"Pay attention!" Riley commanded. "I'm not tel ing you this for entertainment."
"This enemy coven," Kristie interjected. "They're talented. Right?"
Riley gave her an approving nod. "Exactly. I'm glad someone here can connect the dots."
Raoul's upper lip twitched back over his teeth.
"This coven is dangerously talented," Riley went on, his voice dropping to a hushed whisper. "They have a mind reader."
He examined our faces, looking to see if we got the importance of this revelation. He didn't seem satisfied with his assessment.
"Think, guys! He'l know everything in your head. If you attack, he'l know what move you're going to make before you know it. You go left, he'l be waiting."
There was a nervous stil ness as everyone imagined this.
"This is why we've been so careful - me, and the one who created you."
Kristie flinched away from Riley when he mentioned her. Raoul looked angrier. Nerves strained universal y.
"You don't know her name, and you don't know what she looks like. This protects us al . If they'd stumbled across one of you alone, they wouldn't realize that you were connected to her, and they might have let you be. If they knew you were part of her coven, there would be no delay in your execution."
Chapters 11
That didn't make sense to me. Didn't the secrecy protect her more than it protected any of us? Riley hurried on before we had too long to examine his statement.
"Of course, it doesn't matter now that they've decided to move on Seattle. We wil surprise them on their way in, and we wil annihilate them." He whistled a single low note through his teeth. "Done. And then not only is the city al ours, other covens wil know not to mess with us. We won't have to be so careful to cover our tracks anymore. As much blood as you want, for everyone. Hunting every night. We'l move right into the city, and we will rule it."
The growls and snarls were like applause. Everyone was with him. Except for me. I didn't move, didn't make a sound. Neither did Fred, but who knows why that was?
I was not with Riley because his promises sounded like lies. Or else my whole line of logic had been wrong. Riley said it was only these enemies that kept us from hunting without caution or restraint. But that didn't go along with the fact that al other vampires must have been discreet, or humans would have known about them long ago.
I couldn't concentrate to work it out, because the door at the top of the stairs had not moved. Diego...
"We have to do this together, though. Today I'm going to lead you through some techniques. Fighting techniques. There's more to this than just scuffling around on the floor like toddlers. When it gets dark, we'l go outside and practice. I want you to practice hard, but keep your focus. I am not losing another member of this coven! We al need each other - every one of us. I wil not tolerate any more stupidity. If you think you don't have to listen to me, you are wrong." He paused for a short second, the muscles in his face shifting into a new arrangement. "And you wil learn how wrong you are when I take you to her" - I shuddered and felt the tremor through the room as everyone else did, too - "and hold you while she tears off your legs and then slowly, slowly burns off your fingers, ears, lips, tongue, and every other superfluous appendage one by one."
We'd al lost a limb, at least, and we'd al burned when we became vampires, so we could easily imagine how that would feel, but it wasn't the threat itself that was so terrifying. The truly scary thing was Riley's face as he said it. His face was not twisted in rage, the way it usual y was when he was angry; it was calm and cold, smooth and beautiful, his mouth curled at the edges into a smal smile. I suddenly had the impression that this was a new Riley. Something had changed him, hardened him, but I couldn't imagine what could have happened in one night to create that cruel, perfect smile.
I looked away, shivering a little, and saw as Raoul's smile shifted to echo Riley's. I could almost see the gears turning in Raoul's head. He wouldn't kil his victims so quickly in the future.
"Now, let's get some teams figured out so that we can work in groups," Riley said, his face normal again. "Kristie, Raoul, get your kids together and then divvy up the rest evenly. No fighting!
Show me you can do this rational y. Prove yourselves."
He walked away from those two, ignoring the fact that they fel almost immediately into bickering, and made an arc around the outside edge of the room. He touched a few vampires on the shoulder as he passed, nudging them toward one of the new leaders or the other. I didn't realize at first that he was heading in my direction, because he took such a wide way around.
"Bree," he said, squinting toward where I stood. It looked like this took some effort.