Nevaeh's Secret (Vampire Huntress Saga Book 2)

by Christina Escue

  “Which means it’s necessary,” she replied and slammed the van door shut. “Now, I have a file to review before we head out tomorrow, and I need to figure out where to start looking.”

  “We will let you get to work. Please don’t forget to keep us informed,”

  “I will call as soon as we find something,” Karma promised and walked away.

  “Keep an eye on her. If anything happens to Nevaeh, I’m afraid she’ll lose it,” Ramsey told Dylan and he nodded.

  “I’ll be right there with her, no matter what,” Dylan promised and followed her into the hotel.

  “And I will be with them both,” Harrison promised and grinned. “You were gonna say it, so I saved us all time.”

  “Just be safe, and call if you need anything,” Aleyn said and walked back toward the hotel. The rest of the Senate nodded, and followed him back inside, leaving Harrison alone in the parking lot.

  ****

  “We have a problem.”

  “Then handle it,” Crompton told him.

  “It’s not that simple. The Congressional liaison is causing issues for me.”

  “She’s a Halfling who’s barely an adult, how many problems can she be causing?”

  “She’s more than that,” he answered and sighed. “She’s backed by the Senate and has President Isaac on her side. I can’t fight her, not too much anyway.”

  “Then eliminate her,” Crompton snarled.

  “I will, sir, but we have another problem. Agent Aaren Weldon and Nevaeh, the leader of the Huntresses, have disappeared. No one knows where they’ve gone, but a team is heading out to find them in the morning.”

  An evil smile formed on his lips at the mention of Aaren Weldon, and he looked at the young woman standing beside him.

  “Don’t worry about Agent Weldon and Nevaeh, I will take care of them. You just worry about keeping my business running. If you fail me, I will eliminate you,” he said and ended the call.

  “What’s the matter?” Analia asked, stroking her hand down his hair.

  “Just a little issue with business, nothing for you to worry about, sweetheart,” he answered and smiled up at her.

  “Are you ready for dinner?” She asked, knowing better than to question him.

  “Oh yes,” he replied and grinned when she nodded, and two guards brought a young blonde over to him.

  “Enjoy your dinner,” she said and smiled when he bit deep into the girl’s neck.

  Sitting at the table to eat her own dinner, Analia watched as Crompton drained the girl and tossed her limp body aside. Watching him eat like that used to disgust her, but now it slightly aroused her. He’d never touched her like he did the women he brought to his bed, but she had been watching him for as long as she could remember, and she wanted to be touched like that.

  “Analia, when you’re finished with your dinner, I need you do so something for me,” he said, and she nodded.

  “Whatever you need,” she agreed.

  “I need you to go to this location, and eliminate the vampire and human who are there,” he told her, and smiled gleefully at the look of excitement that came into her eyes. “Once they are eliminated, I want you to burn the house down, then return to me. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Master,” she replied and quickly finished her dinner.

  After giving her the address, and watching her walk out the door, he picked up his phone and dialed his informant’s number.

  “The situation will be taken care of very soon. See to it that no more problems arise. Having my shipments intercepted is bad for business.”

  “I will not let it happen again, Sir,” he said.

  “If you value your life, you won’t,” Crompton said and ended the call.

  Chapter Five

  “Ready to roll out?” Harrison asked from the driver’s seat of the van.

  “I’ve been ready,” Karma replied and grinned. After reviewing Weldon’s file, they had a general location to look. His last US address, before the one he was at now, was just outside of the Acadia National Park in Maine, and that’s where they were heading.

  Harrison looked at the others, and after they all nodded, smiled and started the van.

  “This trip should take roughly twelve hours, but with Harrison driving, we should be there in about six, even making one stop, if necessary,” Karma said, and the Huntresses nodded.

  “Karma?” Delanie asked, quietly.

  “Yes?”

  “What are we going to do if Nevaeh isn’t there?”

  “We will see what we can find out about Weldon and move from there,” Karma answered. “How long have you been with the Huntresses?”

