t falter.
No one else could know I was afraid.
We charged through the door at the top, into the main nightclub, where a fight had already broken out, but Nic did immediately join it. A bright light shone on the stage, and Kayla was illuminated there, but she wasn’t performing.
She was chanting.
Only it wasn’t much different to someone singing, and it was one of the most beautiful sounds I’d ever heard. Haunting, too. Almost distractingly so.
The yelling and fighting around me increased. There were men and women here who must have formed part of Nic’s army. Since spending time with the small group of vampires, I hadn’t had a lot of reason to consider how far the wider population stretched, and I didn’t have time to ponder it now.
Then all sound deadened, and the movements seemed to happen in slow motion. I saw each of the small details in the room as my senses honed and sharpened.
Then I saw the female Ancient. Not just any female Ancient, but the one meant for Francois and me to take. Her eyes locked with mine, and she was on us with supernatural speed. Faster than any I’d seen a vampire display before.
“Clémence.” Francois’s word was a whisper as he pressed closer behind me, but the vampire pushed me aside before I could do anything. I glanced back as Francois started to struggle with the Ancient and as I turned to join him, someone grabbed me from behind.
The scent of death and decay and fresh earth surrounded me, reminding me that these vampires were unlike the ones I’d grown used to spending time with. These vampires were the ones from horror stories and legend.
“Aleron!” Francois shouted to the vampire that gripped me, but he couldn’t do anything.
The female he’d been fighting seized his moment of distraction and wrestled him into a fresh hold. He struggled, but he couldn’t get free.
Aleron yanked my arms hard behind my back, and my shoulders burned. “Francois,” he said. “If you don’t join us to help in raising émile, I’m going to snap your mate’s neck.” His breath fanned across my skin, bringing with it the increased scent of death, and that galvanized me into action.
Strength I didn’t know I had—even now—roared through me, and I ripped from his hold, whirling on him while he still didn’t know I was free. Without thought, I bit into his neck, ripping out a section of flesh while blood spurted into my mouth.
I contained my gag as I pushed him from me and he slumped to the floor. As I stepped away from him, Kyle let loose an arrow that embedded itself deep into the fallen vampire’s chest.
I spat the remains of him from my mouth as I stalked toward Francois, picking up the arrow he’d dropped as I approached.
The room came into focus around me, offering me glimpses of everything I needed to see most. Each of the Ancients lay on the floor, an arrow in them, except for the one holding Francois in front of her like a shield.
“You need to put the arrow in the final one now, Maeve,” Kayla called from the stage. “I’m not sure how much longer I can hold everything as it is.”
I looked at Francois, and his eyes were rounded and sad. “You need to go through me to get to her, mon ange. Straight through my chest. It’s the only way.”
I shook my head. No. I’d only just found him, only just discovered so much about myself. I wasn’t about to sacrifice all of that.
Besides, he clearly had no faith in all I could do. Or he was being a big drama queen at the final hour.
“No, Francois. You’ll never die at my hand.” I looked between him and Kayla, at the desperation on Francois’s face, and the determination and fatigue on Kayla’s.
Sweat beaded on her forehead. Time was running out.
“I love you, Frankie.”
He closed his eyes but the ghost of a smile lingered on his lips, and my own mouth tugged in affectionate return as I threw the arrow with all of my newly gained strength.