The Council Ch. 13

Ashleigh had the sense not to talk about the vampire who had just looked in the room, or about anything else that might be incriminating. They had no idea if the room was being monitored or not. They had to think not with the woman's quick appearance but it was always better to err on the side of caution.

She closed her eyes and thought of Nors. The others would be looking for them by now. They would know their lateness was something out of the ordinary and a search would have begun. She hoped Nors wasn't too upset about her disappearance. She didn't want him to be worried about her but she did pray that he would come soon, hopefully before the other vampires came back.

Being stuck in a cage in a dank, smelly subbasement room was not a very pleasant experience but she had been through a lot worse and she knew she could endure it. She thought of her family, her reaction to their deaths and then her love for her vampire.

When she got out of this current mess things were going to be different. Bad things happened but life had to go on. Whatever was coming her way she could not only withstand it, but become stronger because of it. She'd withstood worse and survived. She could survive this. Ashleigh felt a new determination settle deep within her.

Life had tried to grind her down and she had survived. No more would she give in to the terror and the misery. If she learned anything from this experience it would be what she was truly made of and what she had waiting for her if she remained strong and determined.

Her heart thudded painfully in her chest as the lights turned on and the vampires slowly began to file into the room. She tried not to look at them, meeting Loretta's gaze and finding some additional strength in having her friend near. Her Beta mouthed the words the vampire woman had mouthed such a short time ago, be strong.

"Which one is Andrei's bitch?" Daniel asked as he stared into the cages containing the two women. His eyes were on the brunette who was glaring at him with pure fury in her eyes. For some reason he imagined that this one was the one Andrei would pick to bed. There was a spark of wildness about her which would appeal to the other Elder. The blonde looked much too tame.

The blond vampire from earlier pointed at Loretta. "That one," he answered respectively. "Patrick said the blonde bears Nors Eriksson's scent. I haven't been in the Ancient's company so I can't say if she does or doesn't."

Daniel and Roberto stepped closer to the cages, Roberto dropping down to look in at Ashleigh who glared back at him as he scented the air noticeably. "Yeah, Nors is all over her," the brown haired vampire agreed rising to look at Daniel as he spoke. "I thought we weren't going to fuck with the Ancients, Daniel. We talked about this and the consequences of what would happen."

His friend hissed loudly, his head whipping around to spear him with his icy gaze. "What would you suggest? Should we let her go to run along and tell Andrei and Nors where we're holding the other bitch?" Sarcasm dripped from his tone. "The damage is done, Roberto. She's here now and we're just going to have to live with it. It would appear fate wants us to deal with the Ancients in a more forthright manner than I had planned. We'll just adapt accordingly."

Roberto's expression was still doubtful but he held his peace because there really wasn't anything they could do about it. The collection team should have waited until Andrei's bitch was alone before snatching her. They had fucked up and caused the issue.

He met Daniel's eyes and saw the slight narrowing of them. Wordlessly Roberto moved behind the blond vampire and ripped his head from his shoulders in a swift, brutal move. His two companions reacted immediately but they didn't stand a chance against Daniel's crew who had silently entered the room behind them. There was a brief scuffle, some cut off screams and then the three vampires lay dead on the floor.

Daniel sighed in a bored fashion and examined his fingernails nonchalantly. "Good hired help is so hard to come by these days," he drawled, shooting Loretta a little smile which was full of malice.

"I want to know everything about your relationship with Andre Romanov," he continued in a bored tone. "I have a feeling that you're going to be very stubborn about it which, quite frankly, I feel weary of even though we haven't started our little game yet. So I'm going to cut right to the chase, wolf. Talk or your friend is about to enter a world of agony. I know there's no point in starting on you but she doesn't appear half as strong as you are. I'm sure we'll have her screaming in no time."

Loretta stared mutinously at him, not daring to turn her head to look at Ashleigh. If she looked at her friend and saw terror on her face she didn't know if she would be able to keep quiet. She was afraid that she would start talking to spare Ashleigh any pain.

