They're all counting on me. What if I can't do this? She reached out to the one person she knew was always going to be there for her.
It isn't about them or for them. This is between you and Amelia. What happened to you, happened to her. Vadim and his pawns violated both of you. She's a child. Barely fourteen. Traumatized. Afraid. Vadim put parasites in you, but he put a splinter of himself in her. He forced her to inject her three-year-old sister with parasites. He tried to make her kill Liv. Do you know that she fought him? A master vampire. There under the water, with Liv drowning, knowing he would kill her, she tried to fight his influence. That's magnificent, Emeline. And, sivamet, it's also you. She did what you would have done.
She took a breath and let it out, looking up at his beloved face. He always made her feel brave and perfect. In his eyes, maybe she was. She wanted to be. She had to get Amelia to see that she was brave and perfect as well. She had to find a way to guide her back to them. "I love you," she said softly, wanting the others to hear. To know. Because her man was brave and perfect and he always knew the right thing to say to her.
She walked into the bedroom, hesitated and then closed the door. There were things that were private, things others didn't need to know--not about her and not about Amelia. She sank down onto the chair by the bed and took Amelia's hand. The teenager looked so pale she was nearly gray. It was disconcerting to see that her eyes were wide open. Glassy. She was gone. There was no Amelia in that shell.
She stood a long time, looking down at the teenager. She had once been beautiful, just as Emeline had. Vadim had hurt both of them until neither felt or looked that way. Dragomir had intervened for Emeline. Amelia had her. The healer, Tariq, Charlotte and Liv had all tried the Carpathian way of retrieving her. No one had tried reaching out and connecting. That was all Emeline had. The truth and the obscene way they were connected. God knew, she didn't want to relive one moment of that time, but Amelia was stuck there and there was no other way to get her back.
Emeline took another deep breath, set her shoulders and drew on every ounce of courage she had. "Baby," she greeted softly. "I know you're locked away from us, somewhere safe. Somewhere monsters can't get to you. I know, because I've gone there a time or two myself. It's all right to go there; we all need that respite once in a while. It isn't cowardice, it's self-preservation. Just know, you can't stay there."
She stroked caresses down Amelia's arm. "I know, Amelia. Vadim's horrible vampires surrounded me and held me down. They ripped my clothes off. Some of them licked me with their tongues. Their tongues were black and bumpy with parasites wiggling on them. When they touched my skin I felt filthy."
She watched Amelia closely. The body never moved. Her skin was cool to the touch. Had those lashes fluttered, or had Emeline just wanted them to do so? Could she do this again? Relive it all for Amelia? She had to, because it was what Amelia was escaping--what she couldn't face--and she had to know that she wasn't alone.
"When I told Dragomir about it, I left out details like that because I didn't want him to know. I didn't want anyone to know. The way it felt when Vadim grabbed my ovaries, when he put his fingers in me." She choked on that. A shudder went through her body. She almost reached for him but she knew this was between her and Amelia. A child. A young girl the vampire had treated the same way.
"Inside me, Amelia. His hand was inside me. I felt so filthy. I felt as if I could never get him out." She threaded her fingers through Amelia's and held on. When she looked up at the girl's face, there were tears running down her cheeks and this time, her eyes were closed, not open staring vacantly.
"It hurt so bad." She whispered the truth. "I knew he wanted it to hurt. He made me hurt because my pain caused him pleasure. My fear gave him even more pleasure, but even knowing that, I couldn't stop crying. I couldn't stop fighting him. He made me feel weak and helpless. He made me feel filthy, and unworthy. I didn't want anyone to know, but I knew. I knew how they touched me, the things they said."
A sob escaped Emeline, and Amelia's sob matched it. Amelia's fingers tightened around hers.
"Then he put that needle in me. Nothing ever hurt like that did. It was so thick and long and when he pushed that plunger and emptied the contents into me, it was so terrifying and painful I couldn't quit screaming. They all laughed, and he took my blood. He just sank his teeth into me and it felt so horrible. I wanted to go to that place, Amelia, the one I knew I would be safe in, but I couldn't get there. Not even when he forced me to drink his blood." She whispered the last admission because it shamed her. It sickened her. That black, acid blood with the parasites wiggling on her tongue and down her throat.
