My plan had worked too well; Rozaline was too close to the inferno and had caught fire. She rolled on the ground, screaming.
Oh, shit. No!
I spotted a hose attached to the house and rushed over to it. Turning it on, I drenched her, extinguishing the flames.
“I’m so sorry,” I apologized, tears streaming down my face. “I thought I would just hit the Saint.”
I panicked. Her face and arms were badly burned. She couldn’t speak; wounds covered her lips. She whimpered in pain on the ground. I remembered what Crystal said about our blood and its healing properties. I bit into my wrist, wincing as my teeth broke the skin. Blood rushed to the surface instantly. I drizzled it over her face, squeezing my arm like a wet towel, soaking her wounds.
Her mouth opened and I placed my wrist over it, allowing her to drink.
The wounds appeared to scab over. Drew arrived and dropped to his knees before her, immediately offering his blood, too.
I kept apologizing profusely, unable to hide my tears. I felt terrible for hurting her.
“She will heal, Alyssa,” Drew said.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Annoyance played in Drew’s voice. “The time for apologies is later. Right now, she needs blood.”
Edmond came to join us, followed by Crystal and Nicholas. All were bloody and injured, but still alive.
“What the hell happened here?” Nicholas yelled, seeing his wounded mate.
“Alyssa used the flamethrower against one of the Saints and Rozaline got caught in the middle,” Drew answered.
Nicholas thrust me harshly out of the way, kneeling down to Rozaline. He offered her his wrist.
“Nicholas, I’m—”
“Don’t speak to me,” he growled.
Police sirens sounded in the distance; no doubt someone had called in this fire. Headless, mutilated, and burned corpses lay strewn about all around us. Mortal and immortal Saints alike, as well as the remainder of Kallisto’s coven, were all dead.
“We must quickly rid the grounds of the bodies,” said Drew.
“What about Lysander?” I yelled.
“If he’s alive, he’ll make his way out of the building. There is no way for you to get him now. We need to get rid of the evidence,” Drew commanded.
The clan quickly rushed to gather corpses and toss them inside through the broken window. The flames sparked and popped as bodies were engulfed in the fire.
The sounds of the sirens got closer. Lysander had still not emerged. Drew urged us to leave be-fore the police and fire department arrived.
I could no longer hear the sounds of the struggle inside of the house.
Tears poured down my face. Please come out, Lysander.
“Alyssa, let’s go,” Drew urged.
“Yes, Alyssa, we need to leave now,” Crystal pleaded.
I stood paralyzed, eyes transfixed on the fire, not wanting to leave. “I can’t leave Lysander,” I yelled.
Someone grabbed me from behind and tossed me over his shoulder.
“No! Lysander,” I screamed.
CHAPTER 25
* * * * *
Smoke filled the air; the scent of burning flesh surrounded us. I kicked, screamed, and punched as I was carried away.
“We can’t leave him,” I yelled.
“Shut up!” Nicholas growled at me.
Kallisto had chosen her safe house in a neighborhood close to the one Lysander lived in. Even as we arrived at his house, locking ourselves inside, the sirens sounded as if they were right outside the door.
Edmond tossed me on the couch. Nicholas gently laid Rozaline out on the loveseat near me and went to turn on the TV. A helicopter flew over the top of the house as more sirens echoed in the night.
As expected, the media had been alerted to the fire, and they interrupted local broadcasts to present this breaking news.
The helicopter circled wide above the neighborhood, broadcasting images of the burning house.
Eyewitnesses looking for their fifteen minutes of fame threw themselves in front of news cameras to give their account of the events, calling our fight a violent gang war.
“They had flame throwers and guns and they tore that poor house apart…” said a middle-aged balding man.
“It’s those damn gang bangers,” another witness said. “It’s not enough they do drive-bys. Now, they are committing arson right in our quiet neighborhood. Nowhere is safe anymore.”
An image flashed on the screen: the house we had just been in, smoke billowing high into the sky as flames shot out of the second-story window.
Tears poured down my face. I thought of Lysander. He had risked his life to come back and save me.
I shoved my head into the cushions of the couch, punching my anger into them, crying.
It is because of me that Lysander is burning alive inside of that house.
