She drank from him as well. The third was being zip tied by a werewolf James didn’t know by name. “Alpha thank God you came,” Bonnie said, hugging Nick. “I’ll take you to Tristen,” she said waving her hand. Lily tossed the second guard to the side.
“Go, we follow,” she told Bonnie in a rough, deep rumble. Bonnie eyes widened at the sight of her but nodded, dashing through the halls with them behind her. They ran into a few more patrols but by the sounds echoing through the halls, most of the vampires day time force was busy with the other teams. Lily didn’t drink anymore nor was she as brutal as she was the first. It made James think the others she so quickly killed because of their treatment of Bonnie.
“It’s down here,” Bonnie said, hitting a button.
“Alright, James Lily, Wesley, Gerald, with Bonnie and me. Lucas, you’re in charge of the rest of them, men. Don’t let anything go down and if anything comes up but us…”
“We kill them or take them, prisoner. I know,” Sanders finished for Nick, his tone showing his irritation at the repetition. Nick nodded and the six of them stuffed themselves into the elevator. The hallway was silent and they met no opposition as Bonnie stopped at a door.
“She’s here,” Bonnie said, opening the door. Her and Nick slipped inside. He could hear Bonnie speaking with the girl. She seemed terrified. He looked over to Lily surprised she’s shifted back. So her sister wouldn’t see the monstrous side of her? He couldn’t help but smile a little.
“What the hell is the holdup Blondie?” Lily barked after a while, looking nervous, and a second later they heard a scream.
“No! I can’t leave!” He heard the girl shout and James peered into the room. The girl was clinging to the bed railing, looking on the verge of hysteria.
“Bonnie get her out and to stop screaming,” Nick demanded. Her screaming was going to attract unwanted attention. Bonnie tried to sooth the girl but she just started screaming for someone named Vincent.
“We can give the girl this. It’s a mild sedative,” Wesley said, filling a syringe with a clear liquid and Lily took it.
“We tried it your way Bonnie,” Nick told Bonnie and Lily entered the room.
“No! Help!” the girl begged and James almost thought she’d claw through the walls if she thought she could escape. “Vincent! Please, it’s not my idea! I don’t want to go… Vincent!” she yelled as Lily pulled her out of the corner she had crawled into.
“What the hell did he do to her? I’m going to skin that bastard,” Lily vowed and picked her up. The girl continued to mumble softly until the sedative knocked her out. The girl was very thin and pale. Her hair was wild as if it hadn’t seen a brush in a long time. The worst was her arms. The underside of her forearms had a mass of red, lumpy scars and bite marks. “That vampire is going to suffer!” Lily swore and carried the girl in her arms towards the elevator.
Nick offered to help her but Lily growled at him, pulling the girl closer to her in a gesture of protection. She already considered the girl her family whether she would admit it or not. Nick seemed to understand as he smiled and held up his hands.
“I almost feel sorry for the vamp,” Nick said to James, watching her. “Targets acquired. Mission objective now set to clean up! Let’s clean house and set demolition window for thirty minutes!” He ordered over a two-way radio. “I’m going to reduce this building to rubble! Enough lives have been taken in this place!”
The large conference room had been turned into a base of operations for dealing with the vampires. Lily couldn’t bring herself to call it a mission. That just sounded so silly to her and made her want to giggle every time she heard it. Nick stood with his brother, Donovan, Lucas Sanders, James and Mason- Chris’ brother in law. Unfortunately Mitchell was there too and that was enough to almost make her go the other way.
She wanted to know what had happened when she left than her dislike for James’ dad. So she walked over to the group. “So what’s the deal?” she said when she reached them. Nick looked up and shook his head with a grim expression. “Aw Nickie, don’t tell me that,” she whined.
“Lily we had a deal,” Nick growled and Mitchell joined in while giving her a glare. She showed him how much she cared as she flipped him off with a grin.
“So this is the famous Lily. Nice to finally meet the bane of my brother’s existence or at least that’s how he makes it sounds,” Nick’s brother said holding out his hand.
“I knew he cared,” she said, shaking the man’s hand. “And sorry Nick I forgot. I owe ya one. So how bad is it?”
