Page 13 of Even Vampires Bleed (Even Ever After #2)

Cassiopé

“ I ’m going,” I tell Elhyor when I finally find him walking from his office.

I’m surprised to see that Léandre was with him, yet Angie is nowhere to be found.

Then I see her entering the church from the doors at the back.

She looks like she’s been through a tornado, so I deduce that she was trying to fly on her own when pandemonium started here.

“No–” Elhyor starts to say, but he’s cut short by both the sight of his wife and the elbow Léandre just stuck to his ribs.

He only gets away with it because Angie just arrived because I’m pretty sure in normal time it’s not something Elhyor would let pass.

“You’re staying here with me,” Elhyor says, and I first believe he’s saying that for me, but his eyes are solely focused on Angie. I realize that he already forgot I want to go with the recovery team.

I tap on Elhyor’s arm as Léandre comes to my side and softly grabs my hand as if it was an everyday thing.

“If you don’t let me, I’ll go anyway. Even dad never managed to keep me inside Notre Dame.

You won’t be able to, either. So, you either let me go officially, or I’ll join the team once they’re out of Notre Dame’s sight.

In any case, I’ll be there. If you let me go with the team, at least you know I’m not alone there. ”

Léandre squeezes his hand around mine, and I don’t need him to voice it. If I go, he goes—no matter if they said again and again that with the color of his feathers he can’t go.

Elhyor seems half in the conversation. It’s like his mind is already half in the one he’s about to have with his wife. I tap on his arm again and he finally gives me a short, “Go, I can’t stop you, anyway,” and then he disappears with Angie.

“I guess we get to visit Blois. Or its underbelly more exactly,” Léandre says with a voice who wants to be cheery but lacks warmth.

Yeah, I get it. I’m both relieved we finally found them, and at the same time my heart is squeezing itself at the prospect that my dad might not be amongst them.

I know I should get ready.

But how does one get ready when they’re about to go on a mission in their animal form? It’s not like I can arm myself or whatever.

Everything is going to fall to the ground as soon as I shift.

So, I wait until everyone is ready. There are some harnesses that are going to be carried by four bat-shifters at the same time.

I can’t put one of those on me. I’ve never flown with one of those, and I surely would make a mess if I was to try for the first time today, but I get closer, look how the weapon master instructs how to set them to a group of warriors, and Léandre and I start helping the warriors into harnesses.

Once we’re done, there is only Léandre, Luc, Pierre and me in our human form. Everyone else is ready to go.

“I’m leaving with you,” I hear Elhyor say at my back, and my body finally relaxes since Pierre won’t be leading this mission.

But my relief is short, because in the next instant, Elhyor adds, “It’s a decoy, so Michael thinks I’m leaving Notre Dame unattended. I’ll just fly out and will be back here in a half hour.”

My body goes rigid.

I was ready to do this in the first place. Even knowing it would be Pierre leading us.

I can do it.

Léandre’s eyes are already on me when I look at him, and we both nod at the same time. In the next instant, my clothes pool at my feet, and I’m in the air.

All the harnessed groups of four move through the doors at the back of Notre Dame, and I follow after them under the watchful eyes of Léandre.

Pierre and Elhyor shift only when they’re finally outside, and from the corner of my eye, I see Luc gathering everyone’s clothes and tucking them into a box.

He’s not coming with us.

They need him more here with his ability to play with cameras.

And so we fly.

Dread and hope mix in my mind the whole way there.

When we arrive in Blois, half of the warriors shift to their human form and get clothes from their harnesses.

The other half stays in their animal form. The shifters who are now in their human form will carry backpacks in case we need to shift back once we’re inside, but we need to stay small and undetectable.

It’s only when the clothed warriors have left that Léandre finally arrives. I don’t know what trail he used to get to us, but all that matters is the fact he joined us. I was already going to be among the group that stays in animal form, and now Léandre is, too.

This is the reason why they didn’t want Léandre to come. No one can miss his white and red feathers.

They shouldn’t have worried, though, because there is no white or red visible on him. It looks like he rolled in the mud before joining us.

It also looks fresh. As if he flew most of the way to Blois without any mud and chose to cover himself right before joining the team.

At least we don’t have to fly long from here to meet with Ana—Marcus’ teammate and lover—and enter the dungeons from below.

The mud looks heavy; it would have been a pain to fly with that on his wings for so long.

The silence is pregnant, but at least I don’t have Pierre eying me sideways anymore.

He left with the team that will attack the castle in human form and a weight has lifted from my shoulders ever since.

Not that I’m not burdened by any other thoughts, though.

Stop.

I breathe in through my nose and breath out through my mouth.

I repeat that twice, and then we enter the cave system Ana found. My brain’s only focus is the mission.

