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NOBODY FEARED FOR THE SAFETY OF THEIR COVEN QUITE LIKE MARCUS.
The man had nearly lost everything multiple times, first as a human then as a vampire, and he knew the sound of the alarm meant true danger that he would have to confront. How terribly for him that he used his gift and saw a bond of malice on one end, and of a twisted, obsessive love on the other coming from the direction of where he could only suppose his mate was based on where their golden bond shot out from.
Instantly he realized that it was a mistake to have the castle so close to the city. Their stronghold could not survive an attack in the daylight unless they wanted to get the authorities involved. It people were thrown and exposed to the sun outside on a Sunday afternoon, everything would be lost.
This intruder knew that, the clever fuck.
"Caius!" Marcus shouted into the empty hallway leading to the East Towers that once held Sulpicia and Athenodora. He wished that he'd been able to cram River in there for the lockdown, but he doubted she would have let him. "Where the hell are you?"
His feisty blonde brother came out of the shadows and shushed him loudly. "You don't want the motherfucker to realize where you are, do you?"
No, he didn't particularly want his man to know where he and Caius were, the remaining Kings of the castle. They didn't have any guards around them.
"Where did everyone go?" Marcus asked in a whisper.
"Down into the dungeons, the rear section where the massive furnace is, in case they need to defend themselves. We've got no idea how many or who got inside," Caius explained, grabbing Marcus' hand to lead him into the main part of the castle. "River is safe with multiple capable guards. Everyone is in communication with one another."
"How?"
"Damnit, Marcus, they have their fucking phones on them for a reason," Caius snapped at him as he practically dragged him along down the hallways, listening in to hear for any sign of the disturbance. "Chrissy was taken, so..."
So, that was what the issue was. Chrissy Destarri had been taken from her cell and likely out of the city, by the way that nobody could smell a single inside of the castle any longer. Marcus groaned and continued to allow himself to be dragged while Caius mumbled things to himself.
Marcus was incredibly thankful that they hadn't been stopped by some force trying to infiltrate their castle (or had infiltrated, Marcus supposed, which was surely a much worse way of putting it despite the eerie accuracy to their current situation) and steal Chrissy and perhaps his own mate as well, knowing that River's history put them together as targets of attack.
It was connected, he decided, and that meat that the letter that Aro said Carlisle was sent was a tangible threat to their mate and her former friend. Someone who had the real name (nobody he'd talked to knew of a vampire by this name) or pen name of Xanthus did this.
