Kieran's hand had moved from her chin to her cheek, stroking it with his thumb in a calming manner. With the look of worry etched in his eyes, Sophie figured she must look something close to harried.
Warring with herself mentally, she broke away from Kieran's touch to think. I was impossible to form any coherent thoughts with him that close. She paced the room and put two fingers to her temples, messaging the ache growing there.
Having the tempting Overseer staring at her that way did nothing to calm her thoughts. She'd spent enough time over the past few weeks thinking of him. Thinking of their heated encounter. She liked being in control, needed to be in control in any situation, but something about that man told her it wouldn't be possible with him. She couldn't afford to be in a relationship right now, she told herself. She couldn't afford it even more now with him involved in the complicated mess that was her life.
Every instinct was telling her not to trust them, that the only person she could trust was herself. After all, hadn't this man been chasing her just a few says prior? She had enjoyed the chase, but that was a completely separate matter.
Nothing good had ever come from trusting others, she reminded herself. At the same time, she scolded herself for not factoring in Grace. She had come through for her a number of times. She wouldn't have taken her to someone she didn't trust completely and although Sophie didn't know how her friend came to be associated with these people, she did trust her judgment.
It was too much to ask of her. She remembered very little of what actually happened that day and a little voice in the back of her head told her she was better off not remembering. She wanted more time to think, knew she didn't have any.
She groaned as the ache grew stronger. Pausing in her pacing, she leaned against a wall and slid down until she was sitting.
"You okay?" she heard Kieran's husky voice ask.
"Yeah, it's just that things got really complicated really fast." Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply and willed a decision to form in her mind. Nothing came, so she reached into her pocket, opened her eyes, and flipped a coin.
She cursed and turned her gaze to Kieran and Graham. "I can tell you what I know, but it isn't much. I don't exactly remember much about what happened that day."
"You decided to tell us on a quarter?" Graham's voice held amusement and not a little disbelief.
She shrugged. With the serious atmosphere evaporated, he laughed and came to sit beside her. He threw one hand over her shoulders, surprising her with the intimate action. He tightened his grip around her when she started to squirm.
She sighed in exasperation. "What is it with you and the flirting?"
"No man with a pulse can ignore someone like you, sweetheart." Graham gave her another charming smile. "Besides you need to loosen up some, we won't bite." Mischief glowed in his eyes. "Unless you ask us to, of course."
Sophie looked up to ask Kieran a question, but stopped abruptly when she noticed the profound scowl on his face. With startling apprehension, she realized he was jealous. Like an animal defending his territory, she thought wryly. An unfamiliar feeling of female satisfaction washed over her, surprising her further. Right then, she made her decision. Rather than being weary or cautious of their attraction, of his pursuit, she could have fun with it. And now, all she wanted to do was take her mind off things with a little harmless teasing.
Sophie turned, smiled sweetly, and eyed Graham exaggeratedly. "Oh? And what if I want to do the biting?"
Graham let out a bellowing laugh as Kieran's frown grew to a glare. She had no doubt in her mind that he knew what she was playing at and felt an almost irresistible need to giggle.
A loud buzzing sounded, followed by a door opening. Graham rose to his feet, helping Sophie up as he did. Standing, they stood face-to-face, mere inches apart, where she noticed a roguish grin spreading across his face.
"Seems Grace is done." He still hadn't let go of her hands, so she tried tugging them free.
"So I see," she murmured amusedly.
"Graham, I told you not to play with her." Sophie turned at the sound of Grace's voice. She was holding a stack of papers in her hands. Her friend looked between the two of them and to a fiercely scowling Kieran and laughed. "Or should I be saying that to Sophie?"
"It was only some harmless teasing. No harm in that, is there? Besides, I think she rather likes me. She even offered to give me a love bite."
Grace's stricken expression and Kieran's moody silence had them both laughing. Not helping it, Sophie leaned over gave the playboy a kiss on the cheek. What stunned them all was Kieran's reaction.
