Beyond the Dawn (Life and Death, Book II)

21. DEFECTION

I didn't know the treaty line like the rest of them did. But I could smell the wolf in the air now. Then the scent got a whole lot stronger.

Everyone stopped.

"Samantha?" Edythe asked. "What's this about?"

The tall, lean girl was walking toward us through the trees a few hundred yards away. Two of the wolves followed her. I think they were Paula and Jarrah. Sam's human pace made me impatient. I wanted to run to her, to do something about this immediately. But I knew how she would respond to us on her land.

Edythe's face went completely stark as she read the girl's thoughts. She stopped walking and started to speak.

"Around midnight, your Archie and Jessamine came here to ask permission to cross our land to the ocean. They agreed to allow me to escort them myself. They entered the water and never returned. Archie told me that it was absolutely important that I give you this note if you never came looking for them. He said to act as if all our lives depended on it?"

The woman held out a piece of paper covered in small black text. My razor-sharp eyes read the side of it facing me, but it was printed words rather than handwriting. That's because this was the copyright page from my copy of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. I noticed my own scent blow off the paper in the breeze. Carine had already read the note on the other side.

"Archie and Jessamine have decided to leave us," she whispered.

"What the hell?" Royal cursed.

Carine turned the page around for all of us to see.

Please don't come looking for us... You can't afford to waste any time.

Remember:

Taran and his family... Grace... Alison... and any other friends you can find. We will look for Petrina and Charles ourselves. Find as many witnesses as you can before the snow sticks to the ground. That's when they will come. We are deeply sorry that we have to leave you this way, with no goodbyes or explanations. Please understand this is the only way for us.

We love you all.

We were all frozen in shock for about two of the wolves' heartbeats. Edythe spoke when she heard the question in Sam's head.

"Yes. Things are that dangerous."

"So much so that you would abandon your own family?" Sam asked out loud, spite coming through in her tone. It was clear she hadn't read the note until now.

Edythe was immediately defensive. "We don't know what he saw. Archie is neither unfeeling nor a coward. He just has more information than we do."

"Well we would not—" Sam began.

"You are bound by force," Edythe snapped. "We can act based on our own free will."

Sam's face didn't change at the insult.

"But you should take the warning," Edythe went on. "If this is bad enough for part of my family to leave, it definitely is something you do not want to involve yourselves in. You can still avoid what Archie saw."

Sam shook her head. "We don't run away."

Carine interjected. "Please do not get your family slaughtered for pride, Sam. There are many of our kind who will come here soon, and I am telling you with absolute certainty you do not want to cross paths with them. They are the leaders of the vampire world. They do not know about you, and they will be angered by your presence here."