House of Ravens (28 page)

Emotion cracks in Lula’s voice, and it’s so
obvious how much she loves the grandson she had to raise. “Cora
regretted she was not successful in creating a Royal child, but
there was nothing she could do, except hide the lie she’d created.
Ian was born, she and her husband raised him, continued to fight,
and then they created a child together.”

Elle. She told me once that there was no
mistaking that she was George Ward’s child. She looked just like
him.

“
But not long after Elle
was born, Cora met yet another man,” Lula closes her eyes once
more. She clenches her teeth, anger rising on her wrinkled face. “A
Bitten, finally free of his Debt. He filled her head with ideas of
grandeur. Of possibilities. She talked about everything they could
accomplish.”

The space around us is silent. So much
history. So much anger and hatred.

“
When my grandson showed up
at my house, holding his tiny sister, telling me his parents were
dead, I suspected what had happened, and confirmed it when my
daughter’s body was nowhere to be found.” Lula’s voice is a hollow
grave under a full moon. Full of secrets and bad mojo. “For their
safety, I had to let them believe what everyone said happened to
their mother. She needed to stay dead. Because if she could just
walk away from them to start her revolution, she didn’t deserve to
be their mother.”

Tears freely flow down Elle’s face now. She
bites her lower lip, attempting to hold the emotions in, and
failing.

“
So, for fourteen years
now, my daughter has been dead to me,” Lula says hardly. “My child
died long ago, somewhere between being attacked, and learning too
many secrets.”

The message is clear: she blames Henry for
much of this.

Nobody says a word for a long time. There’s
too much to process, too many pieces to continue to place.

“
At least now we know,”
Elle says quietly.

“
WE NEED TO LEAVE—NOW,” I
say. It’s as if I instantly wake up, shake out of my numb and
shocked state. I head for the armory. “Before they have time to
gather the rest of their numbers. We have the advantage of being
able to see in the day now. If we strike now, we have a chance of
taking her down. We don’t have time to wait for the Himura House
any longer.”

Others jump to life behind me—Anna, Obasi,
Lexington, Danny, Leigh all following me and immediately packing
up. Slowly, the others trickle in.

“
We’ve been looking for
them for months,” Lillian says. “Nothing has changed.”

I shake my head in disagreement. “Everything
has changed. Even if we can’t take all of her Bitten out, we can at
least cut off the head. I know where Cora has been living.”

“
Are you sure about this,
Alivia?” Henry asks, grabbing my arm as I walk out of the room.
“Once you step foot into the battle front of war, there’s no going
back.”

I meet his eyes, absolutely sure about this.
“There’s already no going back. She has my future husband. I plan
to get him back.”

He studies me for a moment, and gives a
short, curt nod.

“
Elle, you’re to stay here
and take care of Lula,” I say, going into queen mode. “Don’t you
dare try and argue with me. She needs you, and I need to keep you
safe.”

She looks at me with mixed emotions. But
thankfully, she just nods in agreement.

Twenty minutes later, we file out of the
Conrath mansion. One by one, together as a united House, ready to
end this.

A family of eighteen.

The day shines bright, late afternoon. The
air is humid, summer in the South. A beautiful day to fight a
war.

As we walk through the gate, three Bitten
rush at us, their glowing yellow eyes hidden behind sunshades. In a
few swift movements, Rath, Danny, and Trinity take them out.

We pass neighborhoods, housewives stopping
in their windows to stare at the legends who have hidden in the
dark. Children stop playing in their yards and run back into their
homes. Cars stop in the streets, letting us by.

When we reach Main Street, I look down the
road.

By nightfall, this town will either be safe
from the terrorism it has suffered for nearly a year, or it’s going
to fall into chaos, the Bitten taking charge.

Things will change by tonight.

Halfway between the Main Street tee and the
turn off for Cora’s house, half a dozen Bitten jump out from the
shadows, stakes and blades slashing through the air. As a united
cell, collected and ready, they are no match against us.

Their bodies are hidden in the shadows of
the trees.

Down the street, we finally turn right, and
follow the bumpy, uneven dirt road.

Weeks ago, I looked up the symbol the army
has been using: the snake eating its own tail. The Ouroboros. It
represents re-creation and eternal return. The re-creation of the
Bitten, a cycle that has been going on for so long now. It also
represents primordial unity. But in this cause, there is no unity.
Only unwitting slaves.

Daphne. My one and only human friend here in
Silent Bend was not human. As I think about it, I haven’t seen her
since I Resurrected. If I had, I would have smelled her. Could have
detected so much. But she played me as a weak, unknowing human.

She plotted so much. Our early morning
meetings at Fred’s when it was just she and I. Never crossing my
path when Ian and I were together. Never running into anyone who
might recognize her from before she supposedly died.

And she took care of her major problem of
the sunlight limiting her. I wonder now if she had the strength to
remove her eyes herself, or if she commanded one of her Debted
Bitten to do it for her.

I had felt so sorry for her, being blind, so
alone.

But she’d tricked me too carefully.

Ian’s mother.

The reason he was so angry about the
vampires. He’d believed they’d killed her, his father, too. When
she purposefully sought out a Born to conceive him, when she longed
so much to join them in their immortal status.

She’s waited so patiently. Plotted so
carefully.

Because she had so much on the line.

Take out a Royal House. Show the vampire
world that the Bitten could be just as deadly as the Royals.

Start a revolution.

The scent travels in the air—the smell of
the Bitten. Their blood smells spoiled, slightly tainted. Not dead,
but not really alive, either.

