The Assassins of Light

by Britney Jackson

  “Then, you should remember,” Kara said, “if you touch her, I’ll kill you.”

  Yolande smiled. “Guess the friendship’s over, then.” She spun around and headed down the hallway, her heels clicking against the hardwood floor.

  Kara stared after her, her brows furrowed. When the vampire turned the corner, Kara mumbled, “She must’ve married him recently. I didn’t realize…”

  Rose leaned against the wall, guilt and self-loathing coating her heart like slime. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to no one in particular. “I’m a horrible person.”

  Kara turned toward her. “No,” she said assuredly. “It was not your fault.”

  “Yes, it was. It’s always my fault. Can’t you see that?” Rose mumbled.

  “No, it’s not,” Kara said. She stepped toward Rose and lifted her hand to touch Rose’s face, the warmth of her skin contrasting starkly with the cool air. “You are not responsible for Logan’s visions—even if they were about you. You didn’t create his visions. His mind did. His power did. You can’t blame yourself.”

  Rose looked up at her, blinking back tears. “How many times does this have to happen before we admit the truth? That Alana was right about me,” she said, her voice shaking. “I leave a trail of corpses behind me everywhere I go.”

  “She told you that?” Kara said, her brows creasing with sympathy. “Rose, I know what it’s like to let Alana get to you. She knows how to manipulate you. She knows how to twist the truth, to make something sound just true enough that you can’t let it go. But…you need to remember that she was manipulating you.”

  Rose looked away. “How close were you? Before…her husband died?”

  “To whom? Yolande?” Kara asked. She stepped back, casting a glance down the hallway, in the direction that Yolande had gone. “We hadn’t spoken in decades.” She shrugged. “I…er…” She smiled. “I slept with her younger sister.”

  Rose raised an eyebrow. “That’s an odd way to make a friend.”

  Kara snorted, “Yeah, well, I also turned Yolande into a vampire.”

  Rose’s eyes widened at that. “Oh.”

  “It was a favor for her younger sister,” Kara explained. “When I fed from Yvonne—that was her name—I couldn’t kill her. I noticed her pulse slowing, and I just…stopped. Just like what happened with all of the other women I couldn’t kill. So, I gave her my blood. I’d taken too much already, so I had to establish a blood bond to heal her. When Yvonne realized what my blood had done, that it could heal people, she begged me to give my blood to her older sister: Yolande.”

  Rose listened attentively, her brows furrowing. “Why?”

  “Because Yolande was sick,” Kara sighed. “She was dying of leukemia.”

  “But if you healed her,” Rose said, “that wouldn’t make her a vampire.”

  “I didn’t heal her,” Kara explained. “I told Yvonne that it wasn’t allowed, and that I could be killed, just for what I did for her. Because we’re not supposed to reveal what we are to humans. The only time it’s allowed is if we’re turning the human or if we plan on maintaining control of them. As in…the way Osiris did.”

  “You mean manipulate them,” Rose corrected, “and abuse them.”

  Kara nodded. “Which is something I never did. I only established blood bonds with humans because I didn’t want to kill them, and I kept my distance—or tried, anyway. Occasionally, they’d seek me out. But bound to me or not, they still had their freedom. It was dangerous…and very much against Aaron’s rules. He knew, of course, and he didn’t like it. But he decided to look the other way because he needed me too much. But what Yvonne was asking me to do—to heal a human from a terminal illness—Aaron would’ve killed me for that. So, I told her no, and she hated me for it.” Kara looked away, sadness glistening in her eyes. “But Yolande was already in her last days. She died a few nights later, and…I felt it. I felt Yvonne’s grief for her sister, and I couldn’t stop myself. I went to her.”

  “And you brought her sister back to life,” Rose assumed.

  “I wasn’t thinking straight. I was feeling too much emotion,” Kara said.

  Rose nodded. “Was Yolande angry? When she awoke as a vampire?”

  Kara shook her head. “Not at first. At first, she was just grateful to be alive,” she explained. “She hated me later, though, when she had to watch all of her family members die of old age. It’s why she chose to join this colony, instead of the Tomb of Blood. She did eventually forgive me. A couple of decades later.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rose said softly. “I’ve come between you now.”

