Chapter One-Hundred-And-Thirty

Chapter One-Hundred-And-Thirty
Ryder

Milindya growled her displeasure, “They will come to hate you just like everyone else.” She waited expectantly, as if she believed, by her words alone, that her sister would step forward to end this.

Even if she deemed that an option, I would stop her.

She hissed like a cat when her sister stayed glued to my side without moving a muscle. She glared at me with a hatred mirrored by Judo’s malevolence.

Power moved over my skin, something so different than the average vampire’s, running too similar to Catalym’s power structure. The vibrations hit me like a pickup truck.

A fine sheen of sweat broke out on Catalym’s forehead. It was the only external sign that anything was happening at all. Whatever Milindya had chosen to do to her sister, she better try harder.

“Because of being in that bar and your avid attention to me, I’m stronger than I’ve been in a long time. She has to work harder to elicit the same kind of reaction from me that I had while at home.”

Sara laughed, and then Milindya’s attention was drawn to her.

“If she doesn’t comply, you will,” Milindya answered, standing before her.

“I wouldn’t bet on it.”

Sara snapped her fist back to plow knuckles through Milindya’s jaw. With her other hand, she grabbed Milindya’s straight blonde hair in a tight fist and jerked down so Sara’s far shorter build could reach Milindya’s ear.

“You fuck with Cat, you fuck with me. And you don’t want to do that,” Sara whispered viciously while Milindya’s nose bled to trickle onto the ground.

“Little stupid fledgling.” She smiled through the blood, not in the least bit put off by it.

My stomach rolled with my little psycho so close to the substantial elder, the maniacal, excited gleam in both their eyes doing nothing to placate me.

Her hand came up to grip Sara’s throat, the skin around Milindya’s pads flushing a ghostly white from the pressure that would have crushed any mortal windpipe.

“Does that hurt, convert?”

Sara released a slow, hissing breath between clenched teeth, “Not really.”

The edges of her eyes went a deep crimson, and a light trail of sparkling energy ran up and down her skin as her body automatically called the power to her in a time of need.

Milindya petted Sara’s face, only to have her turn and viciously bite with elongated canines, sliding into her hand like going through butter. Sara snapped her head forward to head-butt her opponent.

“Oh bitch, please.” Sara laughed as Milindya grabbed her hair and yanked hard to the right, unaffected. Not even her head had moved.

Sara forced her elbow up to an awkward angle, smashed it into Milindya’s cheek, and was free. From the sound of it, she’d nearly dislocated her shoulder to do it, but nothing as minuscule as that would ever stop her. She knew pain intimately and had been tortured in ways I couldn’t even fathom.

She danced halfway between us, staying just out of reach of everybody.

“Will you not do something?” Catalym asked.

“This is our code,” Marcus replied.

In a flurry of unfocused motion, which we didn’t catch until it was too late, Judo flew from his frozen stance and barrelled toward Sara.

Catalym brought her hand up with energy crackling from her fingertips. Her lips sped through a spell so fast that I could barely keep up. A barrier spell solidified before Sara to protect her, with my woman written all over it, a split-second before Judo rebounded off it with a frustrated growl. His glowing black eyes sought Catalym.

“You will not touch my friend,” Catalym murmured when she switched back to English. Then, she continued a chant in a musical language that Holly used often, but I couldn’t identify it.

Judo was more potent than her, and I knew that. It was what impressed me so much. She’d kept him away from his target, and that achievement was nearly incomprehensible to me.

“Cat…” Judo began malevolently.

“No, I will not let you hurt anyone because of me!” Catalym snapped back, every muscle in her body tensed and ready for a physical fight if it came to that. “I will not allow it.”

In her full power, she looked more terrifyingly beautiful than I’d ever seen a vampire be. The eternal quality vampires commonly possessed was intensified within her.

An insane sound rippling made me turn to Gene, wanting to defend his woman for once. His dead eyes watched Sara, and it took both Marcus and Kev to hold him back. They didn’t trust him to make the right move, and frankly, neither did I.  He was unpredictable and unreliable. Not for the first time, I wondered what she saw in him.

I itched for action. It was one of the hardest things I’d ever done: stand there and do nothing, even worse than at the rock shop. The need for my people to be safe from the Council’s wrath was paramount, and each second that passed made that safety measure harder and harder to follow.

We all stared at each other and thought the same thing. Catalym was far more than we had ever expected, and she’d known it since the beginning. And this was still only a taste, leaving the full extent of it to our wild imaginings.

“You both need to leave,” Catalym thundered. “Now.”

“For a pain freak, she isn’t very good at fighting,” Sara murmured to Gene, who had wrapped his arms around her. His turbulent eyes stared above her head while nodding his agreement.

“She’s leashed… for now. I blocked her from trying to hurt you.” Catalym promised.

Sara grunted out a laugh with an evil twist to her lips, immediately believing the face value of her statement. While she’d succeeded in blocking the power from touching Sara, the energy had to go somewhere.

And I was damned tired of seeing Catalym hurt for other people’s fuckups, especially when it was my friend’s ass that needed saving while I stood around watching.