The fields come into view. And soon, the
tiny house, with the massive barn behind it. But not a soul is
there to greet us. No one stands at the ready, prepared for
war.

“
They’re in the barn,”
Danny growls.

“
At least twenty of them by
the sound of it,” Lexington says.

“
Form a square,” Anna
commands. “Alivia, I want you at the center of us all. Danny, you
at the center on one side, Smith the opposite. I’ll take one, and
Henry, you take the other. Everyone else fill in.”

They all shift into place, Rath standing at
my side, his weapons at the ready.

My heart races in anticipation, excitement
and fear spiking in my blood. I’m ready for this. Ready for it to
end. One way or the other. But I do not plan on dying today.

Two figures from the trees suddenly jump in
surprise, obviously not expecting to see us here. But their Debt is
obvious as they rush out from the trees. Leigh and Samuel step out
of formation just long enough to cut them down.

The moment they hit the ground in a puddle
of blood, the trees begin moving.

First, six Bitten step from the perimeter of
the field. They rush our square. But before they even reach us,
another dozen step out.

The first wave hits the protective border
around me and the bodies surge inward. Christian swings a sword,
slicing up through a man’s chest. Trinity moves in a flash,
embedding a stake into another woman’s heart.

Henry twirls in a circle, kicking his foot
out and completely crushing a hulking man’s chest inward. He falls
to the ground, dead.

The next wave rushes us, just as another set
appears from the trees. Only this time, there has to be at least
twenty of them.

And they all rush forward at once.

My House members let out a war cry, raising
their weapons, cutting down the Bitten, who move so much slower,
who don’t possess anywhere near the same kind of strength. But wave
after wave of bodies keeps surging inward on us.

A spray of blood hits me in the side of the
face, and I turn, taking in the details of what is really happening
around me.

Innocent people, people who were once wives
and sons and cousins, don’t even know what they’re doing. They were
commanded to kill us, and they have no choice but to fight. I’ve
always despised the Debt, but the true weight of it has never been
more apparent.

Daphne—Cora, wanted to start a revolution,
but in doing so, she failed to see that she was just creating
slaves who had no voice for themselves. All she really wanted was
power.

She didn’t even take care of her soldiers.
Most of them wear little more than sunglasses, which are
ineffectual in blocking out the evening sun.

Rowan stumbles back, crashing in to me. I
pull a blade from my hip, slicing down the young man who attacks.
He falls at Rowan’s feet, blood pooling onto the young boy’s
shoes.

Rath swings an arm out, burying a stake deep
into the chest of a Bitten directly behind me.

“
Thanks,” I huff as I swing
my blade once more at a Bitten who rushes from the other
side.

Another wave of Bitten rush from the
trees.

There are so many of them. The bodies from
the barn haven’t even engaged yet, and there has to be at least
ninety of them already in the field.

“
Cora!” I bellow as I nock
an arrow and fire it at a rushing enemy. I nock another, loading in
quick succession and firing. “Come out here and show your face! I
know who you are!”

Cameron gets knocked to his back behind me
and I spin, flinging a stake into the heart of a woman.

They don’t even have weapons to fight with.
They aren’t trained or prepared for war. I wonder if we truly
caught them off guard and unprepared or if Cora was purely relying
on their mass numbers to defeat us.

Hands grab me from behind, pulling me clean
off my feet. Sharp fangs bite down into the soft flesh between my
neck and shoulder. A demonic cry rips from my throat as pain sears
into my flesh.

The fangs are suddenly ripped away, and I
roll over just in time to see Henry rip the man’s head clean from
his shoulders. He then rocket-throws the head at a charging woman,
knocking her from her feet.

He’s covered in blood, but not a scratch on
him. His eyes glow, brilliant and wild. His fangs exposed. Blood
drips from his bare hands, and I watch as he buries one of them in
a man’s chest, before ripping his heart out.

My father is a calm man. A man who just
wanted to be left alone. But when someone he loves is hurt or
threatened, he turns into a demon who will slaughter anyone in his
path.

I whip around, grabbing a woman by the
throat, shoving her back from me before plunging my blade into her
chest.

I look up as someone falls, fifteen feet in
front of me. Rowan is shoved down by a huge man, and immediately,
five others swarm on top of him.

“
No!” I scream, darting to
help him, when I’m slammed into from the side.

A woman wraps her hands around my throat,
squeezing hard. Another man comes up from behind, throwing a
massive punch to my ribs as he rounds in front of me. I buckle
forward, feeling something inside my chest snap.

Groping for the straps around my leg, I grab
a stake and swing, at the same time the man takes a swing at my
face, connecting, hard, with my jaw.

I feel it crack, even as he collapses dead.
Feeling the anger surge inside of me, I spear my fingers together,
and plunge them straight into the woman’s chest.

Bones crack, shatter, and scrape my hand as
I blow past them. It’s wet and warm, and the pumping motion as I
take hold of the vital organ almost makes me lose the contents of
my stomach.

But as I look past her, and see Rowan weakly
swing at his attackers, his arm covered in blood, my mercy falls
away. I rip her heart from her chest.

Before she even falls to the ground, I’m
across the field, ripping Bitten off of Rowan, stabbing as I move.
Burying stakes. Three dead. Two others who cling to him, biting,
clawing.

Rowan screams, chilling my blood.

I level the gun in front of me, shooting the
man in the head. I’m about to shoot the woman when I’m tackled from
the side. Another piles on top of me, and not a second later, a
third is there, too.