“Good idea,” he said. “Also, have your go bag ready with or without Layla. If for some reason I have a hiccup in my plan, I will text you a 911. Jo will take care of moving Layla to Maine.” He pinned me with a hard but soft look. “Promise me you’ll bolt if it comes to that.”
I pushed to my feet, swallowing a damn elephant. “I really want to know what you’re up to, but I know no matter how much I try to beat it out of you, you won’t budge. But I trust you implicitly, Pops.”
He stood and grabbed my arms. “Son, promise me.”
I stared into his green eyes, my pulse staccato. I couldn’t leave my family. But they would be safer without me. It would be easier to disappear alone than with a wife and four newborns in tow. Above that, I couldn’t and wouldn’t allow the council to make an example out of me. Dying in battle might be an honorable soldier thing. But handing my ass over to the council so they could send a message to the human government or to anyone—no fucking way.
“It won’t come to that, Pops. I have faith you’ll succeed. But if not, then I’ll disappear.” Bile burned its way up to settle in my throat. Layla would not be on board with this, but if I knew my wife, she would understand.
My father briefly closed his eyes and released a breath. “Good, son. Good.” Then he pulled me into a tight hug, his heart freaking the fuck out.
Good or not, war or no war, my father and I had reached a new pinnacle in our relationship—one that was tighter and fiercer than ever before. He’d always put the military and vampire laws before anyone. Knowing he put me first told me I wasn’t out on an island alone, swimming upstream against enemy forces. I was grateful and thankful I had him, and as a dad, I understood him more now than ever before.
I hugged him. “I love you, Pops.”
He squeezed me to him. “I’m proud to call you my son. I love you, Sam.”
But as we broke apart and walked out of the war room, that nauseous feeling reared its ugly head. It wasn’t the war, the battles, and the killing that made me sick with fear. I would gladly fight twenty-four seven. The tornado inside me was from knowing Layla had to fight. She had the drive, the attitude, the feistiness, and even the skills, given that she’d hunted and murdered vampires. But she had two things against her—one, she was human. She could die from a single bullet. And two, time wasn’t on our side. I prayed I had a chance to physically prepare her.
15
LAYLA
After Sam left over two hours ago, Jo and I watched the press conference. Every news station was streaming Adam’s comedy show. Newscasters were speculating about whether the vampires had drained the blood of Fred Emery and me.
I was still fixated on the TV as I sat on the couch in the birthing suite, fuming, dumbfounded, and shaking like a magnitude-five earthquake. My eyes hurt from the thousand eye rolls I’d done after watching Rianne’s speech on national television. Her fake crying and words would almost have had me puking if it weren’t for the rage overpowering my senses.
Adam mentioned that the military vampires are holding his brother. Well, they’ve also taken my sisters. That’s why I’ve signed up. I want to fight them. I want to save my sisters.
Give me a fucking break.
My name is Rianne Aberdeen. My family has hunted vampires for centuries. I know how to kill them, but as a human, I don’t stand a chance against someone as powerful as Sam Mason. That’s why I’m a willing participant. And no, I’ve not made the change yet. But I will. I have to. My older sister, Layla, has been compelled by Sam Mason to fall in love with him. She’s even pregnant by him. My grandmother is distraught over this. Layla, if you’re listening, please come home. Granny needs you. I need you.
My sister was more demented than I’d ever thought possible. Yet smart as a fucking whip. Or maybe it wasn’t her idea to appeal to the masses. I would guess Roman had come up with the plan. The irritating vampire had the smarts. After all, he liked to play head games. I envisioned his death by a zillion cockroaches eating him alive.
Nevertheless, Rianne said she hadn’t turned, but why not? Was she afraid? If I knew my sister, she wasn’t frightened. She’d boasted about becoming like Sam. She felt the only way to kill him was to be like him. As fiercely driven as I was to knock some sense into her to stop the madness, Iwascurious to see how she would fare if she turned vampire or monster. Would she resemble our cousin Noah, who looked like a cross between vampire and shifter? On top of that, I was also dying to know if her blood type was Vel negative like mine. I understood that siblings didn’t necessarily share the same blood type. But it would be hilarious if Rianne got knocked up by a vampire. I was reaching for straws, but she and Matthew seemed quite chummy on TV together.
