TWENTY-SIX
Venus approached the first circle in front of her, which housed Hans. He acknowledged her presence by attempting to lift his head from his shoulder, with little result. It was obvious the Guardian was completely drained of his resources. Sebastian and Rogan couldn’t see his expression from where they stood, but they could see Venus’s smug portrait of superiority as she looked on. “Oh, stop looking at me like that, Hans. You know that all of this was mine originally anyway. If Psyche had kept her nose out of what didn’t belong to her to begin with…” she glanced coldly at Psyche, “…you’d all still be working for me. It would have been the kingdom I had originally owned. Let’s not forget, Psyche was made into a goddess from a mortal. She’s not a true goddess.”
Hans must have tried to say something then, because Venus leaned closer to him. “What’s that?” She paused as Hans repeated whatever he had said. Venus only laughed, throwing her head back as if he was extremely funny. “There is no ‘fair’ in this, Hans. There is simply power and the struggle for it. Taking back what was always mine does not make me a thief. It makes me resourceful.” She took a step closer to where Psyche was suspended. “And patient.” She took another step, her eyes narrowing. “And clever.” She stopped in front of Psyche, gazing intently into Psyche’s unconscious face. Venus stood in front of Psyche, motionless, considering. She stood there for so long Sebastian became aware of the sweat dripping off of his brow. His heart beat rapidly as he waited. Venus finally spoke, and Sebastian had to strain to hear the words she spoke quietly to Psyche’s unconscious form. “You are beautiful. There’s no question about that. You were so beautiful Auster, Mars, and Cupid all moved heaven and earth to make you one of them. Without their help, you would have perished centuries upon centuries ago. You would have grown old. Your beauty would have faded. You would have had children and changed diapers. You would have grown saggy and old, as mortals do. You would have turned wrinkled and sickly and eventually died.” She stopped there, lost in the train of her own thoughts. “You have everything that was mine because of your looks. You didn’t deserve it. You didn’t earn it. You didn’t sweat over it as I did.” Her beautiful voice dropped into a sing-song as she said, “Look at the beautiful mortal! Let’s make her a goddess and give her power over love and beauty. LOVE AND BEAUTY!” Sebastian and Rogan both jumped. “And WHO was the goddess of love and beauty, Psyche? WHO?” Venus’s face reddened, her flawless demeanor in pieces for the first time Sebastian had ever seen. Her anger made her face ugly, contorted. Venus leaned into Psyche’s unconscious face. “It was MINE! And because my idiot boy fell in love with you, I lost everything.”
Venus straightened. She looked over at the limp form of Cupid, her son, hanging in the air. “My boy.” She shook her head. “Do you remember how you punished me for that? Do you remember locking yourself in your room and only using your lead arrows for weeks on end so my kingdom would fall? Of course you do. You threw a temper tantrum, proving all of my followers would suffer without your good will. I never forgot it.”
Venus took a cloth from the pocket of her suit skirt, her professional attire looking ridiculously out of place in the cavern. She wiped her face, delicately, before slipping the hankie back into her pocket and looking at Cupid again. “This time there will be no Fall from grace. All the mortals are still praying for love, revenge, and war. Their prayers now come to me.”
She turned to look at the two demons still standing at the tunnel entrance. “We’re done here for today. Send the others back to their posts. I don’t expect much activity. The demons have descended on most of the Arrow Temples by now. Arrow and Guardian numbers are so depleted there isn’t anyone else to send. They will all have to retreat to Olympus.”
Venus turned and left the room, the demons on her tail.
Sebastian and Rogan waited until several minutes had passed. Sebastian was thinking so intently he jumped when Rogan whispered in his ear. “We have to get Hans.”
Sebastian turned to look at him. “Hans?”
“He’s still conscious…or he was. We need to find out how to take down the circles.”
Sebastian shook his head. “Even if we did, every one of them are unconscious. What the hell would we do with almost two thousand unconscious people? We’d never get out of here!”
“I can wake them.” Rogan and Sebastian both jumped out of their skins as Alex materialized behind them. Sebastian gripped her arm while he found his voice. “NEVER do that again.”
Alex blinked. “Sorry. I can wake them up.”
Rogan shook his head. “But look at them. They are obviously exhausted beyond being able to handle anything.”
Sebastian shrugged. “One step at a time. Let’s talk to Hans.”