"Do your worst, vampire," Ashleigh hissed softly, a core of steel in her voice. "I am stronger than I look and nothing you do to me will make either of us talk." She felt afraid at what was to come but she felt strong too. Her new determination lent her the strength as did her wolf. They would endure what was to come.

"Oh, how very brave of you," Roberto laughed leaning down to unlock the cage. "Shall we test how long your bravery lasts, dog?" He turned to his friends even as he reached down and grabbed Ashleigh by the arm and pulled her effortlessly from the cage. "Shall we wager on how long it takes to make the bitch howl?" he asked with another loud laugh.

"Ashleigh!" Loretta groaned hoarsely as Roberto suddenly moved swiftly catching a hard blow across the younger woman's face.

Ashleigh crumpled immediately to the ground and received a sharp kick to the ribs. She uttered a deep groan and curled up into a ball trying to protect her body from the blows she knew were coming.

"If you talk, her pain will end so much quicker," Daniel said quietly, his eyes cold and hard as he stared down at Loretta in her cage who was staring at her friend being beaten with an anguished expression on her face.

"Andrei will fucking kill you!" Loretta screamed at him, her hands gripping the bars of the cage as she fought to find a way out. "You are dead, you bastard! You're just too fucking stupid to know it!"

Ashleigh's groans were turning into harsh cries as she was surrounded by vampires who alternated kicking and punching her body. Each blow was agony and she could hear bones snapping in her arms, maybe even a few ribs too. She wanted to shift to wolf form but Loretta hadn't given the command yet so she maintained human form and tried to withstand the pain being inflicted on her body.

She screwed her eyes closed and tried to block everything out by thinking of Nors. He was coming to rescue her, she knew he was. All she had to do was stay alive until he arrived. He had never let her down before and she knew he never would. Nors was coming and she would be strong for him.

It took a moment to realise the blows had stopped. Her body was a sea of agony, her head throbbing painfully in tune to the steady pulse of pain which seemed to radiate everywhere within her. She gagged when something hot and sticky invaded her mouth. She tried to spit it out but her jaw was held shut until the thick vampire blood slid down her throat.

Coughing and gagging she was let go as the blood ran through her system rapidly healing the damage just done to her. She wanted to vomit but part of her was actually grateful that the pain was abating slowly.

"This is how it will play out until you talk," Daniel was saying to Loretta when Ashleigh opened her eyes. "We will heal her and then we will start again, over and over until one of you tells me what I want to know. How much do you think she'll be able to stand before she starts screaming for death, bitch?"

Loretta stared tearfully at Ashleigh, her eyes begging her forgiveness and finding that forgiveness given instantly. They both knew they couldn't talk. If they talked they were both dead and countless others too.

Ashleigh pulled herself up into a sitting position and spat at Daniel's feet, blood spraying his shiny black boots. "You know fuck all about wolves, dickhead," she grated out firmly, a second before he kicked her hard and she fell back with a deep groan.

"You're a fucking coward," Loretta screamed at him. "You know I'm too strong for you so you pick on Ashleigh, taking the coward's way out. No wonder Andrei has all the power. You're an embarrassment to all vampires!"

Daniel merely laughed at her attempt to engage him and turned to Roberto. "Make sure you don't damage her beyond repair," he ordered softly before he walked out of the room and left the two wolves to his friend's mercy.

Roberto waited for the door to close and then turned to the brunette. He really didn't like her and didn't see why she should get away without any pain. He signalled for her to be released and had her stripped naked. His cold eyes raked over her body as she stood glaring at him defiantly. So this was what Andrei was fucking? Her body was okay for a dog but nothing special.

"She smells funny," one of the dark haired vampires who was holding Loretta tightly by the throat said. "It's almost as if she has two scents." His tone was puzzled as he voiced the comment but his words piqued Roberto's interest.

Roberto stepped forward and inhaled deeply. There were two scents to the bitch. A slow smile suddenly crept across his face. Oh, this was just priceless! Andrei was fucking a dog who was breeding with another man's seed in her belly. How totally disgusting and also highly amusing.