“I’m sorry, Lysander,” I whispered.
“He’s not dead,” Nicholas snapped at me. He didn’t look at me. He carefully tended to Rozaline’s wounds. “Can’t you feel him?”
I thought about him, picturing his beautiful eyes, remembering our night together and the smile on his face as we woke in the evening.
A warm feeling came over me. I barely recognized it at first, as I was concentrating so hard on his face, burning his features into my memory. It was him! He was alive somewhere. I felt that strange warmth, his presence.
I shot up from the couch. “He is alive,” I exclaimed. “I feel him close.”
“We know,” croaked Rozaline from the loveseat next to me. She looked frightening, her face badly wounded from the flames. Nicholas tried to comfort her in her pain.
“But how could you know?”
“We are his children too,” Nicholas growled. I could tell he was upset with me for hurting his mate. I sensed the emotions he felt. He made no attempt to hide his feelings from me.
Aren’t all of his children dead?
“Lysander liked to keep that fact a secret,” Rozaline rasped, choking the words out.
I thought back to our first meeting and my initial jealousy, remembering how Lysander had seemed so happy to see Rozaline and hung on her every word. It made sense to me now why Lysander looked on Rozaline with such caring. Not like a lover, but like a father.
That’s why he was so willing to let them stay with us. They were loyal to him and he trusted them because they were his children.
They could have fled the city, leaving Lysander to deal with Kallisto and the Saints. Any other immortal would have just left as soon as the Acta Sanctorum was mentioned, but they had stayed and fought next to him.
I could see why he kept their relationship secret; he had never even written their connection into his memoirs. After Kallisto had destroyed all of his other children, he couldn’t risk it.
Why won’t they go save him now?
An image of Lysander, lying helpless and hurt, barely clinging to life in that burning house, flashed in my mind.
I looked down, seeing the pain on Rozaline’s face and the terrible burns she had suffered in only a few seconds of fire.
“He needs help,” I shouted. “Shouldn’t someone go after him?”
“There is nothing we can do now,” Nicholas said.
“Why did we leave him in the first place?”
Anger marked Nicholas’s voice. “Listen, Sparky, we couldn’t have gone into that burning house to save him. The fire would have destroyed us, too.”
“We didn’t have to run away,” I snapped at him, shooting him an angry glare.
“We couldn’t provide any support against Santino from outside the house,” Nicholas barked back at me.
“But we didn’t even try to help him. We just ran away.”
“We took care of the others. Regrouping here to tend to our wounded is the only choice we had left. That house is swarming with mortals, there are cameras everywhere. If we are caught, we expose ourselves to more than just a few people. You know the rules against that. Lysander wouldn’t have wanted us to expose ourselves to go after his corpse.”
I cringed to hear Lysander’s name followed by the word “corpse.”
He will be a corpse soon if someone doesn’t go help him
.
“Well, we can’t just leave him out there now. Someone needs to go after him.”
“We’re not going back there until those humans are gone. We are not risking exposure.”
“That may be too late. What if he is dying? If you won’t do it, I’ll go after him. It’s my turn to do something. I’ll go save him myself.” I shot up from my seat on the couch.
“No. You stay here. We have had quite enough of your heroics.” Nicholas rose from his seat and walked towards the kitchen.
I felt the anger Nicholas had for me. I looked at Rozaline, seeing the pain in her face.
I wanted to say something. It seemed Nicholas hated me for causing harm to come to her, but Rozaline didn’t look on me with hatred. I had already apologized, but it didn’t feel like enough.
“I’m sorry for what I’ve done. Please forgive me,” I begged, falling to my knees at the base of the loveseat.
“I will heal. What matters is, I am alive,” she said. Her raspy voice was still kind, even though I had almost killed her.
“I do not deserve your patience, Rozaline.”
“What you did was done out of good intentions. Your methods may have been questionable, but you meant me no harm. I forgive you.”
“I doubt Nicholas will. He seems pretty angry.”
“He will get over it when I am better. He is very protective of me, just as Lysander has been protective of you.”
The mention of Lysander’s name caused tears to well in my eyes. Another image of Lysander flashed in my mind. I saw him slowly sinking in a dark murky pool.
