“If she has any trouble at all and she can’t call me, she’ll telepathically contact you.” Pasha could see where that could be a good thing. Hands free communication in the middle of a fight. “I just feel a little uneasy meeting more—” Pasha at once guilty about what she was going to say, remembering he was the same as the other turned hunters.
“Hunters who had been turned?” Zachary asked.
“Uh, yeah.” No matter how much she could see the good in what the turned hunters could do, and that they weren’t rogue vampires, she still didn’t feel totally comfortable about it. She still had a hard time reconciling herself with what he and the others had become. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s going to take time for any of us to get used to. I’m just glad that at the moment the vampires don’t know about it and are at a disadvantage. They could start to channel their telepathic communications for one thing. Right now, I can listen in on them if they’re close by.” Zachary held his fingers to his lips and whispered, “Two vampires are speaking in that room up ahead.”
“Telepathically?” she asked, since she didn’t hear anything.
He nodded.
When they reached the door, Zachary heard a man with a Scottish accent say telepathically, “Aye, we’re part of the newly turned vampires he sent to find the hunters who are wreaking havoc with our number. A minor trouble for now, but it might become more.”
Zachary thought the man speaking was Ephraim MacNeill, the ancient Scottish vampire that was a friend of Rachael. Zachary and Pasha stood outside the closed doors of the meeting room.
Then Zachary pushed open the door and said telepathically, “We’re more of Crichton’s men, Zachary and Pasha. The vampire Rachael sent us.” He hoped Rachael’s friends would realize they were her friends too.
The hunters grew more relaxed and smiled at them. He hoped that was a good sign and not that they were smiling about the notion they planned to eliminate them too.
“You are all here because of two old hunters?” the rogue vampire asked, his brow furrowed. The other two with him agreed.
“We were concerned more would show up,” Zachary said. Then he frowned. “Do you have any idea how many there are of us now?”
“No,” the vampire said. “Why should I know that? That’s up to Crichton.”
“We should know so we can determine the hunter threat to us. Why should we be kept in the dark about this?” Zachary asked.
“Do the three of you know each other?” the Scottish laird asked. “None of us know each other.” He motioned to everyone in the room. “I wondered if you knew any of the men or women here?”
“I don’t know them or any of you. Crichton did it that way on purpose, we figure. His only clan was wiped out by feuding between the members. Backstabbing, killing parties, switching sides. Only Crichton and one of his best friends survived the war. So he doesn’t want that to happen here if a bunch of vampires from a particular clan showed up.”
“And tried to take over,” Zachary guessed.
“Exactly. We were told the hunters were here,” the vampire said. “So where are they?”
“We dealt with them already.” Zachary smiled and pulled out his hunter’s sword.
The vampires’ eyes widened. “Why are you carrying a hunter’s sword?” one of them asked.
The three rogue vampires glanced at the other hunters in their midst.
“I won it in battle,” Zachary lied and stabbed the vampire in the chest, Pasha quickly taking out another while the Scottish laird leaped into the air and skewered the final vampire with his sword.
Then all the hunters, and the two vampires with them, introduced themselves. Robert and Crystal were helping to make introductions.
Crystal said, “These are my older identical twin brothers, Boniface and Victor. They are hardened vampire hunters. They never hesitate to make a kill.”
Like Crystal, they had a Scandinavian look about them with their blond hair and assessing clear blue eyes. The brothers both wore beards.
They had appeared to catalogue everything from potential hunter strengths and weaknesses to which vampires would be the first to meet their maker. “They never gave up on me, even though they had to play the game within the hunter circles while I had been fighting to make it on my own, watching my back when they could. Uncle Max told my brothers he would have come to help, but he is in charge of our clan and was needed back home to keep the vampires who would be rogues in check.
Robert introduced his three brothers who had come to fight. “They’re always eager to help out, but they knew if Crystal was coming to Rachael's aid, they wouldn't do anything less than keep Crystal safe.”
Zachary could tell Crystal loved them for it as she smiled at them. She hadn't gained just a mate, but a whole family of hunters who treasured her, despite being turned.
Robert's oldest brother, Thomas, was about six-two like Crystal's brothers, and all of his quadruplets favored him—brown eyed, brown-haired, though Robert’s was cropped short because of being in the military. Samuel, his middle brother, had slightly reddish hair, and the youngest one, Mark, had a significant amount of blond streaks in his hair, making Pasha think of him as a surfer dude. Thomas had a bit of gray streaks in his hair.
“I am Ephraim MacNeill with my mate, Elizabeth,” the Scottish vampire said, giving a low bow, “at your service. I’m an ancient vampire, but one of the good guys.” His dark hair was bound in a tail and his dark eyes had the mesmerizing vampire look about them.
A pretty redhead with sparkling blue eyes, Elizabeth smiled.
“As am I,” Daemon said, his dark brown hair hanging about his shoulders, his dark brown eyes narrowed, “with my mate, Tezra. I’m prince of the vampires, though over the years I’ve lost some control over the various regions.” He shrugged. “Let them police their own people, I say.”
Tezra was a petite brunette with entrancing green eyes.
Zachary was glad all of them were here to help them out.
“What will you have us do now?” Prince Daemon asked.
Zachary wasn’t in charge of this operation, so he deferred to Adonis in a telepathic conference call between the vampires. “Adonis, we’ve killed three rogue vampires at the Magnolia Meeting Room at the hotel. What do you want us to do with the new hunter force we have here? Well, and the two good vampires?”
Lord MacNeill and Prince Daemon smiled.
“If they’re in agreement, I want some to go to the house across from my parents’ home and monitor things, one or two can come here and join Rachael and me, and another couple of hunters or vampires can join Jeremy and Laura. We can have four stay at the hotel to help protect Danai, Grandmother, and the kids,” Adonis said.
“I’ll stay with the women and children.” Tezra was Prince Daemon’s mate, a hunter turned by choice and a had been a borderline rogue after a serial killer vampire had murdered her parents and put her sister into a catatonic state.
Crystal Anderson, a pretty blond and Robert Parker’s mate said, “Not to make this an all-girls’ party, but I’ll stay with the women and children.”