Our friends were gone, and they weren’t coming back. The nest was demolished. An unknown number of vampires were still hunting us.
How in the world was I supposed to keep fighting?
How was I supposed to keep standing?
CHAPTER 2
When we entered the bedroom, I wanted to faceplant onto the king-sized plush bed, force myself to sleep, and pretend none of this was real.
Except the images of Rachel and Nikki kept flickering in my mind, reminding me I couldn't give up. Damn them for making me care so much about them.
Maciah was right there with me, guiding me toward the bathroom. The room was covered in white tile, and there was a glass shower on our left. He turned the water on for me, then stood in front of me, holding my shoulders firmly. “We’re going to figure this out, Amersyn. We’re not going to run. We just need to take the day to process what’s happened.”
Now he sounded like me. The me I was trying and failing to be because the pain was too strong inside my mind. I also knew that as nice as running sounded, I’d regret it later if that was what I asked him to do. I was just having a hard time convincing all my thoughts and emotions to be on the same page.
Maybe tomorrow would be better and I could have the same outlook as Maciah. I tried to speak to him and tell him as much, but the words were too hard and got stuck in my throat.
He stroked my shoulders as if he understood without me having to say anything. “Take a shower. Put on one of those robes in the corner when you’re done. I’ll be back as soon as I can be.”
He kissed my forehead and turned me toward the shower before walking out of the room.
I was surprised he was so eager to leave, but I’d been so immersed in my own woes that I hadn’t been paying close enough attention to his. When he got back, I was going to make sure that changed.
I moved robotically as I undressed, avoiding the mirror. I didn’t want to see the despair in my eyes or the dried blood I knew was there. My ruined clothes were kicked off to the side, hopefully to never be seen again, and I stepped into the steaming shower.
As the hot water pelted against my sensitive skin, I broke down once again, but I told myself this had to be the last time. I had to be strong enough to fight for my friends. To fight for all of the vampires wrongfully killed.
Without a part of me fighting to stay in control, reckless emotions flooded through me like a tsunami as I thought of Rachel’s bright smile, Nikki’s strong presence, and Zeke’s caring heart. The weight of knowing I’d never see them again brought me to my knees as the sobs tore through me.
I leaned back and slid down the tile wall before wrapping my arms around my legs as I screamed and cried for the vampires that I’d considered family. My throat burned. My chest twisted. My muscles ached. My body recoiled with tremors. There wasn’t an inch of me that didn’t ache.
This was a nightmare I knew we couldn’t make go away, but as the tears continued to pour from me and got lost in the spray of the shower, I promised myself that we’d find a way to make it right. We’d figure out who was responsible and make sure they paid.
As I thought of ways to get the answers we’d need and mentally began making a list of things we could do, my tears stopped. Though, the sorrow never lifted from my heart. As much as I wanted to lose myself inside its darkness, I wouldn’t do that. But I also didn’t expect the pain to go away anytime soon. I just needed to be strong enough to work with the emotion instead of allowing it to break me.
I pushed myself up from the shower floor and focused on one task at a time. Getting clean was first on the agenda. When that was done, I knew I needed to dry off, brush my hair, wear the robe, and wait for Maciah.
Each task took little to no effort and they were done much too quickly. As I tightened the robe around me, not knowing what to do next, the sense of loss began to creep back in. What was I supposed to do while I waited for Maciah? What would I have done before when I was on my own?
Research. That’s what. I still had my phone. It was in the back pocket of the pants I’d kicked to the corner of the bathroom. I shook out my clothes until I felt the phone and cursed when I saw the battery was at sixteen percent.
This was a ritzy hotel, though. If there wasn’t a charger in the room, I had a feeling the front desk would be more than happy to bring me one.
I began opening the drawers in the closet, but it wasn’t until I got to the nightstand that I found what I needed. Plugging in the USB first, I stretched the cord across the bed and piled pillows behind me before getting comfortable. I didn’t know how long Maciah was going to be gone, but I wouldn’t rest for a moment until I had a solid plan for us.
With my phone charging, I pulled up the hunter app. I wasn’t sure how much would be there with Simon playing a role in some of the things happening around us, but if anyone knew something and wanted to put a warning out, this was where I’d find it.
I scrolled through the posts, skimming the keywords of each recent post looking for anything about Simon, Viktor, Silas, and even myself.
There was no telling what information had been passed along about what I’d become. Hunters wouldn’t understand. They’d assume I chose this life, but even though I didn’t put up much of a fight once I got to know the vampires around me, I never would have voluntarily become one.
I loved Maciah and would have spent as much of my life with him as I could have, but giving up my human existence without being forced wasn’t something I would have done. At least, not in the short term. Maybe I’d have grown to change my mind, but the old me that still lived in the far recesses of my mind didn’t think so. She was stubborn, sometimes to a fault.
Before I could find anything helpful in the app, Maciah’s voice sounded in the hallway. I slid off the bed and went to the door as he opened it, phone held between his cheek and shoulder since his hands were full of bags.
