House of Wrath: The Vampire Project Book 5 Page 2

  “I feel great.” Babs shrugged, looking down at her toned arms and legs. “Hey, does being a vampire mean you’re all of a sudden in great shape? Because I was in decent shape before, but now, I really fill out my pants with muscle, if you know what I mean.”

  “Babs.” Sloan fought back the urge to smile. The woman was so optimistic, it was practically contagious. “Have you felt the need for blood yet?”

  “Nope, not the slightest urge.” Babs rocked back and forth on her heels and toes. “I didn’t feel the need to sleep last night, either, and I haven’t had a bite to eat today. And you know, that’s a first for me. I just love breakfast.”

  “When you do feel the thirst come on, you know what to do, right?”

  “Yes.” Babs nodded, jogging over to a bench in the outside courtyard. She picked up a brown flask with a silver cap on top. “Edison gave me this. He said Elwood named it Vampire Coffee. It’s supposed to take the edge off needing blood.”

  “That’s right.” Sloan felt for her own flask she now kept on her belt opposite her mage sword. “It’s untested. As soon as you start feeling anything, you come to me. And we’ll get you to drink your Vampire Coffee, together. I know exactly what you’re going through, and I’m here for you.”

  “Understood.” Babs licked her dry lips. For the first time in their conversation, her smile had disappeared from her face. “What … what does it feel like?”

  Sloan didn’t have to ask what Babs was talking about; she already understood. “Think of the strongest urge you’ve ever felt, then think of dying of thirst. It’s more than a craving; its an inevitability. Hopefully Edison’s concoction works. Even if it does, we’ll still need to go out and hunt. That’s something I haven’t even done yet. We’ll figure this out together.”

  “Right.”

  Sloan looked past Babs and out into the dying light of the day. The courtyard provided for the Azra guards to train in was located in the rear of the capitol building. The low walls allowed the guards a view of the massive ocean that spanned as far as the eye could see.

  “We’re stronger at night, aren’t we?” Babs sidled up next to Sloan, also staring out over the ocean to the orange orb disappearing below the sea-line. “I mean, that’s what Edison said about the vampires in New Hope, at least.”

  “No, I don’t think the darkness aids or weakens us.” Sloan turned to her trainee. “We’re a different breed from what Leah has made in New Hope.”

  “Good, I’m glad to hear it.”

  “We should turn the others.” Sloan took in a deep breath of the salty ocean air. She could see the dots of tiny boats below on the dock coming into berth for the night. There was something peaceful about the scene, despite her next words. “They need to begin their transitions. As soon as we navigate all of your first cravings, the better.”

  “I can show you to their barracks,” Babs offered. She was already walking through the courtyard and to the opposite side that led down the back half of Azra. “They’re stationed together.”

  Sloan followed behind Babs. They passed through the massive training courtyard set aside for the Azra militia. There were crates of wooden practice weapons, padded equipment for sparring, and lockers for changing, all found outside.

  Babs caught Sloan’s eye. “I know it’s not much. Probably nothing like what you were used to at New Hope. Guards would be here training now, but most everyone is shoring up supplies and defenses for the attack.”

  “I’m not judging.” Sloan shook her head. “I’m just thinking of how different, in a good way, Azra is from New Hope.”

  Babs nodded.

  The Azra guard, recently turned vampire, unlocked a black iron gate that led them from the training courtyard to a row of large, square buildings that followed in line with Azra’s architecture: clean, white structures with high roofs and simple but thought-out landscaping.

  “Pia, Harrison, and Doyle were given an officer’s quarters. I moved in, too, and I thought we should get to know one another better, since we’ll be Azra’s crack squad and all,” Babs said in a gush of words. “Oh look, here they are!”

  Sloan and Babs rounded a corner of one of the larger buildings to find themselves in front of a line of smaller structures that looked like actual homes instead of military barracks. The three New Hope escapees were outside on a porch.

  As soon as they caught sight of Sloan, all three of her former soldiers snapped to attention.