He reached out and stroked the bare flesh of Loretta's stomach causing her to flinch and try to move away from him. "Does Andrei know you fuck around on him, bitch?" he asked in a deceptively quiet tone. "Does he know you carry some other man's bastard in your belly? I am so going to enjoy informing him of just what a fool you've made of him. He'll never be able to show his face again."

Loretta had stiffened instantly as Roberto's words seared into her brain. No, it couldn't be possible! He had to be wrong! His hands were on her stomach, almost caressing her and making her skin crawl with revulsion.

Was she really pregnant? Her mind whirled frantically. She could only become pregnant by her mate but Andrei was a vampire and couldn't father children. Even if he could they had only mated fully yesterday. There wasn't time for her to become pregnant! Was there? Their mating was something unknown, the consequences of it impossible to gauge.

She shuddered as the vampire's hands touched her again, straining to get away from his touch and being unable to do so. Her mind kept whirling, remembering how ill she had felt the day before, the nausea, the vomiting and Andrei's strange behaviour after going to speak to Caleb.

What had The Ancient revealed to him? Oh God, had he known last night and hadn't told her? Was Andrei aware that they could have children, that she was probably already pregnant? That would explain his strange behaviour towards her, the fact he had been reluctant to make love to her. She wanted to be angry with him for keeping silent but a part of her knew he must have had a very good reason to. He would never deliberately hurt her, she was sure of that. But he should have told her, if she was in fact pregnant.

She couldn't halt the whimper that escaped her as she closed her eyes trying to deny the truth. It wasn't that she didn't want a child, that she didn't crave to be able to carry Andrei's baby. The timing was just impossible. If the vampires realised her child was also Andrei's child they would kill her instantly, kill Andrei too. Then they would descend on the pack and destroy them and anyone associated with them.

She opened her eyes, looked past Roberto into Ashleigh's stunned face, seeing her friend had also registered the enormity of what had occurred between her and Andrei.

Ashleigh's eyes filled with tears as she read the determination on Loretta's face. She shook her head mutely at her, silently trying to stop her Beta even though she knew she wouldn't be able to. "Loretta," she whispered tearfully a split second before Loretta barked out her order. "Shift!"

Ashleigh shifted instantly, following her Beta's command and howling loudly as she shimmered and changed into her wolf form. She cried inside for her friend, for what she was about to do, knowing that it was probably the worst thing Loretta would ever do in her entire life.

Ashleigh's shifting brought angry curses from the vampires as she snarled furiously at them and proceeded to try and bite any who came close to her. They descended on the wolf in a frenzy to restrain her.

Loretta stared into Roberto's eyes, hating him with every single fibre of her being. He was watching her carefully, ignoring the snarling going on behind him, safe in the knowledge his people would take care of the wolf.

If only he had kept his mouth shut then she would never have known, would never have been forced to make the decision she now had to make. Loretta closed her eyes as tears slowly started to fall down her cheeks.

"Forgive me, Andrei," she whispered inside her head, a deep throbbing pain enveloping her body as she urged her wolf forward. Her beast protested, fought her furiously but she forced her human side further and further inside herself. "Forgive me, little one," she whispered again, aiming a anguished shaft of love towards the tiny being growing inside her body.

With an agonised howl, Loretta shifted to wolf form, dropping forward to charge as the vampires lost their grip on her. She howled again and dived for Roberto's throat, an agonised whimper escaping her as he easily batted her aside with a sharp blow to the head.

She wanted to kill him, she wanted to rip him to pieces for making her have to choose between her child and the hundreds, if not thousands of lives that were at stake. But she was helpless against him, helpless against the other vampires as they fought to contain her, reigning blow after blow against her head and body.

She tried to protect her stomach even though she knew it was most probably a futile gesture, that the baby or babies were most likely already gone when she shifted. She howled over and over, fury and agony battling for dominance within her as the vampires meted out their frustration at no longer being able to communicate with either of the two women.

*****

Emily hurried through the corridors of the building, trying not to look like she was hurrying. Her brief glimpse of the two women was enough to tell her that they were the reason Stephan had sent her down to the subbasement. He hadn't told her what to look for, just asked her to see if there were any areas that looked to be guarded.

