Текст книги "Chains of Frost"
Автор книги: T. A. Grey
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Chains of Frost
The Bellum Sisters -1
by
T. A. Grey
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank LuMary for taking the time to help make this book shine and Mae I Design for creating this wonderful book cover. Also, congrats to the contest winners of this book!
Glossary
idummi – A bottom feeding demon from the deepest layer under the rift. They are aggressive, easily manipulated creatures with poisonous talons.
lilit – A demonic term for a succubus.
frimar – A vampire’s blood concubine, highly respected and honored among vampires.
host – A vampire whom uses a frimar.
new moon – The time when a succubus grows into sexual maturity.
Protector – A male in charge of protecting and caring for a succubus.
rift – The division between earth and the nether-realm where demons of many kinds reside.
Prologue
And to the eldest
my beloved daughter Chloe
I bequeath to you our home in Colorado
for I know you love the snow and cold winter nights;
Most importantly I
command that on the day of your birthday
in this year of 2011
you will be delivered to
Commander Tyrian en Kulev, Leader of the Atal Warriors,
Champion of the Vampires and Protector of Humanity,
to be Protected by
to facilitate a relationship with,
and to mate and breed with.
This I so order on the 8th of May 2010.
Signed, dated and ordered at the event of my death,
Sir Frances Jeremiah Bellum
May 8th, 2010
Chapter One
October 28
The copy of the will crinkled like dried paper in her hands. Chloe Bellum read over the lines for the eighth time, wondering if she could change the words on the page with enough passes. When she looked up at her two sisters, she realized she wasn’t alone in her complete and utter shock.
Her fraternal twin, Willow, wore an angry scowl that Chloe recognized. She was about to throw something. Leaning away from her twin, Chloe watched her younger sister’s response.
Lily looked confused but not nearly as outraged as she and her twin felt right now. Maybe the news in her part of the will was not so...unbelievable.
“Okay, who’s going first?” Chloe spoke at the same time her twin said, “What the fuck?”
“Lily, what does yours say?” Her eyebrows shot up and she smiled with a shake of her head.
“No way. You’re the oldest. You go first. I’m not starting this dig graving festival.”
Chloe looked down at the sheet of yellow parchment in her hands and winced. Was it too much to hope that it would just disappear from her hands? First Papa was killed in a terrible accident and now this, and by his own hand no less! It was insanity.
“Well?” Willow growled impatiently. Her toes tapped an incessant beat on the carpet floor.
Chloe put on her ‘big sister’ hat. “It says that Papa wants me to have the house in Colorado since I love the snow.” Her voice thickened with emotion and immediately her sisters’
eyes mirrored the emotion. “He also has commanded me to the ownership of Tyrian en Kulev.”
Collective gasps and curses sounded.
“The leader of demon slayers? The cold-hearted son of a bitch that would just as soon eat your heart if he was hungry,” Willow sputtered.
A cold knot was building in Chloe’s stomach. She felt torn between running to the
bathroom to throw up her dinner and falling on the floor in a fit of hysteria. With her sisters here, she was left with the mature choice—vomiting. Rubbing a hand over her stomach, she tried to soothe her uneasiness.
“Lily, do you think what they say about him is true? That he really did kill his wife and children? I heard that even his own army fears him.”
Lily’s big eyes widened. “I’ve heard all the same things as you two, but I doubt the rumors. What I don’t get is why papa would give you to him. This is so unlike him that I can’t even believe it. I never saw this coming.”
Chloe nodded. Lily sometimes “sensed” things in dreams. Her visions had about a 50%
chance of coming true.
“No shit,” Willow said, her entire foot now bobbing against the floor. “What’s the point in raising us to overcome the misogynistic, patriarchal ways of our kind if, when he dies, he literally gives us away to some random man?”
Chloe shot her a startled look. “He did the same to you?”
A tight nod was her response.
“Who?”
Willow’s hand tightened into a fist, smashing the will in her hand. “Someone who will never get me.”
“Who is it, Willow?” Lily asked.
“It says Alpha Lyonis Keelan, Leader of the Shapeshifters.”
Chloe gasped. “Let me see that.” She had to pry the crumpled paper out of her sister’s fist finger by finger, but she finally got it. She read over the will with wide eyes. “Oh my God.
