Escaped the Night (30 page)

Jayce and I were the f
irst ones to arrive. He
parked just
beside the st
e
ps leading up to the front door
. He walked over to grab my hand as I made my way out of the car.
We
wal
ked together up the front steps and h
e snuck a quick kiss.

He
unlocked the front door and we walked in.
I almost c
ouldn’t breath
e
from the sight.
I thought
I was
dreaming.
The
rooms
resembled
those in
the castle
, like the one I had been in a hundred years ago.
Suddenly,
Daray
came to
mind
,
but just for a second.
That
castle
wasn’t
up to the challenge of being comparabl
e to this grand home and D
aray was no comparison to Jayce.

Giant statues of che
rubs lined the hallways. The sweet smell of
the
abundant fresh
cut flower bouquets
filled the air. Dua
l
staircases
covered with thick carpeting
led
the way upstairs
a
nd a sparkling chandelier hung
perfectly centered between the
m
. Various
paintings of landscap
es
hung in beautiful thick frames.
I walked across
the
m
arble floor
,
unable to hide my state of
awe
.
Finally, I turned to him. “
You really live here? Just you?”

He
laughed
. “Yes, I really
do
. No, not by myself, Terran, Aiden, Makan and Meriel also live here. Layla does too most of the time. We’ve lived here for
a while
now. I know it’s big
,
but we had to have eno
ugh space for all of us so
we weren’t stepping on each other’s toes. It’s hard to keep peace between them all the time.”

He started to kiss me just as
the front door flung opened.
A bunch of whistles and cheers greeted us
as the others arrived
. Yes, everything had gone back to normal
.

Meriel
suggested
that
the living
room
would be the best place
for everyone to gather
so we could
continue
developing
our plan of attack. Everyone sat amongst his or her kind. The four shape shifters occupied the soft leather sofa. The element ladies sat on an oversized loveseat, while the
element
guys sat on a couple of chairs nearby.
Garrison
and Kaleb sat in some other
comfor
table looking chairs near
Jayce and me
. F
airies
sat on the edge of
the
bookshelves
so
they were the same height as everyone else and didn’t have to flutter their tiny wings the entire night.

The conversation went back to
Daray
.
Everyone knew he’d become one of the most
powerful
vampires
; the only
obvious
way
was
to destroy him
, but we
w
ould
need
him alone. It wouldn’t be easy
to get him away from the others
,
or
to
even get around the others
for that matter
. Even now that w
e
had more muscle on our side,
the nightwalkers
clearly
were the
more skilled fighters. If it came
to
face-to-face battle
, I wasn’t sure we’d stand a chance. We would
have to avoid that type of confrontation at all costs.

I
t started getting pretty late and t
he stress of the day had taken its toll on everyone. Jayce suggested
that we
should try to
sleep while we could. Kael and
Garrison
offered to take first watch. “Better
to
be ready and alert
in case we should
have any
unexpected company.”

Garrison
looked over at me and I sensed his worry. If the nightwalkers came tonight they would undoubtedly have the upper ha
nd. We were in a very
dangerous position.
Jayce picked up o
n our increasing apprehension
; mind you,
Garrison
and I weren’t hiding it very well
.
A
person with no functioning senses could have picked up on this easily. Maka
n and Aiden came over to our
little gathering.

“What’s going on?” Aiden asked.

“Shanntal and
Garrison
are just a bit w
orried about unexpected company,
” Jayce said.

“They’d
have a lot of nerve coming here,
” Makan sneered.

“Guys, just calm down. I don’t sense
anything happening tonight. I’
ve tried to pick up
on
any hint of them and nothing. Nothing is a good thing.”
Jayce said.

‘That’s
be
cause they know we’d put up a good fight!” said Kael
,
kissing his gigantic
mu
scular arm
.

I couldn’t help but laugh an
d roll my eyes at Kael.
His
smart mouth
couldn’t keep anything serious.
My reaction
fueled the joker and he continued his flexing and carrying on.
Pretty
soon, everyone
was
laughing
.

“What? What’s so funny?
” h
e asked, still flexing
.

“Oh Kael,
thank you. I needed tha
t.”

“Anytime.” He
shot me a
big
toothy
smile.

Once Jayce showed everyone where they were sleeping, I asked,
“Where am I going to stay?”

“
With
me. I’m not letting you ou
t of my sights again.” He took
me by the hand and led me into his bedroom.

We crawled under the covers
, his arms
holding
me tightly.
A minute later
,
I was fast asleep.

I
never escaped the house. I was still locked away i
n the room when he’d come back
covered in blood and carrying a body with him. He held the corpse close to me
, blood pouring
out of the wounds
. H
e offered me some. He wanted me to drink blood like they did. When I refused
,
he locked me down
stairs
with the others.

I
n the dungeon the werewolves clawed vi
ciously at me. I put my arms up
to protect my face. With each strike the werewolves took
, I received a jolt of
excruciating pain. No matter the pain
,
I
couldn’t let
my guard down. My arms
were protecting my face and
covering my eyes so I couldn’t s
ee what was going to happen
. My arms bl
ed heavily fr
om the wounds
their claws left. The scent of the fresh blood taunted the group
,
making
the situation even worse.

A fight broke out
between the werewolves and
doomahorns.
I lowered my arms for a brief second to see what was going on, only to cry
out with fright
when a doomahorn broke free and
headed
in my direction.
I screamed
for help while t
ears
streamed down my face.

A werewolf
slammed into
me
,
knocking me to the ground. My body ached from the blow. The beast snarled out a rumbling growl
before coming
in for the kill. The doomaho
rn came
back
into my sights, standing
even closer than before.
I didn’t know which beast to pay attention to. Which one was going to kill me? I closed my eyes, hoping
, wishing, someone would
rescue me
.

I heard t
he doomahorn stomp
its hooves and the werewolf
growl as it
stood its ground. I opened my eyes when I heard the sound of the hooves
thundering
against the cement floor. I watched as the two stood across from
one anothe
r. It was as if I no longer existed. To my surprise
,
the doomahorn never attacked
;
instead it
was
helping
me.

When the werewolf smashed into me,
my tears had been coming down so
heavily that
the force of the hit sent my tea
rs flying into the air
,
landing
on the doomahorn while
it was charging me.
Suddenly, t
he beast transformed into a striking white
creatur
e with a single horn on top of its beautiful head. The
once
awful beast had turned into a magical unicorn with
the
touch of my teardrop.

The unicorn pierced her silver
horn through the heart of the
werewolf
. Then
,
she turned around to take on the others. She was killing them, killing them in order to help me. Her magic horn opened my sha
ckle and with a single touch
instantly healed all of my wounds
.

She spoke to me t
hrough
my
thoughts and told me
he
r
name was Gabriella. She thanked me for saving her from the evi
l curse the nightwalkers had bestowed. She told me she’
d be forever in my debt. She
explained
she would help me escape
to safety
. I jumped up on her white back
and
she ran through the house
,
allowing us to both escape unharmed.