Face stoic, Nikita answered, “You’ll have to get out of here as soon as possible.”
Both girls looked over at him. Nikita shrugged. “Any vamp within five feet of her will know she’s pregnant. They’ll assume the same thing—that you’re carrying the child of prophecy.”
Leisha was nodding her head as she studied him. It genuinely looked as if he was not going to report them. She was grateful for that, but concerned about his reasoning at the same time. “And they’ll kill us without a second thought.” She glanced at Nikita. “You’ll be branded a traitor by not reporting me.”
He folded his arms. “Not necessarily. They don’t have to know I was here.”
Leisha accepted that, and saw that Samantha had opened her mouth to say something, then seemed to think the better of it and remained silent.
“You’d best go then. Text me or Samantha if you get word of anything?” She gave a small smile when he nodded. “Thanks for everything, Nikita. You’ve been a good friend to us.”
He gave a closed-mouth smile, paused, then looked down at Samantha. His face was its usual impassiveness, but Leisha sensed emotion stirring within him.
“I wish you could come with us.” The girl forced a light smile.
Nikita hesitated, and glanced at Leisha. She made it clear with one look that she wouldn’t leave the two of them alone. He patted the top of Samantha’s head, then he strode out of the room and was gone.
Leisha left the room so Samantha could have a moment to herself. She was secretly glad Nikita wouldn’t be around Samantha anymore, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t feel sympathy for the teenager. It was hard for her to get deeply attached to people since their lives were in constant upheaval.
Leisha went into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water, apple juice, a bag of nuts, and some chocolate. She brought them in to Samantha and placed the refreshments at her bedside table. The girl was blinking tears from her eyes, but smiled appreciatively at the food.
“Eat and drink as much as you can. Then rest while I pack everything for us. We’ll sneak out during the assembly. Hopefully, no one will notice.”
Samantha grabbed her hand. “We won’t die, Leisha. I had a vision about your baby’s birth and the future doesn’t change, remember? ”
Leisha swallowed and nodded. No matter how cynical her thoughts, she wasn’t going to contradict Samantha. Last year, when the teenager had had a vision about her mother’s death, the girl had very maturely accepted it. Samantha would know better than anyone that once a vision was shown, it would happen.
Walking out of the room, she began packing up all of their things. She double-checked their various identities and passports. They would be on the run, again, and couldn’t afford for anyone to be able to track them.
When she was done packing, she sat on the couch to try and figure out their next destination. There was a whole world out there, but she needed to go somewhere Samantha would not stick out. It was school season, making it difficult to pass as tourists.
A twitch in her stomach interrupted her thoughts. She placed her hand over her belly, and wondered what kind of child would be born. She was a vampire and Tafari an immortal. Not sure if I want him to be more like his dad, or like me. Maybe that’s what the prophecies meant when they said this child would be connected to both the immortals and vampires. Maybe he wouldn’t have the power to destroy either race after all.
Massaging her temples, she wondered if she should tell Tafari. No, the question wasn’t if, it was when. Would he remain loyal to the immortals even if it meant handing over his own child? Leisha wouldn’t put it past him. He was loyal to a fault—almost fanatically so.
When it was finally time, she woke Samantha and helped her get ready. The girl was still very weak and her wounds looked terrible, but she was making good improvement. Leisha gathered their luggage and bit back her impatience as she waited for a sluggish Samantha to go out the door.
Raising her brows at the two carry-on bags, Samantha glanced at her. “What about our other stuff?”
Shaking her head, Leisha kept their pace. “It’s too much to take. I packed all the necessary items and left the rest behind.”
“And how many outfits do I have?”
The vampire pushed the button for the elevator. “Three, the same as me.”
Sliding doors to their right opened and they walked inside. “How long do you think we’ll be running, Leisha?”
“Don’t worry. I have plenty of money to buy us stuff once we’ve found a good hiding place.”
Samantha pressed her lips together. “I never said goodbye to Spencer or any of my other friends.”