That’s the Alpha. Like the leader and all-powerful shapeshifter in the world. Can take multiple forms, has never been bested in a fight.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you like him so much why don’t you take him,” Willow said.
Chloe understood her sister’s anger and even her reticence. Inside Chloe felt a deep fear that would have her trembling if not for the company of her sisters. Willow was untamable—a rebel in every sense of the word. To partner her with an Alpha shapeshifter, a man bound to be dominating and controlling, well, Chloe felt for her sister. She also wouldn’t mind being there to see it happen. Front row tickets, please!
“What does yours say, Lily?” Not only was she dying to know, but she really wanted to give Willow some breathing room. She was about to tap a hole through the floor.
Lily cleared her throat, opened her mouth to speak, then blushed. Chloe nudged Willow who turned to glare at her, but when she nodded towards Lily, they both broke out into grins.
“Dish now,” Willow commanded. It was good to hear laughter in her sister’s voice. Since Papa had died, none of them had been laughing. And now with this...
Lily lifted paper to cover her mouth and muttered something.
“What was that?” Chloe inquired with a grin.
“Speak louder!” Willow said, her lips twitching with a smile.
Lily lowered the paper slowly and visibly swallowed. “He has ordered that on my 29th birthday, I am to be given to Telal Dumuzi. He is my Protector.”
Absolute, stone-shocked silence filled the room.
Chloe recognized the name. Who the hell didn’t? But trying to wrap her mind around it was an entirely different feat. Willow recovered first and came to a stand.
“A demon! The demon? Papa has given you to a demon. This is...this is insane. Pure fucking crazy. First the vampire killer, then that stupid Alpha, and now a demon. I can’t believe any of this. He’s not going to get me. He’s not going to get any of you. Dammit, think of something you guys. Are we sure Papa wrote this? This is not the Papa I knew that’s for damn sure. This can’t be right.” Finally tired of her tirade, she collapsed back onto the sofa.
Chloe scooted next to her sister and wrapped an arm around her. “These came directly from Papa’s lawyer, Frank. We’ve known him since we were kids and Papa trusted him. Plus this is Papa’s handwriting and the will sounded just like him.”
“All proper and stiff,” Lily agreed with a sniffle. She stood and moved to the other side of Willow; each of them put an arm around the other.
“Does anyone here want to abide by the will and do what Papa wished?”
Willow scoffed. “And be practically sold to some man we don’t know? No thanks.”
Chloe grimaced, she never could express her thoughts the way Willow did—with a punch and a bite, but Willow always said what she was thinking. Lily simply shrugged, looking contemplative.
Chloe shook her head. “I know this is apparently what Papa wanted, but I am not just going to give myself to some strange man because he said so in his will.”
None of this made sense. Throughout history, succubi have been a patriarchal race. But their father strove to change that. In other succubus families, it was expected that if the head of the household—always the man—died then all females in his family were to be given to a man.
Sometimes a brother became head of household, but in some cases where there were no living male relative, the females were given away to a man through a will. As Papa just did.
The succubi called it the Protector. A man whom they would use to feed off of and were supposed to obey in all respects.
Though why he did something like this after all the efforts he went through to make each of his daughters strong independent women free of men made zero sense. And he expected them to breed with the men they didn’t know. This was not the Papa Chloe knew and loved.
“Why did Papa have to die now? Why did all of this have to happen now when our 29th birthday is only two days away? It’s too much. First Papa, then this. I don’t think I can stand it.”
The pain in Lily’s voice brought a heavy weight to Chloe’s chest. She was right. On the 29th year of a succubus’ life, everything changed forever. The females peaked into full sexual maturity and from then on required sex to survive, no longer food.
Chloe had been dreading her 29th birthday her entire life.
“Listen, if we don’t want to go with some men that we don’t know then I say we don’t.
Besides, these men know nothing about us or even about this situation, probably. So I doubt they’ll be here knocking at our door on our birthday.”
Lily started pacing while wearing a determined look on her face. When this woman
started planning, great things happened. Suddenly she whirled towards them and clapped her hands. “I’ve got it. We’ll do a spell.”
“We aren’t strong enough to do the kind of spell it would take to ward off three powerful men,” Willow said. Succubi had some magical abilities in the form of spell casting; however, it was rarely good enough to knock a broom over by staring at it.
