I shielded my eyes as Hart hit the light switch and ran toward her as quickly as I could. There was no mistaking her scent; I doubted that I would ever forget it after what she had done to me. There was no mistaking her intent either; she was here to kill me, probably all of us. She had come when we would normally be asleep, while Pierce was out of town, and she had a gun. From the smell of it, it had been fired at least once already and the blood that I smelled from the opened door to the hallway probably meant that she had already killed the guards.

I needed to take that bitch down, not only to protect my fellow Naethari and myself, but also to give me some sort of closure. Sure, I had stripped her of her ability to communicate but that had been done largely on instinct while high on my magic, it hadn’t been something that I had consciously decided or acted upon. I hadn’t exactly expected it to work either.

It seemed that she hadn’t learned her lesson though. We couldn’t prove it, of course, but we were all pretty certain that Hart had been the one responsible for the death of Natalie’s parents. She clearly had no interest in self-reflection, considering why she was in her current situation, or that being the type of person that she was might have contributed to it. She was all about the revenge. Well, I could do revenge too and this time, if she lived through it, she would learn to never fuck with me or those close to me again.

She recovered too quickly from the change in lighting and I knew that I wasn’t going to get to her before she could get a shot off. I jinked quickly to the side as her finger squeezed the trigger and I’m not sure if she had rushed her shot in panic or was going for the center of mass, but the shot that probably would have hit me in the chest instead grazed my shoulder. I hissed in pain and gritted my teeth as I kept moving toward her, ducking and weaving in an attempt not to give her an easy target.

Hart squeezed off another shot and I was pretty sure that this one had been aimed at my head. Making my movements unpredictable and keeping one eye on the barrel had helped me to avoid it, but the closer I got the harder that was going to be. It looked like she had some experience using a gun too. I jinked to the side again and grabbed one of the wooden deck chairs that Maddie and Nat liked to relax in when we weren’t training. As soon as I had it in hand, I used all of my considerable Naethari strength to throw it at Hart.

Her eyes widened and she dove to the side as the chair crashed into the spot where she had been standing a moment before. That gave me all of the time I needed. As she was diving to the side and recovering from landing on the hard tiles, I put on a burst of speed to close the distance between us and tackle her. She let out a wordless scream as I batted her wrist aside hard enough to break it and send the gun flying out of her grip.

I shifted my legs back into my tail, coiled it around her legs to immobilize her, and pinned her with my greater weight as I held her down by the wrists, taking great pleasure in the pained expression on her face. “What’s the matter, Hartless? Cat got your tongue? Oh, wait. No, that would be me.”

The look of pure seething hatred in her eyes communicated more than I would have thought possible. I shook my head sadly. “You know; I didn’t even consciously know what I was doing when I placed that geas upon you. I probably would have even reversed it if you had used your time of silence to reflect upon what you did and showed genuine remorse. But no, you doubled down. You killed Nat’s parents and you came here now to kill us all. You’re an evil bitch, and now you’re going to die in long and painful silence.”

I released her broken wrist and freed my vuhac from their pouches in my forearms. Then I slowly brushed one of the barbed spines that were glistening with poison across her chest, just enough to leave a very small scratch. As I was pulling my arm away though, the bitch lunged and bit my hand. I smacked her across the face and grabbed her injured wrist again, slamming it against the tiled floor and eliciting another silent scream. Thankfully, she hadn’t taken a chunk out of me, she barely managed to leave a bruise and draw a little bit of blood.

I looked down at the scratch on Hart’s chest and gave her a cold smile. “Oops. It looks like I scratched you. You know those spines are poisonous, right? If I had cut you deeply with all three, you would be dead in a matter of minutes. Your suffering would have been short. A scratch like that is still fatal but it can take weeks to kill an adult human, leaving you in burning agony that will get worse and worse as the poison weakens and overwhelms you.”

The look of horror on her face as she realized her fate did nothing for me, nor did the expression of agony that followed. I had expected to feel satisfaction when I delivered her death sentence but it felt hollow. It just didn’t feel like it was enough for all that she had done to me, and to Nat. And yet, I still felt terrible for doing it. I was still trying to find some measure of satisfaction when Kara said from behind me, “I called your sister, Naiya. She wants us all to get ready to move, and she’s getting everyone available ready to break us out now. If we don’t take this opportunity, Pierce will only make things more difficult later.”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I figured that we were going to have to do it now. But since we can’t have Hartless here interfering, I’m going to sing her a little song first.” I felt for my magic once again, moving it to my mouth and throat as I began to sing a languid song. I hadn’t really been sure what I would sing, what would be appropriate, but the words just seemed to come to me.