"Then he made me drink more blood from a cup. There was some on my face and lips and the other vampires fought to lick it off. He did. Vadim. He waved his hand and none of them could move, and he licked it off me."
Her body shuddered. She knew tears ran down her face. She looked at Amelia to find the girl looking back at her. They stared at each other, a shared horror in their eyes.
"You're the only one I can tell the entire awful thing to," Emeline said. "You're the only one who would understand what I felt. What I still feel."
"Like you can never be good again," Amelia whispered. "He took everything and then he made me hurt people. Dragomir. He fought for you and then he fought for me, and Vadim made me hurt him." She closed her eyes again. "And Liv."
"You didn't hurt Liv or Dragomir. Even had you managed, it wasn't you, it was Vadim. Understand that, Amelia. I had to understand when I knew I was carrying a baby and there were parasites in me . . ."
"Bella. How could he make me do that? How could I have followed his instructions?"
"Vampires can take our will. Vadim's particularly powerful, yet you still fought. Dragomir said you were courageous like me. He thought you were magnificent. He actually used that word--magnificent."
"He did?" Amelia's voice said she didn't believe it.
"He did," Emeline assured. "I know it's difficult to face others, but, honey, it's our own fear and guilt, not what they feel about us. It's what he planted in our minds. He wants us to feel fear and guilt. He doesn't want us to have any kind of life because that means he loses. I want him to lose. You have so many people who love you. They want you to be with them, not lost in a world with none of them in it. Not somewhere you had to go to escape Vadim. Tariq and Charlotte want you as their daughter."
"I'm . . . unclean."
"Am I unclean?" Emeline looked her straight in the eye.
She looked confused. "No. You're amazing. I want to be like you, Emeline. You're beautiful and brave."
"He did the same to me that he did to you," Emeline pointed out. "If I am not unclean, neither are you. Dragomir said we're alike, and he should know."
There was a small silence. Amelia closed her eyes on the fresh flood of tears. "I'm so afraid, Emeline," she whispered. "I don't know if I'm strong enough."
"Baby, I'll be here with you. Tariq and Charlotte will be with you. Dragomir will stand with you as well. You have Danny and Liv and little Bella and Lourdes. Genevieve has hardly left your side. I want you to think about this. We're alike, you and me. We've been touched by monsters, but we're still standing. We're going to grow so strong that if he comes at Bella or Lourdes, if he goes after Liv or Danny, we'll be there to stop him. We'll learn how to wield those new weapons and how to kill vampires if we have to. We'll be that last line of defense for them."
Emeline held out her hand. "Come on, Amelia. We can do it together."
She hesitated but then nodded, clasping Emeline's hand hard.
15
So far, Vadim has been the aggressor every time," Tariq said, looking around the circle of ancients, the men he trusted with his family. "I think it's time we struck back and struck back hard. I know many of you have been out looking and scanning all around San Diego and the surrounding parks and hills, but so far, we've got nothing."
The ancients looked at one another, shaking their h
eads. "Not a thing," Tomas reported. "They head out toward the water and we lose them there. I've checked ships. We all have. The wharf, docks, storage, they disappear without a trace."
"Even the newer vampires," Lojos added. "We deliberately targeted them because they tend to leave such a mess behind making them easier to find. We've noticed they have another vampire with them, one that's been at it longer. Vadim isn't taking chances with his recruits."
"That's worrisome in itself," Tariq said with a sigh. "No master vampire has ever concerned himself with lesser vampires. They've always been pawns to sacrifice."
Dragomir watched Gary's face. He had the knowledge of so many centuries of battles, of experiences. Gary turned and looked at him with his strange, ice-blue eyes, so rimmed with silver it was difficult to tell what his eye color really was. He shook his head. "If a master vampire has ever had similar behavior, I have no knowledge of it."