  “No,” Kara said. “Her desire to kill the woman I’ve sworn to protect is what came between us. Eventually, she’ll no longer be grieving, and she’ll have to choose to forgive your connection to his death or continue to hate you. And that will determine whether our friendship will ever exist again. You come first.”

  “I shouldn’t,” Rose said. “I don’t understand why you would put me first.”

  “Because I swore an oath of fealty to you, Rose. That means I serve you before anyone else. You hold my loyalty. The only loyalty I’ve ever really given belongs to you, and before you, my father. I don’t take my oaths lightly, Rose. I knew what I was doing when I swore that oath, and I believed, even then, that you were worthy of my loyalty,” Kara assured her. She leaned in close, bracing one hand against the wall, beside Rose’s head. “And also because…I love you.”

  “I don’t know why you’d love me,” Rose breathed, “why anyone would.”

  Kara brushed her fingers under Rose’s chin, tipping her head back. “You know what I do to people who insult the woman I’ve sworn to protect, right?”

  Rose offered her a weak, amused smile. “Threaten to dismember them?”

  “Among other things,” Kara said with a smirk. “Stop insulting yourself.”

  “Or what?” Rose teased, her smile widening. “You’ll dismember me?”

  “Well, no, because then, I’ll have hurt you, too,” Kara said. “Do you see the complicated situation you’ve put me in? So, do me a favor, sexy,” she purred, leaning closer, a smile tilting at her lips, “and stop being an asshole to yourself.”

  Rose smiled weakly. “We’re late for the meeting again, aren’t we?”

  “Probably,” Kara laughed. “Let’s go face Talulah’s disappointed scowl.”

  “You seem well-acquainted with that facial expression,” Rose teased.

  “Oh, Rose,” Kara said, “I make it my goal to become acquainted with it.”

  —

  They slipped into the communal room as quietly as possible, trying not to attract too much attention, but Talulah’s dark eyes immediately shifted in their direction. Rose stifled a laugh, as Talulah, sure enough, pinned them with that disappointed scowl that Kara had warned her about. The tall, powerful vampire waited impatiently as Kara and Rose navigated through the crowd of vampires.

  Talulah walked toward them, her shoes padding softly across the floor. When she reached Kara, she lowered her voice. “Do you do this to torment me?”

  “Of course. I live to torment you,” Kara quipped. A smirk tilted at her lips. “Lighten up, Talulah. The world isn’t going to end if we’re two minutes late.”

  “You don’t know that,” Talulah muttered. Her black eyes shifted toward Rose and softened with concern. “Should I be worried? Did something happen?”

  “No,” Kara lied. “There was a…situation, but it’s been handled.”

  Talulah continued to stare at Rose. “You’re only vague when you have something to hide,” she told Kara. “Rose, why don’t you tell me what happened?”

  “It was nothing,” Rose said. “I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”

  Talulah nodded in understanding. “I will respect your wishes, then,” she told Rose. “Let me know if you change your mind.” She turned toward Kara. “Do you see? I can respect someone with secrets, as long as they don’t lie to me.”

  Kara sn
orted in amusement, as Talulah spun on her heels and marched back to the center of the room. Kara leaned in close to Rose, the warmth of her breath tickling Rose’s ear, and whispered, “I think she likes you more than me.”

  Rose laughed. “I think she likes everyone more than you.”

  “Okay,” Talulah announced. “Now that everyone is here, let’s begin.”

  Aaron joined her. It was funny—the way they contrasted: Talulah, with her regal posture and commanding presence, and Aaron, with his I-couldn’t-care-less-about-this posture and dangerous presence—and yet, somehow, despite their differences, they stood together, prepared to work together to save their species.

  “There’s no time for argument or debate,” Aaron said tiredly. “The war has all but begun, and we must act quickly, if we want to take down the Assassins of Light before it begins.” He shot an irritated glare at Talulah. “And believe me: whatever argument you think you have, we’ve already had it. All damn day.”

  Talulah sighed, “What Aaron is trying to say is…we didn’t come to this decision lightly. If there were any other options, we wouldn’t be doing this.”