“I have to go after him. I’ll do it alone if no one will go with me.” I shot up and walked to the door. A hand grasped my arm.
“You’re really going after him, aren’t you?” Nicholas asked.
“Yes. Let me go!” I yanked my arm from his grasp.
“And what do you plan to do if a human sees you?”
“I’ll figure that out when I get there.”
I’ll kill them if I have to. I’m not coming back without him.
Nicholas smirked. I wondered if he had read my mind. “You do care for him, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course I—”
“Fine, I’m going with you.”
We stepped outside into the smoky air. The burning house was close. Nicholas stood rigid for a moment. His eyes closed and his head slowly turned from side to side.
“What are you doing?”
His answer didn’t come. He stood rigid in one spot, slowly turning his head. He lifted his head up slightly, appearing to sniff at the air like a dog.
“This way.” He took off in a sprint. “We will try to come in from the back yard.”
I followed as he hopped over a large stucco wall.
“Try to keep up,” he yelled, bounding over the walls behind houses as if they were mere racing hurdles.
I stumbled, trying to keep up. My foot caught the edge of a wall, sending me crashing to the ground.
“Damn it, I should have done this myself,” Nicholas grumbled.
Heat rose to my face. “I’m fine, thanks for asking.”
“I didn’t ask, because no, I don’t care. We are here for Lysander, not you.”
“I would have preferred to do this myself.”
“And the last time you tried to be a hero, how did that turn out? Do you know how much pain she is in?”
“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—“
“Just shut up. Do as I say, and keep up.”
We hopped the last wall, making it to the yard of Kallisto’s safe house. The heat from the fire was intense; the air was choked with black, acrid smoke. I spotted the pool and a large mass floating on the surface.
“Lysander,” I gasped, and ran toward him.
Nicholas held out his arm and stopped me.
“Wait,” he snapped as he looked around the yard.
“What are we waiting for? Let’s get him out of there.”
As I spoke the words, a man in a bright yellow fireman’s coat ran around the back yard. He must have spotted Lysander’s body floating in the pool. “One body back here,” the fireman shouted into a small speaker at his shoulder.
“Crap,” I said. “What are we going to do about him?”
“Didn’t you say you would do anything to save Lysander?”
“It’s not polite to read minds.”
“Never said I was polite. Go get him.” Nicholas pointed at the fireman. “I’ll watch your back in case there are more.”
The fireman reached out into the pool, stretching to grab Lysander’s body.
I walked quickly and quietly over to him.
How am I going to get rid of him without exposing myself? Should I knock him into the pool? Should I feed from him? No, that would kill him. He’s an innocent. I can’t do that.
I reached the edge of the pool. The fireman was still attempting to pull out Lysander’s body.
I could knock him unconscious. If he didn’t see, me he would never know what had happened. Perfect.
I smiled, proud of myself for coming up with the plan. I slammed his head against the side of the pool. The fireman fell to the ground unconscious. His head fell limp into the water.
Crap. I hope I didn’t do too much damage.
I pulled him away from the pool and laid him out on the grass. I could still hear his heart beating.
He’s alive. Good. When he wakes up, he’s going to have one hell of a headache.
A new voice boomed into the back yard. “Mason, why aren’t you answering your fucking radio? What’s up with that body in the back yard?”
“Shit, there’s more of them.”
“Let’s get a move on, sweetheart,” Nicholas called out to me. “No time to play with your food.”
“I wasn’t planning on killing him.”
“No time for explanations, there are more of them coming. I’ll get him out.” Nicholas barked. “You get back over that wall.”
He walked over and caught Lysander’s hand. He dragged the limp body out, tossing it over his shoulders.
“How will we get him out of here?”
“I’ll try to take him with me over the wall. You go first and catch if necessary.”
Catch?
There was no time to question. I did as Nicholas said and made my way over the wall and waited for Nicholas to come over.
Nicholas was extremely strong, even by vampire standards, but the added weight of Lysander’s limp body made hopping the walls a much harder task. I could tell the dead weight of Lysander threw him off balance. He groaned as he landed, almost toppling over a few times before we made it back to Lysander’s home.