No. “Dad!”
“Dresden!” everyone shouted at the same time.
I breathed again when his face reappeared.
“Will-your mom… Trust—” His voice cut off with the weak connection, but I could still see him. “Can’t-bring-life?—”
The image disappeared.
“Damn it!”
Shadows rushed into my phone, and I looked up at Dante, grateful.
“I need backup!” Dad growled when we reconnected.
“I’ll send the knights right away!” Hannes vowed just as Vampiri suddenly flashed in the background.
The sound of the tower falling led them straight to my dad.
Those left from Countess Dariah’s guard rushed to meet them and protect my dad, crashing against them in a mayhem of claws and fangs.
Our view swirled next, the camera facing the sky. Fear gripped me with the realization, the phone had dropped from his hand. The image of my dad bursting into his massive white wolf abruptly crossed the sky, and he landed on a crawler a second before the connection cut off permanently.
My heart slammed against my chest as I lifted my gaze to the others.
“I can feel him!” Bjørn gasped, immediately transforming into hisotherform while heblinkedout of the room.
“What do we know?” Hannes asked, dragging his troubled gaze away from me, and focusing on Dante and André.
“They took the Viscountess to Cairo,” Dante whispered, processing the info. “But where exactly?”
“It has to be somewhere with as little population as possible for them to be able to build their fortress, but close enough to a city to still have cell towers they could highjack with their blockers,” Isis explained, also trying to makes sense of what we’d heard.
“It doesn’t make sense, why would they go to Egypt?” Hannes asked.
“He said this was bigger than us, and something about bring-to-life,” I repeated watching André abruptly become pale.
“I know why they are there…” he whispered, a million thoughts whirling in his eyes. “They don’t want your blood torecreate your hybrid power…” Distressed, like I’d never seen him, he pulled his phone out of his pocket, dialing. “They want to transfer your power away through the blood.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Dante demanded before I could ask.
“Is everything alright?” Countess Dariah’s voice came through the speaker.
“They are planning to wake Charles Martel by feeding him Natasha’s blood!” he hurriedly warned.
Dante’s eyes darkened. “We can’t let them or?—”
“He’ll become unstoppable,” Hannes finished, the Beast’s voice distorting his own.
“Over my dead fucking body!” Mother hissed, hanging up the phone.
“Charles Martel as in the Vampiri Ancient who ruled the Martell Dynasty?” I asked, their trepidation falling over me.
I’d learned about him from André and what I’d read in the Vampiri history book left for me in the bookshelf.
Charles had been one of Alekxandru Dracul’s oldest friends—Dariah’s father. He was turned by Alekxandru, but later betrayed him, leading the first Vampiri War and attacking their kingdom.
His original power was emotion control, which meant he could force anyone to feel anything he wanted with a single touch. He’d been a masterful manipulator until the second war where Mother took her kingdom back and sentenced him to a horrible punishment…