I took the items from his hands, and he grabbed the phone, putting it on speaker.
Eddie’s voice sounded. “The doctors said everything went well. The wounds he sustained were mostly to his ribs, and Dave was likely only unconscious for so long due to self-preservation.”
I’d almost forgotten about my bartender with everything else going on. Hearing the update lifted my spirits slightly, but poor Dave. I’d have hidden from the reality of vampires beating the hell out of me, too, if I was him.
“Thank you, Eddie. I don’t know what we’re doing, but I have a room here for you guys until we figure it out,” Maciah said, then gestured to me. “Anything you want to ask?”
I stepped closer to the phone. “Did Dave wake up yet?”
“No, but that’s because the doctors don’t want him awake yet. They said he should be up tonight, as long as things keep progressing as they have been. We’ll stay until he does or until you guys need us, whichever comes first,” Eddie answered.
“Thank you for staying with him,” I said.
“I’m glad I did.” Eddie ended the call, and I shuddered. I bet he was. If Eddie and Nick had gone back to the mansion, they’d likely be dead.
Maciah took one of the bags from me and pulled out a cooler. My mouth immediately began to salivate, and my fangs were begging to be set free. I had done a good job of distracting myself from the hunger, but knowing there was blood so close that I could have without hurting anyone…
Famished. Ravenous. Starved to near death. Each one more dramatic than the other, but I couldn’t stop the thoughts from circling my mind.
Maciah gave me the first blood bag, and I opened it before he could pull out another. I didn’t know anything about the blood bank where he’d taken these from, but as long as they were donated, I had no time to ask questions.
The fight with Silas had taken a lot of energy and the grief that followed was more than any vampire should have had to handle. As the crimson liquid slid down my throat, it soothed the frayed ends of my nerves, but there was no amount I could drink that would stitch my heart back together.
I drank one more bag before deciding I needed to slow down, then began to rummage through the other two bags. There was a suit in one and women’s clothes in the other.
“Did you get these from the front desk?” I asked as I pulled out the clothes.
Maciah shook his head. “I told him I’d grab something while I was out once I realized there was a store across the street.
I slid the underwear on first before wiggling into the jeans. They were a bit smaller than I expected for the size, but they’d work. The green top, however, was the softest cotton I’d ever felt, and there was a leather jacket at the bottom of the bag.
“How did you get all of this from the store? Did they let you charge it to the room?” I asked as I sat back down on the bed.
“I went to the bank first, and they printed me a new credit card,” he said, putting the rest of the blood into the fridge of the hotel room.
“They can do that?” I was a little surprised at that.
He nodded. “They have a copy of my ID on file, so it really wasn’t a big deal. I just told them my wallet was stolen.”
I raised a brow, appraising him. “Did they question your attire?”
“Nope.” He gave me a small smirk and I rolled my eyes. His perfectly handsome face was probably all the poor tellers saw the moment he walked in.
“So, I was thinking. There isn’t anything on the hunter app about Simon, which tells me he’s likely fully immersed in the vampire world now. We should head to LA and regroup. See what kind of help we can find there,” I said as I hopped onto the counter.
I’d considered suggesting that we go to my old condo. I was pretty sure the windows had been fixed by insurance, and I knew Rachel and Nikki had cleaned the place up the one night they’d stayed there, but my gut told me we weren’t going to find what we needed here. Not anymore.
Maciah grabbed his bag that I’d left at the foot of the bed. His hands shook so slightly that someone not paying attention would have missed it. There was a twitch in his cheek, and his eyes were darker than normal even though he’d just fed.
He nodded at my suggestion of going to LA but stayed silent. I slid off the bed and went to him, forcing him to sit on the edge of the mattress.
I twisted so that I was sitting sideways and facing him, then grabbed his hand. “Talk to me.”
“About what?”
Men. I wanted to roll my eyes but managed to refrain. “Don’t hold this in, Maciah. It will only make things worse when you explode later. We need to be on the same page and that includes how we’re feeling.”
“I’m fine,” he insisted.
“No, you’re not. If you were, I’d actually be more concerned, but you can’t hide how badly you’re hurting from me, no matter how hard you try. I saw a glimpse of it in the car, and you shouldn’t be afraid to tell me what you’re thinking.”
He sighed. “I’m not afraid, but there’s no point. I have a job to do and how I feel can’t affect that.”
Something must have happened before I came along, something within his nest that had hardened him. I’d always noticed that Maciah didn’t get as friendly with the other vampires as they were with each other, but I’d never thought too hard about it. As a leader, I could imagine there was a fine line between being friends with the vampires he was charged to protect and making sure none of them abused that friendship.
And because I couldn’t let this go, I kept pressing him. “What happened, Maciah? Your nest clearly cared for you and there was a reason for that. Besides the fact that you kept them safe or saved them from a life they never wanted.”
He pulled his hand from my hold and rubbed his palms over his face. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.”
