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“Yes, to both. I think you will be better off as one in fights, or just to fit in more with family.” She meant as far as her parents went since they were vampires now. She couldn’t believe he had asked Arman to change him, but would it help in a fight with vampires? “Let’s go practice sword fighting. We need to see what you can do with your vampire skills when it comes to fighting vampires now.”
“I’m all for that.” Her brother looked so eager and happy.
She was glad he was one of them now. She glanced at her mother, but she was only smiling, and she didn’t seem to mind that Arman had turned Justin instead.
Then they all went to the grassy lawn to practice swordsmanship.
Fiona was total distracted, knowing she needed to concentrate on fighting Arman, but instead her attention was diverted to watching Justin fight with Jasmine. Fiona hoped Stasio wouldn’t be upset about Jasmine teaching Justin. But she also figured that since Jasmine did this kind of work for a living, she would make for a really good teacher. And she was.
Justin was fighting her sword to sword then when Jasmine struck again trying to knock his sword from his hand. She did and sent it flying. But then before she could attack him when he was defenseless, he vanished. Fiona smiled. Now that was a great maneuver!
Suddenly, his sword disappeared, and he reappeared. Jasmine had been watching to see if Justin went for his sword and once he showed up, she immediately struck his sword with her own, but he held onto it more firmly and fought back. She glanced at Arman, and he was smiling.
“It looks like he’s going to do well with his new skills. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a newly turned vampire who has so much fun with his new abilities,” Arman said.
Fiona smiled. “Yeah, I didn’t think he would either. Despite how we grew up in such a dysfunctional family, he was always good-natured and fun-loving.”
“He sure seems that way. I’m so glad he has taken this so well,” Arman said. “Do you want to practice?”
Fiona laughed. “Sure.” Then they started to playfight, and she was thinking it would be fun if she could vanish like her brother had done. But she wasn’t interested in the blood thing.
She was just as strong as Arman when connecting with his sword and she assumed it was because she was a huntress. She saw her mother and father practicing their sword fighting and she was fascinated to see how they fought each other. Both were excellent fighters.
Arman touched her shoulder, and she hadn’t realized he’d gotten that close. “Sorry,” she said. “I was just curious how my parents were at fighting.”
“Because you’re worried about them.”
“Yes. If Tobias can control my mom, that would be bad news.” Fiona frowned at Arman. “Is that why you turned Justin instead of letting my mom do it?”
“I had thought of it, but the main reason was that Justin didn’t want to wait. He asked me and he wanted to do it then, before we did weapons training again.”
“I’m glad you did it. Okay, we’re going to do this.” She started fighting Arman again, but then Jasmine switched out with him, and Arman put Justin through his paces.
Jasmine was smiling as she fought Fiona. “Your brother is a character. I’m so glad that he is one of us now. He’s doing really great fighting as a vampire now. So much better than when he was solely a human. He has got our strength now and that’s good.”
“Exactly.” Fiona was glad and was hoping that would mean that he would stay safe. After fighting Jasmine for a while, her mother came over to battle it out with Fiona. “You were alright with Arman turning Justin instead of you, aren’t you?”
“Yes. After I’d offered, I had realized if Tobias ends up here, he could control me and force me to control your brother. Your father would have done the deed instead.”
Fiona’s mother was an excellent swordswoman. She kept Fiona on her toes. Unlike when Fiona was fighting Arman, she found her mother was tricky. She kept vanishing and coming in for another attack. Which was great! It helped Fiona learn how to fight vampires who used their abilities to try and take the advantage. But Fiona was listening hard, and she could hear her mother’s heartbeat just as she reappeared behind her or to her side. Fiona wasn’t used to being able to use her hearing in that way—to really concentrate on the sounds around her, blocking out the sounds of the fighting all around her—to protect herself.
She was doing really well fighting a vampire when she didn’t have their abilities, she thought. Her father came to take her mother’s place, but Fiona was getting tired by now. “Did you ask Mom to turn you?” She knew that her mother had done so to protect him from Tobias, but had she just turned him in a hurry, and he hadn’t really had any choice?
He smiled at her. “We discussed it, but we didn’t have a lot of time to make a decision. Tobias was trying to get Bea to bring me to him. She was fighting his telepathic suggestion. We found a home for you, then we moved to Germany, any place to get free of Tobias’s control. We continued to travel, to evade him, while we continued to pay for you and for Justin as you grew up. We couldn’t reach you fast enough once your foster parents had died. We traveled through Scotland, learned what Arman and his friends had done, and I was able to connect with him in a dream.”
“Did you know I had run into Arman at the Dallas mall two years earlier?”
“Yeah. I had something to do with that. I knew he had dreams like I do, like you do. I knew he was a vampire and he helped hunters and humans who were in need. I knew he and his friends would help you if he ever learned of you and you became Tobias’s next target.”
“How did you have something to do with me running into Arman?” She had always wondered how she had been so clumsy to have spilled her soda on him. She swore she had tripped over her own feet, and she wasn’t normally like that.
Her father struck her sword, but he was a lot easier on her than Arman or her mother was. “I had to get you to make a connection with him. I couldn’t have spoken for you, but when he offered to take you to lunch, I wanted to step in and tell you to do it.”
“I was so embarrassed. I was with my brother there, and I’m sure he wouldn’t have liked that I’d just met some guy I didn’t know, spilled soda all over him, and then had lunch with him.”
Her dad smiled at her, and he quit fighting her to talk.
Then Fiona frowned. “How did you know he had dreams like you?” She needed to learn what her father could do with his dreams and what she could do with hers.