Jo had said the same thing about Rianne and Matthew. She hadn’t seen the chemistry the first time she’d watched the press conference but picked it up on her second go. Even then she was just as flabbergasted. Mainly because of Matthew Costner. Apparently, Sam thought Matthew was siding with the enemy of his own free will. But the fact that he’d been kidnapped by Roman’s men was throwing Jo for a loop. But she could almost accept the possibility that no one had coerced Matthew to speak on national television.
I’d heard a lot about Alia’s son, but I’d never met him. My takeaway on Matthew was that he was of sound mind. If he had a chip in his head, I couldn’t tell, and I knew firsthand what the chip had done to Sam. He’d been a different person, almost feral in nature.
What still had my ass glued to the couch were the people outside the naval base gate, some of them carrying signs that read Free Layla. I let out a maniacal laugh, but beneath the deranged sound, my nerves were rocking and rolling like a boat in high seas. Steven Mason had predicted Adam would use the media to his advantage. I didn’t know what was worse—using weapons like daggers and guns or drawing on psychological weapons, like controlling the narrative, to infuse fear or maybe even excitement into the minds of billions of people. After all, Adam was offering one hundred thousand dollars to potential candidates for his experiments.
Icy fingers tiptoed down my spine as visions of an apocalypse danced before me. We had to start packing, moving, finding a place off the grid. Or, hell, on another planet. Sam and I would never be able to raise our kids in a peaceful environment. We would always be on the run. I was sure there were two camps of believers when it came to me. Those who felt I was in danger and others who felt I was disgusting for sleeping with a vampire. The latter probably thought it was a sacrilege to have a vampire spawn. Little did Rianne know I had quadruplets. Regardless, panic was pressing on my chest like a three-hundred-pound weight. I didn’t care about me but only my babies.
I swallowed the dryness in my throat as that familiar burn increased with each breath. The one that warned I needed blood.Weird.Now that the babies were born, I would’ve assumed I didn’t need any. Maybe I was addicted. Maybe I had to wean myself off the sticky red stuff.
Rubbing my throat, I went over to the fridge. I’d seen blood vials on the top shelf when I grabbed a bottle of water earlier. I pulled out a tray and sifted through six tubes, hoping one of them was Sam’s. The labels had numbers and dates on them with the exception of one that had Sam’s name on it.Bingo.I just needed enough to cool the fire. So I popped the rubber top and poured most of the contents onto my tongue. The second the candy-flavored blood slid down my throat, I moaned out a sigh.
Satisfied, I replaced the top and inserted the remains of the tube into the tray and returned it to the fridge, thinking of Jo. She’d said she would be right back when she left about fifteen minutes ago to talk to Sawyer, who’d asked her for Kendra’s number. She didn’t know why, but Sawyer mentioned it was important and that he would explain later.
I was more than curious about Kendra. She’d been an enigma—a mystery vampire who seemed to be in the wrong places at the wrong times. Maybe I wasn’t meant to talk to her or learn her story. My uncles had accused her of murdering my father. Maybe she had, which was why I felt like she was avoiding me. We’d swapped texts right before I’d seen Jordyn trying to get into the prison building. Kendra had mentioned she wouldn’t be back in the States for a few weeks.
Jo had sensed something big was going on that involved Kendra. What could possibly be bigger than what I’d just watched on TV? I would’ve followed Jo, but I needed clothes, and I didn’t want to leave in case I had to feed the babies. The nurses had taken them down to the nursery so Doc could run more tests on them.
The walls of the birthing suite were closing in on me. Where was Sam? Was he able to free Jordyn from prison? I would call him, but I didn’t have my phone either. I would venture through the building to my apartment, but I didn’t have a key.
Argh! I felt helpless as annoyance had me ready to scream. Instead, I resumed my spot on the couch, my attention on the TV. The sound was off, but I didn’t need to hear what they were saying. Sam’s picture on-screen said it all, as did the banner on the bottom—“Truth or fiction. Are vampires real?”
