House of Ravens (25 page)

IN URGENCY AND FRUSTRATION, AN hour
passes.

“
Why aren’t they making a
move on the House?” I ask quietly as I stand next to Henry, our
eyes searching the property. “If they wanted to attack me, take me
out, they had plenty of opportunity to storm the House.”

“
It makes me think that was
not the purpose of what they’re doing today,” he responds. I see
his fingers twitch, where he holds a curved blade. The way he
shifts from one foot to the other, ready to fight, to move, his
deadly nature is apparent.

He’s been out there, for months, fighting
them. But now, when there has to be some kind of fighting going on
out there, he’s here.

And I have no doubt that I am the reason
why.

Two hours pass.

Three.

We let Elle out of the panic room, which I
learn is accessed by a hidden door in the pantry. She joins in
keeping lookout.

“
Anna is coming up from the
river,” I hear Smith shout from upstairs. “With Danny and Leigh in
tow.”

I rush to the back doors, to Rath’s side. He
has his gun trained on him with laser focus, scanning the landscape
around them. I push open the door, standing aside as the three of
them file in. Rath quickly closes it behind them, locking it up
tight.

“
We searched and searched,
but there was nothing,” Anna says as she hurtles a stake across the
ballroom, embedding it into the wall twenty feet away from
her.

“
It was a diversion,” Danny
says, pacing the floor like a wild animal. “Someone gave the
sheriff a false tip.”

“
I think they were trying
to split us up,” I say. I explain what happened with Lillian and
the Institute. That one of our own has finally been
killed.

“
And you can’t get a hold
of the others?” Anna demands. Her eyes are still glowing, like they
were when she left hours earlier.

I shake my head, the stake in my hands
splintering as I squeeze it without realizing. “Something is going
on, and I hate being in the dark.”

“
It’s obvious their goal is
to keep us separated,” Henry says loudly from the front door. “So
we can’t give them what they want. We need to stay together. Stay
strong.”

“
He’s right,” I say,
nodding my head. “As badly as I want to get out there and go find
everyone, we can’t split up. They’ll start picking us off, one by
one.”

IT ISN’T EASY, JUST
SITTING
here, when so much could be going
wrong. Sitting tight while we have to wonder if we’re going to be
attacked at any moment.

I make dinner. Fried chicken and potato
wedges. Cut up a watermelon. I made cheesecake for dessert. I want
it to take as long as possible to prepare everything, so my mind
can be taken off of the anxiety of waiting.

We all eat in silence. I keep looking at the
ring on my finger. Ian is out there. I have no contact with him. I
don’t know what’s happened with him.

But I have to believe he’s okay.

At eleven that night, my phone finally rings
from the dining room table.

“
Samuel!” I yell into it.
“Where are you? What is going on?”

“
I was just going to ask
you the same question,” he says with horror in his voice. “We just
got back to the Institute and there’s blood all over, the front
door is broken down, and Holland…” He can’t finish his
sentence.

“
There was an attack,” I
say, frustrated and impatient. “Samuel, you all need to get back to
the Estate, right now.”

“
We’re on our way.” He
doesn’t question, and I’m pretty sure I hear the sound of someone
throwing up before he hangs up.

I pace in the ballroom as I wait for the
group to arrive. Smith yells down when they do. When Samuel,
Trinity, and Rowan walk through the doors, they drip mud and blood
to the floor.

“
Where the hell have you
three been all day?” I demand like an angry mother. “I’ve been
calling and calling and so, so terrified!”

Samuel takes half a step back from me,
giving me a wary look. “We found two Bitten lurking outside the
elementary school this morning,” he says, walking into the kitchen
where he starts washing his arms off, after he strips his crusted
shirt off. “We took off after them, but they were fast. We’ve been
chasing them all day. All the way down to the bayou of Louisiana.
Trinity lost her phone in the mud and mine wasn’t much better. We
got the bastards, by the way.”

“
They were just hanging out
by the school?” I ask, my brows furrowed.

“
It was weird,” Trinity
says, leaning against the counter, getting mud everywhere. “Almost
like they wanted us to see them. And I’ve never seen Bitten as fast
as they were.”

“
They were luring you
away,” I say, again swearing under my breath. Once more, I set to
explaining everything that has happened.

“
There’s someone down at
the gate,” Henry suddenly says from the front door. I dart out,
stopping beside him at the door. A moment later, Christian,
Lexington, Obasi, and Nial walk up, tired, dirty, but all in one
piece.

“
We found the woman who had
been bitten,” Nial says as they all walk in. “She hadn’t lost much
blood.”

“
But the pricks got away,”
Christian says as he follows his nose into the kitchen where he
starts scarfing down leftovers.

“
If I’d had to guess, I’d
say it was almost like they let the woman go,” Lexington adds as
he, too, grabs some chicken. “She was pretty tiny, didn’t seem much
like a fighter.”

“
Something definitely
wasn’t right,” Obasi says in his powerful voice.

“
What the hell is going
on?” I whisper. I pull out my cell phone and once more dial Ian’s
number. It immediately goes to voicemail this time.

“
Something is wrong,” I
say, shaking my head and redialing. Same thing. I walk to the front
door, standing on the porch in the dark, willing him to walk up the
front drive.

“
I could go look,” Danny
says from behind me.

“
No,” I say, squeezing my
eyes closed. “As badly as I want to, we have to stay together. I
won’t let anyone else get hurt.”

