Mine to Save

by Megs Pritchard

  Chester sat next to Brayden. “Do you know how this all started? The history of how it developed?”

  Brayden stared at Chester and looked like he wasn’t going to answer, so Jensen jumped him, saying, “Troy is Chester’s son.”

  “I’m aware of the relationship. I told Graham to stay away and leave you all alone, but he wouldn’t listen. Too proud and too arrogant. He knew better than I did.”

  “Thank you trying,” Silas muttered. “Something good came out of it.”

  “Jacques.” Brayden nodded. “This has been going on for decades. Before I was born. The king is mated, but no one knows to whom. His mate has never been seen, but it’s why he’s been alive for so long. His father began the process over a hundred years ago, maybe even longer. I’ve heard people say it was the reason why we revealed our existence along with technological progress.”

  “Why did we go into hiding in the first place? We coexisted for centuries.”

  Brayden nodded at Chester. “I can’t answer that question. I don’t know. I can’t see any reason why we would hide away when we’d lived in relative peace for so long. I’m not sure if it’s all tied together somehow. That we hid away so vampires could come out and take over immediately or take over from behind the scenes then come out. The Industrial Revolution changed their plans. That I know for certain. I’ve heard it mentioned before.”

  “This is fucked up. I want to wake up and this all be some fucked up nightmare.” Jared gripped Sacha’s hand in his and they both stood. “We’re going.”

  Chester nodded. “I’ll call tomorrow.”

  As Jared and Sacha left, Donnie also stood. “I’ll leave as well, if you don’t need me?”

  “No, I don’t think we all need to be here. It’s close to morning now and I know a few of us need to spend time with our mates.”

  “Thanks, C. See ya in a few.”

  Donnie left, and Jensen watched his mate. What would happen now? Would he be locked in a secure location until they could question him further? There was still a chance he would run given the opportunity.

  “I have a list of locations where the blood slaves are hidden on a secure server.”

  Everyone looked at Brayden. “Username and password?” Carter asked.

  Brayden nodded and gave the details before Carter left. Hunter looked at Ale and Chester, who both nodded as he left too.

  “Now what?”

  Chapter Six

  “The question is what to do with you?” Ale murmured. “Do we take a chance and let you stay with your mate or do we lock you up again?”

  “I can stay with him in a locked room. It’ll give us the chance to talk and get to know each other.”

  Brayden remained silent as Jensen talked. He was certain if they were in a room together, they would end up mated. They’d barely touched, but he could feel the need to take and claim his mate. To mark his body and have it covered in his scent.

  He noticed Jensen swallow and he closed his eyes, trying to gain some small measure of control over his lust. He wanted his mate. His mate was fuckable... for a human. That was something he was going to have to alter about himself. His mate was human and even though he liked Carter, he never saw him as an equal. He needed to change, and it was a cold, empty feeling that made him realize how pathetic he truly was. How he’d let others alter his way of thinking.

  Vampires and humans working together to save humanity. He could learn so much from them. He needed to. His mate was human, and he was never leaving him.

  Hunter came back into the room and walked right up to Brayden. “Eighteen locations?”

  “It was when I copied the data two days ago.”

  Hunter ran his fingers through his hair. “Shit. That’s far more than we knew about.”

  “Eighteen what?” Ale asked. “Locations of slaves? Is that what you’re talking about?”

  “Yeah. Carter’s going through the lists now. They keep records of where each slave is.”

  “How many in total?”

  Hunter stared at Brayden, who answered the question. “About two thousand. You’d need a large blood supply for the time frame indicated.”

  “What? You mean how long it will take for us to die off?” Ale demanded.

  “Yes. Given the number of vampires and the estimated time frame, we would need a minimum of two thousand. Blood banks would be used up after the first thirty to forty days and we would then need to feed directly from the source. We planned for an initial six months, after that we should be able to go out and find other sources. Humans that were alive but weak or other vampires.”

  “Okay.” Chester held up a hand. “Eighteen locations. Two thousand slaves. Are there any locations we can hit now that won’t alert this Garrick and the king?”

  Brayden nodded. “Several, yes. Some locations are further out. Those are considered important, but not crucial to the takeover. They could be taken out, and the slaves freed. By my reckoning, it would be at least a week before anyone noticed. If we killed all the vampires in a way to make it appear that one turned on the others and burnt the buildings to ensure that enough evidence was left to incriminate the occupants, it would draw the attention away from us, but we would only be able to do this once.”

  “So, we pick the location carefully. Least security, most slaves?” Ale asked.

  “What about weapon allocations at these places?” Silas added. “We don’t want to go in to rescue them and then be overwhelmed by the fire power they have.”

  “Most of the ones I’m thinking of aren’t heavily fortified and have minimal weapons. The locations that house the council members and their families are top priority, as is the Tatton mansion. They’ll have the best security in place and the most weapons. There are two weapons caches we need to remove.”

  “We have information on those already and are working on a plan.” Chester glanced over at Carter as he came in and handed him some papers.

  “This needs to be coordinated precisely,” Brayden told them. Once they started, they had to finish. They wouldn’t get another chance.

