Primal Kill (The Order of Vampires #5)

Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

J uniper followed signs for upstate New York. Exhaustion radiated from her as her grime-coated knuckles clenched the steering wheel.

Occasionally, she’d stretch and pop a muscle in her neck, exposing dark creases of dust marking her skin. Dirt caked under her fingernails, and her dark hair appeared as if it hadn’t been brushed in months. Such signs of neglect angered Adriel. The Council had a duty to see to her needs, yet it was very clear they had not.

“Did they bathe you?”

Juniper’s sharp glance cut from the road to Adriel’s face, a cold laugh puffing past her lips. “They gave me a pitcher of fresh water every day. I could drink it or wash with it.” Her eyes narrowed on the road ahead. “Some days, I was too weak to do either. I’m sorry if I reek.”

“There’s no need to apologize. Immortals scent emotion more than any superficial perfume or residue. While sweat might have an odor to you, I can only smell the compounds of the diaphoresis—the cause.”

“You mean, you can tell the difference between sweat from exercise and sweat from fear?”

“Exactly. Or sweat from disease.”

“Interesting. And probably a good thing because odors are coming off of me that I don’t want to contemplate. I can’t wait to take a shower.” Her upturned nose scrunched as her alert eyes followed the road.

“If you had magick all this time, why didn’t you use it to escape?”

Her plump lips flattened into a firm line. “My magick has limits. Once they had me tied and muzzled, I was pretty much helpless.” She drew in a shaky breath. “My magick also wasn’t that strong to begin with. I was just starting to learn before my aunts…”

Her words cut off, and grief became all Adriel could smell. She was glad Juniper escaped.

After overhearing the atrocious things the elders had done to draw out her magick, Juniper’s resilience was all the more impressive. She gave them nothing. After months of tolerating their torture, she never buckled under the torment or betrayed the secrets of her kind.

“I think you’re stronger than you realize.”

Juniper’s mouth curved, but the flash of a smile faltered. “I couldn’t give in to them. Not because of any choice I made but because… wh en I’m scared, my magic sort of dries up. I don’t have control over it.”

For a woman in her twenties, she’d survived quite a bit. Her strength was there, even in the absence of her courage, and it was admirable. Juniper was the type of female who was stronger than most, even in her weakest state.

“Your control over your gifts will improve with age.”

She glanced at Adriel, her gaze unsure. “How old are you?”

Embarrassed by her longevity in the face of such youth, she said, “Much older than you.”

“How much?”

She drew in a long breath and sighed. “I was born in the first half of the fifteen hundreds.”

“Holy shit. For real?”

“Watch the road.” Adriel glanced ahead as the girl gaped at her. “And yes. For real.”

“So that makes you… Over five hundred years old?”

Another sigh. “Yes.”

“You guys are like wine, though, right? You get better with age?”

“That’s one way to look at it.” While her bones were solid, her muscles strong, and her body functioned without aches or disease, there was still a weariness to her mind. She remained sharp but jaded by the things she’d seen. Half a millennia was a long time to live, even from a mostly sheltered standpoint. “Time hardens a person, especially if life isn’t kind. ”

Juniper glanced at her again, taking a quick measure of her form. “Do they mistreat all women?”

“Females are cherished among our kind, but not all males are honorable.”

“Ain’t that the truth?” Her expression turned contemplative. “You must have seen so much in your lifetime.”

“I’m old, but my experiences in this world are limited. I’m shamefully ignorant.”

Juniper frowned. “I doubt that.”

It was humiliating just how naive she could be. “I never would have considered taking a vehicle to travel. And if I had, I never would have known where to find one.”

“Adriel, you would have eventually figured something out. Cars are everywhere, and no one can run forever—including immortals.”

But even after Juniper suggested a motor vehicle, it had not occurred to Adriel to use compulsion to steal one. If she couldn’t run forever and she wanted to evade a male as evil and conniving as her mate, she needed to start thinking like a lawless rogue.

“All of my adult life, I’ve been disciplined to obey the rules.”

At that, Juniper smiled. “Rules are meant to be broken, Ade. There’s no one here to discipline you now.”

Wringing her hands in her lap, she sensed a tiny thrill at such a thought. “I’ve never lived outside of someone else’s authority. ”

A dark, slender brow arched high on her brow, and she smirked. “Sometimes you just gotta say fuck it and do what feels right. Take charge of your own destiny.”

