Wrath

“North’s going to be a problem,” he said, his voice thick. He cleared his throat. “Charlotte won’t buy into it.”

“Why not? We’re about as far south as we can be, so going north means more souls to help.” I thought it made perfect sense.

“Not when there are three Daemoni clusters in our backyard. Fort Myers Beach, South Beach, and Key West are all minor now, but they can easily become one large Major Cluster. She’ll want to go there first.”

Blossom’s shoulders sank. “He’s right.”

“Well, then we need to think of something to make her want to go north,” I said. “And we need to leave soon.”

“Alexis,” Tristan said, “that’s a lot of souls to abandon down there.”

“We have to find our son,” I insisted.

“I know, ma lykita, but—”

“We can still look for him.” Blossom reached over and put her hand over mine. “If we’re converting close to home, we can come back here and keep trying. It might be better than hitting the road for a physical search when we’re not sure exactly how far north we need to go.”

“It’ll take forever to get through those clusters, though.” I pressed my palm against my forehead and thought for a moment. “Maybe we don’t take Char. She can go south with a team, and we’ll take our own team north.”

“We need her. She’s the only warlock we have,” Tristan reminded me.

I pushed to my feet with a sudden need to punch something. My phone buzzed again, and I whipped it out of my pocket.

“What?” I barked.

“Alexis?” came a girl’s voice, sounding small and scared.

My breath caught in my lungs.

“Heather?” I practically shrieked into the phone. Both Tristan’s and Blossom’s heads snapped toward me. “Oh, my God, are you okay? Where are you? Is Dorian with you? Tell me where you are, and we’ll come get you. You’re okay, right?”

“I’m . . . uh, yeah, I’m fine.” Her voice sounded a little better than I’d thought at first. I let out a breath of relief.

“And Dorian? Please say he’s with you. Please say he’s fine, too. Please tell me you two got away.” The pitch of my voice raised a couple of octaves as I spoke.

“I’m . . . I’m with friends. I’m fine. I had to check in with my mom, let her know I was okay, and she said you guys were probably worried about me because she’d called Blossom—”

“Is Dorian with you?” I practically screamed, unable to listen to her nervous babbling a moment longer.

“No,” she whispered. “He never was. Is he . . . he’s gone?”

I closed my eyes and swallowed, my throat tight.

“Oh, my God. I should have known something was wrong,” she continued, though her words were distant in my mind as I tried to recover myself. How had I let my hopes soar so high so quickly? “Sonya warned me to get far away. She called me the other night and said to run as far and as fast as I could. To hide. So I . . . I came to some friends up at FSU in Tallahassee. I thought Dorian was at the safe house. I thought he’d be okay.”

“He was,” I managed to say through clenched teeth. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her exactly what Sonya had done. Heather had tried so hard to make sure her sister never hurt anyone again, and how did Sonya repay her? Us? She turned on all of us and massacred my mages. Allowed my son to be taken. “Something happened, though. We’re still figuring it out, but I need you to stay away from Sonya, okay? Hopefully, she’ll stay away from you, too, but . . . I don’t know. I just need to know that you’re safe, and it’s not safe with her. You’re with your friends now?”

“Um, yeah. I’m going to hang out here for a while, probably all of my spring break.” She paused for a long moment. “We’re watching movies. You know, the ones with the hot werewolf and the vampire that looks like a drug addict.”

“Good,” I breathed. But relief only lasted a moment as realization set in.

“I’m so sorry, Alexis,” she said, her voice small again and full of sorrow.

“Stay safe, okay?” We’ll be there soon, I didn’t tell her.

“Please don’t worry about me. Just . . . find Dorian.”

Yeah, right. I felt nothing but worry about her as I pressed END on my phone’s screen.

“Sonya has her,” I told Tristan and Blossom. Heather’s sister had used the exact same words to describe a movie once. She’d been giving me a message.

“We need to go!” Blossom shrieked, jumping to her feet.

Tristan and I agreed without hesitation, and I called Charlotte to let her know where we’d be going. I wouldn’t call Mom, though. I didn’t have time to argue with her.

“I don’t like it,” Char said.

“She’s a baby vamp, and it’s daytime. Tristan and I can handle it.”

A pop outside had me peeking through the curtains to see Vanessa. She blurred into the house. “I’m going.”

I cocked my head.

“She’s a vampire,” Vanessa explained. “I can help. And it’s better than hanging out here where no one wants anything to do with me.”

“Vanessa’s going, too,” I told Charlotte.

“And me,” Blossom said. “That’s my girl we’re saving.”

Of course she’d want to go.

“Sheree wants to go,” Char said through the phone.

“I was close to Sonya,” Sheree said from the other end of the line, though her voice came from farther away than Char’s. She knew I’d hear her, though. “Maybe I can talk her down.”

With the image I had in my head of what I wanted to do to Sonya, I didn’t think it would be good for Sheree to be there.

“No,” I said to Char. “Sheree can’t go. She needs to stay and help you at the safe house.”

“From the look on her face, she doesn’t agree.”

“Too bad. Keep her there. We’ll be back later with Heather.”

Not waiting for further argument, I disconnected the call. Tristan, Blossom, Vanessa, and I took each other’s hands, and Tristan led us for the flash to Tallahassee. We had to flash around the city a few times before I finally latched on to Heather’s mind signature near the FSU campus, as she had said.

“She’s definitely with Sonya.” I focused harder, and then frowned. Some friends Heather had. But it made sense for them to be near the campus—college kids were probably prime targets for food and turnings. “And a whole nest of vampires.”

“Is—” Blossom’s throat moved as she gulped. “Is she . . . ?”

“Turned?” I shook my head. “No. Her mind signature is still human.”

The witch let out a loud breath of relief. “We need to go get her.”

With a nod, we set out on foot, and I led the others toward Heather’s mind signature until we came to a row of townhouses. Five mind signatures were within the homes, all vampires. Heather and Sonya, however, were behind the row of houses, in an undeveloped area clustered with maples, palms, and huge oaks draped with Spanish moss. Two other vampires were with them. I listened in as we approached.

“For the hundredth time, you have to turn her, Sonya,” a female vamp’s voice said. “It’s for her own good, and you know it.”

“For the hundredth time, no,” Sonya’s familiar voice answered. “I won’t make her live this horrible existence.”

“Oh, it’s not so bad,” came a third female, menace underlying her taunting words. “Besides, your only other choice is that we eat her.”

“No!” Sonya’s voice came sharper. “Leave her alone, Lesley.”

Tristan and I exchanged a glance, then we both blurred to the edge of a small clearing. Vanessa and Blossom showed up at the same time, Vanessa’s fist swinging toward me. I ducked, then heard a body hit the