“And while we are at it,” Cole pipes up, “don’t ever call me… that.”
“Nor me,” Devon says.
“Fair enough. Now that we have that established, shall we go do this, whatever it is?”
With our new terms agreed, we head out of the room and downstairs. As we reach the bottom step, we are greeted by Tatiana, who leads us to the sitting room we were in earlier.
Lance is already in there with several other Master Vampires, not siblings, and a few Greater Immortals that are his own.
“Ah, there she is,” he says smoothly as we enter. “Ladies and gentlemen, my sister, our liege lady.”
He is completely comfortable in his surroundings now that it is dark out and that worries me. A lot.
I get a short round of applause, so I gracefully incline my head in response. It would be rude not to.
He moves across to our party and leans down to kiss me on each cheek. I resist the urge to punch him. He pulls back and looks into my eyes. I can feel the magick coming off him and I narrow my eyes at him. He is trying to get me under his spell! I can’t believe the nerve of this man, but it isn’t working, I think with delight. Whatever my new Power entails, fending off other magick is apparently one of my new gifts. Although, how he is able to wield this power is still a mystery.
He hisses softly as he realizes I’m not under his control and turns his attention to my newest charge, our weakest link.
“Try it, Lance, and I will end you,” I whisper in a tone that makes it perfectly clear that I mean business. He smirks and backs off.
“I see you have gained a whole new set of skills, my dear. I will just have to try harder. I nearly broke you once, I will succeed,” he says mildly and saunters off as if he has just uttered pleasantries to us. So much for playing nice. He is going down and the sooner the better.
“He knows. Watch yourself, Aefre. And don’t let anything he says affect you. We are here and we will protect you if it’s the last thing we do,” CK mutters in my ear.
I nod grimly, very much affected by what Lance said to me. CK doesn’t know. Devon and Cole don’t know. No one knows. Well, almost no one knows, that he did break me. Twelve years of being under his mistreatment and I finally broke like a china doll. I was minutes away from giving him what he wanted, when I was rescued by my sire, my savior. CK swooped in on his proverbial white horse and got me out of this place. And now here I stand, as if nothing happened and it all gets a bit too much. I turn and head for the door, with my three boys hot on my tail. I burst through the front door and into the dark, fresh air breathing deeply to clear the fear.
“I’m okay,” I say before they can even ask me, but head towards the gates rapidly, needing to be as far away from the inside of this castle as possible.
Following me at a close distance, they fall back, giving me my space as I get closer to the gates.
“Tell them to open it,” I call back to CK, who does as I ask.
They open the gates. I step out, my heels sinking into the damp forest floor as I pick my hem up and walk.
Breathing in calm, deep breaths, I relax and gain control of myself again. See this through and all will be well, I tell myself.
A soft noise to my right catches my attention. It’s the wolf from before. The Alpha. He comes to me and brushes up against me. I drop to my knees and stroke him. I sense his pain as his bright green eyes bore into mine.
“Hey. It’s okay. Whatever he has done to you, you will be avenged. I’m going to kill him, and you will be set free. I promise you,” I whisper to him. I think he understands. He nuzzles my hand and licks me.
I giggle. “I will come back and find you again,” I say as I stand, resolute as to how the next couple of hours are going to go. I head back to the castle. Magick bearers or not, this ends tonight.
“Are you sure?” Constantine whispers to me as I stalk past them.
“Seriously, how do you do that?” I stop and ask him.
He shrugs, taking my elbow and leading me back inside the castle walls.
“There are a lot of people here who will protect him,” he says instead of answering me. “If you do this now, be prepared to kill more than just him.”
I flinch at his words, but I have made up my mind. If anyone tries to protect him, they die too.
“I am going to take care of this tonight. Don’t worry about me, I can take care of myself. Both of you watch Cole, and Constantine please, watch over Devon as well. Whatever your quarrel was earlier, I need to know you will protect them both.”
“Of course, I will. You have no need to ask me,” he says.
“Thank you.”