Page 17 of Tamed By Her Vampire Protector

I guess the cat was out of the bag now.Sweat beaded on my forehead under their scrutiny.Every instinct inside screamed at me to leave, but I couldn’t make my feet move.

Sensing my discomfort, Amanda struggled up to her feet.She linked her arm with mine and gently led me over to where she and the other girls were sitting.

“We need to be here to know what our mates are planning.Just in case,” she whispered in my ear.

In case something went wrong, and they didn’t return home, she implied silently.The gravity of the situation sank in, and my knees buckled from under me.Thankfully, Lizzy had already slid a chair behind my knees.I sank down gratefully.The mere thought that I could lose Leo squeezed my heart painfully like a vise.

Dante looked around the room.“Where’s Giselle?If we don’t leave soon, we’re not going to have enough time to extract the humans.We have to set out now or the Aurelians will get there before we do.”

“There’s no encampment,” Grant said solemnly.

“What do you mean?”"Amanda asked.“I thought you found a hideout of people who were going to be captured and sold.”

“You made it all up,” Dante said as realization dawned.“This was a set-up to flush out the traitor.”

Alex nodded.“I have Giselle on video stealing the GPS unit in my office safe.By the time she arrives at the coordinates, it will already be too late for her and the Aurelians.The place has already been booby-trapped with explosives.”

Grant let out a bunch of curse words under his breath and kicked a metal garbage can across the room.“Our own sister.Fucking hell.It was her this whole time.”

My mind raced as I struggled to catch up to speed on what was happening, but from what I could figure out, Giselle, Leo’s mother, had betrayed the vampire clan.The odd occurrences these past weeks all made sense now.The multiple alarms going off around the compound at odd times.The unspoken tension between Alex and Leo.Why everybody seemed on edge all the time.Giselle had been stealing information from her own clan and passing it on to the Aurelians.

I shuddered.The Aurelians were truly evil.In comparison, the vampires in this room were saints.

Alex shot Leo a sideways glance.Even though Giselle was his and Grant’s sister, she was Leo’s mother.However lacking she may have been as a mom, her betrayal must have been like a knife to his gut.

Leo squared his jaw and his eyes hardened in response.“My mother made her bed the moment she sold out our clan.She is no longer my concern.”He turned to Alex and bowed at the waist.“You can depend on me to always act in the best interests of the Diamantis clan.This in no way affects my ability to serve you, Master.”

Alex placed a hand on Leo’s shoulder.“Your loyalty has never been in doubt, Leo.If you need to, you can sit this one out.”

Leo bowed even deeper.“I live to serve.”

Alex nodded.“Very well.”

“Do you think Giselle will come back?”Amanda asked.

“Our sister will not dare show her face around here again.The moment she turned on us, she put a kill order on herself,” Grant replied.

“She’s the Aurelians’s problem now,” Alex added.“Her time there is limited, too.They will never trust her.Once a traitor, always a traitor.”

Grant stood up, and with a nod from Alex, started to speak.“While Giselle has the Aurelian forces running around on a wild goose chase, we have an opportunity to strike.Victor in Athens has sent word that there’s been suspicious Aurelian activity in the Meteora area.”

“Shit.”Dante shook his head.“Is it really going to happen?We’ve all heard the old stories about the origins of vampires.The hell demons that escaped into our world and mated with humans to create our kind were supposed to be a legend.”

Alex frowned.“Cederic is determined to test that theory.If he succeeds in opening the portal in Greece, the barrier between two worlds will cease to exist.He will unleash hell on Earth.The current darkness will look like paradise in comparison”

“He’s insane.What could possibly come of this besides total chaos?These demons have no reason or desires besides violence and destruction,” Leo added.

“Our only chance to save the world is to stop Cederic before he opens the portal.”Alex paced the room as he spoke.Anxiety rolled off of him in waves that even I could sense.I had the barest understanding of what was going on, but even I could tell that the entire planet was in deep shit if we didn’t stop this Cederic guy.I remembered Amanda mentioning him some time back when she filled me in on everything that went down after we were separated in Paris.Cederic was the master vampire of the Aurelian clan.They were the ones who captured her before Alex rescued her.From what Amanda told me about the Aurelian vamps and everything they were involved in, they were despicable and evil in every sense of the word.

Leo must have sensed the unease building inside of me.He gathered me close and kissed the top of my head.“Do not be afraid.We will triumph,” he whispered.

Will we?I wanted to ask, but the steady confidence in his answer made it hard not to trust him.

“And how are we going to do that?”Dante asked.“He controls all the other vampire clans, so long as he has the orb of Teneblas.”

“Exactly.”Alex stopped and turned to face the rest of us.“We have to strip him of his power.Without the orb, he loses control of the sun.He will be nothing but just another clan leader.The others will turn on him, and then we can take him out for good.”

“Pack your bags, Meghan.”Leo squeezed my shoulder.“Looks like we’re going to Greece.”

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