Page 30 of Master Calabrea

“It’s been a few days, Tansia. You fought hard and came through just as I expected that you would. The fever started tobreak yesterday but didn’t completely leave your body until a few hours ago.

“Where’s Calabrea?”

She averts her eyes and fidgets with the glass in her hand, a habit she’s had since early on in life. The same one that tells me she’s hiding something that she doesn’t really want me to know, like when she lost my favorite CD or ruined my favorite dress when I let her wear it on a date. “Angel?”

Her lips purse in the quirky way. “I never could hide anything from you, could I? Even when it was for your own good?”

I smile. “Yeah, like hiding the fact that your family were a bunch of gangsters? I hate to tell you this, but I think it was pretty obvious to everyone. We just didn’t care. Your family didn’t define you then and they still don’t, right?” I ask her.

Angel smiles at me and squeezes my hand. “Calabrea’s gone. They all are. They went after the shifters and Isala. They were supposed to meet some others in the north part of the country, toward the Campania region, but no one has heard from them. They never made the meet. Everyone is looking for them.”

My chest tightens with angst. “How long ago?”

“Three days since they left, about two and a half since I heard from Roman,” she says, holding back the tears that I know must take a monumental effort.

“Calabrea, Roman and you drink pure blood to rejuvenate, to gain your strength back and heal?” I ask her.

Her eyes grow wide because my best friend is far from stupid. “Yes, and time, Tansia. Lots of time after a transition. You can’t just drink a quart of blood and think you’re going to be fine just like that.”

“Go and get me one, or two; whatever it takes. I’ll get dressed.”

She shakes her head.

“I will transport right off this bed and leave your ass behind,” I tell her, hoping she doesn’t know that I haven’t the slightest idea how to do that.

“Fine, stubborn ass,” she says, swishing out of the room and down the long hall to the elevators. “And make mine strong as hell,” I call out, immediately regretting testing vocal cords that haven’t been used in days in that manner. I lean over and take another sip of water, this time letting it go down slowly to sooth the ache that yelling like that caused.

I swing my legs out of bed and put my feet on the floor. I stand up, feeling a little disoriented and jelly-like just out of the gate, but as I walk around the room gathering clothes from a pile on the chair, some of my motor skills begin to get steadier. I sit on the edge of the bed to pull on my pants and stand to slip them over my waste and zip and button them up.

I sense her before I see her…

I turn toward the door, and the sight of my friend with tears rolling down her face, holding two quarts of blood in her hand shreds me to pieces.

“What is it?” I ask, standing, walking to her in the doorway.

“A vision, Trentino is hurt. Badly. I need to get to him, Tansia. Everything in my psychic brain tells me the witches are behind this. I called Raven to join me. I have to go. Elda will stay with you.”

I take one of the quarts from her hand and swallow hard, because even knowing how much this will help my body heal doesn’t make it any more palatable for someone who has not been a vampire longer than a few moments of time.

There’s no time for acquiring the taste, not if Trentino’s life is on the line because Angel is not leaving me behind. I take a deep breath and chug the thick, red sticky liquid, half choking as it makes its way down my throat.

The minute some of it starts to settle into my system, my body responds. A calm takes over and keeps the nerves at bay, making me at least feel strong and brave, even if my strength is not yet a hundred percent. “You’re not going on your own. You can forget it,” I tell her.

Angel disappears down the hall and returns with holsters and weapons, handing some to me and then getting herself geared up while I do the same. She’s long since wiped away her tears because she, like me, is ready to leave, to go and defend the ones we love and the life we have sworn our eternal devotion to defend.

Chapter

Nineteen

Finally, after three long days crashing through the underbrush to get to the Campania region, we pick up a strong scent of mangy shifters. They’ve managed to get downwind of us, and I can smell the mangy bastards from here.

I gesture to Clay and Terrence who joined the team hours before to flank the sides as Master Campania, Trentino, and I bore straight for them, challenging the yellow eyed traitors to come forward with our swords out and prepared for a bloody battle before they tell us what we need to know.

Overmaster Descallia may have put me on point, but he’s not the kind of leader who is going to sit back and let his masters head into the enemy lines without being by their side. He, Lucianna, Lucas, and Embry have stayed close by our sides with Silver on our heels.

We’re all prepared to surmount the challenges that we’ve faced with every sighting of these shifty bastards. We know full well it could be yet another of Isala’s masterful ploys to get us somewhere only to lead us entirely somewhere else as the last three days have proved.

But we are determined to best them at their game…

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