  “Do we still need to salute you?” Pia grinned at her former captain. “I mean, I gave you a hug the other night when I saw you.”

  “You can all rest easy. And no more hugging,” Sloan said as she came to a stop in front of her three friends. “It’s just Sloan now, no more captain. How are you three doing? Rested?”

  “Rested and ready to go.” Harrison stretched his large arms. “It’s starting to get boring around here.”

  “We’re good. Glad to see you back safe.” Doyle walked down the few steps from the porch to close the distance with Sloan. “And we’re ready.”

  “You all understand what this means?” Sloan already new the answer, but she had to give them every chance to back out. This was a lifelong choice they would never be able to take back. “It’s not only the thirst, it’s the prolonged life, the responsibility you will have to others. It’s the self-restraint it’ll take to know when you should use your abilities and when not to.”

  “We’re ready.” Doyle looked Sloan straight in the eyes, his gaze unflinching. “We’re ready to do this.”

  As she looked all three of her friends in the eyes, Sloan made herself a promise there and then: She would never let them down. No matter what, she would be there for them, through thick and thin. They were bonded to her now in a way that Aareth’s werewolves would be part of his pack.

  “All right.” Sloan pointed to the house. “Let’s go inside. We can’t have people gawking at us while I turn you into supernatural predators.”

  Chapter 4

  Croft

  “I’ll be right back. I just want to say goodbye to him.”

  “I thought you already did?” Croft caught herself too late. Being a mother was harder than she remembered. “I mean, of course, go say goodbye to Jack. I’ll be here when you get back.”

  Abigail blinked at her mother a few times as if she were going to say something, then she thought better of it and left the room.

  Croft watched her daughter go. She had handled herself like a true warrior on the battlefield. As a mother, she couldn’t have been prouder. In a strange way, the same also went for Elizabeth. Her youngest was misguided, but she was strong and determined.

  Croft turned back to Elizabeth, and the simple motion of twisting in her seat brought a wave of sharp pain in her shoulder. The wound Elizabeth had dealt her in their battle was agonizing but not life-threatening. She would heal in a few weeks. Any injury was worth having her daughters back together again.

  “Off to say goodbye to her little Jack,” Elizabeth’s voice drifted through her cell bars. “How sweet. I hope his werewolf father eats him alive.”

  Croft realized Elizabeth was trying to start an argument between them, and she refused the bait. Instead, she stood and reexamined the magic-laced cell and wards that hampered her youngest daughter’s powers, along with keeping her contained.

  Croft had ordered a cell constructed in her own room as soon as they returned from the battle with New Hope. Normal steel, when laced with the right layers of magic, could hold a witch just as well as any normal human being.

  Elizabeth sat in her cell, staring at the floor. Her wild red hair hung down, hiding her face. She wore the same black cloak she had during the battle, the same New Hope uniform on underneath.

  “You know you won’t be able to hold me here,” Elizabeth continued when Croft didn’t return her words. “You know it’s just a matter of time before I get out, or she comes for me.”

  Croft hid her emotions, although Elizabeth’s last words sent a pang of regr
et down her spine. Leah had been there for her. She had filled the motherly role for a short time, but in that time, she had wreaked havoc on Elizabeth’s mind.

  “Why aren’t you talking to me?” Elizabeth finally looked up through her curtain of hair. “Are you just going to sit there and silence me to death?”

  “You’re not going to die.” Croft crossed her arms, looking through the steel bars at her younger daughter. “Neither are you going to be rescued in the way you think.”

  “Oh, really? Please, enlighten me, oh, cryptic one.”

  “You’re going to save yourself.”

  Elizabeth rocked back and forth in mirth, a light chuckle escaping her lips. “Oh, really? And I’m going to do that for you? For the mother who abandoned us so many years before?”

  “I had a choice to make.” Croft pursed her lips, reliving the day she’d left her family in Burrow Den. “I had to leave you to save you. I had to leave you to prepare for this very moment, when you, your sister, the entire Outland, would be on the brink of destruction.”