Lily’s eyes gleamed. “That’s where you’re wrong, sista. Tomorrow is
All Hallow’s Eve—the day on which magic is greater—more powerful—than any other
day on earth. If all three of us perform a spell to keep the men away then we may actually have a chance.”
The more Chloe thought about it, the greater the idea seemed. Really, what did any of them stand to lose? Besides her independence to some horrible, woman-killer man. No, not a man. A vampire! What on earth had her Papa been thinking when he made that will?
“Lily, is it true that magic is more powerful along the Prime Meridian?” said Chloe.
“Absolutely! We should go there to perform the spell.” Lily’s eyes lit up with excitement.
She went across the study and grabbed a globe from next to Papa’s desk. Chloe remembered so many nights seeing her father at his desk working and writing for hours on end. God, she missed him so much already.
“Here it is,” Lily said excitedly. “The Prime Meridian goes from the Arctic all way down to Antarctica. Along the way it goes through England, France, Spain, and several countries in Africa.”
Chloe looked at each of her sisters. They each wore evil, excited smiles that mirrored hers. Rubbing her hands together she said, “Well ladies, it looks like we’re headed to Europe.
Lily, you gather everything that we’ll need to do the spell. Willow, you order the plane tickets for…immediately.”
“And what are you going to do?” Willow asked.
“Try to come up with Plan B in case this spell doesn’t work.”
“Don’t worry about it. I already got it figured out.” Willow shrugged, a cocky grin on her mouth. That grin had taunted and bested many people in Willow’s life. “We’ll run.”
The thought of running away from Commander Tyrian en Kulev sounded great. Though,
Chloe had a deep feeling that this man would find her easily. And she definitely didn’t want to be found by a man like him–the leader of the most vicious and renowned warriors in the world.
Chapter Two
October 30
Chloe found a spot to spread out their blanket behind a copse of barren trees that had lost their leaves with the onslaught of autumn. As she whipped out the blanket, her gaze fixated on the small statue of the Mother Mary that sat upon a short pillar overlooking a gravestone. She eyed the gravestone to make sure no undead thing was coming out to get her, then plopped down on the plaid blanket.
Being in a cemetery at night was not her ideal of a good time. She’d much rather be out dancing or flirting with the cute bartender she worked with.
“Hurry up, you guys,” she hissed in a loud whisper. Willow and Lily both groaned then started setting down their supplies. Lily carried a wicker basket that held candles, herbs, a lighter, and the spell while Willow carried a backpack filled with, as she called it, “emergency supplies.” Willow always carried that pack with her as if at any moment she was ready to take off.
“I’ve got the creeps being out here. Are we even allowed to be out here at night?”
Both sisters looked around, then shrugged.
Lily said, “It’s possible that England has some laws on this, so let’s just do this quickly and quietly.”
“Sounds good to me,” Willow muttered. Lily lit a thick rope of sage and waved it in the air while she and Willow started lighting white and red candles in a circle around them.
“Let’s do this before the wind picks up.” What she said was half a lie. She didn’t want the wind to pick up but actually her gut was telling her something bad was going to happen. It was that same I-might-possibly-hurl feeling she’d had when she read the will two days before, only worse. Much worse.
Lily handed them each a small square of paper with some gibberish written on it. “What is this?”
Her younger sister, Lily, always had more of a gift for magic and spell craft than either she or Willow, but since when did she start writing stuff in non-English?
“Don’t worry about it. I wrote it out phonetically from Sumerian so you’ll be able to pronounce it.”
“Sumerian?” Chloe couldn’t hide her disbelief. The spells they did always required one language—English. She knew she didn’t know squat about Sumeria or Sumerians and neither did Lily. “Lily, where did you get this?”
She rolled her eyes dramatically. “Listen, we aren’t very powerful but performing this spell on the Prime Meridian, at midnight which is the Witching Hour, and speaking in an ancient language will only help our chances of making a successful cast.” Chloe and Willow exchanged doubtful glances.
“If you say so, Lily. Are we reading these all at the same time?” That stupid, hollow yet heavy feeling was still there in her gut. She put a hand over it to try to settle it. Nerves and worry, that’s all it was.
“No, each part is different. Since Chloe’s the eldest she’ll go first, then you Willow, and I’ll go last. While the person is speaking the others should hum, and then when we’re all done we’ll leave the candles and the sage to burn completely down.”
“What if the wind blows it out?” said Chloe.