Nick shook his head, mumbling something about going grey before he replied. “Out of the few vampires we found only a couple survived.”
“One of them is Veronica,” Donovan said and Lily sucked in a breath though it sounded like a hiss. Veronica had been the one who recruited her into the Aequivalere or what she had thought was the Aequivalere. Veronica had been her mentor during those two years. She’d been there through Lily’s pregnancy and helped develop the pills against her blood lust. She knew so much about Lily and her hybrid condition.
“Where,” she demanded, feeling her skin tingle as her beast came closer to the surface. The beast didn’t like betrayal as much as Lily.
“Sorry Lily, Donovan has told me a little bit about this vampire. I want her alive and able to speak,” Nick said and Lily scowled but nodded as she crossed her arms over her chest. “I plan on visiting the human and werewolf captives soon. You’re invited to join me. My influence doesn’t always work on humans but I’m sure you could convince them to talk.” Mitchell made a rude sound and scowled. “Yes Mitchell? Something on your mind?” Nick asked, looking irritated.
“Why she is still involved? She’s a citizen and doesn’t respect authority properly. She has her family safe so I believe it prudent to have her removed from any involvement and this room,” he said. Nick pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. Time to play the bitch card, Lily thought with a smile.
“Who’s going to make me leave? You?” She said, stepping up to the older werewolf. “You had your chance to do something a long time ago but you ran away like coward and abandoned your son!” Mitchell’s eyes widened and his face turned tinted pink. James started to say something but Lily held up a hand to stop him.
“How dare you! You don’t know who you’re talking to! I’ve been to two tours in Iraq and-” Mitchell demanded but she cut him off.
“And yet when your son came home after he was kidnaped, tortured, and changed into something else you ran with your tail between your legs!” She snapped back at him. His lip curled up in a silent snarl and he pulled his hand into a fist.
“Watch yourself. There is one thing in this world I really can’t stand and that’s a bully. If you raise that fist at me you better hit me and put me down or I will beat the living hell out of you,” She warned him. Turning to the others she asked, “So now where we’re we?”
“Wait a minute,” Mitchell demanded.
“No, shut up or I’ll get Lily to persuade you to jump off a cliff. Yes, she can do that. She has vampiric persuasion strong enough to take down an alpha,” James snapped at him. His dad’s eyes widen and he snapped his mouth closed.
Lily smiled at Mitchell so he could get a full view of her fangs then walked over to James leaning into him. “You know I can’t do that right? Self-preservation overrules pretty much everything,” Lily whispered softly.
“Yeah but he doesn’t,” James whispered back, giving her that panty dropping grin of his. She laughed, shaking her head and turned her attention back to Nick.
“I would like your help, Lily with the prisoners. That persuasion will help speed things up. I also want to talk to the girl. See what she can tell us. Wesley says she should be waking up in the next few hours,” Nick explained.
“Alright. So let’s get this interrogation going! Got to be ready for the witness questioning before lunch. I’m not nice when I’m hungry,” she said, rubbing her hands together.
“You know Nick. I don’t see what you’re talking about. I think she’s pretty amusing,” Bobby said and Lily grinned.
“Nick just doesn’t have a sense of humor,” Lily said with a flip of her hair in dramatic flair.
“I do too, you’re just not nearly as funny as you think you are,” he replied. “Alright, so Lily and I assume James as well will accompany me to the prisoners. Mitchell and Lucas work together to get a perimeter set up before nightfall. Now that we’ve got the girl I expect it won’t be long before they come knocking on our door. Bobby, you do the same for your people,” he ordered and his brother cleared his throat with a pointed look.
“Sorry Bobby… I forgot. This is your territory and you’re the boss,” Nick said sheepishly. “I would suggest for you to boost up your security with the enforcers I brought with me. Also Lord Etienne, said he’d be bringing in some vampires as well to help fatten our numbers. This vampire, Vincent, is still out there. We don’t know how he’s going to react when he sees the girl and the building gone. Everyone clear on what they have to do?”
When everyone nodded, he continued. “Good, now let’s go have a chat with our prisoners,” he said, finality in his tone. Everyone scattered off to do what they had to. Lily, James, and Donovan followed Nick out of the conference room and went into an elevator.