  Rose glanced at Kara as she sensed a sudden rush of anxiety—that didn’t feel like her own—but Kara kept her gaze straight ahead, her emotions masked.

  “We can’t keep waiting for them to attack us,” Aaron declared. “We must attack them. We must do it while we have the element of surprise on our side.”

  James, Talulah’s second-in-command, argued, “But we believe in peace.”

  “I could have sworn I said no arguments,” Aaron grumbled irritably.

  Talulah looked at James. “I’m afraid peace isn’t an option right now.”

  “The Assassins of Light will attack us, whether we’re prepared to fight back or not,” Aaron said. “The vampire colony that they destroyed in Japan was proof of that. At this point, we either destroy them, or we wait for the humans to rise up against us. If that happens, we won’t just be fighting the Assassins of Light. We’ll be fighting the entire human race. I think most of us agree that wouldn’t be good. For the human-sympathizers, it would be…immoral, I suppose,” he grunted, as if he thought that was nonsense. He glanced specifically at Rose and Erik, obviously directing that one at them. “And for the rest of us, it’s inconvenient.”

  Talulah sighed at his apathy. “The point is…we need to get rid of the Assassins of Light, once and for all, and we can only do that by attacking them.”

  “According to the information we received from Kara Unnarsdóttir, they are gathering for an important meeting in the United States later this week. At least half of their organization will be there…from all around the world,” Aaron explained. “That is our best chance to attack them. We would cripple their army overnight. But in order to do this, we must be ready to travel by tomorrow night.”

  Rose watched Kara out of the corner of her eye…because she felt it, still. The anxiety. Building. Knotting up in her stomach. Fluttering in her chest. Even though she couldn’t see even a hint of it in Kara’s face, she knew what Kara was feeling. She knew that there was something about this plan that Kara didn’t like.

  “We’ll leave tomorrow night. At nightfall,” Aaron explained. “If you’re not skilled in combat, you’re welcome to stay here. If you’re too afraid to fight.”

  “What Aaron is trying to say,” Talulah sighed with a roll of her eyes, “is that no one is going to force you to fight. That’s not how I lead. It’s your choice.”

  Rose watched, in her peripheral vision, as Kara rocked back on her heels, sliding her hands into the pockets of her leather pants. Rose heard a soft clicking noise, and she realized, as she saw the slight twitch and curve of Kara’s knuckles, that she was typing something into a phone—a phone that was in her pocket.

  Kara’s piercing, light blue eyes shifted toward Rose so suddenly it startled her. She held Rose’s gaze for a moment before leaning toward her, the warmth of her breath dancing over Rose’s ear. “I can feel your gaze on me, sexy,” she said in Rose’s ear, her voice low and seductive. “I’m going to need you to look away.”

  Rose blushed and looked back at Talulah and Aaron. She heard the click of the keys, still, but no one else seemed to notice. Everyone else in the room was too focused on their leaders, too concerned with the battle ahead, too engaged in worried whispers, to notice the devious vampire in the corner, hiding her phone.

  “You’ll have plenty of time to pack later tonight,” Talulah said, hushing the noisy crowd of vampires, “but right now, we need to go over the plan. Listen closely. We only have one chance to get this right, and the last thing we need is someone going rogue.” She looked directly at Kara when she said that last part.

  Rose cast a quick glance in Kara’s direction, but of course, she hadn’t needed to worry. Kara looked totally natural—her weight on her heels, her hands in her pocket, her icy blue eyes sparkling with amusement, a sly smirk on her lips.

  Talulah scowled at that sly smirk, but she continued speaking, anyway.

  Kara moved closer to Rose, the scent of violets and leather filling Rose’s senses. Rose tried to keep her gaze on Talulah, but she could already feel her body reacting to Kara’s closeness. Rose straightened in surprise as she felt the warmth of Kara’s breath on her neck, the warmth of Kara’s hand on her back, and then, with no warning whatsoever, the arousing sensation of Kara’s tongue on her neck.

  Rose spun toward Kara, finding herself encased in Kara’s arms, the front of her body pressed against Kara’s. “What…what are you doing?” she squeaked.