Rogan turned to Alex. “You better come with us. In case someone interrupts us.”
Alex nodded and the three of them descended the rock wall into the room. The way was easy now. The tunnels had been cut for easy access to this room. As the three of them walked, Sebastian felt strange passing between the bodies of his peers, their forms hanging in the air, their eyes closed as if they were dead. Sebastian, Rogan, and Alex crept quietly to the middle of the room. Sebastian hated walking in the open, the dozens of tunnels in the walls feeling like eyes watching their every move. At last, they reached the circle that held Hans. His eyes were closed, his face relaxed behind the glow of the circle walls. Sebastian spoke to him quietly, as Alex and Rogan kept a watch on the many tunnel entrances. “Hans!” His voice was a harsh whisper. Still, Hans remained as before. Sebastian knew better than to touch the lighted walls of the circle. He’d seen people thrown back a good hundred feet before depending on the voltage of the magically power-charged walls. He wasn’t going to take a chance.
Sebastian leaned as close as he could to keep his voice low. “Hans! Wake up!” This time, Hans flinched, his eyes fluttering. “Hans, come on. It’s Sebastian.”
Sebastian thought he saw Hans mouth his name, groggily. His head swiveled over to the other shoulder, his eyes still closed. Alex stood next to Sebastian’s shoulder. She looked at Hans and spoke clearly. “Wake up.”
Sebastian could feel the power radiate off of Alex. He even felt a little more alert, just standing next to her while she gave the command. Hans’s eyes popped open, his head snapping to attention, his eyes roving. For a brief moment, Sebastian was afraid he would speak or call out in fright, so he placed his finger in front of his lips, shushing Hans as they made eye contact. When Hans saw who was there, he glanced quickly around, looking at the tunnels. “Where’s Venus?”
“She left only moments ago.”
Hans shook his head. “It seems like days.”
Sebastian raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Are you all drugged?”
Hans nodded. “And depleted of blood, even the gods. She’s got all of your research, Sebastian. She’s been draining our blood, taking over the task of the Arrows for herself, taking in all the prayer and power. That’s why we’re all here and alive. She needs our blood.”
“Why does she need Guardians’ blood?”
Hans smiled humorlessly. “You wouldn’t know this, but that’s how circles are made. We draw the circle and press our blood into crevices on the floor. When it’s filled, it glows and no one can pass out of it again until our blood makes contact with it again.”
Sebastian nodded as he recalled the demon kneeling in front of the circle before placing Hans inside. “Can you do it from inside?”
Hans shook his head. “We can’t even touch the etching on the floor from in here. And touching the walls of the circles also sets off an alarm. One of the Arrows woke up when I was brought in here earlier. As soon as she moved and hit the wall, the demons came to carry her off and drain her until she was unconscious again.”
“Do us a favor and don’t move. How can we get the walls down?”
“All of the blood is pulled in another room. There are demons everywhere.”
“How far up do these walls go on the circles? Can we lift you out of this?”
Hans glanced at Alex, considering. “I’ve never put something that could fly into these, but I did have a demigod in one back in 516 B.C. He had super human strength and could jump amazingly high. He jumped one hundred feet and still got zapped.”
Sebastian grinned. “That wasn’t Hercules, was it?”
Hans smiled. “That’s classified.”
Alex glanced at Sebastian in awe. “The Hercules? Wow.”
Rogan walked up to Sebastian. “We’ve got to move. This place crawls.”
Sebastian nodded. “Where do we get blood if we can’t get it from you?”
Hans nodded toward the entrance Venus had come through earlier. “In there. Follow that passage around and stay to the right, but pay attention. Everything looks different on the way back. You won’t be able to just stay left, because you’ll end up somewhere else. Also, there are demons patrolling the tunnel.”
Sebastian looked at Alex. “You’ll have to lead the way, then.” Alex nodded, while Hans just looked confused.
“Why her?”
“Because she compelled the demons to leave her behind.”
Hans looked over, quickly. “Compelled them? Psyche was right?”
Alex nodded. “That’s how I escaped the demons when the rest of you were taken. I couldn’t get them to leave everyone, but they left me.”
Sebastian noticed the drop in her mood again. “And it’s a good thing too, because we’re going to need you. Put Hans back to sleep.”
Hans’s head jerked up. “What? Why?”
