“I’m sure.” I looked her in the eyes, hoping to convey that I had this handled. “Trust me.”
The truth witch would see this moment too.
Her brows knotted in confusion, but she nodded. “Okay, then. Let’s do this.”
While the boys readied the hunting party, I went to the vampire armory and tossed around my engagement ring, telling them I was about to be their new queen and I desired Kevlar vests for eleven people, two duffle bags filled with weapons, and a fifteen passenger van. When one of them nodded and said they just needed to clear it with Luka, I told him that wasn’t necessary. He looked mildly terrified of me, and I was sure he would call Luka the second I left, but that was okay. By then we would be gone, and Luka could pretend to be pissed, but he’d do nothing to retrieve the van, I was sure of it.
I gathered Jason and his crew of ten hunters, which included Vaz and Liv, and I shuffled everyone into the van. Once they were all in, I barreled out of Vampire City as fast as I could on the off chance I’d misread Luka and he really didn’t want me to go. As we approached the gates leading out of the city, I slowed for the two guards.
The gates were closed.
Were they normally closed? I had no idea. I’d ram them if I had to. I rolled down my window when I recognized the lead guard as one of Luka’s right-hand men. Diego, I think was his name.
“Miss Rose.” He nodded and the gates opened.
Relief spread through me and I swallowed hard, returning the nod and passing through into the mortal world.
“So, what’s the plan?” Jason asked from the back seat as our team suited up in Kevlar.
I’d been giving this a lot of thought. We could wait until Maz left the House of Rose building hoping to lure me into a fight … or we could surprise her, flush her and everyone else out of the building and then get Ruby and scram before she had a chance to organize any type of attack.
“We start a fire, flush them out, and hope she brings Ruby when she evacuates.”
Jason’s eyes widened. “And if she doesn’t?”
I nodded. “I’ll go in and get Ruby out. I’m a vampire. Surely I can sustain some burns and heal.”
Liv pulled a lighter from her pocket. “Want to test that theory right now?”
I rolled my eyes, getting onto the highway and heading for downtown Spokane. “No. It will be fine.”
I was going to burn down the House of Rose.
No big deal.
* * *
About one hour,fifteen gallons of gas, and ten Molotov cocktails later, we arrived a block away from the House of Rose.
“Let’s light this bitch up,” Liv growled, double fisting the glass bottles full of gasoline. Long strips of cloth hung from the open mouth of the bottles.
I paused a second, thinking about the repercussions of what we were about to do. There were good people in there, good hunters who had no idea of Maz’s dirty deeds. They were going to be heartbroken if this building went down—but if it meant saving babies from getting sold like slaves, then I’d do what I had to do.
“Liv, you still have that hunter email thread from last Christmas? The one we emailed behind Maz’s back to set up that surprise for her?”
We normally all had hunter email addresses that ended with @HouseOfRose, but last year all of the hunters had needed to plan a surprise party for Maz and so we’d opened private emails. Something Maz would never see or track. I deleted everything. I hated if an email sat in my inbox for more than a few days, but Liv was an email hoarder.
“I think so yeah, but no phone or computer.” She shrugged.
“Use mine.” A Thorn hunter chick with short-cropped black hair handed Liv her phone.
Liv set the bottles down and grabbed the phone.
“Thanks.” I smiled at the girl.
Not everyone had been cool with me when I first turned into a vampire, but it was nice to see at least one person warming up to the idea. Liv logged into her private account, pulling up the old chain email we’d done for Maz’s Christmas surprise.
Bingo.