  “Just a little over two years. I joined after my family was killed by vampire,” she answered and looked at her hands. “I was away at college, but when I got the news, I knew it wasn’t a gas line explosion like the reports said, so I found Nevaeh and joined.”

  “How did you find her?” She asked.

  “The same way all the Huntresses find her, we follow our instincts,” Delanie answered, and realization dawned.

  “Exactly. We follow our instincts. I’m not a Huntress, but I am a member of the Huntress family, and I’ve seen something within all of you that connects you somehow. Whatever that is, is how we will track Nevaeh down.”

  ****

  “How did you find me?” Nevaeh asked Aaren when he walked into the old house.

  “I knew where you’d come,” he answered and looked around at the house he’d once called home. “I followed on foot for a while, then rented a car, which is probably why it took me so long to get here.”

  “After she went missing, I refused to leave the house for weeks. I would sit in her room for hours, waiting for her to come back and ask me to play Chutes and Ladders, but she never came back.”

  “I called every vampire and human I knew, trying to figure out who took her, and never found any trace of her. I even tried to find my creator to see if he or she knew anything about it, but was met with nothing but dead ends at every turn.”

  “I can still hear her laughter. When I put her to bed that night, we read a story together, and she insisted we make voices for the characters. She laughed at my impressions, and I laughed at her trying to make her voice deep enough to be the farmer’s. When I closed the door, I told her I loved her, and I’d make pancakes for breakfast. She loved pancakes,” Nevaeh trailed off, lost in her thoughts.

  “Nevaeh,” he started and stopped, looking around the room that had set unoccupied for nearly a decade.

  “It took me nearly six months to realize she wasn’t coming home, and nearly five years to accept that she was most likely dead. Hearing her name yesterday was like a slap in the face. Yes, I realize it may not be her, but if it is, why is she with a vampire like Crompton? Is he the one who took her? And if so, why?”

  “Those are questions we may never have the answers to,” he responded. “What I can tell you is that if it is her we will do everything we can to get her out of his grasp.”

  “Yes, but will that be enough?”

  “I can’t answer that, but we won’t know until we try. Finding Crompton will be the key to finding Analia, though.”

  “Why did you follow me?” She asked, looking at him.

  “Because I love you, Nevaeh. I never stopped loving you, and as long as I’m alive, I never will.”

  “Aww, isn’t that sweet,” a voice hissed from the open door.

  “Analia,” Nevaeh said, softly, as she spun around to face the door.

  “How do you know my name?” Analia asked, taken aback by her target addressing her by name.

  “Because I gave it to you,” Nevaeh answered and looked at the child she’d lost so many years ago.

  “Bullshit,” Analia spat and lunged for Nevaeh.

  Before she could move to avoid the blow, Aaren stepped in front of her, and the stake in Analia’s hand embedded in his chest.

  Shock registered on Analia’s face, as the blood conne
ction between Aaren and herself sparked, and realization dawned.

  “No, Aaren, no,” Nevaeh cried out and dropped to her knees. “You’ve killed him.”

  “I was going for you,” Analia responded, and looked at the body of her dead Father.

  “But why!?” Nevaeh yelled, hurt and anger fighting for control.

  “Because my Master told me to,” Analia responded and jerked the stake from Aaren’s chest.

  “Then kill me,” Nevaeh urged her. “But before you do, remember. Remember this house, remember me, but most of all, remember yourself.”

  Analia went to lunge, but paused and looked around the house as a faint memory sparked from deep within her mind.

  Dropping the stake, Analia turned and fled the house, leaving Nevaeh with tears streaming down her face, and an emptiness in her soul once again.

  When Karma and company pulled up to the house a few hours later, they found Nevaeh sitting on the steps, looking into the woods beside the house.

  “She killed him,” Nevaeh told Karma as soon as she stopped in front of her.

  “Who killed who?” Karma asked.

  “Analia killed Aaren,” she answered, never taking her eyes off the woods.