“Because if you’re awake, you’ll give us away. You were out cold. That and we can’t afford for you to bump the walls and be taken away again.”
Hans looked like he wanted to argue, but eventually nodded. Sebastian glanced at Alex. She turned to Hans and a moment later he was asleep. Sebastian turned to her in amazement. “You don’t have to speak?”
Alex shrugged. “I guess not. I was going to say something, but I didn’t have to. He was already asleep.”
“Nice.” Sebastian turned to Rogan and they looked toward the tunnel Hans had indicated. “We’re going to have to go weapon-less. We can’t afford to fire weapons in here. Alex is our only weapon.”
Alex looked at them, swallowing. “No, pressure, huh?”
“I don’t think there is a no-pressure escape plan available.”
Alex took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. Let’s go.”
The three of them turned to the tunnel they’d seen Venus leave through and started walking, staying to the right. Alex led the way in the hope that her influence would disarm any opposition they encountered before making a ruckus. It got dark fast, and Sebastian cursed, whispering, “We can’t afford to use the light. It’d give us away before Alex could do her thing.”
“It’s okay,” said Alex.” The demons have lights so they can see. We’ll see them before they see us. It will actually make my job easier. I can compel the demon to simply turn around or go a different way.”
So they pressed on, holding their hands against the wall to their right. Whenever a tunnel opened up they turned right, and Sebastian placed a coin from his pocket at the corner of the tunnel so they would know to take a left at every coin on the way back. They went along for almost five minutes, moving slowly to stay silent, before the first light appeared in a tunnel. Sebastian and Rogan stayed back while Alex stared straight ahead, pushing her thoughts to the light. Like magic, the demon turned, heading back where it came from. “Quick!” said Alex. “Follow it!”
Rogan whispered next to her as she moved forward, “How do you know where it’s going?”
“Because I told it where to go.”
The three of them silently followed their only light source while Sebastian continued to mark their path. The tunnel came to a sudden end, and the group held back as the demon entered a room that was about half the size of the previous one. Garrett would have loved this room. It was a major medical facility. There were multiple gurneys next to workstations. Demons moved around the room, carrying coolers, which Sebastian saw contained blood. Venus wasn’t visible in the room. Sebastian looked at the coolers lying on the floor, considering. “How do we know which ones have Guardian blood? We can’t start lifting the lids of all the coolers.”
Alex looked back at the demon that had entered the room ahead of her. She looked focused, like she was trying to read invisible words off of the back of its head. The demon stopped suddenly, lifting a cooler next to his feet and placing it on a gurney. He took the lid off, placing a bag of blood on the hard plastic of the gurney. Under Alex’s watchful stare, he placed two more there and then closed the lid and carried the cooler away, leaving the blood.
“Nice trick,” Sebastian said. “But how are we going to get that blood without anyone noticing?”
Alex considered this. “I don’t know. I didn’t even know I could do this until a couple hours ago. I don’t know if I can compel more than one at a time.” She focused her attention on the three demons closest to the table. Simultaneously, they all turned away, looking at a tunnel on the opposite side of the room. A few other demons that were working stopped to stare. Quickly, Alex stopped what she was doing, and they shook their heads as if they were confused and went about their business.
Sebastian whispered in her ear. “We won’t be able to get that blood out of there. Someone’s going to notice it and put it away again.”
Alex shook her head. “Hold on.” She focused again on the demons, and every head turned toward the tunnel on the other side of the room. Simultaneously, the bags of blood flew across the room, straight into Sebastian’s hands. Alex released her hold on the demons, nearly passing out with the effort. Shaky, she fell back onto Rogan, who held her up.
“Man, that really drains you, doesn’t it?”
Alex shook her head. “I’m weak from earlier. I tried as hard as I could to compel them all to drop the Arrows and Guardians when I got away, but there were hundreds of them. I tried and tried until I nearly passed out. I saved myself as a last resort.”
Sebastian patted her arm. “You’ve done real well. You’ve got to save some though. We have a lot to do, and we can’t have you passing out on us.”
Alex nodded, her face pale. “I’ll be okay. Let’s go.”
The three of them headed back the way they had come. They were forced to use the flashlight whenever they came to a turn to check and make sure they were still on the right path back. Alex looked pale, but she was keeping up with the guys just fine. Sebastian kept glancing at her whenever they turned the light on. On the way back, they never ran into a demon. Sebastian assumed, from what they had just seen, most of them were collecting and storing the blood donations. He hoped that would keep them at bay for a little while longer.