Lily sighed loudly and threw up her hands in the air. “I don’t know then, Chloe. I suppose if you want to stay here all night and keep relighting them then go ahead, but I plan on getting some sleep tonight.”
“Fine, fine. Let’s get this over with. I have a bad feeling.” Willow and Lily cut her a hard look.
“You do?” said Willow.
“Since when?” asked Lily.
Chloe sighed and wished like hell that she hadn’t opened her mouth. Her sisters never took “senses” lightly.
“It’s nothing, just a belly ache.” The both looked at her as if they didn’t believe her.
“Listen, I’m just nervous, okay? How would you feel if you knew you were to be given to a cold-hearted killer vampire man? It’s like some horrible nightmare where I’m living in the 1400s and have no worth other than my ability to bare children.” She shivered hard while her sisters smirked at each other.
“We do know what it feels like. That’s why we’re here. Listen, let’s do this but if it’s more than nerves then you need to tell us,” Lily said.
Chloe did feel like there was more to it than what she’d said, but she wasn’t going to say so. She didn’t like lying to her sisters but honestly, there was nothing any of them could do about it. And maybe she just had food poisoning or something.
One errant thought kept floating around in her mind. If this spell didn’t work, then they were all royally screwed. They couldn’t fail. This had to be perfect. This spell had to work.
“Go ahead and start, Chloe. Remember when she’s done you go, Willow.”
The wind seemed to calm around them as Chloe lifted the small square piece of paper with the spell written on it. The candles stopped dancing in the night and stood straighter, brighter as if asking her to read aloud the passage.
“Wait, before I start, what does it mean?”
Lily looked up from her own paper. “It means ‘Let no man take me. Let no man keep me.
Let me choose the man who will take me or else he will never keep me.’ Something like that though trying to translate all that into a dead language was difficult. I think I managed it pretty well.”
Chloe let out a deep, unsteady breath. Well, here goes nothing. Her sisters started to hum and the candles lit up even more brightly. Chloe squeezed her arm tighter around her stomach and read the strange words aloud.
“Eengurra Kading gir Gibil Zi Ding’er Kia Kanpa! Eengurra Feerana jobe! Eengurra Ha’zin tia heteo!” Her words were barely above a whisper.
Chloe winced, closing her eyes as she waited for something to happen. Slowly she
popped open one eye then the other. When all she heard was the sound of her sister’s humming, she relaxed.
Willow spoke next. Her words were different in a few areas. Her voice sounded even
huskier than usual as she read the old, strange language. When she finished, Chloe heard a scraping noise, like a person scratching their nails on a slab of wood. Spinning her head around, she squinted into the night, still humming, yet trying to hear. The sound disappeared.
Lily started on her part. Her words were soft and light as always. She somehow managed to make the old words sound beautiful like a song.
As the last word floated gracefully into the night air, Lily nodded at them. They stood and grabbed the remainder of their belongings, leaving the candles lit and the sage burning in an incense bowl. It looked like offerings left to the dead.
They were silent as they headed away as if speaking a single word would ruin the effect of the spell or bring something horrible about. Or at least that’s what Chloe’s gut was telling her.
The pain in her stomach suddenly spiked. The ground started shaking under her feet as if a stampede of cows was coming. Chloe squealed and went tumbling down to the ground with her sisters.
“What the hell was that?” Willow said, eyes wide.
Chloe had no time to answer because a horrible, ear-piercing rumble escaped from the ground. That horrible feeling that had been sitting in her gut just got a whole lot worse. Chloe reached for her sisters’ hands, holding tightly as she stared at their candle-lit blanket.
The earth shook like a giant was moving a mountain, making her vision blur and her legs give out on her. She fell back on her butt but stared harder at the blanket.
Something was there.
She faintly heard Lily screaming and yet Chloe could still barely hear her over the tremendous roar coming from the ground. Someone tugged at her hands, but she fought them.
She had to see. Then two hands were pulling at her, trying to pull her backwards, away from where she needed to see. No! She fought them with a desperation that surprised her. This was what her gut had been warning her about.
This.
The earth gave one last, hard shudder. Her sisters, who had tried to pull her with them, collapsed in a hard heap on either side of her. Chloe didn’t cast them a glance, she stared at the blanket that now was dipping down as if it was spread over a crater and not a flat spread of grass.
“What in the...”
