Raiden bellied through the undergrowth, his heartbeat loud in his ears and the spiny branches catching on his clothes, skin and hair. They could see the tank and the gathering of soldiers that watched the streets for any trouble, weapons held with confident familiarity in their hands.
Raiden met his father’s eyes. Military trained vampires armed with machine guns were a worry. Bullets killed werewolves just as quickly as they did humans. Wade indicated with his head to withdraw.
“We can get around the tank easily enough,” Wade decided as they returned to the others. “It is more discouragement then defensive, too much for the purpose. It is the vampire army officers that are patrolling the gates behind it that concern me. They are well equipped, well trained, armed. We need to get around them without attracting their attention.”
“We need a diversion,” Raiden agreed eyeing Lia with worry. How was he going to get her past the gate?
“Where are the vampires?” Will murmured.
“Good question,” Wade replied, his eyes scanning around them. After his pithy instruction, Elior and his children had vanished from sight. “Let’s concentrate on getting ourselves to safety. The vampires can take care of themselves. Raiden, you have Lia.”
“Yes. Run for the first garden,” he told her. She nodded.
Will and Ethan were already undressing, preparing to shift, and Lia averted her eyes. Within moments, they were flanked by three oversized werewolves, the warm press of their fur against her skin comforting as she and Raiden edged through the gardens at the base of the fence that enclosed the werewolf estate.
As they reached the corner, the guards cried out in surprise, and Elior appeared briefly, lifting one by the throat with a snarling grin, before in a rain of blood, the man seemed to simply break apart, torn by movements too swift for sight, and Elior vanished again.
“Run!” Raiden hauled her to her feet, and kept his grip on her waist, running half crouched over her, through the gate, as the guards were distracted by Elior’s gory attack. They tumbled through the gate of the first house and crouched behind the hedge that edged the tidy lawn.
She saw Rebecca and Nate briefly as they seized one guard between them and tore him in half as they tugged him like a tug-of-war between them. She heard their laughter over the shrill scream of the dying man. Elior thrust his hand through the chest of another, tearing out the vampire’s heart, and crushing it in his grip. As the body fell, Lia wondered if the heart would regenerate, like a lost limb would.
“They are distracting them for us,” Raiden said grimly. “But now the vampires know that someone’s here and they will be on the lookout. Come on,” he decided. “Let’s go round the back. All the gardens are connected by gates. Hopefully the vampires are focusing on the streets, and we can get a clear path through to my house through the back yards.”
He took her hand and led her at half a jog around the side of the house, using his better vision to guide her around obstacles, keeping close to the greenery, and stilling on occasion, alert to movement. They made their way through four gardens, before she caught a glimpse of more than three werewolves tracking around them.
“There are others,” she gasped out. “Other wolves.”
“Of course,” he replied, pausing against the wall the house to let her catch her breath. “The pack is under attack. We are out in force, preparing to fight back. The young, old, and pregnant women will remain in the dens, but everyone else…” His grin was feral. “They are here in the shadows waiting for the command to attack.”
They continued through the dark gardens, until they hit a street corner, and Raiden led her around the side of the house. “Shit,” he pressed her back against the wall. “Lots of vampires on the road.”
“Are we far away?” She was sweating from the activity and nerves and shaking from fear and adrenaline.
“Have to cross the street, and then another four houses will bring us to my yard.”
“Not far then,” she was both relieved and fearful. This frantic game of hide and seek would soon be over, but when it ended, the real nightmare would begin.
He was silent and she glanced up at him. The shadows carved dark paths across his face, catching in lines and grooves that were new to him, evidence of the strain of the last two weeks furrowed into his skin.
“Raiden?”
The Other was golden in his eyes as he looked back to her. “Crossing the street will expose us. There are too many vampires to do so without them seeing us. The force seems to be concentrated here. I guess Lucian thinks we are in one of my family dens, which would be a good guess, because that is where I would like to be.”
“Okay,” Lia whispered. “So, what is the plan?”