Finally breaking, he reached over and pulled Sophie from Graham's grasp into his own. He circled his arm around her waist and pulled her flush against him. Sophie was laughing into Kieran's shirt, enjoying his jealously immensely. She'd never found comfort in someone's embrace before, but she did, now, with him.
She heard a laugh from Graham who'd tried to disguise it as a cough. Sophie turned in his arms - Kieran refused to let her go - and noticed Grace's knowing smile.
Grace knew her best friend had just found her new plaything and felt somewhat sorry for Kieran. From the look on Sophie's face, Grace knew her friend wouldn't have any trouble with boredom in the next few weeks. Then, she noticed the look on the Overseer's face and changed her perspective. It seemed as though both were intent on playing with the other. Reconsidering, Grace figured they'd each met their match.
She smiled this time and started in on the reason they'd come together.
"Since you guys are already acquainted and we don't have a lot of time, let's just get straight down to business. I know you have questions, but you're going to have to be patient and listen to everything we have to say." Sophie looked at Grace's solemn expression and nodded. "In return we want your side of the story." Grace didn't wait for her to respond.
"I already told you over the phone the Nightshade has put a hit out on you. What we don't know is why. The original story was that you murdered your parents and were being hunted down to face punishment, but your parents were ostracized and strongly disliked. The members of our covenant would have been glad that they were dead and you exiled, as horrible as that sounds." Grace sat on the floor and laid papers out as she spoke. "The Elders' role is to maintain peace, not incite lethal fear. They did so in the members of our covenant so that they would support an order to capture you under the guise of 'facing punishment'.
"Most people are killed on the spot for running from their covenant, so why was your case different? It could have something to do with the disappearance of Elder Teiraeyl, but there was no proof of foul play whatsoever and nothing that could have been linked back to you. It was only a rumor." Grace paused in her movements and looked up at them with a spark in her eye. "What did they really want from you? I asked myself that very question. They're afraid of you!"
Grace suddenly picked up a stack of papers and stood up to give a copy to each person. "I was shopping online for some cute clothes for a date -"
"You have a date?" Sophie interrupted. "With who?"
"Yes, with who?" Graham asked rather seriously.
"With Sebastien from the Regulation unit," she stated absently, waving away the comment as if it held no importance. "I was saying that while I was shopping I suddenly thought, 'what if they left behind a trail?'"
"How did that pop into your head? It's totally unrelated," Sophie wondered.
"Ah, but you see, I was deleting a credit card trail while I was thinking." She winked. "I was using an ex-boyfriend's credit card as revenge."
"What'd the bill rack up to?" Graham asked.
"Somewhere near 5k," Grace answered noncommittally. "As I was saying, I wondered about any trails or clues that might give us some insight as to why they went after you. Those papers in your hands are copies of reports, emails, correspondences, secret Elder records, and such that all order the death of hybrids."
"Good God," Sophie breathed. "How in the world did you get a hold of this?"
"The one bad thing about having Covenant Nightshade full of elites is that you can't always control them, which means a threat could be at the heart of their foundations. In this case, that threat was me." Grace smiled proudly. "I hacked their files, which is surprising, might I add, because I don't figure the Elders as very tech savvy. What I didn't get from their computers I got from the Restricted Records Rooms in the Elders' chambers.
"The fact that they have been signing death warrants for years - for hundreds of years, actually - means that you aren't the first one, Sophie. They kept that from everyone, even the main Covenant. They made us all believe that you were some abomination never meant to exist, that you were an anomaly. They kept hybrids a secret and they made sure to eradicate all of them swiftly and discreetly."
"Why keep Sophie alive then? Why let her existence be made public? And why kill all of the hybrids?" Graham countered.
"I'm not quite sure myself," Grace paused in her excitement and looked worriedly at Sophie. "There were a few records missing from the archives. I was looking at the files around the dates of Sophie's leave and I noticed that bundles of files were missing, all of dates around that time. I was trying to look for any other files regarding you, but those seemed to be missing. There were gaps of time periods all over the place in the past couple decades."