It takes us about ten minutes to arrive at the back of the dungeons, and it’s eerily devoid of any guards.

I’m not surprised, though, because I can hear the battle going on upstairs, and I know the guards that were down in the dungeons must have left their positions in a hurry to come up and help in the battle.

All at once, everyone shifts to their human form.

That’s when I realize a group of four shifters with a smaller harness followed us. I don’t understand why until one guy in the team gets what’s inside out of it.

Virtual keys.

They’re devices that scan the inside of a lock and print three dimensional keys to replace the original one.

Those things are immensely expensive, and we only have four of them.

Only two people are needed to operate one. One holds the machine, while the other feeds it the material the keys are made of—which is a weird mix of metal and plastic.

So only eight people were needed, which means two people are left out.

Me and Léandre.

And now I see exactly what Pierre did.

He wanted us to feel useless while everyone else was working to get the prisoners out.

Jokes on you Pierre.

There isn’t a single lock that has ever stopped me before. I don’t see why one would keep me out, either.

“We’re going to start from the other side,” I tell no one in particular when I see that they start setting the virtual keys in front of the locks at the back of the dungeons.

Léandre looks at me with a questioning look, but doesn’t ask anything.

I think he came to the same conclusion as I did about making us feel useless, so he just follows me to what? Maybe to entertain me.

“What bright idea do you have this time, Little Luciole?” he asks, and it occurs to me that there isn’t a hint of teasing in his question.

He didn’t follow just to say as I asked. No, he followed because he knew I had an idea and that we weren’t going to be left aside for this mission.

I keep a little knowing smile on my face—that might look a bit tense as I look in each of the cells in search of my dad—and wait until we reach the door leading to the upper level to answer him.

“Hold the lock. I’ll show you,” I tell him quietly, and maybe a bit cockily, too.

He complies without even asking any questions. There is a light shining in his beautiful hazel eyes, and while he might be covered in mud, he’s never been more beautiful than when he smiles at me with trust in his eyes.

I shift my foot to bat size.

Why my foot?

Because bats don’t really have hands. The closest we have to hands are our feet. There is no front limb. Only small legs and wings.

So yeah, I shift my right foot to bat size.

I’ve always hated how small I was in my shifted form—smaller than the average bat. But there is one thing it’s useful for and this is it.

It looks ugly. Very very ugly, because my leg shrinks from normal size to barely a centimeter wide in just the length of my calf and it’s very weird to look at, but I’m used to it now.

Léandre isn’t, though, and I see him pale a bit at the gruesome look of my leg. Still, he doesn’t comment and steels himself as he keeps holding the lock.

I hold myself up with a hand on Léandre’s shoulder, and I slip my foot inside the lock.

Léandre must be holding his breath because the only thing I can hear beyond our heart beats and the clicks inside the lock are the sounds coming from the rest of the team.

It takes me three turns and a few seconds for the lock to open.

Inside, there is a drugged man that I recognize to be one of Elhyor’s warriors. We go to the second cell and then the third.

Léandre helps me as we walk from one cell to the other because I don’t bother shifting my leg, and it makes it look like I only have half a leg.

All the occupants are in the same state, and I understand why it was so easy for the guards to leave their position—they don’t really have to worry about escaping prisoners if they’re all either asleep or drugged.

By the time we reached the ninth cell, the rest of the team has joined us, and I shift back completely to my human form.

“How many cells do we still need to open?” One of the guys from the team asks.

“None,” I answer him.

“Are they all empty?” he asks again.

Léandre and I exchange a puzzled look.

What does he really think we went away to do? I’m starting to fume inside, and Léandre must notice because he answers for me this time.

“No, all the occupants are drugged,” he tells him as matter-of-factly as he can, but I can feel like he might be getting mad, too.

“Them being drugged doesn’t mean we don’t need to free them,” the warrior snaps.

Oh well, this one might be one of Pierre’s friends.

I breathe slowly before I talk again.

“I freed them. Now, no, we can’t carry that many people on our back, but from what I’m hearing upstairs, they might need our help. We might have more rooms to open when it’s over, so when you’re done with your pissing contest, I have to find my dad.”

He’s stunned by my answer, and doesn’t say a word when I turn my back to him, walking the way we came with Léandre until we reach the door to go upstairs.

Léandre seems to be prepared because he comes to stand right next to me, and I shift my leg once again. In two seconds, the door is opened.

“Are you coming or going to double check all my locks?” I ask above my shoulder to the idiot who looked down on me less than a minute ago.

He’s not sneering or looking down on me anymore. Instead, all I can see on his face is awe and maybe a bit of fear.

Oh yeah, I counted the cells when we went away the first time… and there were twenty-five of them. All full. Which means each of the teams unlocked four cells. Me and Léandre did nine cells. Without a virtual key.

They can be scared.