Page 5

“Tell us more about what happens in your visions?” Caitlin asked, completely serious.

“A vampire family has taken her prisoner. They’re evil to the core. They’re the worst kind of vampire scum. They’re a powerful family. Regina and Tobias.”

“Even I’ve heard of them. Why do you think you can handle this all on your own?” Ruric asked.

Stasio was on his laptop, tapping away at his keyboard.

“I could slip in more easily if all of us aren’t there,” Arman insisted. “And what if these are just some kind of crazy dreams I’m having and there’s nothing to it? That Fiona is still in Dallas and not anywhere near Portland, Oregon? That none of what I’ve seen has any merit?”

Jasmine entered the living room and must have caught some of the conversation as she joined Stasio on the sofa and kissed him. “What have you seen that might not have any merit?” As an assassin, she was used to doing that and truthfully was an excellent asset to their little pack of vampires.

“Did you take down your assignment?” Levka asked.

“Yep. And I got paid for it.” Jasmine slapped an envelope of cash on the table.

Ever since Jasmine had joined them, she always shared her money with them, though they were all wealthy as many centuries as they had lived and had their money in investments. So did she, but she just was generous that way with them, which was a complete change for them from when they had first met her. She’d been a lone vampire hunter, taking down the worst kind of vampires for a bounty.

“He’s having nightmares about a young woman who has been taken hostage by a vampire pack,” Levka told Jasmine. “Well, it sounds more like he has been having visions, premonitions of her.”

“I will go with you. If they’re evil vampires, it’s my job to assassinate them,” Jasmine said.

Arman was glad she was with them and on their side, even though he had been worried about her initially, since they were still considered rogues in Wales and Dallas, and she took down rogue vampires.

“In your visions, do you see that you’re doing this alone?” Levka asked, trying to get to the bottom of this.

“I don’t see anyone else but Fiona and me and the wicked vampiress who holds sway over her. But she isn’t the only one to worry about. Tobias, blackhearted devil of a vampire, is running the show.”

“Who?” Jasmine sounded like she was ready to add him and the woman to her terminal list.

“Regina Peckinpah and Tobias Farrington. They’re vampires through and through, turned at the time of the Black Death like us, but they’re evil to the core,” Arman said. “Fiona Wilder is human, as far as we know.”

Levka cleared her throat, “Good. Then we’re on a mission to?—”

Jasmine said, “Eradicate them in?—”

“Portland, Oregon,” Arman said.

“I’m on it.” Ruric got on his phone to make their plane reservations. “I’ll get a rental home near where these people live.”

“You’ve found their address?” Levka asked.

“You bet. Regina’s anyway. It’s in a really nice neighborhood bordering Forest Park. She appears to be living high on the hog,” Ruric said.

So at least the part about Regina living in Portland, Oregon was true as far as Arman’s dreams or visions were concerned.

Stasio was still tapping away at his computer and shook his head. “I found the information on them. Fiona’s family was cursed.”

Cursed? Everyone looked at Stasio for clarification.

“In the histories of vampire families, at least the really powerful ones, the Peckinpah family is one of the most controlling.” Stasio was the historian of the bunch so he would know. “But Fiona isn’t a vampire. She’s a huntress. Supposedly, her parents died in a car accident and her brother died in a separate auto accident. Then suddenly she has these new relatives who appear out of nowhere and take her in? They move her from Dallas, Texas to Portland, Oregon.”

“She’s a huntress?” Arman asked, shocked. No wonder he was having so much trouble compelling her to come with him in his visions. Vampires couldn’t use mind control on hunters.

“So she is a hostage?” Caitlin asked.

“Or the vampires convinced her they were her relatives,” Stasio said.

“But she’s a huntress?” Arman couldn’t believe it. If she knew he was a vampire, she wouldn’t have been kissing him, he didn’t think. He was disappointed to be sure. Then again, a human wouldn’t be happy with it either if she knew the truth. But of course, it could still be just a dream as far as the kissing part was concerned.