"What of your Records Keeper? Shouldn't he have been in charge of recording all that goes on in your covenant and making sure those archives are infallible?" Kieran spoke up for the first time since the conversation began.
"That's another thing that troubles me. There was no Records Keeper guarding the room and the inside was far from organized, as it should have been. I found records that incriminated them regarding the hybrids, but why not anything about you. Why go through the trouble of destroying records regarding you and not bother with incident reports of hybrids or others?"
Everyone fell silent, consumed by his or her own thoughts. Sophie felt that headache coming back again.
"I have to tell you one thing, Grace. You work fast." Sophie gave her smile, trying to lighten the mood. "So, how about we move onto how I'm connected to that freaky vampire I killed?"
Grace looked to Kieran.
"We've termed them Uncreatables ,"Kieran spoke of from behind her.
"My, how creative," she retorted. He rolled his eyes, exasperated.
"When we trace back incidents over the past few years of reports of Uncreatables, they all occur in towns near places you'd settled in at the time, Sophie. Same thing with the incidents Kieran discovered. They began occurring when you arrived in town," Grace said. "The Elders also received reports of Uncreatables and managed to keep those under wraps as well, but they seem to have absolutely no leads when it comes to the Uncreatables' maker or makers."
"I was investigating their origin myself before reporting to the Elders, but I didn't get very far myself," Kieran added. "The first incident involved a local child in the human community who'd gone missing. He was found a few days later in the woods, wandering around. He was taken home and the case was closed. Days later, a report came to our attention that a family was slaughtered very much like the way a blood-crazed vampire would kill. The boy, missing once again, was tracked by our covenants men by request of the police. My men found the boy, dead, in the forest, drenched in his parents' blood. It seemed as though his body wasn't able to withstand the transition for long. He suffered from the bloodlust, yes, but his body refused to accept the blood.
"There have been several incidents after, that I caught wind of outside my jurisdiction, which is how I came upon Grace and Graham. It seems as though they were in the middle of researching the same leads. We have yet to notice any similarities between the victims only that they normally wouldn't have made it through the transition. So, typically infants and the elderly."
"The same with the reports done by the Elders," Grace put in.
Another heavy silence settled around the room. This time, Sophie didn't need to interject.
Growls erupted from outside the room, startling them all. Grace turned a panic-stricken face toward Sophie. She was a computer tech not a fighter and her friend knew that.
They all turned towards the door that led to the outside, the door that the hounds would break through to attack them.
Kieran had finally released Sophie from his grasp and both had weapons in hand, ready to fight. Sophie had an arsenal of blades on her, spread out across her body in different places, but she started off with her boot knives. She noticed Kieran holding a stunning Gerber Mark II. Graham had taken it upon himself to protect Grace, shielding her body with his own and pulling one of his own weapons, a fixed blade dagger, from its place in his jacket.
Guns, they knew, would have no effect on the hounds. Knives would at least sever some body parts and slow them down. Decapitation would kill them, but Sophie doubted any were equipped for that. If they could get close enough, however, they might be able to take a hound down with a knife to the head. She doubted any one of them would try that.
Sophie calculated the odds. A computer tech, a Covenant Leader, a Covenant Nightshade Regulator and Trainer, and a hybrid. All against who knew how many hounds? Hounds that would undoubtedly tear into their flesh with the savage satisfaction of a mindless, hungry beast. And they didn't even have any weapons that could effectively kill the hounds.
She had her powers, which had worked once before when she came across a hound.
But could she do it without losing control and blacking out? She would have to, because The Monster didn't discriminate when it came to killing.
- - - - - - - -
Ok, so here's the next chapter, it's sort of a filler so sorry if it's boring! And sorry it's been so long!!
Don't forget to comment, vote, etc.