Adriel swallowed, every instinct inside her tensing with reluctance. Regardless of a person’s belief system, certain crimes came with great, unavoidable consequences. That was why they abandoned Europe in the 1700s. Order was sometimes a luxury, and living without it could lead to devastation and uncontrollable chaos. They craved a lawful society, and so they created one.

The Order had strict laws by design. Anyone who violated the fundamental principles faced The Council of Elders and was typically met with harsh punishment. Unfortunately, those laws were curated to maintain authority, which belonged solely to the males. Even her son, by age five, had more authority than she.

Females were not invited to debate their charges but were forced to silently endure the sentencing. Adriel had been publicly flogged many times for her strong-willed defiance. Having the bishop as a close friend did nothing to save her from such painful humiliation. Eleazar often begged her to reel in her stubborn campaign for equality because even he, her closest friend in this world and the most decisive authority within The Order, could not see past the imposed limits of her gender defined by their faith. And even the bishop could not overrule an edict of The Elder Council.

The religion the elders selected upon arriving in America required female obedience. As a female older than many elders, Adriel rejected such expectations and argued countless times for equality.

Not without penalty, of course.

Females were born with the same abilities as the males in their species. But, among The Order, time and Amish culture constricted female potential like an ever-tightening vice. The expectation was indeed meekness. Anything more was corrected, including the expression of personal identity, which was likely why she had no sense of who she was. Without her faith, without The Order, she seemed as lost as a fallen leaf drifting through its final bow.

She shook her head slowly and scoffed. “I’m not sure I believe in destiny anymore. I detached from my faith long ago. Why should I honor a God that would call me to the devil himself?”

Cerberus was pure malevolence. No decent God would sentence her to such an eternity.

“My aunts believed in the power of three,” Juniper said, her voice quiet and reminiscent. “What is done will be repaid in kind. Good is rewarded with good, and evil is repaid in suffering. Man created society. The universe created natural order. Everything takes care of itself.”

Was that true?

In the old days, Adriel’s family’s faith had been steeped in the belief that evil deeds would be punished by an all-powerful god. Guilt and fear seemed all she ever knew.

“Your aunts’ faith sounds…simple.”

“I guess it is.” She shrugged. “It’s all based in nature—what is above is also below. People think witches worship the devil, but Satan is a Christian belief. Our practice demands respect for all earthly creatures. For the good of all and the harm of none.”

“Yet, your family attacked Jonas Hartzler.”

“And paid dearly.”

Adriel would not debate right and wrong with her on the subject of Jonas. For whatever reason, the witches must have believed they had just cause to go against their faith. There were always exceptions to the rules, just as the elders found exceptions to her situation with Cerberus.

While the elders believed there was nothing more sacred than the divine calling of mates, they helped her escape hers—but not without great judgment.

They assumed his anger would wane with time and that she’d eventually repent and correct the errors of her past. This placed a great deal of accountability on her shoulders since the female is viewed as the peacekeeper of a home.

Repenting was never her plan, and no bonnet or prayer book would change her mind.

She dressed the part and abided by their laws but never stopped thinking for herself. Deep down, she believed females were just as entitled to rights as males—a belief that significantly contributed to her loneliness over the centuries.

Adriel cut her hair every week, determined to keep it short. There was no law against such an act, but the others saw it for what it was: a blatant show of disobedience beneath the prayer kapp .

The kapp was a symbol of submission—to God and husband—but Adriel would never willingly surrender her autonomy to any male ever again—that included the males of The Elders’ Council as well as her son, who out-ranked her scant authority as a boy simply because he was male.

A pebble flung into the windshield, and Adriel gasped.

“Stupid truck.” Juniper shifted lanes and appeared undisturbed by the tiny chip in the windshield, so Adriel forced her muscles to unclench.

Startled by a pebble. Pathetic.

“How come you were always sitting on that bench with Dane?”

The question caught Adriel off guard. “You knew I was there?”

“I could always sense Dane. He came to the cells every night, so I knew his voice and smell. Sometimes I heard you two whispering, so I asked him who you were. He told me a little about you.”

“You two talked?”

“Occasionally. In the beginning, we had nothing nice to say, but then, over time… He was the only person I trusted.”

Dane was a familiar topic that comforted Adriel. He spent a lot of time in the basement of Council Hall visiting his sister, Cybil, so it made sense that Juniper would have learned of his good nature since her cell was close to his sister’s.

“What did he say about me?”

