Below them, coming out of the forest from various directions, looking like gray, shadowy wolves, the newly made vampires emerged, slinking apprehensively on hands and knees or bellies. There were only six left and they were quite a distance from one another, something Ferro hoped would help raise the odds in their favor. Each crawled or dragged itself to the lake and then stood, stumbling as if drunk. One raised his head a few times, looking skyward, but the clouds continued to drift and he shook his head as darkness engulfed him and twice he went to his knees.
They were more bait for the hunters, but Ferro thought it was a little insulting that Sergey and the other master vampires would think such easy victims would draw them out when Sedrick and Edward hadn’t managed to do so. Now the newly made vampires were trying to take to the air, running and leaping, falling flat on their faces. They were human, not Carpathian, and they had no idea how to fly. No one had ever shown them. They’d woken starving, disoriented and mostly terrified, a condition the master vampires would enjoy to the fullest for as long as they could.
Ferro, Gary, Sandu, Petru and Benedek watched impassively the terrible spectacle below, but all of them could feel Elisabeta’s silent weeping. Her compassionate nature couldn’t stand the horror of what these oncehuman men were going through. It had been their choice, through greed, to join with Sergey, but she wouldn’t think or care about that; she would only see their suffering. He felt the rise of her need to aid them, to soothe and comfort them, that giving nature, her gift that she sometimes felt was a curse—as it was at that moment.
He had always thought he would be the kind of lifemate who would want his woman under his command, but the more he saw what that kind of life of total submission had done to Elisabeta’s true nature, the more he knew he didn’t want that. Not for her. She was beautiful inside and out, whether she knew it or not. She was strong and powerful. She was gentle and compassionate. She was intelligent. She was a partner. He wanted that. Yes, he wanted, even needed, to stand in front of her and protect her—he would always be that kind of man—but he would never want to suppress her true nature.
An extremely large owl flew from the grove of trees, talons extended, digging into the back of one of the vampires as he fell over. The vampire was lifted into the air, kicking and screaming. The others, on the ground, lifted their heads to look as the owl took their companion over the lake and dropped him into the very center, where he sank beneath the murky waters like a stone. He might drown, but he wouldn’t die. Vampires didn’t die, not like that.
There was a distinct snicker coming from the grove of trees, and a rustle of leaves told Ferro one of the master vampires—it sounded like Addler Astor—was hidden in the trunk of the tree right on the very edge of the grove. The owl wheeled in the air and dove at another of the cowering vampires now desperately trying to take to the air, their only way to keep from being targeted for amusement by the master vampires.
Cornel knew no hunter would believe that, in chasing master vampires, they would accidentally stumble across such newly made vampires unable to fend for themselves.