Knowing there was nothing to say, Leisha reached over and gently squeezed her shoulder. The elevator dinged their arrival. “Stay close to me,” she cautioned. “We’ll get a cab once we put some distance between us and the hotel.”
The lobby was empty, and Leisha could hear Victor’s voice faintly from down a corridor. She grabbed Samantha’s hand and they walked as quickly as Samantha was able to. They were almost to the doors when Leisha felt another presence in the room. Hoping whoever it was wouldn’t notice her, she kept on.
“Are you so ready to depart?” Ellery called out. It was never a good sign when a vampire sounded that amused.
Chapter 13
Leisha stopped and turned to face the fellow vampire, Samantha staying close to her side. “There’s an emergency I must attend to,” Leisha said. “No offense was meant toward you or Victor.”
Ellery slowly walked toward them, her red evening gown swishing at her ankles. “If it was as innocent as that, my dear friend, you wouldn’t be trying to sneak away.” Her eyes narrowed. “And I have my powers back again. So I know how nervous you two are.” She placed a hand on Leisha’s cheek and looked into her eyes. “In all the years I’ve known you, I have never sensed such fear in you.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Samantha said.
Ellery turned her attention to her. “Ah, little beauty. I’m glad to see you survived the night. Congratulations on becoming a human servant.” Removing her hand from Leisha, she reached over and stroked the girl’s hair. “Too bad you couldn’t have been mine. I daresay I would have made the transition very enjoyable indeed.” Ellery angled her head slightly. “Finally. My summons have been answered.”
Leisha looked behind Ellery to see Annette and Victor striding toward them, a large group of vampires trailing behind. Leisha wished she had brought every weapon she owned. Unfortunately, all she had was a dagger strapped to her calf. Samantha didn’t have anything, let alone the strength to fight.
“Leisha,” Victor said. “Annette tells me you were trying to flee.”
Eyebrows drawing together, Leisha met Nikita’s gaze in the crowd. Very subtly, he shook his head. Ellery must have sensed Leisha’s confusion, because she answered Leisha’s unspoken question. “This morning, we discovered that Annette and I are able to communicate with each other telepathically. As a fellow telepath, you probably could too, if you were willing to let her into that complex little brain of yours.”
“I think a resounding no would be answer enough,” Leisha said. She looked at Victor and tried for ignorance. “What’s the problem, Victor? Everything has gone back to normal now. And ordinarily, I’m doing my own thing, so I thought I’d go back to my life.”
He gave a cold smile. “I believe we already had a conversation about your privileges changing to better serve me.”
Leisha straightened and took a breath, preparing herself for the unavoidable altercation. “I’m finished being ruled, Victor. I’ll not yield to anyone anymore.”
A flush rose to his cheeks. “You’ve made your choice then. I hope you understand: your fate will be much worse than Leighanna’s.”
Leisha pulled Samantha behind her and went into a fighting stance. At Victor’s nod, six vampires slowly began to approach.
“Wait a minute,” called Ellery.
Everyone stopped and
turned their attention to her. Leisha wondered if Ellery might actually try to save her.
The empath’s eyes sparkled in the crystal lighting. “I think you’ve missed a crucial detail here.”
“What would that be?” snapped Annette.
Looking at everyone in the room, Ellery raised her voice. “Focus carefully, all of you. Direct your attention on our Leisha here, and simply listen.”
It was a mere second before vampires started murmuring. Annette appeared thrilled. “It’s unheard of for a vampire to get pregnant. Even if one of us got pregnant while human, there is no way a fetus would have survived the transformation back. This has to be the child who has been prophesied.” She brought her hands together. “After all this time searching for him, and Leisha walks right into our lair with the babe nestled in her belly.”
