I would’ve gone into their minds and taken their knowledge of my kind, but that was almost impossible. It was best to let The Seats remember, to know what I could do, and to be afraid of it.
I promised Jayne I would make them pay, and this was my way of doing so: by instilling a fear in them so deep it would never leave. I didn’t have to enter their minds to do that.
“Release them,” I called to the vampires holding Lizzy and Martin.
They hesitated for a moment, not moving, not daring to obey my command.
“Sometime today would be nice.”
The vampires simply stood there looking back and forth between Kiros and me, unsure of what to do.
“Let’s make this easy, shall we?” I offered, turning my attention back to Kiros. “Tell your little minions to let my family go and we will leave. You already screwed up the whole trying to kill me thing, and I, for one, would like to go home now.”
Before I had a chance to react, Kiros lurched forward, clutching my throat and lifting me. “This is not over, Azrael. Your warning is meaningless. You never had it in you to destroy us, and you never will.”
He was only partly right.
I didn’t have it in me to kill them all; I only ever killed when I was attacked first. I did, however, have it in me to show him how much I meant it, the only way I knew how.
“Take a look into my mind, Kiros, and see just how far I am willing to go.” There was no way he could resist a glimpse into any of our minds. Not when we’d been silent to them for so long.
It took little effort to flip that internal switch, to let go of whatever it was that stopped us from having our minds read. It was something I’d never done before.
As I felt the invasion, I remembered every ounce of pain I’d suffered at the hands of the vampires.
The exchange was silent, but it was profound. I’d seen so much in my time, more than anyone could see in a hundred lifetimes. The guilt I felt when I first had to defend myself and had killed the vampire I was up against. The grief I’d experienced with the passing of each of my mortal family members. The tears I’d shed at their gravesides. The pain of betrayal, of losing the last of my brothers, of watching my sister die so cruelly. And above all, the pain of losing the one person in the world I loved more than anything. That pain had lasted too long, every day, every breath, and every heartbeat for decades.
“You will never understand what that feels like,” I snarled.
Kiros dropped me to the floor, staggering under the weight of my memories. “I have lived through far too much to give up now. I will do whatever it takes to keep my promise to you. Never think I won’t follow through, and always remember we were the ones who made you what you are.”
“Let them go,” he whispered.
There was a new look in his eyes, not one of fear, though fear was still there, but what appeared to be regret. That would be a first, but I’d have to check with Leola and see what she was picking up. For now, I wanted to get Lizzy and Martin home safely and go back to normal. Well, as normal as was possible for me.
Lizzy and Martin were released, and she practically flew into my arms. She held me so tightly I thought for a moment she was trying to crush me. She wasn’t, she was simply relieved. I had Ray on one side of me and Lizzy on the other. There was one more thing I wanted to say before we left.
“Oh, and when I say my family, I mean all of them,” I told Kiros, “and that includes Ray, Poppy, Issac, Al, and Leola. You cross any of them, and I will keep my promise.”
“They come under our rule!” Elena protested, finally coming out of her daze.
“Not anymore.”
“You cannot do that!”
“I can do anything I damn well please, Elena. Get over it.”
It was hard to believe they were actually going to let us walk out of there without a fight, but as we turned for the door it appeared as though they were. Each step we took was a step closer to freedom. As soon as they let us walk out of the chamber, it was over. They could try to hunt us through the passages all they liked; we knew how to get out.
“You’re just going to let it leave?”
It? Elena had called me an it?
Elena hadn’t always had the cruellest of minds. She’d forgotten how her life started out with the vampires—helpless at their hands. The years of working to be the best and trying to earn their respect had twisted her view of the world.
“Let her go,” Kiros whispered, obviously not yet recovered from the influx of memories I’d revealed to him.
“Not this time.”
Ray was already trying to move me aside, trying to stop me from getting hurt. I was moving in the opposite direction, getting Lizzy out of the way.
Neither of us was quick enough.
Ray’s arms, tight around my waist, pulled just as I slipped my own around Lizzy’s. I thought I knew what was coming. I expected to feel fangs piercing my skin, but it never came.
Everything went wrong, and the scream of pain that filled the air wasn’t my own. It was Lizzy.
She’d been in my place when Elena’s teeth clamped down on their target. What she was attempting to achieve was beyond me; they’d already seen what happened when drinking my blood. Fortunately, Lizzy’s blood was as sweet as mine, and the flavour distracted Elena long enough for me to react.
The Seats had never tasted our blood before; they never got close enough. If they’d known how good our blood was, then we’d have been hunted for a whole other reason.
Elena was consumed enough with the flavour for me to pull Lizzy from her grasp. Handing her straight off to Ray, I growled, “Take her and leave.”
“Not without you.”
“I’ll meet you at the plane. Go!”
Turning away from my mismatched family, I stalked towards Elena.
