Page 9 of Crimson Storm

The ruler of the Crimson Court valued her Bloodbound soldiers above all else—even me. Especially me.

Maybe Glenn was a mole for her or something? It didn’t seem like her style to rely on a human, but I would put nothing past her if it served her purposes.

“Just be grateful we got you out of there, okay?” the driver said in a highly irritated tone. “You’d probably be a little puff of smoke by now if we hadn’t.”

“What does that mean?” I looked at Shane because he seemed to be the friendliest of our liberators.

“I guess they don’t let you guys watch the news in those places, huh? It’s Inauguration Day. One of the first things President Parker did when he left the podium after taking the oath of office was sign an executive order regarding the Safety Centers and the vamps in prison,” he said.

An invisible hand grabbed my throat, making it difficult to speak. “What order?”

“To uh... liquidate their population. Tomorrow morning.” Shane’s face crinkled in an almost embarrassed expression.

“Liquidate? What does that mean?” Heather asked.

I knew what the word meant, and it wasn’t good. “They’re going tokillall the people in all the Safety Centers?”

“Not the people,” Glenn the guard piped up from the front passenger seat, shooting a cocky grin over his left shoulder. “Just the vamps.”

“Hey, they’re people too,” Shane said, but Glenn just chuckled and turned to face the front windshield again.

“No offense,” the guard said in a tone that was far from apologetic. “A little gratitude might be nice, by the way.”

“Thank you,” I bit out.

The driver smiled at me in the rearview mirror. “That’s better. Now how bout all of you shut up and let me focus on driving? The sun’s gonna be coming up in a couple hours, and if we don’t make it home before that, all our heroics are gonna be for nothin’. This SUV isn’t treated for daytime vamp driving.”

Interesting. It must really have been a quickly planned operation for them to have arrived so close to dawn.

Or... maybe they’d planned it that way so we’d have very little time left to find shelter if we decidednotto go along with them.

I turned to Shane, speaking quietly. “Where are you taking us?”

“To my uncle’s house.” He pointed to the driver. “That’s my Uncle Terry.”

Gesturing to the guard in the passenger seat, he said, “That’s my Uncle Glenn. They’re brothers. You and your friends can spend the day at the house and leave when the sun goes down tomorrow night. Don’t worry. Like I said, no one’s going to hurt you. Terry just wants a favor.”

Ah. Now it was starting to make sense. The men didn’t strike me as pro-vampire activists or do-gooders of any kind.

“What kind of favor?” I asked, but Glenn shot me a warning look.

“Quiet now. We’ll tell you when we get there.”

Okay then.

I wasn’t sure what favor our “liberators” were after, but Iwasgrateful. If there was somethinglegalI could do to help the man, I would.

Now if he wanted me and my friends to use our speed and strength to rob a convenience store or something, he was out of luck. With President Parker officially in office, it was possible vampires caught committing crimes could be shot on sight with no repercussions.

Maybe Imogen was right.

She had warned that we couldn’t trust the humans to honor the Accord, that eventually they’d turn on us. That was why she offered sanctuary to any vampires who wanted it and had formed her own personal army, the Bloodbound.

No.I refused to believe it. I had to trust that Sadie would be able to reason with the new president and make him see the Crimson Accord was still a benefit to society. It terrified me to think of what would happen if it were to be dissolved.

Peace between vampires and humans was theonlyanswer. I’d believed in that enough to leave home over it, enough to dedicate my life to working for Sadie and her cause.

Enough to leave Reece behind.

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