Maciah met my stare and his face softened. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“It’s not likely,” I said, trying to be sensitive yet persistent. Maciah needed this, and I was going to make him see that. I just didn’t know what was inside his head.
“I used to run the nest differently. We threw parties, did things together, and kept each other company when there was nothing else to do. I made friends with the vampires, but some took advantage of that friendship and thought they could do things in my nest that I didn’t stand for. So, I stopped the parties, changed having so many vampires stay in the rooms inside the main house, and created boundaries.”
That was pretty much what I assumed, but I knew there was something more.
“Did that help?” I asked.
“For a while. I kept a few vampires close to me, Zeke and Bennett being the ones I trusted most. Then, Bennett left without a word as to where he was going or if he’d be back. I’d relied on him, and then he was gone.”
I hadn’t thought how Bennett’s departure from the nest would have made anyone else feel other than Nikki since they’d been in a relationship. I couldn’t believe nobody had mentioned this to me before.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” I said, unsure what else I could say or do.
“I knew then that I couldn’t be friends with any of them—not the way I was before—if I was going to accomplish the things I’d set out to do in the beginning. I kept Zeke and Rachel closest, needing at least a couple people I could trust at my side. Even still, they never saw beyond what I wanted them to once my decision was made. I don’t even know why any of them stayed once I changed. There were more rules and less fun within the nest, and I didn’t apologize once for my actions,” he said, voice filled with a vulnerability I’d never heard from him.
I leaned against his shoulder. “They stayed because it doesn’t matter if you stopped talking to the vampires or showing them your emotions. It’s your actions that speak loudest. You never stopped trying to give them a life they didn’t hate.”
His head leaned onto mine. “Maybe.”
“There’s no maybe about it. You were exactly what they needed.”
He scoffed. “Until I got them all killed.”
“The fire wasn’t your fault. Don’t blame yourself for that. I know none of them would.”
A shudder rolled through Maciah before he began to harden back into the leader he strived to be. “We have to find who sent the drones.”
I sighed, knowing he wasn’t going to agree with me about where the blame lay, and I could tell he was done sharing by the tense set in his shoulders. Instead of continuing to push him, I leaned up and asked, “What do you think about my idea of going to LA?”
“We can’t consider leaving the hotel until nightfall. Even though more people know where the LA house is than any other, I agree. We have more resources there than any of the other places we could go.”
I’d forgotten Maciah had multiple homes. Maybe he wasn’t thinking about all of the resources, though. “Do you have one near the wolves or other vampire nests?”
He shook his head. “I try to keep them private, but I can see maybe I need to invest in some more real estate now.”
“That’s something to think about later. Since we can’t go anywhere until sunset, thanks to me, why don’t you go take a shower? I’ll keep searching the internet for anything that might be helpful. It’s amazing what you can find there when you know what you’re looking for,” I said, remembering how I’d found the group of hunters when I was only a teenager.
Maciah stood and brought me up with him before holding my face gently between his hands and pressing his lips to my forehead. “Thank you.”
“Just remember none of this is your fault and you’re welcome,” I whispered as our grief intertwined.
“I’m trying, but I should have known Silas would have contingencies. I should have moved the entire nest. Instead, they did what they always do when we get done with a mission like this. Every vampire was gathered in the mansion, waiting for us to get home, and now they’re all dead because of it. Now, you’re hurting from having lost more people you care about. All because I didn’t think ahead.”
M
y hands covered his. “You are not a murdering vampire. There is no possible way you could have predicted something like what happened. You are not Silas, and it would have worried me more if you’d been able to think like him.”
I pushed up onto my toes and pressed my lips to his. “We’re going to figure this out. Together. We’re going to get the vengeance every single one of those vampires deserves. Then, we’re going to kill Viktor so we can properly take an extended break from all of life’s responsibilities without running from our problems.”
Even as I said that last bit and even imagined the two of us living off grid without worrying about the issues within the supernatural world, I knew that neither of us would ever be able to walk away from things we’d been fighting for. It was nice to picture, though.
“I love you,” he murmured against my cheek.
“I love you, too.”
Maciah turned for the shower, and I moved back to the bed, reaching for my phone. We were going to need each other more than ever, and I’d do whatever it took to ease the guilt Maciah was clinging to.
CHAPTER 3
As soon as night fell, we left the hotel and headed back to the nest. The drive was tense, and the devastation that filled me when we pulled into the driveway took my breath away.
I’d been getting better at tucking the sorrow away, but seeing the house completely destroyed undid every bit of progress I’d made in the hotel room.
Charred remains were piled where the once ten-thousand-square-foot structure used to be. The roof had caved in. The walls were gone from most of the front and right side of the house. Yet, I could still see the framework for the staircase within the center of it all.
Maciah's emotions were varying between rage and mourning. After he’d opened up to me earlier, I better understood him. On top of how much he cared but rarely showed, he’d also worked hard to build the life he had created within the nest…and in hours, it had been turned into ash. It wasn’t right or fair.
Vampire Vow (Scorned by Blood Book 3) Page 2
