Chapter 7

(**Sebastion’s POV**)
Once we were all in my conference room we sat around the table discussing what the plan for tonight would comprise. Beckett said that they had ways to stay out of sight so Vicktor would never see them coming. When I asked how they could do that, Beckett smiled and looked over at Nic, making my heart pound in fear. I hope she will not attack someone.
“Give him a bigger example than what you did downstairs, Nic,” Beckett told her.
What the fuck? He knew about what she was doing down there? That is enough. I stand up, slam my hand down on the table and glare at them both. “She did that on purpose? The shadows? Why? What were you trying to prove? That I am scared?” I yell at them.
Beckett only arches an eyebrow at me, while Nic gives me another wink.
“Enough of the bullshit. Why the hell did you come here to help if you are just going to play with my mind?” I ask.
“I just wanted to see if your mind could handle what I am capable of. Most people dismiss shadows for what they are. You questioned what you saw, even wondered if you were going crazy.” Nic said as she looked at me. I am surprised to hear her speak.
“How do you know what I was thinking?” I frown at her before I sit back down.
“I can read surface thoughts. What you were thinking on our way to the elevator was loud,” Ashir spoke up as he stood to stand behind Nic. “We can share each other’s thoughts much the same way werewolves in a pack can.”
“What abilities do you have that will keep Vicktor from seeing you guys follow him?” Irina asked, bringing us back to the reason the vampires are here.
Saying nothing, Nic stood from her chair to walk to a shadowy spot on the floor. I had to blink my eyes to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was. Shadows swirled around her feet, then up her legs, until they cover her to her shoulders in swirling tendrils. Each was moving separately from the others like they were living things.
How was that even possible?
Then, in the blink of an eye, Nic disappears. The room looks just the same, and my eyes were having problems focusing on where she once stood. Irina let out a gasp, bringing my attention to her. My eyes bulged out of my sockets as I saw Nic standing behind Irina. She had a silver knife hovering in front of Irina’s throat. Aries went mad in my mind fighting for control of my body, but before I could lunge forward, Ghost put a hand on my shoulder to hold me down in my seat.
“Relax, Nic will not hurt her. That is not why we are here. You asked how we are going to track Vicktor. Nic showed you how,” Ghost said in a soothing tone.
Nic stepped away from Irina, walking back to her seat. “We each have unique abilities, most vampires have their own abilities, and use them to their advantage. The four of us were once bringers of death. We are called The Four Horsemen.”
“Seriously?” Gabriel asked. He was still standing by the doors to the room. He refused to come in any further. Now he walked forward with curiosity on his face.
“Yes. We have been a group since the late fourteen hundreds, except Ashir. He is not as old as the rest of us, but he is just as strong.” Beckett replied.
My mind was a swirling mess of questions. The more they revealed, the more I wanted to know. How old was the oldest vampire in existence? How long can they live for? How the fuck do you kill a vampire if one could just disappear into the darkness like Nic had done? I sigh heavily as I realize I am out of my mind. There is so much about the world that I do not know.
“If you are called The Four Horsemen, who is who?” Gabriel asked, which got a chuckle from Ghost.
“War,” Beckett nodded his head.
“Pestilence,” Ghost replied with a small smile.
“Famine,” Ashir gave an almost imperceptible nod.
“Death,” Nic gave that wink again.
Well, holy shit.
“What do you guys do now that you don’t go around slaughtering people?” Irina asked.
Beckett gave her a look that was hard to decipher, “We never just slaughtered people. Our sect used us to bring death to those who stood against us. This was back in the days when vampires didn’t pretend to be human. When we acted like the monsters that humans have us painted as.”
“I only know what I was taught about vampires, nothing of what I know of your species has ever been true, other than the slaughtering.” Irina spoke as she reached for the bottle of water that Tori place on the table before she fled the room after we arrived.
“Those are fledglings. Vampires that are new and haven’t learned control of their hunger. Older vampires do not kill unless it is for a reason. We feed but leave humans alive, or sometimes we use blood packs. There are a few pharmaceutical companies that are owned by vampires that specialize in synthetic blood. This helps up blend in better with humans. Werewolves use their human forms to blend in, we use ours the same way and have learned that not all of humanity is bad,” Beckett replied.
“There is so much that I need to learn about vampires and other supernaturals.” I say as I reach for my water.
“So, you guys will just follow me to meet Vicktor tonight when I go give him my report?” Irina asked.
“Yes. Then we will follow him until he leads us to where he keeps his collection. It is a horrible thing these people are doing. So, we will do anything we can to help free those being held captive.” Nic said with anger in her voice.
“I have one question before we end this meeting, well two, but I will start with the first one. How do you know Rayne?” I ask. This has been bugging me since I learned she sent them.
“I am friends with Morty. He introduced us to Rayne last year when her bar got recognized as a supernatural haven. After meeting her, seeing what she is trying to do for all our species, it impressed us. For a werewolf as young as she is, out in the world alone without a pack, to do what she is doing, she has the respect of many. We decided that we would aid her in any way she asks, anytime she asks, without question.” Beckett says with a smile of admiration on his face.
Knowing that Rayne has made a tremendous impact on the supernatural world makes me proud of her. I am happy that I can now call her a friend and ally. Things happen in life for a reason. I believe the choices that I made have brought me to where I am now for a reason. There are so many out there now being hunted by The Collectors. The more of us that know about them, the higher our chances will be to set them all free and destroy The Collectors.
