Wrath

mind. “If you’re not focused, you’re nothing but a liability.”

I’d ridden on the back of his motorcycle this time instead of on my own, and he felt my rage escalating. I inhaled deeply, but the Daemoni energy gagged me, and I blew it out quickly. So I focused on the feel of my body against his, on the rumble of the bike underneath us. He shared with me a sexy image of the two of us together, which partially annoyed me—how could he think of that right now?—but succeeded in distracting me.

I’m fine, I said after a moment, and I was.

“For the record, I can think of you naked anytime,” he said. “Especially in times like this when I need the distraction myself.”

Thanks for the tip.

“My pleasure.” I could feel him smirking. “Maybe when we get out of here, we can act on it.”

Hmm . . . it would be nice to have some time alone.

“That’s what I’m talking about.”

My lower belly warmed, making the distraction a complete success. My temper came back under control, and I wanted control now. Because I would wait to unleash my wrath onto those who truly deserved it: Lucas and Kali. We had no further information about which one took Dorian, but I didn’t care. They’d both done enough to hurt the people I loved to deserve everything I could give them.

Vanessa directed us to a church on the outskirts of town, close enough for me to reach the central area of the Daemoni’s keep—down by the river, home to the bar and tourist scene, as well as the port, where freightliners docked. We crept inside the church, but it had apparently been abandoned. Go figure. Charlotte put up a shield and cloak over the entire building, then I sat in one of the wooden pews, closed my eyes, and opened my mind.

I scanned the entire area first, reaching as far as I could possibly go, which proved to be much farther than I could a month ago. Our training had apparently been working. Holding onto a small thread of hope, I searched for Dorian’s mind signature, but didn’t find it. In fact, I found only a handful of child mind signatures in the whole city. What had the Daemoni done to all the children? A sick feeling crawled along my spine, making me shudder.

I searched for Lucas and Victor, and Kali and Owen, too, but none were here.

So then I began sweeping through the Daemoni minds, skimming over their putrid thoughts, stopping only when something sounded interesting. Very little did. My mind was open to Tristan, Charlotte, and Vanessa, so they could stop me if they heard something I didn’t.

“Whoa, back up,” Vanessa whispered at one point. We’d just heard the word summoned from a vamp by the docks and Virginia from another with him.

“What the hell is this guy talking about? He’s a fucking idiot,” the first vamp thought.

“I’m tellin’ you, man. It’s in Virginia,” the second guy said aloud, but the first only snorted in response before moving the discussion on to the jewels in the crate at their feet.

I looked at Vanessa, and her eyes tightened for a moment. “I guess it was nothing.”

“Are you sure? You look like you know something,” I said, studying her face closely.

The corners of her mouth turned down. “I heard those two words—summoned and Virginia—and it sparked a memory of something I heard a long time ago. Something Lucas was spewing about one time, about the Summoned.”

“As in the sons?” I asked, excitement lacing the question.

“I think so, but I’m not definitely sure. It’s not like he told me anything when it came to shit like that.”

“But he did have plans for them?” Tristan asked. “Did he mention Virginia?”

She shook her head, the tips of her blond ponytail swishing across her back. “Like I said, he hardly said anything. Nothing that made sense, anyway. It was just one of his typical blow-ups that he never mentioned again. I don’t even know if this is relevant.”

“But it could be,” I persisted. “Dorian could be a Summoned. Rina said we needed to watch out for them, and Mom thinks they could all be together. Why are you just now mentioning this?”

“He’s not a Summoned, though. Not yet. And what Lucas was saying—I didn’t understand his rant, but he sounded angry with them. Whatever it was, if it had been anything at all, he wouldn’t have lumped Dorian in with the rest of them. He values the boy’s potential way too much.”

“But something must have clicked in your mind,” I said. “Something in Virginia?”

She threw her hands up. “I don’t know what to tell you, Alexis. The two words caught my attention, so I said something, but apparently there’s nothing to it. Now that we’ve listened to them, I can tell you I don’t know those two, so if there’s anything to this at all, I know for sure they wouldn’t be in the loop. They don’t have the status. But you said if anything caught my attention to let you know, so I did.”

“They could have been talking about anything,” Charlotte said. “Who the hell knows? Maybe his creator is in Virginia, and he’s being summoned there. Vampire masters can do that, you know—summon their children. There’s no telling what these guys were talking about.”

I sat back in the pew, tapping my fingers against my lips, but nodded. Char was right. There could be nothing to the whole thing. Probably just mundane thoughts like everyone else’s. Nobody knew anything here. Except, perhaps, Vanessa.

Still, I kept my mind focused on the docks for a little while longer, skipping back to those guys a couple of times. The word summon popped in again, but before I could grasp onto the full thought, something else caught my attention. Something very close. As in right outside the church.

“Two newborns,” Tristan said.

I focused my mind on their thoughts. Seems like they’re only a couple of days old. They’re lost and confused.

Tristan and Char nodded, then she crept over to a window. I snuck up behind her, and we peered outside. Two women who appeared to be in their mid-twenties huddled together near a tree barely outside the church’s property line. They wore torn dresses, their hair looked like rat nests, and dirt smudged their newly porcelain skin. Their eyes were big and glassed-over as they darted around, unable to settle on anything. One woman’s hand scratched at her throat, and on closer inspection, I noticed their eyes were sunken deeply into their cheeks with purple half-moons under them.

“They’re starving,” I whispered.

I sought out their thoughts and shared them with the others. The women seemed to have no idea what had happened to them. They knew they were thirsty and what they were thirsty for, but they hadn’t found any humans since they’d awoken. In fact, they hadn’t seen a single soul since their transformation. Damn irresponsible vampire parents. If there had been any humans nearby, these two would have massacred them without proper guidance. Especially as thirsty as they were now.

“They’re prime,” I said. “We need to go out there.”

“Let Vanessa and me go first,” Tristan said. “They get a whiff of you and we’ll have a bigger problem on our hands.”

He motioned for Vanessa and Charlotte to head for the front of the church, and I followed him to the side door in the back. He and Vanessa went out first, and as soon as they had control of the two newborns, Charlotte and I came out and began our work. We’d barely said, “you’re safe with us,” when I felt the surge of mind signatures heading for us.

“It’s a trap!” I yelled.

We blurred for the motorcycles, but Daemoni already surrounded us.

“Thought we sensed Amadis around,” a female vampire said as she sauntered closer to us, “and look who we found.”

Tristan, Charlotte, and Vanessa all moved in on me, but I wasn’t about to let them fight without me. I pushed myself between Tristan and Char, and we all stood in a square, shoulder-to-shoulder. I swiped my thumb over the dagger at my hip and extracted it from its sheath at the same time Char pulled hers from her cleavage. Brass knuckles, covered in silver, already covered Vanessa’s fists.

Ten Daemoni, all vampires, closed in on us. Fools. The sun shone brightly over us, which had to have