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Fiona was torn between wanting to sleep before she might end up in a fight against Tobias and his minions, practicing using her vampire skills, practicing sword fighting some more, or trying to infiltrate her friends’ dreams. Still, she was tired, and while she was cuddling with Arman, she fell into a sound sleep.
Fiona felt she was drifting into the wispy clouds, the dark sky filled with twinkling stars, the full moon taking on a reddish cast. The blood moon! It was huge, taking up most of the sky, beautiful, amazing and she felt connected to it all at once.
Fiona “saw” Levka fighting Arman in sword practice and Caitlin exposing her small canines in a grin. Fiona watched as her brother floated below the van’s ceiling as he tested out his vampiric abilities. She saw her mother biting her father and him biting her back, then hand-in-hand, running for their lives. Ruric came into view, being hunted by a man and a woman dressed in black leather, both armed with swords, hunters? Vampire hunters? She didn’t know, but she made them stop, toss their swords, and begin to kiss each other. Ruric glanced back at them, raised his brows, but then he vanished, free of the hunters’ pursuit. Jasmine was after a hunter, but lost him, and saved a little girl from harm, returning her to her human parents. Stasio was reading one of his books on…War Tactics.
Then she saw Shelly and Michail walking through the gardens. She drew closer to listen in.
“They’re here, waiting for the signal,” Shelly said.
“I hope they have enough of a force to overwhelm about forty vampires, well, and one huntress,” Michail said.
“They won’t approach until it’s one-ten in the afternoon, the time when Fiona turns eighteen.”
Fiona knew not to trust them! Her instincts were often on the mark. She was so angry, she envisioned a king cobra the size of a man biting at Michail, and a sinkhole swallowing up Shelly. Not that Fiona could actually make them dream of those things, but suddenly, both were crying out and Fiona nearly fell to the ground. She hadn’t been dreaming that part. She was really floating up in the clouds and spying on Michail and Shelly! Well, giving them nightmares while they were awake, terrorizing them.
She had to return to tell the others that she had learned of their deceitfulness, that Tobias and his people were here, waiting to attack them.
Suddenly, Tobias was next to Shelly and Michail, shaking Shelly first. “Snap out of it. Fiona’s got her powers already, damn it. It’s after one in the morning. Her mother lied to you about Fiona’s actual birth time.”
But Shelly couldn’t shake loose of the feeling that she was sinking into the sinkhole, and it was closing around her. Tobias shook Michail then, trying to get him to listen to him. “Get ahold of yourself, man.”
Boy, was Tobias pissed.
Fiona was going to call out to Arman and their friends telepathically when Tobias saw her. Crap! She tried to vanish, but she couldn’t. The next thing she knew, she was trying to fly out of Tobias’s reach. He knew now she was a vampire, no longer just a huntress. Thank God, she also had her sword belted at her waist. Still, she needed to alert the others because more of Tobias’s vampires were here, and they could be a threat to her friends and family.
But she realized she couldn’t send them a warning, not while she was trying to evade the powerful vampire.
20
Arman woke. He wasn’t sure why, then he realized Fiona was no longer in bed with him. He immediately alerted his friends, their guards, and Fiona’s family, though he really didn’t want Justin in the middle of all this, feeling he wasn’t ready to fight vampires yet. Which really was the same for Fiona. He did not alert Shelly and Michail. “The blood moon is out, Fiona’s not here. It’s after one in the morning.”
He threw on his clothes, grabbed his sword, and headed out of the room. Everyone was leaving their bedrooms at the same time, pulling on shirts or shoes, their swords sheathed at their waists.
“Did you check the bathroom?” Caitlin asked.
“Yes.”
“The kitchen?” Ruric asked.
“No. But if this is anything like that dream or vision I had, Fiona is not in the mansion any longer,” Arman said, then vanished and was in the gardens. “Fiona!”
Levka joined him. And then the others did. “Spread out. Let us know if you find any trouble.”
Then they heard sword fighting in the herb gardens, and they all headed that way.
Arman couldn’t believe it when he saw Shelly writhing on the ground in distress as if she’d been poisoned, and Michail was holding onto something, trying to keep it away from him, his arms outstretched, his face a ghastly mask of horror, but there was nothing in his grasp that Arman could see. But then he heard the sound of clanking steel again, and he hurried past the crazed vampires in search of the source of the fighting. “Fiona!”
All at once the gardens were filled with vampires, not Arman’s friends, but strangers they didn’t know. They were likewise armed and intent to fight, their expressions full of malevolence. Levka and the others began engaging them in combat, but Arman was still searching for Fiona, avoiding fighting anyone as much as possible so he could reach her more quickly. But a tall, slender vampire targeted him, and Arman quickly dispensed with him, furious beyond measure that anyone would try to thwart him from his mission.
Fiona cried out behind one of the greenhouses, and Arman instantly reappeared there and saw her fighting Tobias. Arman’s heart beat triple time, fear for her and anger swamping him.
“You turned her, didn’t you?” Tobias said, angry as hell. He whipped around to kill Arman. But Arman wasn’t a new vampire.
Though Arman also knew that Tobias would realize he was the real threat to him.
Fiona was favoring her arm and Arman realized Tobias had cut her. He smelled her blood and wanted to end the vampire instantly, but he had to keep his head. Getting emotionally embroiled in a fight could be the death of him and he had to protect Fiona at all costs.
He swung his sword at Tobias and the vampire connected with his, hitting it so hard, Arman’s whole arm vibrated with the jolt. “Tobias is here behind the greenhouse,” he told his friends, suspecting the reason Fiona hadn’t called out to them was because after being so newly turned, she couldn’t manage telepathically communicating with them while fighting to save her life against the vicious vampire. “Fiona’s injured.”