  “Can you get this on a map?” Chester asked Carter.

  “Yeah, and I’ll have it show the numbers at each location as well. It might be a case that we don’t hit the obvious one. We might need to hit a couple of smaller ones first and then move to larger locations. If we can do this within a few days and then hit the weapons locations, we might put a dent in their plans. I’m also looking into switching off their power sources too.”

  “We’re working on a virus, but they have backup generators and access to solar energy. We could possibly take out the power from the grid directly, but the generators will kick in.” Hunter crossed his arms over his chest. “We’re coming up with a plan of attack. The virus and the generators need to come after the slaves.”

  “We can’t free all the slaves. I think we have to admit that’s an impossibility. We lack the manpower. We need to take out all the smaller locations first, then weapons, power and generators. In the mayhem, we could attempt to hit some of the council’s locations.”

  “Carter, generate the map, so we can take a look at the locations.”

  “So, the list is: slaves, weapons, power source?” Jacques asked in a quiet voice.

  He hadn’t said a word and had been so quiet, Brayden had forgotten he was there. He looked pale and Brayden noticed a fine tremor in his body. A human -- Brayden assumed mate -- reached over and pulled him close.

  “We won’t leave the slaves, Jacques. You have my word.” Silas reached across the table and squeezed his hand.

  “I know.” Jacques gave a fleeting smile, then looked at his mate who smiled and nodded.

  Brayden cleared his throat, gaining everyone’s attention. “Out of the eighteen locations, four, maybe five, will be the easiest to hit. One of the locations is the Tatton mansion itself, then we have a minimum of twelve locations for the council. That leaves the other locations.”

  Chester frowned at Brayden. “You se
em to have changed your mind about this. In the barn, you wouldn’t give us anything and now we have all this information. Why?”

  Brayden sat back in his chair and nodded. “My mate is human. I have one condition though. My brother must be saved. He had no choice originally. I believe he’s been converted, but he’s a good man, a good vampire. I have to believe he’ll help us when the time comes.”

  “How sure are you? How do you know he’ll help?”

  Brayden shrugged. “He’s my brother. He’s in a difficult position. Too close to Garrick and the king. He has no choice. I think over time he might have come to believe in the cause. We haven’t spoken recently, but when we did, he was saying the right things, but he appeared to lack conviction. I have to hope he can be saved.”

  “You need to suss him out before we make that decision. Too many lives depend on this working.”

  Brayden winced and nodded. Chester spoke the truth, even Brayden knew that.

  ❊❊❊

  Jensen saw Brayden wince, then nod in agreement with Chester. The slaves were too important to ignore. What they must be suffering every single day was unimaginable, except Jacques, who sadly already knew intimately what that felt like.

  He glanced over at Jacques. His head was bowed, and his eyes closed. Jacques had made phenomenal steps in his recovery process, but they all knew it would take years, if ever, for him to recover fully. The fact that he was here, sat at this table, showed the level of inner strength he had. He’d made it his goal to save the other slaves and no matter how he felt personally, he was going to do his best to achieve it.

  He caught Miguel’s eyes and nodded at Jacques. “He okay?” he asked quietly.

  “Better, thanks.”

  “I’m sat here. You can ask me, Jensen.”

  “I know, but I don’t want to...” Jensen shrugged.

  “Upset me?” Jacques sighed. “It does get easier, but I can’t sit here and say that doing this, trying to free the others doesn’t bring up painful memories. Doesn’t matter though. They need to be free.”

  “They do.”

  Carter came in with a printout of the map showing all locations and graphics of numbers in each. “We lucked out. The data Brayden had included both the weapons and the manpower at each location, as well as the number of vampires too.” He pointed to four that had been circled. “These would be my first choice going with the information we have.”

  Jensen searched the map and slowly nodded. The four Carter had circled were the best options. Low on weapons and security personnel, and easier to target. The four locations housed between them around three hundred slaves.

  “Three hundred slaves? Low security though.”

  “I can answer that,” Brayden cut in. “They aren’t high up the hierarchy to warrant more security and these places are more for holding slaves. The people living there aren’t important enough to the council to give them more personnel. You have to remember the vampires who will have to hold up in their houses. Not all of them will be protected like this. There are thousands of vampires preparing for this.”

  “Let me get this right. The people living in these locations follow the king and council, but they aren’t important enough to keep safe and there are thousands of others who would have to try and stay safe in their own homes.”

  “Yes. There isn’t enough space for everyone. All have moved closer to the mansion. If they need to move, they’ll live in tents on the mansion grounds.”

  “Okay. So, these locations—” Carter pointed at the map—”are looking after a high number of slaves. Why not have greater security?”

  “Maybe because someone changed the information on the number of slaves being held there.”

  “You?” Jensen asked. When Brayden nodded, he asked, “Why?”

  “It’s difficult to explain. I’ve been involved for many years along with Lincoln, and then I saw how the slaves were treated. We were told originally that they agreed to be blood slaves as long as they were kept alive and I believed it. It’s happened before, so why not now? Then I saw their condition in the mansion one day when I went with Lincoln to do a head count. He asked me to go and I have to believe it was because he wanted me to see the truth.”

