Page 31 of Master Bistrita

“Eat.”

I’m not shy about eating. The hunger is all-consuming, a voracious need for high quantities of meat and cheese, but the blood, the thick looking liquid in the jar still in her hand is entirely another story. “I may need help with this,” I admit.

She grins. “It’s not so bad. You’ll be craving it before you know it. Think of something else. Pretend it’s tomato juice, plug your nose, and down the hatch. You need it if we’re going looking for the masters and hunting the rogues.”

I take a deep breath, gulping through the worst of it, swallowing down the urge to puke it all back up, barely holding it down until the life-giving substance settles in my veins. A calming of my fear mends my anxious nerves, soothing them with a balm that courses through my body and into the ventricles of my heart, causing my blood to flow calm and steady while heightening my senses. “We need to go and find them, now,” I tell Taylen, the anxiety starting to rise back up, forcing me to acknowledge that destiny has changed me for a reason.

Taylen doesn’t argue. “We’ll take Silver, Clay, and Terrance. Overmaster Descallia and the others asked them to watch over us. My understanding is they’re fierce in battle and have fought valiantly by the masters’ sides throughout the entire fight with the rogues.”

I open the door to find all three looking down at us. “I have no problem with their help,” I tell Taylen.

Silver glares at Taylen. “Your orders were to stay here and keep an eye on Chara.”

Taylen laughs. “You try telling her anything. My friend was born doing what she wants to do. Right now, she thinks Bistrita and the others are in trouble. Are you coming or not?” she says.

I give them all a stern look. “We don’t have time to play me caveman, you Jane. The masters are in trouble, and we are not. They need our help. Five more vampires who can help aid them in their fight. We go now, or I go alone.”

Silver reaches out and touches my shoulder, and his eyes begin to glow bright blue and silver. “Master Bistrita is standing next to Lucianna, and she is in trouble. We have to go now,” he says, grabbing my arm. The others follow us into a dark abyss that carries us through the night with an eerie stillness until we land under the shadowed glow provided by the silver moon.

Silver crouches down, and gestures for us to do the same. He puts a finger to his lips as heads turn, having heard the crunching of dead branches under our feet. Animals scatter, racing through the trees, jumping from branch to branch overhead and along the ground. “It’s only the animals,” one of the men says.

Master Bistrita growls deep and low. “No, it is my disobedient mate, who has not yet learned to keep herself out of danger.” Leaves and sticks crunch under his boots as he makes his way toward our hiding place in the brush.

Silver’s jaw tightens before he gestures for us to all stand up. “We were planning to hang out and help if need be. Chara believes you’re in danger and wanted to help. I feel it too, no matter that we found you alive and well. She has your best interest at heart, Master Bistrita, as do we all,” Silver says.

Bistrita takes my hand and pulls me to him, holding me tight and kissing my hair on top of my head. “We will deal with your disobedience later. Right now, I’m just glad you are safe and by my side in one piece. Thank you,” he says to the group, just as we hear a swooping sound overhead and the night sky grows darker.

Chapter 25

Bistrita

I hold my love to my chest, her face pressed against the beating of my heart. Mine now for an eternity after giving her the lifeblood that flows in my veins, that as a pureblood provides an eternity of life. Destiny had a plan whether I believed in her or not.

I hold her fiercely for a moment, but as the sound of the rogues invading from overhead grows louder, I let her go. “Take these two into the trees and hide them safe,” I tell Silver, who does not hesitate to do as I’ve asked immediately. As much as they want to help, she has just transitioned, and Taylen may be weaker than she feels. I know because I too am not a hundred percent, only fueled by the need to put these fuckers in the ground, once and for all.

The masters disperse in the night, taking our places in the shadows of the huge tree trunks, low hanging branches, and bushes of the forest floor, waiting as the group descends to make our attack. A large dark shadow descends from a high tree, floating lower and lower until almost touching the ground. He calls out in a deep voice I’d recognize anywhere. “Descallia, it’s Magnus. We’ve brought help in our effort to get the last of the rogues,” he says as his feet touch the ground and others surround him in solidarity to our cause.

Overmaster Descallia steps out from behind his tree, his long black cape flying backward slightly in the breeze, his red eyes brilliant against the backdrop of the blackened night. He walks toward Magnus and extends a hand. “I hoped you had survived back at the mountain but feared you may have been hurt when I did not hear from you, my friend.”

Magnus nods. “We found more rogues and took them out, but we are here now. Do you know where the bastards have burrowed in at?” he asks, looking out into the distance at the Carpathian Mountains.

Descallia growls, deep and low. “When we find them, they will die a slow and painful death. There can’t be more than a handful of them left. Our intel says ten at worst, including Lucas. They’re hurting, they know they can’t win this war, but still, they want the key. They want what they always want. Don’t they, Magnus?”

Descallia’s oldest and dearest friend nods in agreement. “We have been friends for a long time, Descallia. We’ve always known we were going to need to move the key again, at one point. The witches and rogues have gotten too close to the key. Perhaps it’s time to safeguard it again, before the rogues find it and completely destroy everything you’ve worked for all these years. Without it, they do not have the means to rise up. With it”—he shakes his head—“it means they take everything. The time has come to move it, to safeguard our future again, my friend. We need to be swift and get to the key.”

The Vade Mecum passage Chara read to me swirls around in her mind, over and over again from her place in the trees, as though she’s speaking just to me. Overmaster’s closest and dearest friend will forge an alliance with the rogues to bring about a change in the hierarchy of all the vampires, with the intent to return things to the way they used to be.” As though Chara can’t let it go, and if it weren’t clear when she first told me, it becomes crystal clear and confirmed without a doubt at this very moment.

Yet, the way Magnus stands, his right hand held straight down with his palm facing behind him, as though a signal for others, holds me back.

He’s waiting to see if Overmaster Descallia has figured out his betrayal. Signaling to Lucas or others in the wind to wait, until he knows his deception is secure and he can get Descallia to lead him to the key.

The purebloods’ key…

The key that holds the fortune to our very existence has provided us with the wealth and power that the rogues, witches, shifters, and Lucas want. Magnus is the friend, of that I have no doubt, but Descallia has to see it; he has to realize it before it’s too late. It can’t be something we’re wrong about, without proof, after centuries of friendship.

I give our men the signal, no words needed to be ready to strike. The minute that fucker moves an inch toward our overmaster, he will be lying dead in a pool of black blood, with a three- centuries-old stake in his dark-souled heart.

But our future queen has ideas of her own.

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