A deep, inhuman growl came out from beneath the blanket. The sound spread goose
bumps across her arms and shot fear down her spine.
Run, her mind screamed at her. Run! I can’t. Not yet.
She had to see. She had to know.
A thick, gray arm reached out from under the blanket, knocking the candles and sage over. It gripped the blanket with a hand the size of a giants, then disappeared with it back down into the earth.
Wide-eyed and shaking, Chloe came to a stand. She tried to process what she was seeing but it was...impossible. There was no other explanation for it. An enormous hole was where their blanket had been, and whatever was roaring with such bone chilling screams, came from there. A pit. It had made a pit. Or had it come from a pit?
She stood on her toes and tried to look in closer. All she saw was pitch black nothingness.
A massive void.
“What was that?” Lily said in a panicked voice. She bounced from foot to foot looking eager to get the hell out of Hades.
Chloe opened her mouth to say something, when that same arm shot out of the pit. It swung hard and landed in the grass with a thump. It was gray, the color of dead flesh, and had lumps pushing under the skin like rocks and marbles were stuffed in there. The arm was much too big. This thing had to be the size of a giant. Impossible.
The arm tightened its hand in the grass, grabbing hold, and then another, similar arm came out, reaching and grasping. Then the arms were moving, pulling it up.
Chloe and her sisters watched with mouths hanging open as a great beast lumbered out of the black hole. A horrible stench suddenly found her and Chloe gasped, tears coming to her eyes as the raw scents of decayed flesh and blood tore through her senses.
She blinked quickly to get rid of the tears and covered her nose with her hand to block as much of the smell as she could.
“That is...”
“Disgusting,” Willow supplied with a gag.
The thing was over ten feet tall. Its arms hung too long, down near its knees, and its head was like a scary Halloween mask. The eyes were slits that when it blinked, blinked far too many times with too many eyelids opening and closing at odd times. Its nose was two holes on a mound in the middle of its huge face, and its mouth was too big even for how big the thing was.
It looked like it was made to eat sharks for a living. The thing had more teeth than a piranha and just as sharp looking.
The monster opened its mouth and let out an ear-screeching bellow. Chloe and her sisters screamed and covered their ears, backing away from the horrible sound that threatened to burst their eardrums.
It took a step towards them. The girls stumbled three steps back.
It roared again, the sound leaving them gasping with pain throbbing from in their ears.
Then the monster did something Chloe never, ever would have expected in that moment.
It lifted a big arm with slow purpose. How she knew it was coming towards her and not her sisters who were huddled so closely around her, she didn’t know, but her gut told her the thing was focused on her.
Chloe watched with her heart in her throat as its great big arm straightened towards her.
Slowly, one single finger extended until it pointed straight at her.
“Kllllllloooooowwwweeeeee. ” The deep voice seemed to come from the belly of the earth itself. Chloe felt icy liquid fill her veins. A small part of her brain mocked her, so this was what it felt like to be frozen with fear.
Her sisters grabbed her arms and started yanking her back. She let them, because she was fairly certain she couldn’t move a pinky on her own in that moment. It took her body a minute to catch up, but when it did they all sprinted back to the rental parked in the lot.
Chloe cast a quick look behind her and saw the monster had taken a step closer to her.
She grabbed the door handle and whipped it open. They all got into the car with astonishing speed and peeled out of the lot with the smell of burnt rubber and smoke.
Long after they were away from the cemetery, Chloe still had her face plastered to the back window staring into the night.
“Is nobody going to say anything?” screeched Willow. She didn’t even give them a
chance to speak. “Fine, then I will. What the hell was that?”
Chloe shook her head in disbelief and said the first thing that came to her mind. “Oh my God. What if we just started the zombie apocalypse? That thing is going to go around biting people and infecting them with some virus and the population of the whole world is going to be left to a mall filled with ten shot-gunned armed people, and it’s all going to be our fault.”
Lily snickered from the driver’s seat. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous. How is that being ridiculous? Considering what we just saw, I would say that’s an intelligent idea right now. Lily, I blame your stupid spell.”
Willow snorted in agreement.
“Do you guys want to know what my guess is?” Lily’s words were so quiet, so strong
that Willow and Chloe quieted.
“What?” Chloe had that stupid feeling back in her gut. At least now she knew it wasn’t anxiety or stress. No, she just had some sort of giant monster thing after her.
