Chapter 218
I walked with the rest of the people who had been forced outside toward the center of town. People were screaming, struggling against groups of vampires that were draining them. Then, I saw Steven on the ground as a man stomped on him.
“Don’t hurt him!” I flinched at the sound of Bella’s voice. Then, I saw her. What was she doing here? Wasn’t she banished? Then, I realized that was probably where Steven and Lilian had gone: to retrieve her from wherever she’d been.
She looked better than the last time I saw her. She was tied up too, but further away.
“Don’t you touch my daughter,” Steven hissed.
I clenched my jaw and felt my eyes pricking with tears. He would never say that about me. It was always Bella. The vampire kicked him in the face. Blood splattered. Bella wailed.
“Daddy!”
“I’m only going to ask one more time,” the guy standing over Steven hissed. “Where is the relic?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Steven cried out as the man shot him in the leg. He writhed around on the ground for a moment before curling up on his side.
It made me think of all those hours I lay on the floor, curled up from the pain that wracked my body when Lilian was poisoning me.
“Pluck his brain,” the guy said. “We don’t have all day.”
Steven grew stiff as another vampire approached. The man force him onto his back and put a hand on his head.
“Get off of him!” Bella yelled. “Leave him alone.”
Steven’s body bowed sharply. He kicked and struggled.
“Anything yet?”
“Some kind of… block on him. Powerful. Prince-level stuff,” he said gruffly. “I’m trying.”
Steven screamed then fell flat. The vampire pulled back with a growl. “This fucker—”
All of a sudden, Steven lunged up, mouth open and vicious, and he bit the man in the neck, turning sharply and ripping a chunk of flesh out. The vampire screamed and rolled off of him. The other vampires let out shouts of surprise, lifting their guns. Steven shifted into his wolf form, a white wolf, and darted toward them, tackling one and biting his shoulder. The other man shot at him. More gunshots followed, coming from somewhere nearby. Other werewolves came rushing towards us, rushing the vampires and overpowering them. The vampires who were further away turned to shoot, then everyone started running. The vampires swarmed the crowd, tearing into people, biting them and draining them if they couldn’t shoot them.
One of them hissed at me and started to chase me. I screamed and tried to run. All I could do was run. I shoved people between me and the oncoming vampire, trying to slow it down, trying to get away, but more of them just kept coming. There weren’t enough people to push in the way. There was nothing to hide behind or under. Where was Candido? Surely, he had to be getting here soon? Wasn’t there someone around to protect me? I heard more gunshots as I tripped and tumbled forward.
“Daddy!” Bella cried.
I looked up just as Steven lunged across the space, slamming into the vampire that had been looming over her. The vampire fell. Steven slammed the but of a gun into its face over and over again.
“Bella, run!” Steven yelled. “Get to your mother! Get out of here!”
Bella cast her gaze around before she pushed herself to her feet and ran. She didn’t even look back at me. A vampire lunged at me, screeching. I tried to push it off, but I had no strength. It ripped my jacket open and sunk its fangs into my neck. Unlike when Cillian had bitten me, it didn’t feel good. The pain rushed through me. Gunshots filled the air. The vampire jerked and fell away from me, screeching as it turned to ash.
Then, I saw Mary with a gun pointed in my direction. She was bleeding from her temple, panting.
“Keep down!”
I lay flat as she fired more bullets at the vampires that were advancing toward me.
When the cost was clear, I struggled to my feet, grasping my neck. I looked over to where Bella was and saw her and Lilian trying to escape. Steven and several other men were guiding the screaming people away from the onslaught and defending them.
A group of vampires descended on them, hissing and screeching. I heard more gunshots before I turned to run away from the area. I ran, ducking between the buildings, feeling a bit dizzy. I had to get out of here. I had to get to Candido. That was the only place I would be safe.
Then, I heard gunshots up ahead. Another hole was blasted in the stone wall, but instead of vampires, trucks came rushing inside.
“Fire!” Someone screamed from the truck.
More gun shots filled the air, but I recognized the trucks as the ones that had left with Candido. They broke apart and started heading towards different sections of the town. I turned as vampires started running towards me from behind.
“Candido, help!” I cried, but I couldn’t say that he heard me.
A bullet cut through my shoulder as the people in the trucks started to open fire on the vampires behind me. I collapsed with a wail of pain as the truck rolled past me. Then, I saw that Harper were among the gun me. The other werewolves I didn’t recognize immediately, but I glared after them.
Harper had tried to kill me again. I knew it was him who had shot me. I tried to follow, but I soon ran into the escaping Wolf Fang members, screaming and trying to fight off the vampires. Bella and Lilian were the in the middle. No one seemed to be trying to protect them, but they and several others were completely unarmed.
“Do something!” Bella screamed as she broke away from the group.
I didn’t know who she was talking to, but as a weigh collided into me, I knew that there was nothing I could do, even if I wanted to. I rolled, trying to get the vampire off me. I felt the weight leave me and dragged myself away from the battle. I saw another truck rounding a building and opening fire on the group of vampires.
“Steven!” Lilian cried.
I watched as she and Bella pushed through the crowd to the line of werewolves and vampires. They shoved bodies aside as some of them vanished into ash. I staggered closer, trying to see what was going on. Lilian started weeping as she pulled Steven into her eyes.
“Daddy, you can’t leave us!” Bella cried.
Steven lifted his hand to her face. Then, it dropped, leaving a smear of blood.
Not once did any of them look at me.
The sound of gunshots and orders filled the air and the truck that had been carrying Harper came back around.
“Who’s hurt?” Harper asked, jumping down from the truck.
I glared at him. “You shot me!”
Harper looked at me, then my shoulder. “If I had shot you, you wouldn’t be alive.”
I glared at him, ready to argue, when one of the unfamiliar werewolves came towards me.
“Sorry, that was… me, actually. I thought you were a vampire from your jacket…” He winced. “Then you didn’t turn into ash. Sorry. I could patch you up?”
I set my jaw, and Harper scoffed. “Don’t bother. She’s not interested in Estella’s gifts to us. She’s nothing but a traitor. Watch your back.”
“You’re the traitor,” I shot back. “I’m going to be luna.”
“If the Moon Goddess allows such a thing,” Harper said. “I will lay down my gun, my sword, and break ties with Candido.”
People gasped. “I would rather die than see you in the place that was meant for her.”
He brushed past me. The werewolf that had shot me, looked between me and Harper as he walked away. I set my jaw and he approached.
“Harper… is a bit high strung. I could still patch you—”
“Don’t touch me,” I hissed. “Where’s Candido?”
He blinked. “He went towards the center of time.”
I turned and walked through the crowd. Harper was kneeling and pulling a bullet out of someone else’s shoulder. I stopped as Lilian started sobbing and Bella cried over Steven’s dead body. I set my jaw, watching them. Then, Bella looked at me.
“This is all your fault!” Bella cried. “Those vampires followed you here!”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Maybe they just wanted their blood slave back, traitor.”
Bella flushed. Lilian glared up at me. “Don’t you ever talk to my daughter like that, you wretch!”
I lifted my head. “I’ll remember that when I’m luna queen.”
Bella sneered at me as I passed them and headed through the town towards the town center. There were still a few gunshots being fired.