  “Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night.” Elizabeth rose and walked to the bars, gripping a steel rod in each hand. “Whatever you say. I’m not going to save myself for you. Now that mommy dearest has chosen to make her presence known, all will suddenly not be right with the world.”

  “I didn’t say you were going to save yourself for me.” Croft hid her discomfort this time as she crossed the white floor in her room to the cell where Elizabeth stood. “You’re going to save yourself for your sister.”

  For the briefest moment, a look of confusion crossed Elizabeth’s face. A second later she lifted her head to the ceiling, laughing in hysteria.

  “Wait, wait—” Elizabeth lifted her hand to her mouth, trying to compose herself. “You’re telling me I’m going to save myself for the person who left me locked in the dungeon? Oh, this is getting better and better. What happens next? Do we all live happily ever after?”

  “You’re laughing now, but what do you think Leah is going to do once she arrives in Azra? She’s going to kill most of us and enslave the rest. Now, I know you couldn’t care less about me, and maybe I deserve that, but you do care about your sister as much as you’ll deny it.”

  “Oh, because you know me so well?”

  “Because she took care of you while I couldn’t be there. Because she loves you. Because when your parents made mistakes and fell apart, she never left your side.”

  “She left me in the dungeon in New Hope!” Elizabeth screamed, so loudly it filled the room. Spittle came down the right side of her lip and her hands quivered as she gripped the steel bars of her cage.

  There was a quick knock before two Azra guards robed in the white-and-gold uniforms of their city rushed in.

  “We’re fine.” Croft lifted a hand to them without even looking at them. “Leave us.”

  Without a word, the two guards obeyed, retracing their steps back out of the room. The door closed behind them.

  “Leah has twisted your mind to believe that Abigail totally up and left you behind without a thought. But really, think about that, Elizabeth. Your sister loves you and has watched over you for years. She left the dungeon that day in order to come up with a plan to save you. She’s the warrior she is today because she trained in New Hope, day and night, to become strong enough to save you. She never even left the city, Elizabeth.”

  “You won’t change my mind.” Elizabeth shook her head, spit still falling from her mouth and dripping onto the white floor below. “I won’t stop trying to escape.”

  “You’ll do what you must.” Croft walked toward the bars, now so close, she could reach out and touch her daughter. Everything in her wanted nothing more than to throw open the cell door and embrace her daughter, but doing that now would do Elizabeth no good. Inside her daughter, a war raged between light and dark, a war she and she alone would have to fight.

  “I hate you.” Elizabeth looked at her mother through the bars, grinding her teeth. Tears fell from her eyes. “I hate you for leaving us, for what it did to Dad, for all of this. I hate you.”

  “I know.” Croft swallowed hard, trying to fight the tears that came to her own eyes, not for the words of anger said against her, but for the amount her daughter was suffering. “But, I love you, Elizabeth. I always have, and I always will.”

  Indecision clouded Elizabeth’s eyes again, though she quickly recovered and started to scream. She rocked back and forth against the bars, trying to rip them from the ground itself.

  The screams were like a banshee wailing in the night; no words were audible, just high-pitched wails full of anger and confusion.

  Croft stood with her daughter, weathering the tirade of screams. She had left her once before, and no matter what the circumstance, she wasn’t going to leave her again.

  Chapter 5

  Jack

  “Are you sure you don’t want to bring anything with you?” Jack looked over to Aareth as the two men reached Azra’s gate. “I mean, I remember how much you eat.”

  “My taste seems to be on the rarer side these days.” Aareth ran a tongue over his teeth. “I’ll grab a bite on the road.”

  “That’s kind of cool and disturbing at the same time.” Jack looked Aareth up and down. “When you change, does it hurt?”

  “Every time.” Aareth avoided Jack’s line of sight.

