A World of New (A Shade of Vampire, #26)

I took a seat with my parents, along with Rose and Caleb. Then my grandfather stood and called for silence.

“Right,” he said, steely determination in his bright blue eyes. “We will be returning to The Woodlands, all of us this time. And the plan is simple. We rescue any wolves they may have taken hostage, then locate every single hunter base there and destroy them one by one. Loss of hunters’ lives will be a factor we cannot take into consideration.”

I blinked. This was certainly a very different approach to how TSL usually did things.

“That’s kind of heavy-handed,” Abby murmured.

It was my father who responded to her. “Nothing but brutality will get through to these people. Some evils should not be given a second chance.”

I smiled to myself at his latter statement. My father was paraphrasing advice an oracle had once given him.

“We need to send them a message,” my grandfather went on, “that invading the land of innocent civilians is no way to combat criminals who might reside there. Not that they are attempting to do the latter anyway,” he added with a scowl. “This is nothing but a thinly veiled excuse for more control. We need to cause them problems in the supernatural dimension. We cannot make this easy for them.”

“They could have invaded other realms by now, right?” Gavin spoke up.

“Yes,” my grandfather replied. “It’s possible. Currently we only know about The Woodlands, hence for now it will be our focus. Does anyone have any objections?”

Nobody raised a hand. I suspected that many in this room were relishing the idea of finally giving the hunters their comeuppance.

“Good,” my grandfather said. “Now, Victoria said that most of the packs she visited were still unaffected. By now, of course, it could be a different story. But whatever the case, it does not seem that the hunters have been there long. I’m guessing that the base we entered is their main base, while others are simply conquered lairs. Hence, we will start by targeting the headquarters.”

“So we have to go to the Philippines first?” Ashley asked.

“No,” my grandfather said, shaking his head. “We won’t take the risk of returning through that portal. The hunters will be on high alert now, not to mention the fact that they have full sanction from the authorities to kill us or do whatever else they please. There is no need, anyway,” he went on. “We will use the portal we traveled through to return to The Shade. That leads to exactly where we need to be—the mountain where the wolves were gathered. So, there will be more questions and details to answer along the way, but seeing that nobody has any objections… let’s go.”





Grace





The plan was to travel in our helicopter-tank, Nightshade, to the portal in the middle of those fields that had bordered the enclosed city. The witches would make the vehicle invisible both during the journey there and also while we kept it waiting for us. My grandfather had already arranged to have the vehicle loaded up with ample weapons and supplies.

I walked by my parents as we all made our way to the clearing in front of the mountains, where our amphibious chopper was kept. While waiting in line, someone brushed against my right arm. To my surprise, it was Heath.

“Oh, hi,” I said.

“Hi.”

I hung back from my parents, letting them board first. Then Heath climbed up onto the ramp before extending a hand down to me.

“Thanks,” I said, uncertain of why he was suddenly showing me this attention.

To my further surprise, he kept hold of my hand as we moved through the aircraft. We passed Arwen and Brock, sitting together now. There were two seats free next to them, but as we approached, Brock splayed out his legs over them. Arwen and Brock glared up at us.

“These seats are reserved,” Brock said. “Move along, traitors.”

I chuckled, while Heath rolled his eyes. If they had really wanted to keep their relationship under wraps longer, they should have made themselves invisible in the woods so that Heath and I couldn’t pull off our prank.

We kept moving along. The seats were mostly filled up already, but as we neared the front, we spotted two empty ones in a row and sat down. As the helicopter took off, I gazed out through the window at our disappearing island. I always felt a bit sick taking off, so I was glad that Heath remained quiet.

About half an hour into the flight, however, he cleared his throat and said, “Do you mind if I talk to you about something?”

My eyes widened as I turned to him. “Of course you can,” I said. “About what?”

He looked uncomfortable as he scanned the seats around us. There wasn’t much privacy here. But what would he want to say to me in private?

He nodded toward the galley. “Care to join me in there?”

“Sure.” I might have jumped to my feet a little too enthusiastically.