“You have kept pushing me, testing the limits of what I am willing to do,” I hissed, daring any of them to attack. “I’ve had enough. You never believed we were capable of the things we claimed to be. That is going to change. Which memories of yours should I take, Elena?”
I stood in front of her now, glaring. Her eyes held no panic; she truly didn’t think I was capable of it. She refused to believe there was someone with the ability to control their thoughts, actions, memories, and desires. She thought everything The Seats had was of their own doing.
How wrong she was.
The reason they had such little opposition wasn’t because they were feared, it was because we instilled the fear of The Seats into every vampire we met.
If half the world’s vampires forgot that fear, then The Seats would be faced with destruction. There were covens with the number and the power to destroy them.
We were the ones stopping them.
“I would rather tear your head off,” she replied, fangs out, teeth bared.
“Try it!”
I was ready for anything. The other Seat members wouldn’t interfere unless they were given a direct request to help. The fight, what there would be of it, was between Elena and me.
Our encounters had never come to much more than one pinning the other against a wall. Blood was rarely drawn, and never mine.
She didn’t know I was armed. It was one of those subtle changes that had been made after losing Ray.
Elena and I were evenly matched, but I was working with an advantage. For once it was my short stature. Elena towered over me, meaning I could get in a blow before she had a chance to strike.
One thing I’d learned was to never make the first move. When she lunged, looking as though she was going straight for my throat, I let her come, waiting for the slightest move that would give away her real intention.
She wasn’t that stupid. A head-on attack was pointless and so easily blocked.
She forgot I was faster than she’d ever been.
At the last second she changed her stance, just a fraction. She shifted to the left, going for my arm, which was slightly outstretched, balancing myself for any kind o
f impact.
Coming from the side was a mistake.
I threw myself in the opposite direction, twisting my body as I did. I brought my foot up, jamming it into the side of her neck. The ground was the perfect propellant, giving me enough of a boost to throw Elena off balance and send her tumbling. She’d made what was going to be a short-lived fight much easier with her ineptitude.
I pinned her to the ground by the throat, cutting off her air. Not that she needed it.
“Should I take the memories of your brother?” I asked and saw a flicker of disbelief in her eyes. “Or perhaps you’d like to see what really happened to your mother?”
Her brother was the reason she was so bitter. She’d never been a particularly kind human, but she’d loved her only surviving family member. Her upbringing had been harsh, more so when the vampires found they could use him against her.
She often thought her memories of her brother were a dream and struggled to hold onto them. She wished she could’ve saved him.
“Should I take those dreams, Elena?”
“You can’t do that! You can’t know that!” Fear was clear in her expression.
“I know everything about all of you, and you have pushed me too far. You murdered my sister, slaughtered my entire race, kidnapped my family, and threaten my life. No more.”
Reaching out with my mind, I entered hers. The hate that was her most prominent feature was gone, replaced by a fear that almost made me change my mind.
Almost.
I wasn’t cruel, and I didn’t remove those memories of her brother completely. Once they were gone it was almost impossible to bring them back.
It was simple enough to make her think she’d forgotten him. She would know she had a brother, but beyond that, it would be gone. When the influence I wielded faded, she would be able to remember. If I let her. If she’d proven she’d changed.
Until then, she wouldn’t be able to recall his face or the way he held her when she was scared during those dark nights in the Russian mountains.
“If I ever see any of you near my family again, I will take what each of you hold closest to your hearts. I will not hesitate, and I will not forgive. You’ve had too many chances. I will not give you any more.”
There was no reason to stay any longer. The message had been delivered. Kiros was reeling from seeing into my mind, as were the others who had dared to look. Elena was broken, still coming to terms with the loss of her most heartfelt memories.
I raced through the tunnels, desperate to see Lizzy again, to make sure she was well. The vampire bite shouldn’t have affected her, but there was no way to know. It wasn’t known whether our descendants were immune to being turned or if the healing properties in a vampire’s saliva would have any effect on them.
Both of the cars were gone when I emerged. It was dark, which surprised me. By my count it had only been a couple of hours. The sun should have been rising in the sky, but it had already set.
“You got out alive, human?”
Of course there was someone waiting for me. It would’ve been far too easy for them to just let me go.
“No human walks out of the catacombs,” I reminded him, watching carefully in case he decided to strike.
“I know that better than anyone.” He smirked, licking his lips slightly.
“If you value your life, you’ll let me pass.”
“Let her pass,” another voice called from the shadows.
“Yes, mistress.”
What the . . . ?
“Serenity. It is good to see you again.”
“Do I want to know why you have vampires calling you mistress, Georgianna?”
“I thought you might like to know why I’m here. I’d rather you heard it from me than from anyone else.” She stepped out from a hidden recess, head held high.
The vampire slipped into the entrance, ignoring the pair of us as though we weren’t there.
“What is going on?”
“How do you think young Lizzy was captured? Do you know how they found her at your home? How they knew nothing of my grandson being a Were?”
