Authors: Jana Leigh
He really gave her no choice after that; he just took her to his castle right outside Umbria where he imprisoned her in one of the rooms during the day. It wasn’t a dungeon where he had her, it was actually quite a beautiful room and comfortable. His donors, as he called them, would be her servants during the day, bringing her food, clothing, anything she needed , really. But during the night, Diavolo would come to her and rape her, taking her blood. She didn’t understand why he was doing this to her, but he would often say she was the key.
The key to what?
Even now she didn’t know what exactly she was the key to.
She knew when he would come to her, he would say it didn’t work and that maybe he needed just a little more blood. Then he would take her blood again while he forced himself on her. He wouldn’t really have to physically restrain her to do it, just use some sort of compulsion, and she would do whatever he wished. But after a while, Caterina had given up and would allow him to do as he wished without even using the compulsion.
Then one night he came to her in a rage. He said he didn’t understand why it wasn’t working, and he was tired of waiting. He beat her and drained her to within an inch of her life before he left her to die in her bed. The servants had come in the morning and seen she still lived. They tried nursing her back to health as much as they could, then help ed her escape the castle before nightfall.
Caterina often wondered what happened to the servants—no doubt; he probably killed them all for helping her escape.
A large crash downstairs had Caterina jumping from her bed and rushing out the door to see what it was. When she got halfway down the stairs, she stopped, frozen where she stood. There, in front of her, was a grueling seen. Adolfo was fighting with a Vampire , holding him d own as much as he could. But unlike the other Vampire s Adolfo had destroyed for her safety, this one was strong enough to push Adolfo off of him.
Adolfo flew off the Vampire and hit the wall on the other side of the living room. Then it stood and faced Caterina. That’s when Caterina felt all the blood rush out of her head and terror claw at her insides. There, standing before her, was none other than Diavolo.
He rushed toward the stairs and got to the first one before Adolfo tackled him back down. She watched the fighting because she couldn’t get her body to do anything else. She was struggling to comprehend how he had found her. She and Adolfo had always been so careful not to leave a trail, but here he was, fighting with her friend, trying to get to her again.
What was she going to do now?
Adolfo’s howl brought Caterina out of her terror—filled thoughts. She saw that he was now under Diavolo, while Diavolo was twisting his arm back trying to break it.
“You will not keep me from her, wolf, ” Diavolo snarled, as he twisted Adolfo’s arm back further. “She is mine and will always be mine.”
Suddenly, Adolfo turned on Diavolo and somehow got the Vampire under him again.
“She is not yours, Vampire.” Adolfo growled into his ear, “I will kill you before I allow you to take her.”
Adolfo started to change into his wolf. His face elongated, and his claws came out. He pushed the Vampire further into the carpeted floor.
Then his eyes met hers. “Caterina, run. Go to where we planned, as we have talked about doing. Go there and they will keep you safe. Run now, Caterina, and never look back.”
At first, her legs couldn’t move, but then she found herself flying down the stairs. She picked up her purse, car keys, and the plane tickets that were sitting on the table next to the front door , then she opened the door to run out.
She looked back at her long-time friend and guardian to see that he had now fully changed and was holding the Vampire down by his teeth around Diavolo’s throat. Adolfo looked up at her, and their eyes met. She saw then something she had never seen in his eyes before. She looked at his side and saw the blood that was matted in his fur and dripping from his side. She knew at that moment that Adolfo knew he would not survive this fight, that he would not be able to go with her and protect her anymore.
Tears fell from her eyes as she looked into his again. “I love you, Adolfo.”
He just growled his response, but she knew it was him telling her he loved her too.
With that she raced out the door and jumped in her car. She was still in her pajamas and had no luggage with her to take, but she didn’t care ; she just needed to get as far away from there as possible. She peeled out of the drive way and sped down the road. As she turned the corner on to the road that would take her to the airport, she heard a howl of pain breaking through the night, and knew her dearest and closest friend was dying —dying to save her from a fate worse than death. She sobbed as she sped along the road. She was alone now, all those she loved were now gone.
She looked in her rear-view mirror to make sure Diavolo wasn’t right behind her. But when she met her own eyes in the mirror, she couldn’t help but cry harder. No, Caterina didn’t see hope when she looked at herself. She never saw hope, and she doubted she ever would. There was no god, there was no hope.
The New Council, they were her only choice. She wondered what they would do when a human showed up asking for sanctuary. She had always had protection from Adolfo, now she was going into the wolves’ den, literally, with no protection. She only hoped they were as human as they seemed .
Chapter 1
Blaine woke from the vision with sweat on his forehead. It had been crazy. It couldn ‘t be true. They had finally seated the entire New Council, and things were progressing. The prophec y was partly complete, now they had to finish it.