  Kara cupped her hands around Rose face and kissed her, drinking her in with a passion that almost made Rose forget they were in a crowded room. Almost.

  Rose pulled back when she heard someone giggle. “What are you doing?”

  “Your heart was racing,” Kara whispered, nipping at Rose’s bottom lip.

  Rose barely even heard what Kara said—she’d said it so softly, so quickly. But then, she did hear it, and she lifted her eyebrows. “Well, uh, this isn’t helping.”

  Kara’s lips curved against Rose’s—her smile playful and sly. “Of course it isn’t,” she murmured against her lips. “But now, it has a good reason to race.”

  Rose blinked as she understood: this was about the phone, still. The kiss was meant to be a ruse, to hide the real reason that Rose was anxious. “Don’t you think,” she said, breathless with desire, “a little kiss would have been enough?”

  “Oh, Rose,” Kara murmured, “you know I never do anything halfway.”

  “Kara!” Talulah snapped suddenly, startling them. “Are you listening?”

  Kara turned to look at her, but she kept her arms locked around Rose’s waist. “Of course,” she said with a smirk. “How else would I follow the plan?”

  Talulah’s deep, black eyes narrowed suspiciously, but she turned away, anyway, and continued to speak to the colonies, explaining each step of the plan.

  As soon as Talulah looked away, Kara released Rose. “Come with me,” she whispered, and then, giving Rose no time to object, she grabbed Rose’s hand and started pulling her through the crowd of vampires, heading toward the door.

  “Wait,” Rose whispered, jerking her to a stop. “What are you doing?”

  Kara turned, her gaze darting toward Talulah before returning to Rose. “We have to go. We have about twenty seconds until they realize we’re gone.”

  Rose’s eyes widened. “But,” she sputtered, “what about the plan?”

  “We’re going rogue,” Kara said with a smirk. “Obviously.”

  —

  “This way,” Kara said, tugging Rose in the opposite direction of the stairs that led above ground. When she noticed Rose’s puzzled frown, she tilted her head closer, so that she could whisper in Rose’s ear. “We need to get out of here unseen, and there are guards near the stairs. So, we’re using a secret passage.”

  Rose rolled her eyes. “You’re going to get me in trouble, aren’t you?”
>
  Kara opened the door of a seemingly random room and stepped inside, heading straight for the bed. “Didn’t anyone tell you?” Kara quipped, as she lifted the bed with one hand. “That’s what happens when you date the troublemaker.”

  “Is there a reason you’re going all Superman with the bed?” Rose asked.

  “Close the door,” Kara urged quietly. She tilted her head toward the full-sized bed in her hand. “And get underneath the bed. I’ll join you in a second.”

  Rose flashed a cute smile at her. “So, I’ll be the monster under the bed?”

  Kara chuckled, “Quickly, you adorable nerd. Before we get caught.”

  Rose knelt and crawled underneath the bed, feeling the rough planks of wood beneath her hands and knees. “So, uh, what will happen if we get caught?”

  “We’ll face Talulah’s wrath, for sure,” Kara muttered distractedly. “Some of the boards should feel loose. Find the loose ones, and then, set them aside.”

  Rose ran her hands over the floor, feeling the cold, solid wood beneath her hands, until finally, one particular plank of wood shifted beneath her hand. She tried to grasp it, but the crack between the planks of wood was too small for her fingers, and her fingernails were too short to use. So, she placed her hands on her thighs and focused intently on the plank, using her telekinetic power to lift it into the air. As soon as she moved it, she could grab the next several loose boards and move them as well, until she uncovered a small trapdoor. “This is so cool.”

  Kara laughed, “You think so?”

  “I’ve always wanted to find a trapdoor,” Rose told her, in a deeply serious tone. “I mean, the only way this could get any better is if it leads to Narnia.”

  Kara smiled. “It leads to a place with snow. Does that count?”

  Rose wrinkled her nose. “You mean…outside? As in…right above us?”

  “Just a little bit south of here,” Kara corrected, “but basically, yes.”

  “No,” Rose said with a disappointed pout. “That doesn’t count.”