Take Courage, My Heart

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Leander and I apparently were not on speaking terms. He hadn't said anything when I prepared myself alongside them. He didn't say a word when I got into the back seat of the car, giving the passenger's seat to Ezra. He drove away from the cabin in silence, with our destination being Rapid City –Nadia Karjala's house.

Keisuke and Frankie had stayed back at the cabin waiting to either hear back from Evelynn or contact more of Frankie's acquaintances. Annerose would be meeting us halfway and joining our car, leaving the sports car with all the suitcases out of the inevitable fight.

We were going to kill Duke. I hadn't really processed that just yet. We were on the way to kill Duke. Maybe that was why Leander and I weren't exactly on speaking terms. I could sense that he was as in his head about it as I was.

Annerose opened the door and slipped inside the car when Leander stopped right by the sports car. According to the GPS we were about an hour away from Nadia's house. We hadn't discussed a course of action, but I figured we were waiting to join forces with Annerose.

"So, there is Duke and two other vampires? Are both of the others newly turned?" Ezra asked Annerose as she settled behind Leander and looked me over and then at the back of Leander's head.

"I am not sure if both of them are newly turned. But one of them certainly is. He was very thirsty, and Duke had to go bring him a human to feed on," Annerose answered, still looking around –confused and unsure.

"Did the human die?" Ezra continued as Leander started driving again.

"Yeah... is everything alright? Did I miss something?" Annerose replied, her eyes wide and focused fully on me. I kept my gaze on the side of Leander's face. His profile looked sharp, lips downturned in a scowl and eyes narrowed.

"Everything is fine," Leander ground out. I couldn't stop myself from exhaling in frustration.

"Get over it, we haven't decided on it yet," I snapped at him, realizing where this little silent treatment was coming from. Leander's grip on the wheel tightened and a muscle in his jaw jumped but he didn't say a word.

"Decide on what?" Annerose asked, leaning a little forward and looking from Leander to Ezra. She very quickly caught on that neither Leander nor I would get into it right now.

"Frankie is in. She will go to the auction –provided we find it– and get Jesse's friend out and as much information as she can about the organizers and buyers," Ezra slowly explained. He sounded uncomfortable and terse. "Jesse suggested that since none of us can join her to initiate the attack... maybe he could."

"That is not happening!" Leander snapped as Annerose leaned back and looked at me with both eyebrows raised.

"You are willing to go in there?"

I shrugged and then folded my arms before my chest, my eyes finding Leander again.

"I think I can handle it," I whispered lowly, and Leander's grip loosened a little.

"As I said earlier–" Ezra started– "we can think and decide on it later when we get closer to finding the auction and fixing up a plan of attack."

"On that note," Annerose hummed, falling back against her seat, "what is our game plan for tonight?"

We decided on what was essentially a blitz attack. Ezra would go in first and Annerose and I would follow him from the front door. All the while, Leander would enter from the back of the house, making sure no one escaped with that route and then he would join us in the fight. And we were all sure that there would be a fight. There was no way around it. It was Duke. And Nadia. Both of them were close to Vincent and both of them were connected to the nests he built.