  “Who’s Analia?” Dylan asked, stopping beside Karma and following Nevaeh’s gaze.

  “My daughter,” Nevaeh answered and looked at Karma for the first time. “His body is still in the house. We need to bury it.”

  “We will take care of that,” Dylan said, and pulled Harrison into the house behind him as Karma sat on the step beside Nevaeh.

  “Wanna tell me what’s going on now?”

  “Yes, but I need to tell the entire Senate,” she responded.

  “Okay,” Karma responded. “We will head back to Baltimore after Dylan and Harrison are finished.”

  “I’m sorry, Karma. If I had told you instead of hiding in my past, Aaren may still be alive. He died protecting me. I guess he really did still love me,” she said and buried her face in her hands and cried like she hadn’t cried in ten years.

  Chapter Six

  “We found her,” Karma told Ramsey as soon as he answered the phone.

  “That’s fantastic,” he responded.

  “Maybe, maybe not. Weldon is dead. Harrison and Dylan are burying his body,” she said and looked at Nevaeh, who had finally stopped crying and gone back to looking at the woods.

  “How?”

  “The Halfling working with Crompton killed him,” she started and paused. Sighing, she continued, “There’s something else, but Nevaeh will have to explain it when we get there. We should be back before nightfall. If it’s going to be later, I’ll call.”

  “We will have a conference room ready,” he promised.

  “Thank you,” she responded and ended the call. Sighing deeply, she walked back to Nevaeh and sat beside her again.

  “I know we have to head back to Baltimore,” Nevaeh said without breaking her gaze.

  “Do you think she’s coming back?”

  “She was scared when she left, but there was something more, too. I think she remembered me, and Aaren, but I can’t be sure.”

  “Nevaeh, she’s working with Crompton, remember? I’m not sure how much of your daughter is still inside her.”

  “Enough,” Nevaeh said. “It has to be enough.”

  “We buried him behind the house. No one, and nothing, will find him back there, but we need to get out of here unless you want to fight. There are at least a dozen vampire in the woods,” Harrison said and looked at Karma.

  “I know,” Karma answered. “They’ve been there since we arrived. If they were going to attack, they would have by now.”

  “Maybe we should go talk to them,” Dylan suggested and grinned.

  “Or we could just let them come to us,” Nevaeh said and nodded toward the tree line she’d been staring at.

  “You need to leave here,” the apparent leader of the group stated in a no-nonsense tone.

  “Oh?” Karma asked, raising her eyebrow.

  “This is our land, and we do not want any trouble here. We saw the Halfling leave earlier, and have been watching since. We left you in peace to bury your fallen, but now we must ask you to leave.”

  “Who are you?” Karma asked. “I’ve never seen your face on the registry.”

  “That is because we are not on it. We will not register because the human government deems it necessary,” the petite female beside the leader, said.

  “The vampire Senate deems it necessary, not the human government,” Karma countered, laying her hand on the Sai tucked into the seam of her jacket.

  “The vampire Senate are old, and making irrational decisions,” a younger vampire spoke up from behind the female.

  “Oh, and you think vampire would have been better off staying in hiding for eternity?” Harrison asked, a look of disdain on his face. “Because, frankly, I was tired of hiding and having to move every few years.”

  “Then don’t mingle with humans,” another female said and shifted closer to the leader.

  “But if we didn’t mingle with humans, how would we feed?” Harrison asked, obviously baiting the leader.

  “Like vampire did hundreds of years ago,” the leader stated. “We were thought to be creatures of the night because that is when we hunted. Now that humans know we exist, we are finding it harder to feed regularly.”

  “You are finding it harder to feed regularly because you are not registered and are not receiving blood donations. You can still feed from humans, with their consent, if you don’t kill them,” Karma pointed out and the leader hissed.

  “It is not the same,” he said and glared at her. “Now leave here before we decide to feed off the humans you have with you.”