She probably shouldn't have investigated the room. But the scents inside had piqued her curiosity and she'd had to look inside. She knew instantly they were Weres though she hadn't recognised them from her time at the Hanlon compound during the war.

She hoped Stephan wouldn't be too angry with her. He had graciously agreed to mentor her when Alexei had kept his word and found her a new mentor to help her through the turbulent stage of being a Youngling. The Elder had set up a meeting for her with Stephan and he had appeared to be nice enough, speaking gently with her and not dismissively like most other Elders did.

The past year had been so much better than her early introduction into the life of a vampire. There was no violence, no one trying to force her to be something she wasn't.

Truth be told, Emily probably was one of the worst vampires ever to be Sired. She didn't have the killer instinct of most vampires or the personality to even get mad at most people. Sometimes she wished the Weres had found her first. They seemed to be a much more peace loving kind of supernatural being.

But things had been better lately. Stephan was very patient with her, teaching her the right way to behave within their hierarchy. He very seldom lost his temper with her and appeared genuinely sorry when he did. Sometimes it could take him a few days to get around to apologising but he usually did eventually.

Emily finally made it to Stephan's office within the main architectural building that housed The Council chambers. She knocked quietly and slipped inside, her heart thumping painfully hard in her chest as her mentor looked up at her, his hazel eyes intent.

"Stephan, I know you said to just look but there were no obvious signs of any activity in the subbasement," she began breathlessly, the words rushing out of her mouth at high speed. "Please don't be angry with me. I scented something and opened one of the doors. What you seek is there. Two of them. In cages."

Stephan's beautiful face twisted in a black scowl and he flew around the desk, catching her around her upper arms and hissing loudly in her face. "I didn't tell you to open any doors," he hissed loudly, his displeasure washing over her and making her wilt noticeably.

He knew he had taken a risk sending Emily down to investigate, that she was completely the wrong choice but he'd had no one else to send. He had made his instructions clear to her, making her repeat them back to him so he was certain she understood exactly what he wanted from her. And still she had disobeyed him.

The girl was hopeless! He was trying to teach her how to keep her head firmly attached to her body and she seemed incapable of understanding just how dangerous her erratic behaviour was to her well being.

"Stephan, you're hurting me," Emily whispered softly, bring him out of his furious thoughts to realise he was gripping her too hard. He released her immediately, stepping back and running a hand through his long, wavy black hair.

"If you cannot obey simple instructions then you are of no use to me, Emily," he ground out angrily. "What if you'd been seen, caught even? I would have been unable to help you and the information I needed would have been lost to me. You have to listen to what I tell you."

"But I wasn't caught and you have the information," she replied stubbornly, frowning at his censure. She knew she had acted rashly but it had turned out okay.

He shot her a disgusted glare and then worked on his temper, reaching for his cell phone to call Andrei. "They were alone in the room?" he asked as he quickly changed his mind and dialled Alexei's number instead.

"They were but I saw Roberto and Daniel heading down in that direction as I was coming up. They didn't noticed me, Stephan, but I'm sure they were going to the lower levels. Whatever you're going to do you need to do it quickly."

Alexei answered his call and Stephan quickly imparted the information and listened for a long moment before he hung up. He turned to look at Emily, his eyes intense. She was watching him expectantly, waiting for his next instructions.

She was pretty little thing, always smiling and very exuberant. It was a wonder she had survived as long as she had. She was an accident waiting to happen, so completely unsuited to the vampire world she now lived in. She was waiting for him to tell her how best she could help with what was about to go down.

He smiled slightly, his anger waning as he reached out a touched her cheek gently in silent apology for hurting her. He knew she was only trying to help but his fear that she would end up dead had made him overreact. He cared greatly for the Youngling and took his role of mentor seriously.

"I'm sorry, Emily," he said softly. "But you really do need to listen to me when I give you instructions. I want you to leave here immediately but do not attract any attention to yourself. Head over to The Dive and speak to the bartender there. His name is Pietro. Make sure it is he you are talking to and no one else. Tell him I sent you there and that he is to protect you until I arrive to pick you up."