Sandu drummed his fingers on the table. "What is the draw here? Is it really Dragomir's lifemate? Emeline? She is carrying a female child. That child would be useless to him, and he has already tried to kill it. Amelia is of no more use to him. What does he hope to gain by staying in this place? His underground city is destroyed--" He broke off and exchanged a long look with Dragomir. "Have we kept an eye on it?"
"When last we checked, it was completely destroyed," Mataias answered. "Vadim brought the thing down after we discovered it. He didn't want us to find his secrets, although we managed to get most."
Dragomir shook his head. "Vadim is cunning. He wouldn't leave behind anything he thought would lead you to him. Or anything of value to him. The things he allowed us to recover were of no more use to him."
Afanasiv leaned across the table toward Tariq. "If Vadim brought down the ceilings of his city, he could just as easily have resurrected them. Or disguised them so we take a cursory look and see what he wants us to see."
Tariq nodded. "I have to agree. Vadim Malinov has always been highly intelligent. All the Malinovs were good at strategy. Once they became vampires, we tended to put them in the category of the unthinking--every negative emotion drives them. But that isn't so with the Malinovs. They stuck together and they had a plan."
"Vadim is different from the master vampires I've tracked and destroyed," Dragomir added. "Using his vanity against him doesn't work. Taunting him doesn't work. Nor does compulsion. He stays in control for the most part."
Tariq leaned forward in his chair. "I don't understand why he sacrificed Amelia. His spy in our camp. He couldn't have known we were onto him. We already know he's patient. He could have waited and instructed her to kill the children one by one. He could have had her go after Genevieve. We were watching for that. So why didn't he?"
"He's testing our strengths and looking for weaknesses," Nico suggested. "We've come through with little damage because there are so many of us. But so far, we haven't seen what he's fully capable of. The worst attack was when he was trying to reacquire Emeline and he came himself. He brought so many for his protection."
Silence fell, broken only by the drumming of Sandu's fingers on the table. At home, in the Carpathian Mountains, the war council would have been conducted in the privacy of the sacred warriors' caves where their ancestors would have listened and weighed in on decisions. Here, in the newer world, where technology reigned and they had to fit in with the humans surrounding them, they sat at an oblong table made of thick oak.
Tariq let his breath out in a long slow hiss. "I can't figure out what he's up to, but whatever it is, it must have something to do with San Diego. No vampire has ever stayed in a place where so many experienced hunters have gathered."
Dragomir heard the frustration in his voice. It echoed a similar frustration gathering inside himself. He glanced at his fellow ancients from the monastery. In some ways, they were lucky they could no longer feel. They understood Tariq's frustration but did not share it, and it didn't affect them one way or another. They hunted. That was their life. They hunted individually or in packs. It made little difference how they caught their prey, only that they did.
"I want the waterfront watched," Tariq said. "Tomas, Lojos and Matias, you've been patrolling the wharf, can you continue?"
"Of course," Tomas answered for them.
"We should extend the areas where we've been looking over the water and along the shore," Tariq continued. "Spread out along the sea to encompass as much as we can."
"I'll take that," Nicu volunteered.
"I will aid you," Afanasiv added.
"Good. The two of you work out a schedule. Vadim and his army know we're watching for them, so go unseen. Even if you spot them, don't let them know you have. We need to follow them back to their lair and find out what they're up to," Tariq advised.
"I'll take another look at the underground city," Dragomir said. "If Vadim is hiding something there, we need to know."
Tariq nodded. "Chances are, if he is still using the underground, he'll have more than one vampire guarding it. If he is using it, we need to know why and what he's doing. I think I'll go with you . . ."
"No." Gary stated the denial firmly.
The others shook their heads and shifted uncomfortably, as if they might surround Tariq and force him to stay where he was. Tariq looked shocked. He studied the ancients facing him and then slowly looked around the circle.
"What is this?" The question was directed at Gary.
"You have to be protected. We will hunt."
"I have always hunted," Tariq said. "Granted, there are many at this table considered stronger and faster, but I have managed, these centuries, to stay alive. I will do what I have always done for our people."