  “Bad?” Jacques whispered.

  “Worse than Graham’s,” Brayden answered.

  Jacques nodded. “I’d heard other slaves say they’d heard the same, that none of the slaves returned once they were sent to the mansion.”

  “Some died, that’s true, others were farmed out to council members. They were kept in rotation or should have been. Some were abused, like you, but the king wanted to keep the stock fresh and give the existing slaves time to heal. He didn’t want to have to keep hunting for slaves. Said it diverted his men from their primary focus.”

  “So, once they had enough, the slaves were to be kept alive to keep the vampires alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s fucked up.”

  “No, that’s good planning,” Chester disagreed. “He’s thought this out. If too many humans go missing, authorities will notice. Even people living on the street form relationships with others on the street. People notice if one goes missing. If several go missing and local law enforcement catches on...”

  “They’ll investigate,” Brayden finished. “He’s smart. Insane and power hungry, but he is smart.”

  “My head hurts,” Ale muttered, sighing.

  “We’d still be in the dark if it wasn’t for Graham.”

  “Never thought I’d have a reason to thank that fucker.” Silas shook his head. “His self-righteous belief that he was superior to humans caused him to make the mistaken assumption that Troy belonged with him. If it wasn’t for his pathetic kidnap attempt, we would never have known.”

  “The king and Garrick were furious over it. Several of the vampires who escaped that night were punished for allowing Graham to go through with his plan.”

  “Hope it hurt,” Jacques muttered.

  “Deadly,” Brayden told him.

  Jacques inhaled sharply then nodded once. “Good.”

  “I think we should call it a night. Get everyone back tomorrow when we have all the information we need and then we can go through it all and plan.” Hunter looked at Chester and Ale. “What do you think?”

  “Yeah, good idea. Tonight has been a long night and Silas is in work soon.”

  “Nothing like going into work on two hours’ sleep.” Silas leaned back in his chair and rubbed his hands over his face. “Jensen, Brayden. You’ll stay here. I’ve got a room made up, and it locks from the outside. It’s not that I don’t trust you--”

  “You don’t, but I understand,” Brayden interrupted. “I’m still the enemy. You have no reason to trust me.”

  Silas nodded. “Jensen, get what you need.”

  Jensen nodded and looked at Brayden. “I’ll be thirty minutes.” He glanced around the others, then back at Brayden. “Do you need me to get anything for you?”

  “I have spare items here,” Chester said. “Sorry, Jensen, but he’ll have what we give him.”

  Jensen nodded. “Okay.”

  With a final look at his mate, Jensen left the kitchen and made his way to his car. He jumped in and started the engine, pulling away quickly and speeding off down the road towards home. He knew his mate was safe, knew the others wouldn’t do anything to hurt him, but he felt the overwhelming need to be get back there and protect him.

  He said thirty minutes, but he always had a bag ready by his door. He’d be there and back in less than twenty minutes, then he could see his mate again.

  Chapter Seven

  After watching his mate leave, Brayden waited for someone to break the silence that descended. Luckily, he didn’t have to wait long before someone spoke.

  “Come on. I’ll show you to your room.”

  He stood and followed Silas out of the kitchen and up the stairs. They walked along the landing passing several doors before Silas opened a door at the end
of the corridor and walked into a bedroom. He looked around the plain room, decorated with white walls, brown carpet, and a bed made with cream sheets. There was also a small attached bathroom.

  Silas pointed to it. “Spare items have been laid out in there for you. Once Jensen gets back, I’ll bring him straight up.”

  Silas left the room and Brayden heard the distinct sound of a lock engaging. He checked out the window and found that was locked too, not that it would stop him if he was serious about escaping, but strangely enough, he wasn’t. He wanted to spend time with his mate, getting to know the man fate had decided was meant for him.

  He walked into the bathroom and glanced at the shower cubicle. After the night he’d had, he couldn’t wait to be clean and turned the shower on before stripping quickly. As he got in, he hissed as the warm water made contact with his face. The cuts and bruises were painful, but he knew by morning most of them would be well on the way to healed. If he had some blood...

  No, his mate was nowhere near ready for that type of commitment even though it was painfully obvious he felt the bond between them. They needed to talk... a lot. Brayden was on the inside and knew too much. There was no getting away from the fact he was partly responsible for what was happening and the plans that had been set in motion.

  Tonight hadn’t ended the way he’d expected. Not in any way shape or form, but he couldn’t find it in himself to be bothered by it. He’d found his mate. Again, not what he’d expected, but he felt the connection to the man from the first moment he’d spotted him, and he wanted to explore it, find out what made him tick.

  He scrubbed his bald head and scratched his beard as he dropped his head with a sigh. Twenty-four hours ago, his life was on a different path, one that didn’t include a mate. The only person he cared about was his brother and he did whatever was necessary to keep him safe.

  A job that was becoming harder with each passing day. He was too close now, he was in the inner circle and privy to too much information. Brayden’s hope had been to extract him when the power was switched off and hide them away somewhere safe until the carnage ended.