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Chapter Fifty Seven
"Michael, you can't come back to the house tonight," Coderin spoke nervously into the phone.
"What? Why, what's going on?"
"Are Seth and Matthias with you?"
"Yeah, they're here. Speak."
"Anna….may have done something." He looked at her with the expression of a brother ratting out his sister, his pretty amber eyes dimming slightly. She gave him a small smile of understanding.
"Did what?" Michael's voice flattened out.
"Before you get mad, know that what she did was very brave and pretty kick ass."
"Coderin."
"Well, I don't have the details on how this was accomplished yet, but somehow she is here with three very old, very vampire weapons."
Complete silence for a drumbeat. Then Anna heard Matthias say "How the fuck??" Then Seth, "Uh, why can't we come to the house?"
"Well it seems she may have been followed home…and what followed her may be angry enough to shake the ground outside."
"Put Anna on the phone." Michael's voice was deadly.
Code held the phone out for her with an expression of sympathy.
She took it and spoke quickly, "I know you're angry, but I wanted to help."
"How did you help, exactly?"
"I got the weapons."
"No, I don't mean how did you help,” he enunciated the words like he was speaking to a child, “I mean, how the hell did you do it?"
She rarely heard Michael swear, which definitely didn't bode well, and her explanation wasn’t likely to make it better. She looked around the room for help and Harriet held out her hand.
"Hello Michael."
"I want to speak to Anna."
"Anna’s a little nervous about explaining."
A pregnant pause. "Then you explain."
"First I want you to know that this is partially my fault. In fact I doubt she would have gone through with her plan if not for me. You see, I overheard her talking about it, and I felt it was something she had to do. And I never doubt my intuition."
Another pause and Anna could feel the animosity in it.
"You still haven't said what she did."
Harriet gave her a reassuring look before continuing. "Her plan didn't go exactly as intended. She meant to coax her way into Jared’s house and deny him when he tried to bite her, which in my understanding would have put him out of commission and given her a chance to search his dwelling to lift the items in question. But as it turns out he did drink from her, which is why he is here. However she did accomplish her mission as she was able to get the weapons no one else could acquire. I understand your anger, it was a gamble, but my intuition has never been wrong. Even this vampire being here seems fated somehow, though I can't say why."
There was a full ten seconds of silence this time before Michael responded. "We'll be there in the morning." The phone went dead.
Anna looked at the floor.
"Don't worry, they'll get over it. I definitely think it was brave," Coderin smiled reassuringly, his other worldly eyes back to their usual twinkle, and she smiled gratefully back.
They didn't feel any more tremors, but none of them were particularly interested in going out on the porch to look around. They settled in the sitting room with some music and beer and Anna spent the hours until she went to bed worrying about what the following day would bring.
**
Jared prowled around the perimeter of the house seething with rage. He couldn’t decide who he was more furious with-that bitch who had tricked him and caused him more pain than he’d experienced in seven centuries of life, or himself for not being more fucking careful. He had given his cock the reins and the consequences had been…indescribably horrific.
Who in the fuck was she? He'd never heard of her, not one word uttered about a vampiress holed up in America. As far as he and everyone else he’d ever encountered knew, the only females were on this continent. And the male who had hauled her inside was also unfamiliar. From America as well?
His mind went back to his recent agony and his hand went to his crotch reflexively. He had never experienced anything remotely like it. In his seven hundred years of life, he had never touched a female who didn't want him. Which was immensely fucking puzzling since she had fucking wanted him! She’d been soaking wet when he’d touched her and he had smelled her arousal. She’d cried out “NO” just as he was attempting to enter, but that was bullshit. It didn’t work that way, they had to mean it in the fiber of their being, not just say the fucking word!
There was one thing he knew for certain, he would never again touch another female without first eliciting a vow from them. He frowned slightly, wondering why she hadn’t made him suffer out the full three days. Did she think he would show her mercy for that? If that were the case, she had made a terrible mistake. His hands clenched into fists, trembling with the desire to strangle her. I am going to squeeze her fucking throat until it shatters and then put a knife through her black fucking heart.
He thought about the pierced up vamp who'd come to ask him about his weapons and knew he must be linked to her. Another death he would mete out. Maybe he was her lover. Good, he would kill her in front of the fuck first. He continued prowling around the house as if he could find an entrance. The estate was well protected, and considerately so, it actually warned someone first before it shocked them to their knees. Right at the porch steps he'd heard a shrill buzzing in his ears to alert him that he was about to be fried. He had not bothered with that at his own place, no one came to visit him anyway and if someone did they would not be welcome. They would find that out in a big hurry, no warning first.
After a while his fury died down a bit and he made himself comfortable in a group of trees where he could monitor both the front and back entrances. He concentrated for a moment and felt himself dim.
This was not the dimming they used for humans, that version didn't even require effort. This was his own special brand which he’d dubbed deep dimming. No beings on earth could sense him in this state. Unfortunately it only lasted up to seventy-two hours and then it would be three days before he could use it again. But he didn't think it would take seventy-two hours to get at them. Sooner or later they would cautiously leave, and not sensing him they would think they were safe.
He would wait through the day as well, since he couldn't be sure that all of the vampires dwelling within would be turned and unable to go out in sunlight.
He stared at the house and after a couple of hours without any signs of movement his thoughts drifted.
Following each hyberstasis he had eventually run into someone from his past. Many had tried to coax him back into the fight, but he had always declined. As time passed he found fewer and fewer of those he recognized. Some had turned, though no one he'd ever been close to. And some had disappeared like him, dead or living he couldn't say. Most had been killed by either a human mob or other vampires who had turned. He'd heard the stories of the females who had hunted down and killed every last member of their sex who refused to turn and knew his association with them should make him feel shame. He thought perhaps his pain tonight had been a punishment for that association but it didn’t matter, it was nothing compared to the punishment he would deliver.
The last time he'd been close to as furious as he was at the moment he'd killed the half-turned shit in the gaming dungeon-and he’d taken care of that problem in much the same way he would take care of this one. He stared at the house once more, wishing someone would grow a pair.
Come out, come out, where ever you are.
**
Shortly after sunrise a car pulled up the driveway and he sat up, fully alert.
It parked in front of the porch and two male vampires, the pierced one among them, and a...Lyncane climbed out. A Lyncane, what the hell? He'd heard rumors that they were extinct or at the very least had settled in the far reaches of the earth. And they certainly were no longer friends of the vampire, hadn’t been in centuries.
The trio ran up the porch steps and disappeared into the house leaving Jared to sit there puzzling. So there were at least two vampires who could be out in the sun and they were buddies with a wolf. What the hell was going on here? Suddenly he was not certain of anything.
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