When they arrived at the entrance to the large room where everyone was held captive, Sebastian lifted his hand, signaling for them to take caution as he peered around the corner. He didn’t like how little he could see from his vantage point. The tunnel they had originally entered from had been higher up in the cave wall. Now they were on ground level to the room, and Sebastian felt conspicuous with all the other entrances on higher ground than they were. They entered the room carefully, and Rogan and Alex immediately went around the room to check the other tunnels and make sure they were alone. After a quick evaluation, they nodded at Sebastian, who approached Hans again. Alex rushed to his side. When he nodded at her, she looked at Hans, who woke instantly.
Sebastian said, “Careful!” He didn’t want Hans to forget about the walls.
Hans blinked a couple times, and then looked at Sebastian. “You have the blood?”
Sebastian lifted the pouches. “I have to fill the groves in the circle?”
“Good Jupiter, no. It would be nuts if we have to do that every time we wanted to take down the walls. No, we only do that when we create them. To take down the walls, you need only to press a bit of it to the circle.”
Sebastian carefully opened the first pouch, taking great care not to spill any blood. He knelt and dribbled a little on the circle. The wall came down instantly, and Hans fell a couple feet to the floor, where he kneeled. He was shaky, but he eventually stood. Sebastian watched, his expression anything but pleased. “Tell me how we are going to get hundreds of people in your condition back to the dunes and the choppers?”
Hans shook his head. “We won’t be able too. Not all of us at once, anyway. We’ll need to wake small groups, smuggle them out. The demons took our weapons too.”
Rogan cursed and looked to the tunnels in the walls. “What the hell are we supposed to do with that? We’re going to get to the outside, and there are going to be demons there, waiting for us. We’re weaponless and weak. Sebastian and I can’t take out all of them with our guns. Even if we could, we wouldn’t. It’d give away our position.”
Hans turned to look at Rogan. “We’re not weaponless.” He turned to look at Alex.
Her mouth dropped open as she got his meaning. “Oh, no. No, Hans.”
Sebastian shook his head. “You don’t get it. She almost passed out just a few minutes ago, turning all the demons’ heads so she could get the blood to do this. She can’t take on hundreds of demons by herself. Not right now, anyway.”
Hans crossed his arms. “What if you only had to do it once? What if we were all assembled and you only have to make them all vacate a spot for a short time while we all slip away?”
Rogan shook his head. “Before or after she goes around and wakes everyone up? And smuggles them out past demons to the outer tunnels?”
Hans turned to glare at Rogan. “You want to leave them here?”
Rogan and Hans stared each other down as they both stood on their own sides of the issue. They barely heard Alex when she spoke again. “We’re not going to need all that blood, are we?”
Sebastian turned to her, distracted. “What do you mean?”
“Can we spare a pouch of it?”
Hans glanced over. “You mean for you?”
Alex nodded. “The transfusions made me stronger. They would have healed me entirely if it hadn’t been for the blood mix up.”
“But this is Guardian blood.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m a demigod. Garrett said all blood works with me now. I can also donate to anyone, mortal or immortal. I’m a universal donor.”
Hans’s forehead wrinkled. “Your blood mix up wasn’t a mix up.”
Sebastian nodded. “Psyche said as much. I guess we’ll have to figure out what Venus’s plan was behind having a demigod later. For now, we can spare a packet of blood, but I don’t have IV tubing or anything.”
Alex swallowed, visibly. “I don’t need it.”
Rogan’s shocked face matched those of the other men. “You’d drink it?”
Alex turned to Rogan, snappish. “Yes, Rogan. I would if it means the salvation of the entire Temple.” Rogan jumped at her expression.
Sebastian stepped forward and handed her a packet of blood. “You are a real Arrow, you know?”
Alex flushed a little with pleasure as she took the packet. Looking at their watchful eyes, she stilled, glaring. “Do you mind?”
Glancing at each other, they all turned away. Sebastian tried not to grimace as he heard the packet rip open, followed by slurping sounds. He glanced at Rogan’s face, noticing he didn’t look too comfortable either. Sebastian grinned as he looked back at his feet. Apparently, Rogan wasn’t so tough after all.