“
DID YOU HEAR THAT?”
LILLIAN
suddenly perks up. She and I both
sit up a little straighter and my ears strain for the sound
again.

Someone falling. A wet, grinding sound.
Followed by a cry.

“
Alivia!”

I’m out the door and darting across the
gravel drive, Danny at my side, a dozen others guarding the house
with guns. Down to the gate, my eyes grow wide in the pre-dawn
light as the metal gates come into view.

Lying behind them is Cameron, covered in
blood, and someone lying facedown in the gravel.

Coiling my muscles, I launch myself over the
gate, even as it begins swinging open. I land beside them, rolling
Markov over.

“
What the hell happened?” I
ask in horror as I take in his bloody state. He’s been bitten,
dozens of times. His leg is obviously broken, his face is a bloody
mess, I can’t even tell what happened. He’s unconscious, and his
breathing is labored.

Looking back at Cameron, I see he’s in
little better shape. His left arm is shredded, like someone razed
their fangs up and down his flesh. Blood pours from his nose and
huge bruises bloom over his entire body.

“
We were attacked,” he
says, hardly able to breathe.

“
Let’s get them inside,”
Danny says, stooping down and gathering Markov up into his arms.
“No need talkin’ out here all exposed.”

Cameron wraps an arm over my shoulders, and
I help him up the drive. We walk through the front doors and Henry
locks them behind us once more.

Nial is a flurry of activity. Danny sets
Markov on a gurney, and Nial is digging through his medical cart,
prodding and poking and demanding blood bags. He rips open Markov’s
shirt to listen with a stethoscope, placing it right above the
Conrath crest Cyrus branded into his flesh. The one most of my
House bears.

Elle walks in, standing cautiously in the
corner, her eyes big and watchful.

Cameron sinks into a chair next to the
gurney, wincing as he does. “We heard someone scream, out past that
corn farm, so we went to check it out, hours ago.” He grimaces as
Trinity carefully dabs at the cut on his face. The look on his face
is conflicted as she tries to take care of him. “We were ambushed.
At least a dozen Bitten. Six of them took Markov down. Only took
three to do this to me.” He hisses in pain as Trinity dabs some
kind of liquid to the wound. “But they shot Ian with that toxin.
Took him straight down.”

I crouch down in front of Cameron, hardly
breathing. “Cameron, what happened to Ian?”

Elle’s bare feet pad over the floor, taking
just five unsure steps forward.

The regret that is there in Cameron’s eyes
is so apparent. “They took him, Liv.”

The room grows very quiet and everything
seems to slow down.

They took him.

“
Why…why would they take
Ian?” I finally find my voice. It’s quiet. Lost sounding. “Why him?
Why not me?”

“
He’s your best fighter,
right?” Lexington says. “Maybe they just wanted him out of play for
when the real battle goes down?”

I shake my head, my eyes unable to focus on
anything. “But then why not Anna? Why not Danny?”

“
Maybe it’s just another
way to hurt you, Alivia,” Francesca offers. “He’s your
fiancé.”

“
Maybe they’re going to use
him as some kind of bargaining tool,” Christian says, folding his
arms over his chest.

I shake my head, taking a
step back from the group. “This…this was deliberate. Thought out.
They utilized this huge distraction to take
him
. I… Why?”

“
I think the better
question is why didn’t they just kill him?” Trinity asks
coldly.

A small little squeak springs from Elle’s
lips.

“
Enough,” Rath snaps at
Trinity, glaring death in her direction.

“
I think you should sit
down,” Henry says, coming to my side and placing a comforting hand
on my shoulder. Rowan disappears in a flash and reappears with a
chair from the dining room. He slides it up behind me and I do sink
down onto it, my mind racing through a million scenarios, unable to
grasp on to a single one.

An animalistic scream brings me back into
the room. I look over to see Nial pulling on Markov’s leg, setting
the bone straight. Samuel holds Markov’s shoulders down to the
gurney to keep him from jumping away. Markov’s eyes glow red, black
veins spreading throughout his face.

Lexington instantly disappears, hauling Elle
up the stairs and away from the scene.

“
Drink this,” Lillian says,
shoving a blood bag in his face.

Markov grabs it, squeezing hard and making
it pop before he flings it away from him. “I need fresh!” he
bellows, a feral growl bubbling from his chest.

“
You know you won’t be able
to control yourself,” Lillian says, helping to keep Markov on the
table. “In this state, you’ll drain anyone you touch.”

“
I don’t care!”

I lean back away from him. His voice is
demonic sounding, possessed. His wild eyes search the space around
him. “The girl, the girl upstairs. Bring her to me!”

He yanks away from Lillian, but instantly,
Leigh and Anna pile on top of him, Anna’s knee pressed to his
throat.

“
Give me a bag,” she
demands of May, who’s holding five of them. She takes one, rips it
open with her teeth, and grabs Markov’s nose, forcing him to open
his mouth to breathe. She empties the bag into his mouth, covering
it with her hand when she’s finished, forcing him to
swallow.

She repeats this five times.

Markov glares death and curses at her with
each and every one. But finally, with the last, his eyes grow
heavy, the adrenaline burning out of his blood. His head lolls back
to the table, and he passes out once more.

“
Damn maniac,” Anna
breathes as she climbs off of him, licking the leftover blood from
her hands.

Sometimes I forget.

Forget who it is I rule.

What I am.

What our species truly is.

But then there are reminders. Like this. We
need blood to survive. Some of us are not able to control our
instincts. Some of us come from truly dark backgrounds.

We are vampires.