The Sharpest Kiss by Elizabeth Myles (the false prince .txt) 📕

Lucy kept her eyes fixed on the bookcases, gnawing her lower lip in indecision. Her instinct was to keep arguing, to tear away from Kiefer and continue flailing at the barricade, but she knew in her heart the sorcerer was right. Jessica had been right about Nathan. He might be a vampire, but he was still a good man, too. And he cared a lot about Jessica. Lucy had become convinced of that just from watching him with her over the past few hours. If there was any way for him to save her, he would.

At least, Lucy really, really hoped he would. She had been the one to rope Jessica into all this craziness along with her. She’d already seen her store demolished because of it. If anything happened to Jessica personally, on top of that, Lucy would never forgive herself.

Kiefer jumped down from the window and held up his arms, offering to help Lucy down, too. When she still hesitated, twisting her fingers together, he said, “You can trust Nathan, sweetie, I promise. Your friend’s in good hands in there.”

Realizing she didn’t have much choice, Lucy dashed at her tears and tried her best to push aside the stomach-churning image of Celia threatening her best friend’s life. She allowed Kiefer to encircle her waist with his strong hands and lift her down beside him. “Alright,” she said. “What do we do, then?”

Kiefer’s gaze cut to his pickup truck, parked at the end of the courtyard. Lucy could see the silhouette of Theo propped up in the passenger’s seat. “First things first,” he said, and jogged over to his vehicle. He wrested Theo from the cab and marched him back to where the others were now all clustered together on the sidewalk. “Seems there’re some trucks headed this way, Theo,” he said. “Did Dorian track you somehow? Are they coming to pick you up?”

Theo blinked slowly. “Are you kidding? I’m nothing to Dorian. This is about Celia. I told you he’d sent a bunch more guys down here to come and find her. They must have figured out she was here. They’re coming for her.”

“Alright, then. Why are there so many vampires in the trucks? Where’d they all come from?”

Theo looked momentarily startled, as if he hadn’t known about the vampires, either. “No idea,” he said. A tiny spark lit in his eyes. “Although, when his guys couldn’t figure out where Celia had gone, I know Dorian had them round up as many of the people she’d bitten as they could find, thinking some of them might’ve been turned. Who knows how many more there were in addition to you two?” He looked at Aaron and Jason.

Skepticism narrowed Kiefer’s eyes. “I doubt Celia could’ve turned that many people in just the past few days. I’d have known about it from the police reports.”

“Are you a hundred percent sure about that?” Aaron asked him, looking dubious.

“No,” Kiefer admitted.

“Well, if the vampires are Celia’s,” Dara said, “will they necessarily be hostile? Nathan told us their state of mind might depend on who their ancestors were. Since Jason and Aaron are alright, couldn’t that mean any other vampires Celia made might be reasonable, too?”

Kiefer’s mouth jerked to one side. “Maybe. Jason and Aaron’s coherence could also just owe to their relationships with you and Lucy. They had you ladies to help ground them when they woke up, and both of them had a strong desire to stay human. And then there’s the elixir I gave them. That stuff isn’t just some herbal remedy to lessen the symptoms of the bite; it has magical properties that influence a newborn vampire’s state of mind, too. In simple terms, the juice makes you more human for a little while, in order to ease the transition from living to undead. So, it’ll keep the hunger at bay and keep the guys rational, as well as temporarily protect them from a few things that would normally harm a vampire, like crosses and holy water.” He paused. “But I seriously doubt all the vampires Dorian is sending here were made by Celia. From what Nathan and the guys described, there’re just too many of them for that to be the case.”

“And it doesn’t really matter who made them, does it?” Lucy asked. “Dorian must be expecting a fight, or he wouldn’t send vampires here at all. And why would he send these guys if they weren’t crazy? For all we know, no matter who turned them, he’s used magic to make them feral, so they can attack whoever they find here.”

Dara looked at her in surprise.

“It’s what Professor Nosferus would probably do,” Lucy shrugged.

“Oh,” Dara said, with clearly no idea what Lucy was talking about.

Kiefer seemed on board with her, though. “Good point, Lucy,” he conceded. He turned back to Theo. “There’s something other than just vampires in those trucks. What are they?”

“Minions, I’d bet. Humans compelled to carry out Dorian’s orders.”

“Compelled? You mean they’re enchanted? Doped with magic?”

“Yep.”

Jason looked at Kiefer. “So basically, we’re looking at having to fend off a bunch of innocent people who’ve been bitten by Celia—or some other master—and/or turned into attack dogs by Dorian, as well as some drugged-up human thugs.”

“Which means we can’t kill any of them,” Dara stated the obvious.

Kiefer’s jaw set grimly. “No, we can’t. If nothing else, Nathan would have a fit. You heard what he said about not killing humans. He’s got a no-kill policy when it comes to plain vampires, too—not that we’ve ever run into any before. But his thinking is that we should turn any bloodsucker we come across back into a human. Or that we should at least try to, by offering to find and kill their master.” He grimaced to illustrate what he thought of Nathan’s strategy, but then turned back to Theo and asked, “What sort of offense are we looking at here? Will Dorian’s goons have guns?”

“Definitely,” Theo responded.

“Guns?” Aaron