Page 49 of Taken By the Vampires
“They struck all of us, their fear driving them. It was without mercy,” Davon said.
My mouth dried, horrible, horrible images reeling through my mind. People could be cruel when they wanted to be. Even more so when fueled by fear and motivated by hate.
Didn’t I know through personal experience that anyone who was even slightly different became a target? Kill what you don’t understand. That was what it was all about to some people.
A witch, three Vampires and a dead body would be very hard to understand.
“They stabbed us with wooden stakes, thinking to kill us at the feet of the witch they lashed to a pole and burned alive. Even in mortal peril, through all that agony, knowing death was imminent, the witch blamed us. As her skin turned black and shriveled from her body, she cursed us never to be able to leave the earth that was scorched at her feet,” Xander said.
The whole story was horrifying, but I could understand it. Knew that it would probably also happen today. That three hundred years and generations upon generations still bred the same fear of the unknown. That the instinct to attack and kill were acted on before understanding and compassion.
Wasn’t that what I did, knowing they’d saved me. Treated me. Tended me. Cared for me.
Made love to me.
Something eased inside, fracturing the haze of terror and fear.
They’d been Vampires all along and they hadn’t drained me, tasted my blood or even nicked me. They hadn’t done any of those things. They’d tried to help a stranger and allowed themselves to be blackmailed. Surely, they’d been stronger than the witch. They could have refused. Killed her, even with their superior strength and agility.
Yet they hadn’t.
“This house appeared around us. Our gilded prison. Built on magic and hatred. The town forgot us. We are invisible to the outside world. Trapped here in a bubble until…”
“Until what?” I dragged the tip of my tongue over dry lips.
“Until we find our Tu Ena. The One, who will set us free. The only person in the universe who can break the hatred that binds us to this spot.”
My lips were numb as I spoke. “Is that what that means? Tu Ena? The One? That’s what you’ve been calling me.”
Xander’s intense stare speared me. It was filled witheverything.
“You think that’sme.” I was breathless, a tide of ice slamming into my body. But I couldn’t be that person. I was no one. An insignificant speck who couldn’t even step foot out of a town that hated me.
“We don’t think it’s you. We know it’s you, Ella. You’ve come to free us,” Xander said.
“But…how?Why?” It didn’t make sense. Nothing about this made any sense.
“You feel us, Ella. There’s a thread that connects us. We feel it pulsing through us. Ever since we first met you,” Cassius said.
“I knew it when I tasted your blood,” Xander said.
I put a hand to my neck. I would have remembered that, wouldn’t I? Xander had neverfedfrom me. Not like the bear.
Confusion must have been plain in my face, because Xander spoke, “When we found you, you were…close to death. I had to share my blood with you. It was the only way to save you, but when I did, I knew, Ella. I knew you were our mate. It should have been impossible —the odds of you crossing paths with us—but it happened.”
A distant memory jolted. It was faint. Like a dream. In that blurred time when I’d hovered between life and death, Xander had bitten me and I’d had a powerful orgasm. It seemed to be the way of things between myself and these men.
That meant…he’d bitten me and saved me and not bled me dry.
“Do you feel it, Ella? Do you feel us?” Davon asked.
I licked my dry lips, unable to answer. If I told them I did, would that mean I would be forever unable to leave? If I told them I didn’t, would that condemn them even more? I didn’t know. I just didn’t know.
“You are also a direct descendant of the woman who put us here. What one can condemn, another will release,” Cassius said.
“But I…I don’t understand.”
“The witch who put us here was named Ginerva.”
