Ella struggled to hold back a gasp as Amanda answered the call. It had only been a matter of days since they had first spoken to her but she looked so utterly exhausted that she looked like she had aged ten years in that time. She felt sure that she already had the answer to the question on her mind but she had to ask anyway. “Is everything okay there?”
“Rough night,” Amanda sighed brokenly as she ran a hand over her face. She tried to hold herself steady but could tell by the look in Ella’s eyes that she had spotted the trembling in her hand. “Just haven’t been able to sleep for a couple of days. One of the Police hit squads got too close and we had to do some quick work to relocate ten new Vampires we’d found since we talked last.”
Yoanna sat forward urgently. “Is it okay now though? Is it safe or do you need to push things through faster to get everyone out?”
“Actually, finding ten hidden
Standing on the edge of the hole in the cabin floor, Sinn gazed down into the steady sunset glow of their power that still flowed up through the tunnel below. More by instinct than need, she reached out with a hand and probed gently at it with touch and power, feeling its welcoming warmth as it seemed to recognize her.She knew it wasn’t sentient as such and that it couldn’t actuallyknowher. But it was really hard not to think of it as such when it reacted now it did. Which to Sinn felt like a big dog rubbing against her and licking at her fingertips in greeting.Yoanna said it felt more like a big cat to her. And then she had smiled that enigmatic smile and pointed out that royalty sometimes kept unusual pets when Sinn had asked just how she would know what a big cat felt like. Sinn had finally got it out of her, after a bit of persuasion, that she wasn’t the kind to keep big cats or anything else chained and had taken great deli
As Sinn left Yoanna’s former rooms she turned and looked at the entrance once more.There was still no malevolence coming off of anything but with every step across the room it had been harder and harder to deny the feelings she was getting off of the fabric of the tunnel. Harder to deny under the weight of what felt like its anxiety that it wasn’t more than just a little bit sentient.Just because she couldn’t hear or understand what it was saying didn’t mean it wasn’t trying to talk or feeling in its own way.“Thank you for looking after everything for her. Would you mind hiding it again until we can come back down later?”A feeling of excitement filled the air and Sinn saw the colours of their power pulse brighter through the wall. It understood her, or maybe it could just feel her, either way, Sinn felt it was happy because they would be making use of it again.As smoothly as it had disappeared under he
Seeing the soft smile on Yoanna’s face as she put her phone back on the table with a deliberate gentleness that screamed that she really didn’t want to let go of it and admit that the conversation with Sinn was over. Marcus quietly closed the door to announce his and Eric’s return and moved back to the chair at her right side and placed a coffee in front of her as they sat down and waited on the return of the others.“Is everything okay, my Queen?”Yoanna sighed as she looked at the big redhead. “Marcus, we might be here in a more ‘Official’ capacity but there is no one in the room other than us so please, drop the formalities.”“Too much of a wrench aftertalkingwith Sinn?” She might have released him to be more informal but he still carefully hid his smirk behind a sip of his own coffee as she raised an eyebrow above twinkling blue eyes.Yoanna wished they were somewhe
As she felt Yoanna grow calmer, or at least not as worried as she had been anyway, Sinn continued down the gently winding path of the tunnel that led towards the mansion. It was difficult to judge exactly but going by the amount of twists and bends and the physical closeness she was feeling to Yoanna, Sinn guessed that she was somewhere underneath the town itself.That moment of feeling Yoanna’s flickering uncertainty had been chilling and had ripped at Sinn’s heart and soul to feel it. Sinn never wanted to feel it again, especially not when she had felt that the uncertainty had been connected to her.There had been no wavering in the love from Yoanna and only a talk, preferably face to face, would clear up what had been wrong so Sinn tried not to pick it apart or speculate on what she didn’t know. But going by her first impression, it had felt almost like Yoanna was concerned that she had rushed her into their relationship and asked too much?
“Well, well, look who finally made it home,” Ella tried but couldn’t contain her shit-eating grin any more than Sinn and Yoanna could contain their own. She watched as they walked towards her down the last part of the tunnel that led to the below-ground area of the mansion; taking in their slightly unsteady gait and the way their bodies kept nudging into each other.As they drew closer to the end of the tunnel and their time alone it wasn’t lost on Ella that Sinn started wrapping herself back up in all those razor sharp walls to protect herself again, her smile slipping when her eyes touched upon the rooms behind her. It was painful to watch and yet… Ella’s heart lightened a little when the walls didn’t snap into place completely.Ella’s love for them went deeper than friendship and tapped into that part of them that went deeper than family to where their lives and history had been entwined for thousands of years just wa
With her feet still within the sentient side, Sinn eyed the corridor ahead of her that joined the lower living area and the mansion with even more trepidation than the new lake room that had opened up for the others.And she knew it was for the others. There was no convincing her otherwise with how in tune the tunnels had been up until then. There was just no way it could make such a colossal error in sentient tunnel judgement and create something that brought back fears and old memories she tried to keep buried.Sinn didn’t hate all water. It wasn’t like she had a phobia about it to the point that she froze at the sight of the ocean, a stream or even tap water. She could vaguely remember her Mom taking her swimming. Just the scent of chlorine brought back memories of her smile as she had bobbed around with water-wings and her touch keeping her stable in the warm water.She had never really mastered the art of swimming beyond a frantic doggy paddle.
Hearing the sound of the door to the bar quietly opening and closing, Caleb looked up and glanced in the mirror that ran behind the length of the bar. He used it to get a look at the wolf he could smell even as he kept polishing the glass in his hand. New faces in Bitten were pretty commonplace, even more so lately. This one though… through all the dust, sweat and grime he could smell and see ground into his clothes and too thin body, Caleb could smell where he had come from. And one glance at his face had him doing a double take at how young and scared he looked beneath the dirt. Far too young to be wandering into a bar on his own. “Can I help you?” Daniel looked cautiously around the bar and edged nervously closer to the man that had spoken. “I…” “I’d best warn ya, I can’t serve you without some I.D.” It happened, someone pushing their luck in an effort to get some booze but it didn’t happen there often, not once people realised what
Sinn knew in her heart and from experience that each fall of her feet upon the ground was just about silent to human ears, and to anything else, no matter what surface she was on. But it seemed to echo through her body like a shot as she moved through the streets. And what she was tracking down didn’t have a human level of hearing no matter what form they were in. She kept her pace to a more normal human level so she was less likely to draw attention or miss something out of the ordinary. And with every step, her senses on high alert.Looking for one lone Werewolf in a town that had a large population of them was just about impossible but it didn’t stop her from looking. She owed it to Caleb.Caleb had been attacked. He could have died. And his one thought had been about the strange Wolf that had come into his bar.He said the Wolf was from Tennessee and while the state was pretty big and was home to many small packs, there was only one that Sinn had