Quinn and the Alphas asked for a list to be made of all the magical creatures out there. Cami had been so excited because she was going to finally know if some of the mythical creatures were true. When Griff had joined their Council, she had practically come unglued because he was an actual Griffin —and that was nothing compared to her response to Shea.
But this
? He wasn’t sure even Argus knew about the existence of these creatures. Blaine had heard the stories and had shrugged them off. Most of the stories had been told to him when he was a child. Of cre atures that walked the night, took children from their beds and fed off of their blood. But, it had only been stories.
Blaine leaned over and shook his mates awake; they would have shared his dream. Kira sat up and smiled at him . “Yep, Cami is gonna freak.”
Dalton groaned and rolled over. “My grandfather used to try to scare me with stories about Vampire s. Seriously, do you think they ‘re real?”
“The visions aren’t wrong. We just have to figure out what they mean. And who the girl was. She wa s definitely in trouble.” Blaine said and rolled out of bed. “We ‘re going to have to call a Council meeting for this one. I have no clue when they ‘re going to be here , but we ‘re going to have to be prepared.”
Dalton laughed. “Hey, did you notice that they didn’t shimmer in the sun , but were able to walk outside? I guess that part was not true , huh?”
Kira laughed and hit her mate on the back of the head. “That was a book. This is real life, now go and check on the babies. We have a long day ahead of us.”
Dalton groaned and fell back against the pillows; it was his turn to dress and bathe the little ones. He loved it, as did Blaine, but he liked for Kira to think, she was getting a favor out of him.
***
Tripp stood at his post and looked across the wide-open land that stood before him. He loved where he lived. The mountains and the wide-open space s , it was like the best of both worlds. Travel for ten minutes and he could run through the wilderness , and then travel another few miles and be back in civilization , then the flat lands.
The sun was peaking over the east, casting a red and purple hue over the mountains. I t was amazing. Tripp sighed, stepped back and looked around. He was going to have to take this shift more often; he liked the quietness that surrounded him. He had been upset at first when one of his Enforcers had called in, now he was thinking he could get more work done in the middle of the night. His schedules were ready for Devon to approve , and he had already half way planned the training that needed to be done for the others.
This was the first time he allowed himself to be thankful for the job he had received. At first, it was downright frightening to be responsible for the Enforcers of the Council Pack. But Devon had trained him himself, and he had felt honored for the promotion when Devon and Darien had become Council members. Gregg, Quin’s other brother, could have taken this job, but he had wanted to remain in Denver with the original Denver Pack. So Tripp had stepped forw ard and asked to be trained. He had fought his way to the top Enforcer as was customary.
It had been a battle, but he had reveled in the fight. When he first took over his duties, there had been an attack on the Council —a bomb set off by the Rogue leader, and from there it went downhill. His first few months of Lead Enforcer was mixed with drama and babysitting. Babysitting is what he, and the other Enforcers referred to when they had to guard the females of the Council.
They were unruly.
Tripp stepped back into the house they had set up for the Head Enforcers to live in until they met their mates. There were only five of them that lived here. Trip was the leader, and the other four were the shift leaders of their Enforcers. His relief would be here soon, and then he would have a long day ahead of him before he would be able to hit the sack.
He went over the checklist that was waiting for him and made sure everyone was where they were supposed to be. Each of the New Council members had their own home, and the Pack compound house was where the Alphas lived. It was huge. But the magical community that had come to live in their small little town had seemed to explode when Roarke had declared war on the Council Pack. They were training more Enforcers by the day to help protect the members of the Pack and surrounding area.
His second stepped into the room, and he smiled, “Deleon, your men have arrived. I saw a few of them getting together outside for their assignments. Here is the schedule for the day.”
“A Council meeting at one?” he said curiously.
“Yeah, Blaine called it a few hours ago. Something must be going down,” Tripp said and then went around the desk. “I ‘m going to get cleaned up and then go to the Pack house and work in the main security office. We have a lot of people applying for permission to come to Milliken, and we have to get them researched.”
Deleon nodded and took the papers from him. He knew that the work would get done. Now he needed a large cup of coffee, and some breakfast before his day got underway. But first a shower.
He went into his private suite and looked around. Everything was nice and neat like he left it. Tripp had been in the Marines; it had instilled a certain amount of OCD in him when it came to keeping things in order. He sighed and pulled his clean , black jeans fro m the drawer and a black shirt. It was his normal work attire, just like the rest of the Enforcers.
When he stepped into his bathroom and looked into the mirror he groaned. The scar from the last fight had still not healed all the way. When the New Council had fought with the Rogue s, he had been injured. Roarke found a new way to fight, magically enhanced weapons. Though as a strong Werewolf shifter, he had the amazing ability to heal, the weapons had been different. They were still trying to figure out what spell they had put on them to cause such damage.