We all barely made it out of the way of the rocks.
“What the hell?” I demanded.
“Majesty, there’s fighting down below. I don’t know what’s going on,” Melchior said, pressing a headset to his ear. “I can’t—”
“Let’s go!” I snapped and led the way back through the halls. “This better not be some stupid enclave infighting. I will end them all.”
“I don’t think it is,” Felicia said, also pressing her Bluetooth so she could hear better. “There are wounded of all clans and enclaves. There was an explosion.”
“In thestronghold?” I was appalled. No one ever dared to attack this mountain. “Who? Who is doing this?”
“I don’t know, your highness!” Felicia ran her hands through her hair, distressed by her inability to answer the questions.
I ordered, “Get everyone out of the public spaces. Get them all back to their rooms. If they are visiting, have them split among the apartments. Keep everyone out of the hallways! We have to get the security force through them, and I don’t want people getting hurt.”
My attention snapped to the overlords, who were desperately trying to gain their sobriety back from the overabundance of blood at the ridiculous party they insisted was tradition.
First act as queen, that disgusting display of decadence was never happening again…if they let me.
I could see they were going to recover, so I had that for me. As we headed for the deepest parts of the mountain, the very ground shook again. I didn’t like this. I didn’t like that the whole mountain was moving.
What kind of explosives did they have?
Felicia barked commands into her Bluetooth, and we all started running.
Two explosions?
Or was this a mistaken analysis of an earthquake?
We were in the area of the world the humans called The Ring of Fire, and we were subject to both earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
Was this stronghold about to be consumed by a volcano? We would have to evacuate immediately—everyone would get out, but our lives would be left encased in granite.
I stopped dead, and the half-sober overlords behind us crashed into Nial.
I pointed at Melchior. “Get everyone out of the mountain. Treat this like an eruption. Out. I’d rather let them back in after everything is fine than lose a single life. Go.”
Melchior took off at vampire speed through the hall to implement the evacuation plans I knew existed. Felicia, Nial and I started down the hallway, this time at near vampire speed to where she had said the source of the problem had been.
The chamber, where only hours before thousands of vampires had been housed while I was crowned, lay in shambles. ‘Shambles’ was kind, I corrected myself. It was gone. The mountain had been brought down, crushing nearly three-quarters of what had been open area before, and there was a hint of cold, thin air in the room.
“A breach,” Nial said.
A bullet whizzed by us, embedding in the rock nearby—and exploded.
Everyone ducked into a crouch.
The overlords completely sobered at that moment. Someone had breached our stronghold and was now going to start firing at us, with blast rounds. And those rounds meant that whoever was trying to get in knew exactly what we were.
And how to kill us.
Another bullet and explosion.
“We have to find out where that is coming from. This isn’t a volcano.” Lord Pippin, who had been the least drunk and was the most sober, now crawled up to me. He looked at Felicia and Nial. “I don’t know if it’s smart to evacuate or not, but we’ll let it go for now.”
“They can get away much easier this way if we’re being attacked,” Nial offered.
“Who is properly outfitted for a firefight?” I looked at the others around me and watched as only Felicia and Nial raised their hands. “You lazy ass overlords. No more blood parties.”