You look up at me with hate in your eyes
Blind to the wrath that you’ve incurred
You’re just too self-absorbed to realize
And you glare ‘cause you can’t speak a word.
I’ve taken your voice, now I’m taking your life
So now they both belong to me
You’ve been walking the edge of a knife
And you’re too close to your fate to flee

I’m thinking maybe I should thank you
For coming here to set us free
I know it’s not what you meant to do
But that matters not to me
Save your strength and close your eyes
And think about this too
You’ve helped me to realize,
I don’t want to be heartless like you

The song’s magic had seemed to connect with Hart the moment that I sang the first notes. Her eyes didn’t leave mine and she couldn’t move, so she just continue glaring balefully at me, when her face wasn’t contorted in pain. As the last notes started to flow from my lips I could feel her mind becoming pliable again as I gained control. ~ You will remain still until after we have left and someone arrives here to find you. Until that time, you will reflect upon your actions and the kind of person that you are. If you truly care about anyone, then once you can move again, take the time to say your goodbyes and settle your affairs before the poison finishes you. ~

For a moment after I was finished, I just stayed there looking down at the woman who had tortured me, who had killed my friend’s parents and come to kill all of us. I knew in my head that she deserved what I had done, deserved the long and painful death that I had delivered, but I felt only guilt and emptiness. I expected that I would feel that way for a long time to come whenever I thought about how I had ended things here.

Even if I could change her death sentence now, I wouldn’t though. I couldn’t afford to. I couldn’t afford to remove the geas that kept her from communicating either. Doing either would only place us all in danger again. Hart had proven that she wasn’t about to give up easily. As I extracted myself and went to retrieve Hart’s gun, I tried to tell myself that it was better this way, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe it.

It was just after two in the morning when my phone rang and interrupted my brooding. Seeing my sister’s number, I quickly picked up and tried to sound cheerful. “Hi, Mads, having fun storming the castle?”

“Just calling to let you know that the guards patrolling the grounds outside have been taken care of, Sis. Uncle Jack has disabled the security system and cameras, so all that we should have to deal with is anyone in the house and the bunker,” Maddie said. “Is everything okay there? You sound tense.”

“Everything is great, Mads. Hart is dying a slow painful death and she’s out of commission until we’re long gone,” I told her, trying to keep my tone positive. “We don’t have to worry about any guards down here either. I took a look around; there were only two and they were both dead. From the look if it, Hart came down just after shift change and blew their brains out on her way here to try to kill us. She brought us presents too. There’s the gun, and there’s a bag full of money, valuables, and some clothes that I might be able to wear.”

“Revenge isn’t as sweet as people say, is it?” Maddie asked, apparently seeing right through me.

“It’s actually more bittersweet,” I admitted sadly.

“Yeah, and taking a person’s life can be hard the first few times, even if you know that they deserve it. Think of yourself as an agent of Karma, you didn’t do it because you wanted to, or even because you like it, but to protect those you care about and make the world a slightly better place,” she advised.

“I guess,” I replied without much conviction. “She’s in a lot of pain and it’s going to last a long time. I can’t make myself watch.”

“Pain that she has more than earned,” Maddie said sternly. “If you can’t think of it as revenge for yourself then think about it as protecting yourself and the others, and avenging Nat’s parents. We’re entering the house now, we’ll be there soon. Love you, Sis.”

With the call disconnected, I stuffed my phone in Hart’s duffel bag and extracted some clothes, carefully avoiding touching a very familiar necklace and earrings. I was determined to walk out of this hellhole and if anyone was going to carry Kara out of here, it was going to be me. Maybe it was because we were still in heat, even if it was almost over, but the thought of anyone else holding my mate upset me. I was hoping that the couple of hours that I could hold a shifted form now would be long enough.

With that thought of carrying Kara out of this place at long last firmly entrenched in my mind, I shifted my tail back into a pair of legs and got dressed in a pair of black yoga pants, black leather sandals, and a Barbie pink poet’s blouse. I wasn’t going to touch Hart’s underwear, except maybe to burn it later. Since Hart was taller than I was the clothes were a bit big on me, at least until I focused on my aetral and shifted further to grow into them.

I tried not to think about how weird it felt to wear clothes again, and called out to the others to get ready, when I heard sounds coming from the hallway beyond the opened doors. I gripped the gun tightly, ready for anything, when I saw movement. The movement turned out to be Maddie, along with four other very familiar figures dressed in combat gear.

