There was no way I could take on a bunch of humans by myself, not if the goal was to not hurt anyone. Or, at least, not kill anyone. I sucked in a breath and darted into the hall, heading for the back stairs. A low chuckle stopped me in my tracks. I whipped around but wasn’t fast enough. A pair of large hands grasped my wrist, the motion faster than the snap of a whip.
“Well, well, well,” a low, throaty voice purred in my ear. “Looks who’s finally doing what she’s told. A pleasant surprise, Lacey.”
“Jerrod?” I jerked around as far as I could, but my arms were pinned at my sides, my shoulders rotated back at a painful angle. “What are you doing? Let me go!”
“You got lucky last time,” he hissed against my ear as I continued to struggle. “I’m not going to let you catch me off guard this time. You’re mine now.”
Ice slithered over my skin at the implications of his words. “You’re with them?”
Jerrod laughed, his breath felt hot and scratchy against my skin. “I’m an enterprising man, Lacey. I go with whoever can give me the best deal. I know full well that your father fixed my fight. He never wanted me to win the tournament because in his eyes, I’m not good enough for his daughter. Sure, I’m good enough for him to use. He’ll let me bleed for him, do his dirty work, but he wouldn’t let me have you. He won’t let me be one of the nobles.”
“And you think turning on him is going to improve your odds?” I scoffed, still fighting to get free.
“By dawn, there will be a new sheriff in town, one that sees me as an equal.”
I snorted. “Melanie? She might be a vampire but she doesn’t see you as an equal. She sees you as an ant. Something to crush if it gets in her way.”
“We’ll see about that,” he sneered. “Either way, you’re coming with me. I wouldn’t want you to get hurt in the fighting, after all.”
He propelled me down the hall, using his brute strength and pain when needed to keep me moving forward. We passed a bank of windows and I looked out, horrified at the scene in the yard below. Vampires and humans clashed in a sea of fighting. It was like watching a horrible war movie with the volume turned off. Court vampires poured out of the exit carved into the sub levels of the house, and were met by the turned vampires and Melanie’s humans. I couldn’t see Melanie, but I didn’t doubt that she was among the fighters. She wasn’t the type to sit on the sidelines.
“What happened? They were supposed to stay in the dungeon,” I said, not expecting an answer.
“Melanie’s fighters got inside and flushed everyone out. It’s only a matter of time. The Court is outnumbered four to one.”
“Where is my father?” I demanded, straining to get closer to the window.
“Melanie wanted to deal with him personally,” Jerrod answered, a sickening amount of glee in his voice.
Chapter 25
I didn’t have to wonder for too long as to what was happening between Melanie and my father. Jerrod steered me through the mansion until we reached my father’s study. Melanie sat at my father’s desk, her booted feet casually propped up on one corner. A wooden stake wound through her fingers like a baton as she stared at my father. He stood opposite her, wrapped in heavy silver chains, the ends of which were held by a pair of guards.
“Lacey!” my father said, surprised by my sudden appearance.
Melanie looked at me, her face a mix of disappointment and fury. “Oh, yes, the loyal daughter. Jerrod told me all about how helpful you’ve been since our last chat.”
“What you’re doing is wrong, Melanie. I get that you’re angry about what happened. It’s not like I was living in Club Med for the past five years. I paid a price for helping you get free and this is what you do? Have your people massacre the entire Court and give me over to whichever monster asks for me?” I jerked my head to indicate Jerrod who was still holding my wrists tightly behind my back. “You’re no different than the rest of them!”
“I gave you a chance at freedom, Lacey. You didn’t want it.”
“What was I supposed to do, Mel? Go back to Beechwood Harbor and pretend everything back home was just fine? Sitting around waiting for the news piece that gave a tally of the carnage?” I shook my head and scoffed. “Not an option.”
“Well, you made your choice and I’ve made mine. By tomorrow, the Eastern Court will no longer exist. I was just discussing the options with Father. He can either turn himself into the SPA and let them deal with him, or I can have him dealt with here and now.”
There was no doubt as to her meaning.
“Where’s Mother? Aunt Gemma and Uncle Kevin?”
Melanie waved the stake like she was batting away a mosquito.
My fangs slid down and I bore them at her.
Behind me, Jerrod went limp, releasing his grip on me. Melanie’s head lifted, her eyes wide, and I whirled around, one hand unsheathing my saber. A gasp ripped from me when I saw who’d dropped Jerrod.
Matthias was there, his eyes and face red from the silver dust smoke bomb. His chest was bared, red striations appearing where the silver had touched his skin. The distraction caught the guards holding my father and he didn’t waste a second of the opportunity. He ripped free of their grip, dropped the chains, and within a blink of an eye, had both men incapacitated, dropping them to the floor.
Melanie shot to her feet but he flew at her, a mad peal of laughter bursting from him. “You’ve been spending too much time with the humans, Melanie. You’ve gone soft!”
He hurled her back into the wall and the wooden stake in her hands fell to the floor.
I dove to the floor and grabbed the chains that had fallen from my father. With my gloves on, they didn’t hurt my skin. Lunging toward my father, I offered them to him. “Father! Here. Don’t kill her.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” he growled, looking down into Melanie’s wide eyes with pure rage. “She’s likely organized the slaughter of her entire Court!”
“Most of them ran,” Matthias said. “Her people were scared and untrained. They didn’t know how to corral them.”
Melanie’s fangs flashed at his assessment of her team.
“Let the SPA deal with her,” I said. “That’s what she was offering you.”
“Is that what you want, Melanie? To see what the SPA will do with you? I imagine they’ll lock you in a cage underground for the rest of your endless life.”
Melanie tensed her jaw, doing her best to hide the shudder that rippled through her.
My father laughed, the low chuckle loosing goosebumps up my arm. Matthias wrapped an arm around my waist, holding me close to his side.
“It’s for the best,” I said. “I’ll make the call right now.”
I was reaching for the phone on my father’s desk when Melanie jerked up and slammed her forehead into our father’s. He hesitated a fraction of a second, but that was all she needed. She wrenched free of his grip, slammed an elbow into the side of his head, and slid across the floor to retrieve her wooden stake.
“No!” Matthias barked, lunging for her just as she brought it down.
He was too late.
The stake plunged into my father’s back and a scream ripped from me.
Melanie cackled and then launched herself out the window, breaking the multi-paneled glass into a million pieces that rained down on the lingering fighters below.
“Father!” I screamed again, going to his side.
“She missed his heart,” Matthias said, examining the wound.
My father gasped as Matthias worked to remove the stake and I lunged for the phone and dialed with trembling fingers. A sleepy woman answered and I screamed into the phone, “Agent Bramble, this is Lacey Vaughn. I need help.”
The phone call lasted three minutes, but when I hung up the receiver, I nearly sank to the floor in a puddle of relief. The Supernatural Protection Agency was on the way. They had portals all over the havens and Agent Agatha Bramble assured me it would be mere minutes before a team arrived.
“They’re on the way,” I said. “They’ll have medics, Father. Are you okay?”
The wound was bleeding, but Matthias had torn off a sleeve of my father’s shirt to try to staunch it.