A vampire standing on her left glanced between Annette and Leisha. He was tall and handsome with a thick head of black hair. His eyes gave off a shrewd intelligence. “We don’t know that this is the prophecy child. What if we kill it and then the true child is born later and destroys us while we sit in ignorance.” Victor stared at the man, his eyes slightly squinted in thought. “We can always kill them and continue our search to be certain. No one can ever accuse me of not being thorough.” Victor gestured to the six men who had halted. “I don’t care about the servant, but don’t kill Leisha. I want to know where that babe came from before I snuff out her existence.”
There was a buzz of people muttering to each other as they stood by and watched.
Leisha pulled out her dagger as they approached. “If you see an opportunity to run,” she whispered as quietly as she could to Samantha, “take it.”
Leisha rushed forward and met the oncoming vampires halfway. A vampire with spiky hair came at her in a full frontal attack. She dropped down to avoid his sidekick and swept her leg through his standing one, making him fall. She quickly plunged the dagger into his heart, twisted, and yanked back. It wouldn’t kill him, but he’d be down for a while.
Before she could stand, something grasped her hair and pulled her back flat on the ground. His mistake was when he proudly stood over her, both feet on either side of her waist. Arms reaching down, it looked like he was about to strangle her. She swung her weapon and castrated him, blood pouring over her. Spinning and quickly rising to her feet, Leisha faced her next assailant.
The vampire in front of her was named Carl. He smiled ruthlessly as two other vampires grabbed her from behind. She waited until Carl was close enough, then used the bodies holding her as leverage to jump and wrap her ankles around Carl’s neck. His arms flailed as she squeezed tightly, but it was too late. She released the head and landed just as his neck made a sickly snap. She threw the vamp on her right over her back so he landed on the floor. Before he could recover, she stomped on his windpipe, snapping his neck as well.
There wasn’t enough time to duck, so when the other vampire punched her in the eye, so she rolled with the force of it, flipping over backwards and jumping into the air. As she landed in front of her attacker, Leisha jabbed her weapon into his heart and twisted.
Turning, she smiled at the other challenger and beckoned him. The last vampire paused and looked to Victor for guidance. Leisha used that opportunity to rush back to Samantha, who looked like she didn’t know what to do. Leisha grabbed her arm and propelled her forward. “Run! I’ll find you.”
Samantha ran out the sliding glass doors. Leisha turned just in time to defend herself from yet another group of vampires.
This time there were seven of them. They came at her two or three at a time. Leisha fought off the first wave, but the second attack was more organized. The vampires landed several blows to her jaw and eyes.
Allowing anger to fuel her, Leisha growled and reached out on either side of her. She poked her fingers through the vampires’ eyes to buy her time. When she regained her equilibrium, Leisha saw six more vampires rushing toward the fight.
Three came at her directly while the others surrounded her from behind. Leisha brought her blade up and deflected the three in front of her while trying to use her other arm to punch behind her back. One of the vampires caught her free hand as she swung back and the other two behind her used that opportunity to grab her around the waist and neck. Her throat was bruising quickly under the pressure and she instinctively dropped her sword and clawed and the arm around her neck. She began to panic, her movements becoming wild and desperate.
Leisha could feel capillaries bursting in her eyes as more hands grasped her legs and forced her on the floor. Darkness threatened her vision and Leisha felt tears of defeat leaking out the corners of her eyes.
Suddenly, the bruising grips were ripped away and three vampires cried out in surprise as they were thrown into the watching crowd. Sputtering, Leisha was surprised to see Nikita there, fighting off the incoming vampires. He used a machete to decapitate anyone who came near him. Moving with grace, every motion of his arms brought a fresh spray of blood from his attackers.
The assassin made eye contact with her and nodded. She smiled at him and jumped up while fingering her dagger to return to the battle. After a few minutes, Nikita spoke to her. “We need to get out of here. There’re too many.”
Leisha nodded and looked around as she blocked one vampire with her arm while aiming a roundhouse kick at another’s head. Parrying another onslaught, she saw her opportunity. “Be ready!” she called to him.