Dragomir cleared his throat to bring Tariq's attention to him. "We are in a new world. An environment the rest of us are struggling to understand and catch up with. You are familiar with this world. You've shared your knowledge with us, but where we are still trying to process and learn to fit in, you do so naturally. You fit and move in this century with humans as if you are one of them. You understand their technology, and more, you look ahead, anticipating. We need you. All of us. We cannot afford to have anything happen to you or Charlotte."
Tariq frowned. "Maksim"--he turned to his partner--"you are as familiar as I am."
Maksim shook his head. "Not so, Tariq. You'd chosen to live among humans long before I came along. You instructed me for several years. I live among them, work among them, but I still feel as if I am moving just out of step. You are at ease. Completely so. If we are to survive, we have to be like you. All of us."
"If our lifemates are human, and it appears many will be, then we need to understand them," Afanasiv added.
"The technology of this century is so advanced, it is a threat to us," Sandu pointed out. "We have to be aware of cameras everywhere."
"Software recognition," Tomas said. "The perils of this century."
"All of it," Ferro said. "It isn't simple, especially for those of us who've been locked away for a couple of centuries."
Tariq pushed his fingers through his hair in agitation. "I am sorry. I should have worked with each of you more. You all seemed to be learning so fast. I have no problem sharing information--you have only to ask. I can't just push my way into your minds."
"No one here thinks you have shirked your duty to our people," Gary said. "To the contrary, you are the leader here, one we all accept, so you must remain safe."
Dragomir suppressed a groan. He understood how difficult it was for ancients to process emotion, but they'd been well on their way to convincing Tariq until Gary used the word safe. Safe was what they wanted for their women and children, not a hunter of Tariq's caliber.
Tariq's eyes flashed with a kind of fire. That fire smoldered in him, deep, suppressed maybe, but always there. He glared at Gary. "I am no leader. We have a prince. His name is Mikhail Dubrinsky, and I have sworn my allegiance to him. He is the leader of our people."
Gary nodded. "Most of us have sworn our allegiance to hi
m." He looked around the room, his gaze touching the members of the brotherhood. "There are a few exceptions, but for the most part, everyone acknowledges Mikhail as our leader. When he sends out orders, those who have sworn allegiance to him can do no other than obey."
Those odd-colored eyes pinned Tariq. The Daratrazanoff line had produced renowned warriors and through the centuries, some had strange eyes. The ice blue rimmed with silver had significance, but Dragomir wasn't certain what it was.
"Is this not so, Tariq?" Gary pressed.
"Of course we would obey Mikhail," he said. "I send him daily updates on all urgent matters, which these days encompasses just about everything. I am hoping he has ideas as to why Vadim is behaving the way he is."
"He has sent a message to you. I received it last rising, but we were under attack and you needed my skills as a healer. Unfortunately, I was too fatigued to deliver it to you." Gary pushed a piece of paper across the table to him.
Tariq drew it to him reluctantly. Very slowly he picked it up and read it. His expression darkened. He frowned and shook his head. "I don't understand. He sent you to me for what purpose?" His blue eyes focused on Gary. "I have no need of a bodyguard or second-in-command. I am not in command. I own a nightclub with Maksim. I have this property, and hope those of you who want to remain will, and that you'll purchase the properties around mine. Some of them I own and can allow you to buy; others need to be acquired."
Gary shook his head. "You are deliberately not understanding what Mikhail is saying. It is an order, Tariq. He isn't asking."
Tariq tossed the thin parchment onto the table and leapt up, all restless energy. He shook his head. Gary didn't move, not even when Tariq paced close to him, looking threatening. The Carpathian was always elegant in his attire. Now, he looked what he was, a predator pushed close to the edge of control.
"He's got this wrong. He can ask someone else."
"Order, Tariq. This is an order from the prince of our people," Gary corrected. "He sent me to assess the situation here in the States. It is dire. Vadim is not the only master vampire here. We need more hunters. We need a stronghold and a way to protect our families and the humans around us. You've already thought of that and begun the process."