Chapter 24
Anais
I had never felt this strong, nor as confident as I did with Leo as we led our small team back to the lounge. The cruise ship was waking up now and the ship was coming toward a port of some kind. It wouldn’t be long now until our opportunity to take the relic and stop these vampires was gone.
We’d only gone a few yards out of Leo’s suite when we were noticed again. Although we’d cleaned ourselves up a little, bandaged wounds that needed it and various other small self-care elements, we were all still wearing the same clothes and there were more than a few blood splatters.
People pointed and talked, the staff trying to get us to stop and other guests trying to check we were fine. Leo ignored them all, striding out ahead of us, and I kept close to him. We swept right past everyone as if they weren’t there and talking to us or noticing the way we were dressed.
It wouldn’t be long before someone called security, or the medical team or something, but I knew we had to try to get to the lunge before then.
We reached the first stairwell and were immediately spotted by some of the turned vampires lingering in the area.
They came straight at us, pushing past some people waiting for the elevator.
I lifted my blade and shifted to one side as the first of the three vampires came at me. It didn’t stand a chance as I sliced its throat and grabbed its arm so I could hold it still and let it bleed out. People screamed, not used to seeing something like this, but instinct had taken over.
Glancing over at Leo, I saw him grab the next one and literally tear its head off, using every bit of strength and power I’d just given him with my blood.
Naomi and Tess shot the next one, two crossbow bolts sticking out of its heart before it fell in the middle of the lobby.
“Down the stairs,” Leo said as our team of six carried on as if nothing had happened. People moved out of our way as we carried on, sweeping through the area.
I could vaguely hear people yelling and shouting, but I was so focused on the possible threats that I wasn’t taking in what they were saying. If the relic got off this ship and we were framed for trying to take down the academy and Brethren, none of this would matter.
There weren’t any vampires on the next floor, but by the time we reached the level of the ship with the lounge on, the security of the ship were starting to respond. There were about eight large, burly men, all of them carrying clubs, handcuffs hanging off their belt.
“Try not to kill them. Just knock them out or disable them so we can get past,” I called to the entire team.
Leo glanced at me as if he was considering arguing, but he gave me a brief nod, letting me set the rules for this engagement. These were innocent humans and they didn’t understand what stakes they had been tangled up in.
I rushed toward the first one, still not wearing the ring.
I didn’t need it, all the enzymes and hormones Leo had pumped into me while feeding making me faster and stronger for now.
The security guard’s eyes widened when he realized that me, this slim, not as tall as him, young woman, intended to bowl straight through him. Or at least fight.
He tried to react quickly enough to brace himself and raised his club. “Stop right there.”
“Can’t do that. People are in danger,” I replied right before I grabbed the club, spun around to the side of him and smacked him in the back of the head.
He crumpled as Leo simply shoved the first one that came at him to one side, smacking him into the side of the ship so hard that he was winded.
I heard a rib crack and winced, hoping that was all that had happened.
Petros turned his dagger around and used the hilt to hit a third over the head. The rest of the guards hesitated, seeing that there were still more of us. Naomi and Tess let their crossbows drop, each one attached at the belt, so they had their hands free but didn’t lose their weapons.
All three of my hunter team mates rushed a security guard each and I fixed my gaze on one of the two that were left. They were far more wary.
“Whatever is going on here, it needs to stop,” one of the remaining guards near the back said.
“Our problem isn’t with you,” I yelled back again. “We’re defending ourselves against another threat. Best to just get out of our way and none of you will get hurt.”
The remaining guards continued to hesitate, so I led my team past them, making it clear to hold my weapons up and away from them as much as possible. Our fight wasn’t with people, but I wasn’t sure they were going to listen.
Leo came with me, keeping close in case they didn’t let us pass. One of them backed up entirely and held his hands up. I nodded to him, taking the time to let him know he was safe as well, but the rest of the guards weren’t as easy to get by.
Wanting to still be a hero, the one that had spoken to us the second time shifted so he was in the middle of the path through toward the lounge.
“Bad idea,” Leo said with a growl as he looked as if he was going to run at me and try to tackle me. I almost wanted to let him and simply sidestep the idiot so he could crash into the wall and knock himself out. It would be easier than taking him out ourselves.
Before I could attempt it, Leo had grabbed his arm, spun him and crashed him into the wall anyway. He was knocked on his back and winded.
The final security personnel in our way backed up entirely and they let us carry on. We’d drawn even more attention, however, and there were a lot of people here and there.
I didn’t know if the news that we were walking about the ship in the state we were in was traveling between people and drawing a crowd or if we were simply getting closer to busy areas and the places people wanted to be this morning. Either way, there were a lot of eyes on us.
If we were trying to be more under the radar and not draw attention to what we were doing in case it appeared to prove that we were taking on the Brethren and academy, we were failing miserably.
More vampires came at us from outside the lounge, almost confirming that the person we wanted was on the other side. I had to pause, beginning to feel a little less strong already. It was taking us far too long to get to the lounge and see if we could find this vampire.
If the boat docked and news reached law enforcement that there was some kind of commotion on the boat, we could expect much more heavily armed people to try to stop us. We might be able to fight the majority of police forces in our current state, but guns would be a problem.
Even as a Brethren, Leo couldn’t handle being shot in the wrong place, or more than a few times, without it having serious consequences.