Alex cleared her throat. “Okay.”
They all turned back to her. She’d placed the packet somewhere out of sight. Sebastian noticed instantly she looked almost like her normal self. “Wow,” he said. “That really works for you, doesn’t it?”
“I guess so. It makes sense. Food is good, but it takes time for my body to convert into energy. This is kind of like an energy drink or something.”
Rogan shook his head. “I appreciate it. Truly, I do!” he said defensively, in response to her reproachful look. “You’ve got to admit, though, it’s a little weird.”
“Yeah, well,” Alex scoffed. “My ‘weird’ is going to save your ass. We’d better hurry.”
“Right,” Sebastian said, wisely masking his grin at seeing Rogan taken down a notch by a little red-head. “What’s the best way to do this, Hans?’
Hans nodded toward the captives. “I say wake the gods first. As they wake, press blood to the circle. I can do one while you do the other. Rogan can even do some with the other packet of blood. Alex, can you wake three at once?”
“I can wake all of them at once.”
“Well, don’t do that,” Hans said. “We’d run the risk of someone bumping a wall. We’ll wake only as many circles as we can open at a time.”
Sebastian nodded. “Remember the boulder you were hiding behind, Alex?” She nodded. “We’ll take each group there, have them wait. We won’t be able to fit a thousand people there, though.”
Alex shook her head. “It’s okay. I can do this a few times. “
“You’re sure?”
Alex nodded. “I’m much better now.”
Sebastian turned to Rogan. “In that case, take care with the blood, Rogan. We can give our leftovers to Alex if she starts getting weak.”
For the first time, Sebastian felt hope that they would get everyone out. They rushed to the gods, waking Cupid, Psyche, and Mars as they lowered the walls. They shushed them, leaving them to gain their bearings and strength as they moved on to Ethan and Auster. They soon cleared the inner circle. The small group headed out to the boulder in the tunnel Alex had hidden behind. Alex gave them directions and Sebastian’s light. Alex couldn’t afford to go with them during their limited time, but the gods were not completely without power. They’d be able to hold their own, were trouble encountered. Ethan promised to make radio contact as soon as he could to assemble another army, a more informed one, to take out the whole mountain.
Ethan led the group into the tunnels. Sebastian ran over to Aspen, who was hardly recognizable in the state she was in. He had never seen her looking so weak and defenseless, not even at the Seattle Temple. Alex ran with him, waking Aspen as Sebastian pressed the blood into the circle. Aspen woke, crumbling into Sebastian’s waiting arms. “Oh!” she exclaimed as she fell into him.
Sebastian brushed her hair out of her eyes. “Shhh,” he whispered. “It’s me.”
“Sebastian?” Aspen whispered. Tears glimmered in her eyes. “Thank the gods. I thought we were finished.”
Sebastian held her face in his hands, kissing every available surface. She shivered in his grasp, and he promised to see her to safety himself. “Stay with me. I’m not letting you out of my sight. Just sit and rest a while.”
Aspen nodded. Sebastian turned and noticed Rogan looking resolutely away from them. Sebastian’s gut quivered as he turned back to the task at hand. Soon, another circle was freed, including Russell. The air whooshed out of his lungs as he landed on the ground. When he looked up and saw who had released him, he chuckled. “I should have known.”
“What can I say, I’m a glutton for punishment,” Sebastian smiled. He helped his brother to his feet. Looking over Sebastian’s shoulder, Russell’s face registered shock at the sight of Alex.
“I know, I know,” Alex said. “But if I hadn’t broken the rules, this would be a lot harder.”
Russell smiled as he approached Alex, enveloping her in a big hug. “I’m glad you did.” He pulled back to look into her eyes. She blushed, prettily, as his eyes drifted over her face. Russell chuckled and went to help Aspen to her feet as the three moved around the room to finish releasing that circle.
They were getting close to the first hundred now, and Alex knew she needed to let them out. She cleared her throat. “They’ve got to be filling that tunnel now.”
Sebastian looked around. “There are still so many to go.”
Alex thought for a moment and held out her hand. “Give me the blood.”
“Are you weak?”
“No,” Aspen said. “I’m going to release everyone.”
Sebastian made a strangled sound. “You can’t do that. The noise!”