She beat off the two vampires attacking her and before anyone else could challenge her, she turned toward Victor. He was standing on the counter of the front desk a hundred yards away to have a good vantage point, she assumed. He saw her look over and saluted her, trying to contain a smug grin.
Leisha copied his gesture with her left hand while she threw her dagger with her right. The blade flew swiftly, and Victor, caught off guard by such an aggressive move, didn’t move fast enough. The dagger sunk into his chest with a meaty thunk. Surprise flickered across Victor’s face as blood was blossomed outward from where the dagger struck — right into his heart.
The vampires in the room paused, their shock and disbelief evident.
Leisha used the diversion to make escape. She didn’t have to look for Nikita; she knew he’d be right behind her. They were out the doors and down the street in no time. Following Samantha’s scent, they caught up with her in moments. They didn’t bother to slow down. Approaching from behind, Nikita scooped the girl up into his arms and kept racing by Leisha’s side.
Samantha gasped when he picked her up, but calmed when she saw it was him. The girl closed her eyes tight and put her face into Nikita’s neck. Leisha knew from experience that being carried at such speed made Samantha phenomenally motion sick.
Nikita was turning toward the airport, but Leisha stopped him and pointed toward the border. “We travel on foot until we reach France.”
Shrugging, Nikita maneuvered Samantha to his back. Leisha ran to a tall building and climbed up the bricks, using her left foot as much as possible since her right leg was still healing. Her hands ached from the altercation with the vampires, but she still managed to ascend, with Nikita right behind her. Facing the direction Leisha indicated, they ran as fast as they could. Just before plummeting off the edge of the twenty-story building, they jumped. Wind blasted the vampire’s cheeks and hair as they hurtled high. Exhilaration crashed over Leisha like a tidal wave, sending tingling sensations up and down her spine, arms, and legs; she could hear Samantha whimper at Nikita’s back, but didn’t allow it to ruin the moment. Leisha couldn’t help but savor the feeling absolute freedom when she propelled herself toward the clouds.
They landed hard on another rooftop. Leisha’s knees buckled, but she recovered herself almost instantly. They continued on, leaping from building to building, working their way toward the edge of the city.
“We’ll have to drink more frequently if we continue to exert this kind of energy.” Nikita said after another long jump. “Though they might
track us that way.”
“No, they won’t.” Leisha wiped bloody sweat from her brow. Clear of the city, they dropped to the ground made a dash for a small forest. “I’ll pick out our victims. They’ll be the kind of thugs who don’t get reported missing. Trust me.”
Chapter 14
February 4th
Aarhus, Denmark had a beautiful old-country ambience, but Samantha simply wanted to be back in the United States. She had always thought travel would be fun, but when avoiding murderous vampires, it was just tiring.
After two weeks on the run across Europe, Samantha was relieved to hear that they were going home. That is, until Leisha explained that they would be starting a new life in Canada.
“I don’t want to live there,” protested Samantha. She got off the couch and looked out the window of their hotel room.
Leisha blew out a breath. “It’s a good place to hide, Samantha. You don’t have to learn a new language and can adapt to the culture easily enough.”
“We could do that in the U.S. There’s plenty of states to move between.”
Leisha shook her head. “No. We spent too much time there and it’s the first place anyone would look for us. Canada is the best place to go to ground.”
Hugging herself, Samantha turned away so her friend wouldn’t see the scowl on her face. She knew the vampire was right, but didn’t want to accept it. She wanted to go back to Ohio and see her friends. She didn’t want to have to start over again.
Leisha came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. “I know it’s been hard on you, Samantha. And I know that you may never forgive me for changing you, but all I can offer is my protection. In order to do that, you’re going to have to trust me in this.”
Tears threatening, Samantha turned away. She only took two steps before she bumped into Nik’s chest. Looking up at him, she felt a balm being in his presence. The vampire wasn’t pulling her into his arms for comfort, but she sensed that he cared. Somehow, that made her feel less embarrassed about getting emotional.
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