“Tarran?” Astraea asked with a tightening in her chest.
Laviana’s face fell with sorrow. “He still doesn’t want to be found.”
Even if he were here, Astraea figured she was the last person he would want to see. How could he stand to face the person who’d sentenced his mate to death? It had been the hardest choice she’d had to make in all her rule. Tarran’s bonded was a nightcrawler who’d allied with Nyte’s father decades ago. He was caught with a band of vampires brought to justice. Tarran’s begging for his life haunted Astraea still. Tarran had been oblivious to Gresham’s contribution to the dark cause.
Even for Tarran, her friend and in some ways her brother, she could not excuse Gresham’s crimes that had killed so many innocents, no matter how much it tore her heart. Nyte’s hand slipping around her waist eased her stiffmuscles. “You never mentioned you knew Astraea personally,” he said to Laviana.
“How could I? In the eyes of everyone here, she’s as much an enemy to us as the High Celestials.”
“Did you believe that too?” Astraea asked.
“Never. I understand the difficult position you’re in with this war that’s beginning. I just couldn’t make that known here,” she mused. “I’m glad you finally came.”
“You say that like you’ve been expecting me.”
She smiled fondly, and Astraea had missed her. “You’re the star-maiden. You speak for us all, and I knew you wouldn’t disappoint the guardians by siding with the celestials merely because of your creators.”
Laviana’s attention flashed to Nyte’s hold around her. “This is very unexpected, however. I anticipated the notorious Nightsdeath would be your biggest enemy to defeat.”
“He still is,” Astraea mused, slipping a teasing look up at him.
Nyte’s smile hid a note of disturbance, because it was the truth. Nightsdeath would always want to kill her, and so far they’d been lucky he hadn’t lost control to that pure darkness in her presence. The world didn’t knowNytecoexisted with the harbinger of death and bloodshed. A person whose love and care was so selective that material riches were worthless to him.
“Now let’s subdue the restless minds of those here and get this meeting underway,” Laviana said.
“What does your bond mean?” a soulless asked, not sounding pleased by Nyte and Astraea’s announcement.
The question stirred the tense crowd’s emotions, which ranged from outrage to confusion and curiosity. Perhaps hope. They looked at Nyte and Astraea as if they could be the answer they didn’t know they were searching for.
“Are you on our side?” another asked her.
“Yes… and no,” she answered honestly.
The questions and opinions started to flood over each other so much that Astraea couldn’t track them.
“You would stand against the High Celestials?”
“Superior scum!”
“What about your allegiance to your father?”
Questions for both of them were thrown from all directions. She could sense Nyte’s rising irritation with the aimless commotion right before choking cut off the loudest voices. Nyte’s infiltration of several minds as he severed their speech swiftly silenced the rest. It was chilling to watch how effortlessly he could use his invasive ability. Nyte let their minds go seconds later and silence fell for him.
“I called this meeting for you all to understand what our bond and alliance can mean for our objective of achieving equality for the vampires. Astraea is risking everything to be here, so you’ll show her your respect or I’ll show you my wrath.”
Nyte led Astraea around to the other head of the table. He encouraged her to sit, then he perched on the arm of her chair as if it was the most natural arrangement.
He took her hand, staring deeply into her eyes, which eased her nerves from having the attention of a hundred vampires on them.
Nyte said to her mind,“Show them how bright you shine, my Starlight.”
“That went far better than I’d expected,” Nyte commented when they were thick into the woodland they were going through to reach the vampire meeting.
“All I did was listen,” Astraea said, not feeling as spirited as he was.
Nyte’s hand tightened in hers. “You heard them, and they know change can’t be made in a night. But you gave them your time, and that’s a meaningful step toward starting to figure out how to make the world fair for them.”
The vampires had long been suppressed and used by the celestials. The nightcrawlers hunted Nephilim for them. The shadowless were used for their allurement. When they drank from a person, it released an aphrodisiac, making it easy to uncover traitors and criminals or gain knowledge from adversaries spilling their confessions under its effects. The soulless were used to consume the entire souls of such criminals and the worst of mankind.