“You! You handed over your own grandson to The Seats?” I said, outraged. “How could you do that? They could’ve killed them both!”
“They wouldn’t have harmed them,” she promised. “It is well within my power to ensure their safety.” And no doubt she was the reason Kiros couldn’t read their minds.
“Does he know? Does your son know?”
“You cannot tell them.”
“You ask too much of me.”
“I owe you my life a hundred times over. I’m not asking anything of you; I know you will do what is right.” She knew me far too well.
“And if I don’t?”
“Do you think, as old as I am, that I cannot see your future?”
“Pull a stunt like this again and you’ll not be seeing any futures.”
“My husband is dead, Serenity.”
The news caught me off guard. “When?”
“Yesterday morning. It’s why Martin was so distracted. Ultimately, the timing made everything easier, but you will not see me again,” she said, sounding so old.
“It doesn’t give you a right to do what you did . . . but I am sorry, Anna,” I whispered.
“You are dying to ask, aren’t you?” she said, smiling a fraction.
“You know me too well.”
“First, yes, I am older than you are, though I will not tell you how old. Second, they call me mistress only because I will it,” she explained, knowing exactly what I was curious about. “Some things even you don’t understand yet.”
“Then I hope I never will.”
“You will, but not for a very long time. Now, go. See to your niece.”
“If it’s your last request, then I’ll not say anything about your hand in this, but my warning stands.”
“You were always one of your word.”
“And you were always full of surprises.”
Neither of us liked goodbyes, and we left our conversation there. Her actions may have been unforgivable, but at least with a witch on our side, we’d had some say in the outcome. And I had to believe she’d protected Lizzy and Martin. Knowing Lizzy was safe didn’t stop me from racing through the bitter London streets in an effort to see for myself.
The plane was on a small, rarely used airfield and was sitting, door open, waiting for me.
“Where is she?” I asked, not bothering with hellos.
“Bathroom. She’s complaining she may have a scar, but other than that she’s fine,” Leola told me.
I would’ve been shocked at the pleasant tone to her voice, but Lizzy was my priority.
The second she stepped out of the bathroom, I engulfed her in my arms. “You scared me for a minute.”
“Yeah, like you didn’t already manage to give us all a heart attack with the whole dying thing you did,” she answered, laughing.
“Still, never scare me like that again.”
“We clear to take off?” Zach called.
I glanced at the door, half expecting to see Georgianna running up the steps after me. When I saw no one, I said, “Yes. Let’s go home.”
Lizzy spent the flight in Martin’s lap. She would indeed have a faint scar from Elena’s teeth.
It was clear she was comforting Martin, and I longed to offer my condolences, but I wasn’t supposed to know about his grandfather. So I kept quiet, watching and waiting.
A couple of minutes into the flight the tension became unbearable. “Will you please ask me already?”
“What did you do to her?” Leola had a fierce light in her eyes.
“I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you mean.”
“Shame, I always hated that bitch.”
“You didn’t kill them?” Al looked like I’d told him the most unbelievable thing in the world. “Then what did you do?”
“Perhaps I should explain something.” No doubt one of many things I’d need to clarify. “I nee
d them. More than you may realise. There is no guarantee there will ever be more of us, and I can’t police an entire race on my own. They enforce your rules, and your race fears them. I need them to continue doing so.”
“I can see your point. Even when there were many of you, we had troubles,” Poppy said, eyeing me with interest. “But I always wanted to break Elena. I wish I could have seen it.”
“You still have your sadistic streak, I see.”
She smiled brightly. “Some things never change.”
I explained what I’d done to Elena, avoiding the actual details of it. They didn’t need to know how she’d suffered in her life. If Poppy was aware of it, she didn’t say anything.
“Okay, I have a question,” Lizzy said. “I know you let Kiros look into your mind, but what did you show him to get him to submit like that?” There was a fierce, almost excited interest to her words.
“That was easy. I let him see . . .” As I started to speak, I felt Ray stiffen next to me, leaning away.
But he couldn’t read minds. He couldn’t have seen what I was thinking . . . unless . . .
“Ray?” I asked quietly. “Did you look into my mind, too?”
“I’m sorry. It just happened, I couldn’t control it . . . I’m sorry.”
I should’ve realised that by taking my life it would unlock something within Ray. It hadn’t occurred to me that all he needed to gain those basic vampire abilities was to have his first taste of power.
“No. You never knew. Listen to me,” I ordered, taking his face in my hands. “What I showed him was all the bad things I’ve seen. Fifteen-hundred years’ worth of death and destruction. The pain I felt when I lost you is nothing compared to the happiness I feel when I am with you. Please believe that.”
“But it was so much,” he whispered, pain etched across his face.
“Listen to me, Ray.”
I closed my eyes as I concentrated. They were private memories, feelings, and intimate touches. They were all Ray’s.
The Last Keeper Page 29
