I started. “What?”
Vax going to them without telling me was… actually understandable. It made sense with how he was. I also got why he hadn’t told me, Evira, or Zayn. It would be Dad and Kai’s price for admission into their secrecy, and Vax would reason that hehadto be pulled into that in order to protect me and lessen the danger involved in what they were doing. Father getting involved actually boded well. He was the voice of reason through most things.
“We must leave immediately, Winter,” Grandpa pushed again.
Evira rubbed my arm. “I need to speak with Vorzyr, but then Remnant will send me your coordinates and I’ll be right there with you at the safe haven.”
“Safe haven? We’re not going toGlacialis Arx?”I asked Grandpa.
“It is too well known.”
I swallowed at his response. Short, but deeply loaded.Fuck.
I went to lean in to say goodbye to Evira, but then Grandpa jolted.
“Go now,” he told Evira. “Take your leave to Vorzyr.”
“What are you sensing?” she asked, scenting the area herself, but frowning.
“Clan Languim. They’re cloaked,” Grandpa told her.
“The vampire clan that’s been growing in power, sometimes challenging The Shadowed?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Cloaked?” Evira asked. “Then how can you—”
“Leave. Now,” he ordered, the Commander in him out in full force.
As for how he could feel that sort of concealed approach… he was an Ancient Vampire who headed a clandestine underground whisper network. His senses were virtually unmatched. Even by a dragon as formidable as Evira Vortimer.
I pulled my hand from hers. “He’s right, little dragon. Please. I don’t want you caught in the crossfire.”
I could see the resistance all over her, the pain.
I hated it.
I hated all of this.
But she was obviously reading my distress, because she gave a nod, then went to call her magic to teleport out.
She never made it.
In the next second, Grandpa blurred forward, snagged both of us, then rushed us through the open door of the Ruminat hut, and out onto the campus grounds.
I jolted as blasts of magic tore into the hut in the next second, blasting it to kindling.
20
~Winter~
There’d been no time to get our bearings.
Blurs of motion filled my vision, just before two dozen agents of The Shadowed, their black robes whipping around them, burst into formation in front of the three of us, forming a double wall.
More blurs, and then fifty-odd vampires blurred into the immediate area facing off with them, snarling and hissing.
Clan Languim.