  “You will find that easier said than done,” Nevaeh said and grinned. “If you want to try though, be my guest.”

  “We do not wish to fight, but we will if necessary,” another female said.

  “You will die,” Dylan warned them and grinned when the leader took a small step toward them.

  “I wouldn’t be so confident, Halfling,” the leader said, and grinned.

  “What’s your name?” Karma asked with a grin.

  “Edward,” he replied. “Why?”

  “I want to know who I’m killing,” she replied and pulled her Sai from her jacket.

  “What’s your name, Halfling?” He asked.

  “Karma,” she replied and one of the younger vampire behind him faltered.

  “Interesting,” the leader said and took another step forward. “Let’s see if you’re as tough as I’ve heard you are.”

  When he lunged, she side-stepped, and he stumbled, but didn’t fall. Turning to face her, he grinned and flashed his fangs. Shaking her head and rolling her eyes, she flashed hers in a sneer.

  “Those don’t scare me, but these should scare you,” she told him and started twirling her Sai.

  “You’re pretty cocky for one so young.”

  “And you’re pretty stupid for one so old,” she countered and started circling him. “Too stupid to be left alive.”

  “Bring it, Halfling,” he taunted.

  “Nah, I think I’m going to let Nevaeh play with you for a bit. She needs to work off some steam,” Karma said and stepped back, letting Nevaeh take her place.

  “A human?” He asked, laughter filling his words.

  “A Huntress,” she corrected and grinned. “If you think you can kill me, then do it.”

  “Gladly,” he replied and lunged.

  She caught him under the chin with her fist, and hearing his jaw crack was very stress relieving, even though she knew it would heal before her next blow landed.

  “Bitch!” He spat and rubbed his jaw.

  “Damn right,” she replied and caught him with a roundhouse to the ribs, dropping him to his knees. “I’m the bitch who’s going to kill you.”

  Jumping back to his feet, he lunged at her again, but she dropped to the ground in the splits, and
punched him in the groin as he went over her head.

  Landing on his side, he rolled to his back, but Nevaeh was straddling him before he could jump to his feet.

  “Goodbye,” she told him, then stabbed him through the heart with the short scimitar she’d pulled from where it rested against her thigh.

  “Feel any better?” Karma asked as Nevaeh pulled her weapon from the vampire’s chest and wiped the blood off it.

  “Loads,” she replied with a grin. “Where’d the others go?”

  “Most are dead, but one female and two males fled into the woods. Dylan and Harrison went after them,” Delanie spoke up, grinning.

  “Did you get your first vampire kill?” Nevaeh asked, and Delanie nodded. “Fantastic. Once Dylan and Harrison get back, I’m ready to return to Baltimore. I have a secret to reveal.”

  Chapter Seven

  As the van pulled into the parking lot of the hotel, Fuller rounded the corner and frowned. “Where’s Weldon?”

  “Dead,” Nevaeh answered and walked past him.

  “Dead?” He asked, looking at Karma.

  “Yes,” she responded. “He was dead when we got there.”

  “She kill him?”

  “Nope,” Dylan replied.

  “Then who?” He asked, slightly confused.

  “The Halfling working with Crompton,” Harrison answered and shrugged. “She said she’d tell us more when she could tell everyone at once.”

  “What are we waiting for?” He asked and walked into the hotel.

  Harrison and Dylan looked at each other a second, before following him through the doors.

  “Is everyone finally here?” Ramsey asked as the door closed behind Harrison.

  “Think so,” Dylan responded as he stood beside Karma.

  “Then, Nevaeh, the floor in yours.”

  Taking a deep breath, Nevaeh started speaking. “When I was sixteen I met a man named Aaren Weldon. It was love at first sight, for both of us. A year later I gave birth to a little girl and a few months after that, I found out Aaren wasn’t who I’d believed him to be. It didn’t matter to me that he wasn’t human, because, well, I’m not completely human either. My Mother was the last living Amazon of our tribe, and my Grandmother was their last queen.”