Mom looked like an older version of Maddie, muscular yet graceful and moving with confidence even though she was the smallest of the group at five foot four. Maddie’s hair might be long and electric blue right now, but she got her bright red hair from Mom who wore hers tied back in a braid. She was alert, her assault rifle following her emerald gaze as she looked around for danger while they traversed the hallway.

Slightly behind Mom, Dad was as imposing as ever, a six-foot-two wall of muscle. His greying brown hair was cut in his familiar buzzcut and his handsome features and strong chin made him look like a stereotypical military man or a superhero. He liked to try to get people to believe that his appearance was the whole reason that he joined the military and later became a mercenary once his first tour was over, that he was leaning into the stereotype.

Limping along behind Mom and Maddie was a woman that I would have recognized anywhere. Aunt Carmen was as welcome a sight as Maddie and our parents, but the last person that I was expecting to see. The large Argentinian woman was as muscular as I remembered, and it looked like she may have added a couple more scars and tattoos to her collection since I had seen her last.

Her husband, Uncle Jack, was just as much of a surprise. He was tall and wiry, and he got a lot of vampire jokes with his pale complexion, jet black hair, and reluctance to leave his office. He was originally from London, and he usually worked behind the scenes, using his contacts to get documents, information, or other things that the team might need. On the rare occasions that he did take jobs, he stayed in a nice safe observation van.

Once they were sure everything was safe, Mom and Dad rushed toward me and practically crushed me in a group hug. I tried to hold back the tears that threatened to make themselves known as I hugged them back. “It’s good to see you, all of you.”

“Our daughter needed an extraction, where else would we be?” Mom said as she kissed my forehead. “You’re even more beautiful than the pictures that your sister showed us.”

“Let’s get you girls out of here, Kiddo. You’ve been here long enough,” Dad added. “Natalie is keeping the van running. Unfortunately, this is everyone that we could get on such short notice.”

Once my parents had let me go, I saw Aunt Carmen and Uncle Jack trying really hard not to stare. Not just at me, but at the other Naethari approaching from the pool as well. “I’ve been aching to do something other than playing with people’s money for a while now. I’m still having trouble believing that this is our little alma gentil, but damn does she look like her mother, in the face anyway. She is familia and she and these other girls were in danger. I can’t think of a better reason to come out of retirement,” Aunt Carmen finally said as she leaned over to ruffle my hair.

“To be honest, I wasn’t sure whether I should believe this whole thing… but seeing it with my own eyes. Fuck, I have so many questions,” Uncle Jack said, shaking his head in disbelief. “It’s good to see you alive and well, even if you’re not like we remember you. You had us all worried when you pulled your disappearing act, Love. We should get moving though, I can’t guarantee that one of those guards didn’t manage to call the police before we took them all out.”

It was quickly decided that Dad would carry Kieshala, while Aunt Carmen carried Jenny. I had of course insisted on carrying Kara, earning a smirk from Maddie. Kieshala interrupted our discussion though, her eyes on Hart and a concerned expression on her face. “Naiya, did this one draw blood during your struggle?”

“Uh… she bit me, it only left a bruise and drew a couple of drops of blood before I started healing though,” I told her, wondering why she seemed so concerned about the bitch who had tried to kill us.

~ She is starting to change, Naiya, ~ the elder Naethari told me grimly. ~ She has the spark of magic within her and humans do not need to feed on our flesh for the change to occur, as Pierce believes; only a few drops of blood are needed. With your poison weakening her, she will become one of us. It is how we change those humans who have earned the right to become one of us; feed them a few drops of blood and deliver just enough poison to weaken them. If they do not have the spark of magic, then one of us embraces them until their changes are complete so that they can absorb the primal growth magic that we radiate. ~

Jenny’s eyes were wide as she asked, ~ She’s becoming a Naethari? ~

~ Can’t we just leave her here? I mean, it would serve her right to go through what we’ve been going through, ~ Kara suggested bitterly.

~ No! ~ Kieshala said, hissing angrily. ~ I will not leave one of our kind to such a fate, not even her. A decision must be made. We must either take her with us or finish her here and now, before she is truly one of us. ~

Our conversation had been mental, but Kieshala’s angry hissing caught the attention of the non-Naethari in the room. As much as I hated to admit it, I had to agree with Kieshala. I couldn’t leave someone else here to live as a captive and spend their lives performing for treats like some animal. But if we brought her with us, she would only become a danger to us all.

While Kara caught the others up, I let out a sigh as I looked down at Hart for a long agonizing moment before I pointed the gun at her head and pulled the trigger. Then I put the gun into the duffel bag, slung it over my shoulder, and picked Kara up in my arms. I tried to ignore the lump in my throat and the heaviness in my heart as I choked out the words, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”