Not that I was sure about what he could handle. He was so much stronger than the turned we fought, but I didn’t know if he was any less vulnerable to the same sorts of attacks.
So far, my team was doing a lot better in this situation than I would have expected, but my relic and Leandro being with us made a difference to how well we normally did. I was normally far more cautious with the team. We wouldn’t have been taking these risks without needing to.
We still had more vampires to fight through, however.
With less room to move and no way to get out of the fight but back into a crowd now, we slowed as the vampires in front of the lounge advanced on us. It was clear that they had been waiting for us here, as if they expected us to try our luck.
“Are you still all right?” Leo asked me, keeping his voice down while people yelled behind us.
“For now,” I replied, glancing behind to see yet more security as well. I was pretty sure the same guard that Leo had smacked into a wall was with them and trying to get back to us and stop us again.
“Get out of our way,” I told the vampires ahead. “Every other turned that has tried to stop us is dead and we’ve blown through almost all the security on this ship. You can’t stop us.”
I walked ahead of Leo, holding my daggers up and ready to fight. This situation had made me angrier than I had possibly ever been and I was no longer happy to sit back and see who came at me.
The first vampire eyed me up, trying to figure out where I would try to stab him and if he could get to my throat without being cut or butchered by my blades. I feinted, trying to get him to dodge the wrong way and thrust my off-hand blade in the opposite direction. It worked.
Another vampire rushed at me, however, all of them deciding to take on me and not anyone else. I had to pull back a little and dodge the next one while slashing my blades across me just to deter the momentum they had.
After cutting up a couple of them and dancing around them, Naomi shot one with a crossbow and Leo charged into another. I stabbed at my first one again, getting both blades deep into its stomach.
The guy gurgled, pausing as the pain overwhelmed him. I pulled the blades back out to let him slump to the floor and then glanced backwards again.
Alan and Tess had turned to keep the security from stopping us and I grinned as Tess managed to disarm the guard from his Taser and then zap him with it herself. The pair of them weren’t going to let anyone get through to us, and in many ways it kept them safe.
Naomi was also near Petros and holding her own, the pair of them working together to keep the vampires from overwhelming us.
Leo had already torn another one apart, using his brute strength to take out any turned that were weaker than the others.
It left us some of the ones who appeared to have more strength, but it also made them more wary.
Nothing scared a vampire like seeing another of their kind ripped limb from limb and no one else even flinching. But no matter how well we fought, there were still more of them and they were blocking our path.
They had been told not to let us through and they were doing everything they could to keep us back. Once they worked out that we would kill any that got too close, the vampires fell back across the doorway, blocking our path and focusing on keeping themselves alive more than outright attacking us.
Leo and I followed, staying focused. They might be buying a little time for those inside, but I was determined not to waste too much of mine. Petros and Naomi were also still helping us, keeping some of the vampires from ganging up on either of us, but neither of them was getting as stuck in.
The vampires had saved some of their stronger fighters for their defense and it was making it harder to beat them. I couldn’t use speed to my advantage and I had to switch to fighting more defensively as well, trying to wear them down with cuts from my daggers and focus on not getting bitten.
One of the vampires decided to try to work its way around to Naomi. I could see it happening, but there was little I could do to stop it. The vampire female I had in front of me was trying to lash out with her nails, returning cuts and scratches for every time I stabbed at her with my dagger.
Although I managed to block a lot of her attacks, it didn’t protect my arms. It wasn’t long before my sleeves were cut to ribbons and my arms were beginning to suffer the same threat.
I tried to call out to Naomi to warn her, but before I could get out more than her name, Petros was there, rushing across to tackle the vampire to the ground.
He smashed a fist into the creature’s face before getting up and backing off.
Naomi hit him with her final crossbow bolt and then pulled her dagger to stab the vampire she had already been fighting.
As I looked for an opening with the vampire I had, Leo finished off the one he was facing. The vampire’s blood splatter as Leo tore his throat open came toward us and splattered the female in front of me. It protected me, but she shrieked, distracted by the cold gore spraying her.
It gave me the distraction I needed and I stepped into her space, jamming both daggers into her chest with all my strength.
I reached her heart and yanked the blades back out again.
She tried to grab hold of me, but she was already weaker thanks to all the little attacks and I could shove her away to die.
With Naomi and Petros finishing off another as well, that left only three more vampires ahead of us. Leo hurled himself at yet another, not appearing to tire, even after all the fighting we had done so far. Petros and Naomi teamed up on yet another, and that left one more in front of me.
“Say goodbye,” I said, knowing that I barely had anything left and needed to get this over with quickly.
The vampire took one look over my shoulder and backed up toward the wall with his arms up.
As soon as his back hit the solid surface and he couldn’t get through it, he turned and fled through to the lounge.
I ran at the vampire Leo was fighting instead and came up to the side to stab it. The pain distracted it enough that Leo could step in and grab its head. He twisted it until it snapped before I could pull my blades back and get out of the way.
The creature slumped toward me, almost knocking me off my feet. I almost lost my blades, but just about managed to keep my grip, and then there was nothing between us and the lounge. Tess and Alan also came hurrying up as Naomi and Petros damaged their enemy enough that the fight went out of him.
As a group, we strode into the lounge. It was time to find the vampire with the relic and take it back.