  Jack let go of the line of questioning. The werewolf and the wizard reached the city entrance. Already the scene at the gates was vastly different from what Jack had remembered when he’d first arrived at Azra, before there had been a handful of guards patrolling the city’s defenses. Back then, there had been a large set of wooden double doors that led in and out of the city, and a guardhouse just inside the gate staffed with a pair of Azra guards.

  Now, the front of Azra looked like a military bulwark where dozens of guards stood sentry along the walls. Bright torches and braziers lit with flame cast their light on racks of arrows, crates of heavy rocks, and jars of black tar.

  Below, the scene was much the same: guards were working overtime to fortify both the city gates and the guardhouse; hammering echoed through the city as they fit steel reinforced pieces onto the city gates.

  Jack nodded to them as he passed. They nodded back, though their grim eyes weren’t directed toward the young wizard but to the harrowing future.

  Jack and Aareth walked through the city gates, though they hadn’t traveled for more than a few yards when running footsteps could be heard coming from behind.

  Aareth’s eyes flashed a menacing yellow before he realized who was chasing them.

  “Easy,” Jack said, noticing the change in Aareth’s eyes. “It’s Abigail.”

  Abigail came to a halt in front of Jack and Aareth, breathing hard. Her chest heaved up and down in a rhythmic beat.

  “Are you okay?” Jack asked, confused. He went to Abigail and placed a hand on her arm. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I know we already said goodbye, but I just wanted to see you one more time.” Abigail straightened, taking in Aareth for the first time. “Thank you for going with him.”

  Aareth nodded to Abigail. “I’ll make sure he comes back to you in once piece. I’m going to go pretend to find something interesting to look at down the path. You two take your time.”

  Jack and Abigail watched Aareth turn and walk away.

  “He’s so different now, isn’t he?” Abigail’s eyes turned to Jack. “Still sad and just as deadly, but different somehow. I’m glad he’s going with you. I mean, I know you can handle yourself, but it’s nice to have a friend. I wish I could go, too—”

  “It’s okay.” Jack lifted Abigail’s chin with his fingertips. “You don’t have to apologize again. Your sister needs you here. Trust me, I wish I could stay.”

  “Promise me you’ll be as careful as you can be.” Abigail leaned in close for a kiss. “New Hope soldiers will be traveling this way soon. Don’t get caught in their path.”

&n
bsp; “You know me.”

  “Yes, that’s why I’m worried.”

  Jack grinned and pressed his lips to Abigail’s. The same lightheaded feeling he got when he kissed the woman he loved descended on him now. He pulled away, resting his forehead against her own, her hot breath still warming his lips. “If I don’t go now, I’m not going to want to leave.”

  Abigail grinned and playfully pushed him away. “Go and bring your father back.”

  “I love you.” Jack smiled as he backpedaled down the path.

  “I love you, too,” Abigail responded.

  It was nearly impossible leaving her, but Jack knew he would be back. Nothing would keep him from returning to Abigail.

  He took a mental picture of her before he turned. She was perfect in every way. Standing there in the last rays of the day’s dying light, she looked like she belonged in a painting.

  Jack heaved a heavy sigh and looked down the path for Aareth. He made out Aareth’s large form standing a half-mile down the road, looking out over the dark waves that fell on the Azra shoreline.

  As Jack got closer, he realized Aareth wasn’t alone. Another even larger form had come out of the shadows. A winged figure brought back memories of the gargoyle, Cherub, but it wasn’t her voice that reached Jack as he approached.

  “The two younglings were saying their farewells when I flew over.” The female gargoyle’s voice was stern and matter-of-fact. “I didn’t want to interrupt their ritual of their flesh saying goodbye to one another.”

  “What are you talking about?” Aareth asked the woman. “’Their flesh saying goodbye’? What does that even mean?”

  “It’s a common gargoyle custom that when two younglings ripen to maturity, they engage in a fleshly bond of—”

  “I’m just going to stop you right there.” Aareth shook his head. “I don’t want to know about your ancient gargoyle customs. They were just saying goodbye, that’s all.”