Page 154 of Vampire's Choice
“Wolf, a vampire who works for Anwyn at Club Atlantis, is on the way to provide Hanska backup if they need a vampire’s help with the cats. His servant Ella is with him.”
Ruth must have been kneeling over her parents’ bodies for a while, for Yvette to have time to communicate with Council and arrange for all that. And not just that.
The Circus Mistress met her gaze. “Your people have asked for the honor of preparing their bodies, Ruth. They said they’ll hold vigil on them until we return.”
No. I can’t leave.
Farida and Kane are in danger.
Two sides fought a bitter war inside her, trampling her heart, overrunning her mind, tearing gouges in her soul. Then Merc tipped up her chin to lock gazes with him. Call on the warrior, Ruth, not the child, and tell me what you really want.
She stared into his eyes. I want whoever did this to be eviscerated. I want them to suffer in ways hell hasn’t even thought up. I want to do it myself. I want to laugh at their screams. I want to…
Tears came with the hatred. The warrior couldn’t separate itself entirely from the grief. I want them back.
Yvette’s hand was on her, a comforting pressure, but also carrying the reminder that they had to go. There were things to handle. The rest would have to wait.
“It’s perhaps good your brother is out of touch with Derek,” The reluctance in Yvette’s voice said she didn’t want to say the words, but felt Ruth needed to know. “Guardians, like angels, have strict rules on interference in matters…like this. Mikhael said this is one of them. The angels are the same. Marcellus was instructed to report to his Legion duties, after he delivers Mason to Council.”
Ruth stared at her. Even after what Marcellus had told her earlier, she’d assumed this would be different. It should be different. She couldn’t grasp that he couldn’t help. Or Derek. Light Guardian neutrality or not, if Adan was here, he would say fuck Guardian rules, right up the ass.
Which was why Yvette had said it was better he was not here. Though she doubted he would feel that way. She certainly didn’t.
“Though you risked a great deal by making contact with the binding holding him, you did well on freeing Lord Mason,” Yvette added. “That kind of intelligence, determination and insight is what we need from you now.”
Lord Mason was alive. Her parents weren’t. Why couldn’t one of the most powerful vampires in the world stand against their enemies and save her parents? Why was he alive and they were dead?
It was a child’s question. The adult knew the answer, and Lord Mason, as well as Lady Lyssa, needed the help of everyone who could give it. She would be the warrior that Merc had called upon. The grieving child would have to wait.
She met Yvette’s gaze. “Yes. We’ll go.”
She’d heard of the formality that governed an audience with the currently nine-member Vampire Council. How intimidating it could be to stand before them.
She was too shut down to care about any of that, but when they arrived at the Savannah estate, Council headquarters, she noticed a distinct lack of that reputed formality. She’d arrived at a war room, where communication was straightforward, no wasted time with posturing or pretenses.
They were gathered around a large table in a big hallway, servants swiftly coming and going with information being cultivated from the network of assets throughout their world, anything that might be of use to locate the two young vampires.
Lady Lyssa and Lord Mason were shoulder to shoulder over the information laid out before them. Though Ruth was sure the mother in Lyssa and the father in Mason were suffering dreadful levels of worry, the only evidence was the flat, lethal sharpness of their eyes and the tension in their shoulders. They had lived through enough crises, protected enough of their own kind, to know calm planning and decisive action were the only tenable options.
Their servants were the same. Jacob stood at Lyssa’s side. Jessica watched nearby. Anwyn was next to her, her hand resting on Jessica’s back. Jessica being at Club Atlantis at the time of the kidnapping may have saved the life of Mason’s servant. Though Ruth expected the thought brought the mother little comfort.
Gideon was beside her and Anwyn, his hips propped on a side table, arms crossed over his chest. He observed the strategy session with the stillness a weapon had, waiting to be pointed in a firing direction. Ruth didn’t see Daegan, but he might be gleaning information directly from his own sources.
When Ruth’s arrival was noticed, she was almost grateful that the Council dove right into an interrogation, rather than asking her about…anything else. Relaying what happened with the Trad, recalling every detail, kept her mind occupied. Merc stood at her shoulder while she did so. However, when more probing questions about what she’d seen on the island were asked, her voice faltered.
He drew closer, his wing curving around her shoulder as he picked up the information from her mind and spoke it aloud for her. Surprised gazes shifted to him, suggesting Lady Lyssa hadn’t yet informed the Council of the possibility of the marking. Let alone that it had actually happened, but no one had known that. No one except Kaela and Garron and…
She pushed her mind away from that. She shouldn’t need Merc to speak for her, but emotions kept surging up,. Keeping her head up, not letting what was hammering against her walls get through, was all she could do.
Huff and puff and blow your house down…
Not now. Not today. She imagined her father’s will holding her up, and her mother’s. And then she thought of why she was here. Why it was important to hold it together.
Ruth had held Kane when he was a baby, a great honor. He’d latched onto her hair with a small fist, his eyes so still and sharp, his mouth so sweet. She’d brushed and curled Farida’s hair when she was ten. Stood at her side outside the rehab enclosure when the young girl asked Ruth if kissing the hurt on the leopard’s paw would help. “It’s what Daddy does for me,” she confided.
The powerful Lord Mason. He and Lady Lyssa were both capable of terrifying and bringing the vampire world to heel when it needed that. Ruth had seen a different side, the proud and loving parents. During informal dinners on the island, they’d bonded with Mal and Elisa over the challenges and fears of raising vampire children.
Her gaze moved back to Jessica. Mason’s servant had curly brown long hair, gray eyes and the build of a gymnast. While she wore jeans and a casual T-shirt, she also had on a choker of copper, bronze and gray metals in a tiger stripe pattern. The choker’s lock looked like a talon. Ruth remembered a silver key hanging on a chain on Mason’s wet neck, and made the connection. Her Master’s collar.