Lord Cato held up his hands. “Those three were headed to try to fix the shield the last I saw them.”
My eyes widened enormously. “You sentthemto fix the shield?”
“They’re druids. And Kimber’s the Breaker. Yes, they could have helped us when bombs were going off, but I thought they had failed since it wasn’t fixed. I didn’t know they were missing.” He leaned closer to a screen on the right. “Pull up this footage. It’s where they would have gone.”
I hurried to stand next to him, my eyes scanning the screen when they rewound the footage enough to show Kimber, Rilen, and Roran. I nibbled on my bottom lip as I watched them work, my eyes narrowing when Kimber disappeared off the screen. “Where is she?”
“We don’t have any cameras over there that haven’t been destroyed. This is as far as it goes.”
I huffed and crossed my arms…and watched as boulders crushed the twins in a blinding flash of golden light.
I gasped. “Rewind. That couldn’t have been right.”
But it was, the footage not changing.The twins were dead.
I swallowed heavily on a dry throat. “Leave it rolling. She must come back for them.”
Twenty minutes later, and there was no Kimber.
Lord Xenon growled, “Would she have run away after their deaths?”
“No, she’s in love with Dorian and Aiko, too. And she wouldn’t shirk her responsibility here.” I tipped my head back and stared at the ceiling. I breathed in once and out calmly. “The humans have her.”
“The shield is restored. But what happened while we were gone? Who are you talking about?” Dorian stated roughly from the doorway.
I spun to face him, keeping my expression blank. I glanced between him and Aiko while my soul mate’s jaw clenched behind the duo. Steadily, I said, “Both of you should come and watch this video. You might not believe me, otherwise.”
I walked to stand beside Bel while Aiko and Dorian took a position in front of the monitor. My mouth stayed shut while they watched Rilen and Roran die. I said not a word as Dorian fell to his knees and screamed his pain for the whole world to hear, and Aiko gripped Dorian’s shoulder to stay standing. I continued my silence until another half-hour had gone by while they waited for Kimber to return onscreen.
Then I turned to my soul mate, and I murmured respectfully, “Will you take them to your bedroom? We need to discuss a course of action to get the Breaker back from the humans.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can, little one.” His nostrils flared as he moved toward the duo. Carefully, he squatted down and pulled his brother’s right arm over his shoulder, lifting him when a limp Dorian couldn’t stand. “Follow me, Aiko. I’ll show you to my bedroom. The two of you may rest there for now.” King Belshazzar gradually made his way from the room, holding his twin up, with a silent, somber vampire following.
I turned my attention back to the occupants inside the room. I growled furiously. “Who are the fucking humans with that are attacking our shield right now?”
“The same as who’s been attacking us for a while now. Human Life First,” Lord Cato answered, his feet eating up the floor as he paced. “Their funding has expanded since the war started.”
“More money means more donors. It’ll be harder to pin down where Kimber is.” I pressed my palms to the table and glanced at the military personnel inside the room. “I want reports on any information you can find me about the HLM men who are out there fighting right now.Go.”
A mad dash of vampires raced out the door.
I glanced at my father. “This is bad.”
Lord Cato snorted. “This has turned into a goddamn goat fuck.”
I fell into a chair and placed my hands behind my head, waiting for any news that would come from our troops outside the stronghold. Someone had to have seen something.Anything.
King Belshazzar strolled into the room thirty minutes later and claimed the seat next to mine, both of us silent.
When the news did come, it was even worse than I’d thought. The humanshadn’ttaken her. She had gone on a damned killing spree, the most obvious reason being to avenge her dead lovers.
“Holy fuck,” I mumbled in confounded awe. “Our one salvation in this war has completely lost her fucking mind.”
Bel scratched at his chin, deep in thought. “She’s in the wind. We’re going to have to track her the old fashioned way. We’ll follow where the blood leads us.”
I dropped my face into my hands. I groaned hard and long. “We’re going to be stuck in a car with Dorian and Aiko. The only sleep we’ll get is in the damned vehicle—if we’re lucky.”
My soul mate hummed softly, sounding mildly excited. “I haven’t hunted a powerful prey in a long time. She better make the chase exciting.”