“We just summoned something. Maybe it’s from the dead, but that thing should
look...human if that was so. This thing was built more like...a demon.”
Chloe gasped and spun around to stick her finger at Lily. “You did not make me summon a demon. It said my name. It’s probably going to haunt me or kill me in my sleep or something.”
Lily only shrugged. “I doubt that. Well okay, I can’t be sure but I’ll find out, I promise.
I’d never let anything like that happen to you, Chloe.”
Chloe softened. That was true. Besides, if anyone had supernatural hookups it was Lily.
“One thing I do know though,” Lily was saying. “It said your name and has the blanket we sat on. That means it probably has your scent and will be coming for you. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but it’s something we have to prepare for.”
“Shit,” Willow said.
“Agreed.” Chloe was in deep. She knew it and her gut really knew it.
“No offense but it’s technically the 31th right now.” Chloe grimaced at Willow’s
observation. It was 2:00 AM. Officially right now she and Willow were 29 years old. They were now owned by two strange men.
Feeling miserable, she turned to stare at her sister. As fraternal twins they looked nothing alike and were even further apart in personalities. While Willow had blonde hair streaked with brown tones, Chloe had the much plainer version of her hair—a flat dull brown. The only good thing she liked about it was its length that she’d managed to keep to her waist for years.
This year was going to be the worst birthday ever. Worse than the year she’d come home expecting to find a surprise birthday party but instead got an empty house, and even more terrible than the time she got dumped by her incubus boyfriend Derek at her 19th birthday party. Bastard deserved the cake she threw in his face. And the can of soda she’d sprayed on him afterwards.
This birthday was going to top them all. Today she summoned a zombie demon and was
supposed to be given to Tyrian en Kulev, the most famous demon slayer in the world. Her sister Willow was supposed to be Protected by some Alpha he-man. Then in another ten months, her little sister Lily would be next.
And now she had to figure out how to get rid of the deadly, stinky excess baggage that most likely wanted her—and not for a tea party. Life sure knew how to kick a person when they were down.
Chloe felt a thread of bitterness creep in, but she stomped it out. No time for tears or thinking about Papa or how crappy her situation was looking, she needed to be strong for her sisters. Right now, they needed answers.
“Lily, I want you to call your friends tomorrow and ask them what they make of this. If that doesn’t work, try to have one your magic dreams. Maybe that can help us. I think it’s safe to say that the spell didn’t work and if Papa’s will is correct, then Willow and I will be in for a hell of a day come morning.”
“I won’t just let some man take me,” Willow said between clenched teeth.
Lily parked the car at the hostel they were staying at. Chloe looked over at her sister.
There was so much in her she wished she had—like guts, athleticism, and strength.
“If you don’t want him, then you don’t have to have him.”
Willow exhaled a genuine sigh. “I’m glad you said that, because I’m outta here. Like, now. Tonight. I’m not giving the Alpha shapeshifter a chance to track me. He’s a beast and probably has a nose that puts hellhounds to shame. So if it’s all right with you guys, I’m going to pack some supplies and get out.”
The thought of her twin, her sister, leaving had her automatically protesting the idea.
“But where will you go? You need supplies. It’s dangerous out there, Willow. Besides we’re in Europe, not exactly our backyard.”
Willow grinned that cocky, taunting grin that said she could win any fight, any challenge, any time. And Chloe was sure she could.
“I’ll get the necessities from a store, buy a satellite phone, call you both with the number, and then I’m out of here. On foot, by plane, by car, whatever. He’s not fetching me like some piece of meat. Whatever happens we have to stay in contact. Everyone keep their phones on and charged at all times. Chloe, call me the second you see the vamp. You’re both welcome to come with me, you know.”
Chloe and Lily both laughed which got them a hard glare from Willow. “Oh come on, sis.
We’d just cramp your style. You’re much too...active for Lily and me. Call me, pack a knife, and be safe. I’ll let you know if the vampire finds me. I’m not gonna go back home yet. I need time to think. Especially time to figure out a plan to ditch the vampire.” Chloe turned to Lily. “If, and I mean if, Willow and I are both taken will you be okay?”
Lily smiled big with a mischievous glint in her eye. “I think you both will be fine. No need to worry about me, I have a year until this happens. You both have a matter of hours.”
That thought somehow scared her more than that monster did.
