‘You’re what!?’he roared so loud I winced.
‘We’re on a little scouting mission, nothing dangerous, I promise not to die.’
Hurt colored our connection, seeping from him and then into me.‘Aspen, what are you hiding from me? What don’t you trust me with?’
The way he said it gutted me. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, it was that I was scared and mad and a little embarrassed about the way I’d treated him when we first met, when I was no perfect Godly specimen myself.
‘I do trust you, Luka.’My heart softened.‘It’s… personal … and really bad. Earth shattering actually.’I hadn’t even told him that Sterling died. Shoving things in my deal-with-later pile was working, but for how long?
‘Bad. Earth shattering? Shit, Aspen, tell me. Now I’m worried.’
“It’s down there!” Demi whisper-screamed over the wind, pointing to a small village that was surrounded by a tall fence that was tipped with barbed wire.
‘I’ll tell you tonight. Promise. Gotta go now.’I hoped Luka wouldn’t be too pissed, but by the scream of frustration he left on his departing out of my head, I wasn’t sure I would get my wish.
“It’s like a jail,” Liv observed.
I leaned over the side of Pearl and looked down as she circled the top of the village. It was smaller than I imagined. I counted eight little huts with thatched roofs and a larger barn type building in the center of the encampment. The tall walls rose up around the structures, looming and casting a shadow over everything.
There was a well at the back wall, and I watched as a woman pulled a bucket of water up with skinny arms. Another woman, in her early twenties and fully pregnant, waddled across the yard with a child on her hip. The kid looked about three years old. My eyes scanned rapidly, noting that of the dozen or more women I saw, nearly every single one was pregnant and nearly every one had a child with them of varying ages. From a toddler to a teen.
“Why keep the children? I thought they sold them?” Sage asked, as confused as I was.
I peered closer and noticed the women’s feet were bound, two cuffs held by a chain between to keep them from running.
Anger built inside of my chest so tightly it felt like a bomb ready to explode.
“I don’t know,” Demi growled. “But we are getting every single one of them out of there. Now. Let’s land and fight.” Demi slipped off her cuffs and my eyes widened.
I didn’t bring any weapons, thinking this only a scouting mission, but already I was eyeing things on the ground I could use. A sharpened stick, an axe. Demi was right to be enraged, these women and children were clearly being mistreated and we could easily take them out of here now. I noticed no guards, which was surprising considering how well protected the fence was, and the chains on the women. Clearly they were valuable to someone.
“Hell yes,” Liv growled, making a fist as she glared at the neglected women down below. If our mothers were down there … I couldn’t even fathom that.
Marmal pulled a shotgun from beneath her cloak and grinned.
“Okay, this is happening.” I rolled my neck out, prepared for the surprise raid. The women couldn’t see us yet, but as Pearl descended they became clearer. Dirt-stained cheeks, sun-kissed skin, scratches and cuts on their legs and arms.
When we were just ten feet from the ground, I saw her: a woman of Asian descent with long black hair who looked to be in her early forties. I always wondered which parent I’d gotten my Asian heritage from, and without the bleaching and bottle dying, my hair was black as ink.
Mom?
She walked with a teenager who looked like a miniature version of her, and it felt like I’d been punched in the gut. A sister?
“The kids are the next breeders. They keep one to keep it all going,” I said aloud as it hit me.
That was my mother and that was my sister. A future breeder.
Bile rose in my throat at the thought of the sweet teenager before me becoming a—
Pearl shrieked and a zapping sound cracked throughout the space. A bubble-like rainbow of magic appeared over the encampment, as if it were topped in a protective dome. Everyone below looked up.
Pearl shot into the sky as our own protective shield dropped, and for a split second the Asian woman looked up at me. We looked eyes and her hand went to her throat in shock. Pearl frantically flew higher just as a dozen figures in black cloaks appeared out of nowhere. When I say nowhere, I mean one second they weren’t there and the next they were. Like they themselves had been cloaked as well and now that cloak fell away.
“Munai!” Demi shouted just as one of the cloaked figures stepped forward and pulled back their hood, looking up into the sky.
Holy demon from hell.
My blood ran cold as I gazed upon the creature before me. I couldn’t believe I’d spent my entire life thinking vampires were evil. No, this monster was the epitome of evil. It wasn’t the long stringy dark hair or the black, claw tipped fingers that frightened me. I could even get past the black network of veins running up its face. It was the eyes that made my stomach go sour.