“I have to shift,” he said regretfully. It would mean leaving her alone whilst he did so. “I can’t talk to the others if I am not in wolf form.” He moved her back around the house and opened the back door. “Inside Lia. Crouch behind the kitchen bench and stay there until I return.”
“Raiden,” she caught his face between her hands and kissed him, fearing for his safety. “I love you.”
He smiled and stroked her hair back from her face. “My mate.”
He edged his way out the door, and she saw him pull off his shirt through the windows as he walked towards the corner of the house. Once he was out of sight, she felt her way around the darkened room, her eyes gradually adjusting to the darkness until the furniture was darker blurs within the darkness. She continued forward until she was crouched behind the kitchen island in front of the fridge and could press her face into her knees.
This was her fault, she thought. This was because of her, her blood had given Lucian the strength and speed he needed in order to wage this war, first against the vampire hierarchy, then against humans, and now against the werewolves.
She searched within herself, within the knowledge of the grimoire, for an answer, but Evelyn’s descendants had spent generations creating the grimoire, and she’d had less than a day to distill the information into something usable.
Small spells rose to the surface, defensive and offensive magic that might help her hold her own if she and Raiden were discovered, but nothing sizable enough to balance out the powers her blood gave the vampires.
“Come on,” she whispered to herself. “Evelyn’s ancestors created vampires, surely there is something that you know, that will help?” Th knowledge of how to make and unmake vampires using magic rose to her mind, and she shuddered at the horrendousness of it, pushing that information aside. It was no use to her, she wanted to kill vampires, not make them.
Time. She needed time to learn from the information she had absorbed. But she had come into her knowledge too late, and the problem was already so big. Ultimately, she thought with a sigh, she was just a failed ballerina caught up in events too much for her.
The kitchen door opened, and she tensed, her heart stuttering until Raiden crouched beside her. He pulled his t-shirt on. His face was strained, and she drew in a sharp breath, realizing that something was very wrong.
“They have my mum,” his voice broke on his fear. She murmured and laid her hand on his forearm, offering comfort. “Tied her so that she can’t shift.”
“Lucian is…” He drew a deep breath through his nose. “Interrogating her. I guess they have discovered that we are not in the den of my parent’s house and are trying to determine our location. We have to move in before the interrogation progresses any further, Lia,” he met her eyes, his heart visibly breaking. “Before they hurt her anymore.”
“Oh god,” she realized what he was saying. Diedre was being tortured by the mad vampire and they were going to expose themselves deliberately in order to distract Lucian from her, enabling her rescue. “I should go alone,” she did not want him to die for her.
“No.” His Other flashed gold. “No, Lia. We do this together.” There was alpha command behind his voice. “Together, Lia,” he repeated.
“Okay,” she whispered reluctantly but unable to resist the alpha command in her mate’s voice. “And then what, Raiden?”
“I don’t know,” he said but his expression told her what he thought would happen. They would die together. She felt a tear track down her cheek. “We have to hope the pack wins.” He paused. “I won’t let him take you again, Lia, I promise.”
He would kill her, first. “Okay,” she rested her forehead against his, feeling the tears tracking down her face, the tightness around her heart an agony. “Raiden…”
“I know,” he pulled her against him and buried his face into her hair, breathing in. “Lia, I know. I love you. So much. There aren’t words enough to describe how I feel about you. You are my mate.”
She clung to him, pressing her face against his skin, capturing the last memory of his scent, his skin, the feel of his body against hers. “I love you.” They had been star-crossed from the beginning, she thought despairingly.
He kissed her, ferociously, his eyes fully golden, the Other at the forefront responding to the threat. “We fight, Lia,” he told her. “We fight, and we fight hard.”
She kissed him back, feeling the prick of his stubble beneath her hands.
As the kiss eased, he nodded, a muscle in the corner of his jaw ticking, and he took her hand. He was barefoot, she saw, knowing that he would probably need to shift before long. He led her through the house and out the front door.
On the porch, he caught her face between his hands again and kissed her, lingeringly, the kiss flavored by her tears. “Fight, Lia,” he told her. “Fight and keep fighting.”
“I will.”