“Who is Rayne Solas?” Irina asked.
Well shit, I knew that was bound to happen.
“Rayne is the woman I left behind when I chose Gia,” I tell her as I look up into her ice-blue eyes.
Her eyes widen as my words register in her mind, “Your original mate.”
(**Irina’s POV**)
The woman who is one of his allies was his original mate. The woman the Moon Goddess had paired him with in the beginning. The same woman who rejected him. What had he done to her to have her reject him instead of become his true mate? My mind was racing with questions about the man before me. The man that the Moon Goddess has now paired me with.
Is Sebastion a monster too? To leave his true mate behind and choose his pregnant lover is one thing, but I want to know what he did to Rayne for her reject him. They are now allies, so it must not have been as bad as I am thinking, or maybe it is and they just worked their shit out. Sebastion will need to explain what happened to me or we will not have a future. Hell, we may not have a future if things with Vicktor end badly.
“Yes, Rayne is my original mate,” Sebastion responded. The look in his eyes caught me off guard. There was pain in those brown orbs that made my heart lurch.
Was he still in love with her? How can that be? From what he described, they never really spent time together to form the love that the mate bond enhances. Which I think is a pity that he never had the chance to have the love with his first mate that I had with Gustav. That man was so much larger than life. He was always so optimistic about everything.
Gustav’s death broke me in ways I never imagined love could. Why on earth had the Moon Goddess paired me with Sebastion? There is a darkness to his soul that I am not sure I like. He cast his mate aside to be with a woman who cheated on him at every turn. How he never saw her for what she was is beyond me. They say love is blind and I think in Sebastion’s case it was way worse.
Can I ever see past the things he has told me of his past? To see the man that he is trying to become. I know there is much more to his story he hasn’t told me. That will all come in time, and the sharing will go both ways. I will have to share Gustav with him, but I am not ready for that yet. I haven’t talked about Gustav to anyone but Zasha.
My daughter barely remembers her father, so I have told her about him over the years, during the times that Vicktor allows me to be with her. I want Zasha away from him so badly. There has been so much of her life that I have missed out on because of that monster. He uses her to keep me in line and I hate that she is his leverage.
“Well, we will go now. We will return later this evening when you leave for the day to follow you,” Beckett said. His voice broke me from my thoughts.
I watched as all four vampires stood and made their way to the door. Gabriel and Sebastion escorted them to the elevator, leaving me alone in the conference room. I hope they can do everything they say they can. Vicktor guards the location of his collection vigorously. When I was captured he held me somewhere else while he broke me to his will. When he released me to become his scout, he blindfolded me until we got to the small house he uses as our meeting points.
I think there is a part of that man that is always prepared for things to go wrong. That thought sends my mind into a panic, my heart racing, and tears to spring to my eyes. What if he has a back-up plan for this mission to go wrong? Will I be able to fool him with whatever information Sebastion plans to give me? A small sob escapes my mouth as panic takes over.
I stand to pace the room. Have I done the wrong thing by putting my trust in Sebastion and his allies? He is right about one thing, there are so many more lives on the line than just ours. Zasha and all the others in Vicktor’s grasp, all the other’s out there in the many collections around the world, and all those we ask to help us.
Can I live with putting all their lives on the line to help my daughter? I think about that for a long moment as I take deep breaths to calm myself down. The conclusion I came to startled me in its simplicity.
Hell yeah, I can put their lives in danger. They all do that anyway, so asking them to help me save my child is something that I will do eagerly. This is for Zasha. It will always be for her. Anything else will come second.
“Hey, are you alright?” Sebastion’s voice startled me, making me jump.
I turn to look at him to see that he is much closer to me than I thought. He is so close that I can feel the heat radiating off his body. My body and my soul are burning for my new mate. My heart and mind are still refusing to bend so easily to him. There is so much more we need to talk about before I will open my heart to this man.
“I will not be alright until the day that I have my daughter back in my arms,” I look into his eyes as he takes another step closer.
“When Jace was born, I wasn’t the best father to him, I was too wrapped up in my selfish life to pay him any proper attention. I was a horrible father to my child because all I could think of was making his mother happy. I love my son, but I think I let the whispers of my pack get to me about his true paternity, so I distanced myself from him,” Sebastion took a few steps away as he looked anywhere but at me.
I looked at him with surprise.
“When I found out that Gia had been cheating on me, I wanted to banish her and Jace from my pack,” He whispered. The look in his eyes when he looked back at me made me gasp. Such raw pain.
When I opened my mouth to speak, he raised his hand to stop me, so I closed my mouth to let him continue.
“If I don’t say it all now, I don’t know when I will have the courage to do so again. It horrified Arianna that I would cast Jace out with his mother. I put time into thinking about it and decided that he was innocent of his mother’s crimes. My crimes. He didn’t deserve to be separated from everything and everyone he has ever known. So I took the time to get to know my son, for that is who he was, no matter his parentage.”
There it was. The heart that I saw earlier when he showed me the picture of his son. Shining in his eyes as he refers to Jace now. This man isn’t a monster at all. He is just guilty of making the wrong choices. Without thinking about it, I walk to him to touch his arm. He flicks his eyes down to look at where my hand touches his bare arm. The eruption of sparks at the touch of my skin to his made my heart flutter.