Ignoring him, Alex lifted herself about ten feet into the air, looking down on all the captives. She lifted her hands up, enclosing them all in a force field. Then the blood pouch floated up from her uplifted hand. Sebastian and the others watched as little glimmering drops of blood, spilled out, hovering in the air. It separated into rows around her, like rings around the planet of Saturn. She moved her hands gently and the drops landed on the circles. Simultaneously, she woke all of the captives. Sebastian had been right. There was a lot of noise and exclamations of surprise as they woke, but the force field kept them in silence. Alex spoke, loudly. “Please, everyone, remain calm.”
Every head turned to look up at her in awe. “The demons are still here. We are weaponless. We have to sneak out, undetected. I know you are too weak to fight as well. Please, follow Rogan toward the exit. I will be working to divert the demons away from your escape route.”
When everyone was silent, Alex let down the force field and lowered to the ground. She was sweating when Sebastian handed her the other packet of blood, which she rapidly drank. Russell, to his credit, didn’t gape for too long before turning his attention to Victoria and Evans, who joined them. “Hey, guys.”
Victoria grinned in relief, but Evans only looked around. “Where is Glen?”
Alex stopped suddenly. “He’s not with you?”
Evans turned to her, shaking her head. “No. I mean, he doesn’t have immortal blood…” she faded off, her face struggling not to break down as her meaning was implied.
Sebastian stepped forward before Alex could start to panic. “When was the last time you saw him, Evans?”
She looked up. “The last time I saw anyone was when they captured us and separated us from our weapons.”
Hans shook his head. “You wouldn’t remember anything. The only ones who were allowed to be awake through the process were myself, the gods, and Ethan. Venus seemed to enjoy torturing us with the vision of our army, helpless.”
Victoria’s head jerked up. “Venus?”
Sebastian shook his head. “Not now, there’s no time.” He thought carefully. He turned to look at Alex, whose tears were glimmering in her eyes.
“I can’t leave him, Sebastian. I can’t.”
Sebastian nodded. “We have to get the others to safety.”
“I can’t just…” Tears spilled over as Alex struggled to contain her sudden fright over her brother’s safety.
Rogan turned to Sebastian suddenly. “We can leave without her.”
“What?”
“No, I mean, we can get to safety if she wants to stay behind and look for Glen. We’ve got Auster, Cupid, Psyche, Mars, Ethan, and Hans. That means Venus doesn’t have control over their powers anymore. The only reason she’s been able to stop us before was because she had Auster and Mars’s powers. If the demons show up, we’ll use Mars and Auster to get out.”
Sebastian considered this before turning to Hans. “Well?”
Hans nodded. “We have enough gods on our side now to make a getaway. Go get Glen, but if you get caught…” His voice trailed off, and he didn’t need to finish. Sebastian knew enough about Venus’s temper to know if they were caught, they wouldn’t survive.
Alex nodded and started back into the main tunnel, but Sebastian caught her arm. “What?” she demanded. “I can’t waste any more time.”
Sebastian nodded. “I know. I’m going with you.”
“Me too,” said Russell. Victoria, Evans, and Aspen also lined up next to him. Alex’s chin wobbled as she realized they were all going to help her. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Sebastian turned to nod at Hans and Rogan who left immediately to lead the others to safety. Alex’s face was one big vision of hope as she turned, the others following. This time, she used her powers of compulsion as soon as she entered the caves. She didn’t attempt to be quiet or sneak around corners. She held the flashlight in front of her, marching straight into the medical room, which was empty.
Sebastian came up short. “Where did they all go?”
“I gave them the idea it’s dinner time. They’re all off to get a bite to eat.”
Sebastian glanced around. “No one is here. How do we find Glen?”
Alex considered for a second and then looked toward one of the tunnels, where a demon entered the room, looking right at them. Sebastian started and brought up his gun immediately, but Aspen raised an arm, warning him off. Alex stood there quiet and fearless, watching the demon approach. He stopped right in front of her. Power radiated off of her as she looked into his hideous face and stated. “Is there a mortal here?”
The demon nodded and, after a moment of looking in Alex’s eyes, turned and marched off down a tunnel. The others quickly followed him as he marched further into the cave. The air was growing cooler, the ease of it making them all more comfortable. Suddenly, Alex didn’t feel as tired as she had. The blood she’d consumed was helping already, and the cool air was easier to work in. Sebastian stayed by her side, wiel