She smiled, her gaze focused on the road. “He said you weren’t like the others. That you were older and a bit of a badass. Whenever we talked about you, his voice filled with protective pride, the way a son might talk of his mother.”

That made Adriel smile. “Dane is a good man.”

“Yeah. But we both agreed your real son’s a prick.”

Dane’s dislike for her son did not surprise her, but it did bother her. Her son was a good and honorable male who faced centuries of judgment for her choices.

“Christian is…softening now that he’s found his mate.” Her son had always been a concern. He was part of her but also part of Cerberus. “I’d like to blame Christian’s father for his flaws, but I’m afraid he gets his hardheadedness from me.”

Juniper chuckled. “You are stubborn.”

Adriel frowned but then understood she was only teasing. Her defenses softened. “We sat on that bench because females are not permitted to enter Council Hall unless summoned by the elders.”

“But Dane’s a guy.”

“He’s not a purebred immortal, nor is he a true member of the faith.”

“Neither are you.”

She hesitated. Sometimes, the simplest assumptions required the most complicated explanations. “I abide by the basic principles of Amish life, but I confess, my faith crumbled long ago.”

“Then why did you stay in a place that made you wait outside like a dog on a leash?”

“I was not waiting like a dog.”

Juniper studied her briefly and snickered. “Dane’s right. You’ve definitely got a little badass in you.”

“I’m sure I don’t know that term.”

“It’s a compliment.”

She wasn’t sure how comparing her to poorly trained livestock could double as praise, so she asked, “Did Dane help you?”

“He actually needed my help. He was trying to kill that… thing in the last cell.”

“You mean Isaiah?” Adriel straightened in her seat. “Did he?”

Juniper laughed without humor. “No. It went ballistic the second he shot it, then it broke through the walls—like they weren’t even holding him in. His sister came after me, and that’s when I ran. She got hurt. Maybe killed, I don’t know. That thing took her.”

“Isaiah took Cybil? ”

Juniper’s brow pinched as the scent of regret filled the car. “I told Dane my magick was limited, but he didn’t believe me.”

Adriel laid a hand on her arm. “It’s not your fault. Cybil is no longer meant for this world. She can’t be saved.”

“What about the other thing?”

“Isaiah is far beyond redemption. Both of them should have been put down long ago.”

They were silent for a long moment until Adriel asked, “Was Dane the one who fed?—”

“No.”

When she said nothing more on the subject, Adriel instinctively reached into her mind?—

Juniper jerked her body toward the door, and the car swerved. “Hey, back off!”

Adriel gasped, pressing her hand to her temple. “What was that?”

“What was what? You’re the one who came at me.”

“You deflected me.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

But she had. There was some sort of barrier protecting her mind from trespassers, which meant that if someone abused her, they did so without the anesthetic of compulsion. That only left force.

Shaking off the ache in her head, Adriel asked, “You won’t tell me who hurt you?”

“I can’t. I never saw his face.”

If an immortal had Juniper’s blood in their system, they would be able to track her. “Do you think they’ll come after you?”

Silence stretched as the scent of regret shifted to pungent anger. Juniper’s grip tightened on the wheel, the color bleaching from her knuckles.

“Let them. My hands aren’t tied anymore. As soon as I get settled, I intend to figure some shit out. No one will ever get me in a cell again. I plan to make sure of it.”

Adriel appreciated her honesty and believed Juniper would seek the protection she needed to feel safe again. “To relieve your guilt about Dane, Cybil is undead. She does not need to breathe consistently to live. Her lungs will pump again as long as her head and heart remain intact.”

“That’s how you do it?”

Adriel frowned. “Pardon?”

“Kill a vampire. You need to cut off their head or rip out their heart?”

While she wanted to once again argue the terminology, she was startled by her preoccupation with death. “Take my advice, Juniper. Knowing how to end an immortal life and possessing the capabilities to do so are two very different things.”

She glanced at Adriel nervously. “Will you try to kill him, the one that’s after you?”

The breath in her lungs turned heavy like a cold mist. “Cerberus is older and stronger than me. I will do whatever I need to do to survive him, but he is not easily destroyed.” And if she couldn’t accomplish that, she would find peace in leaving this world.

Juniper shifted lanes again. There seemed to be fewer vehicles on the road than earlier. “I’m glad Dane’s sister is still alive.”

“For Dane’s sake?”

The witch nodded.

Adriel could not match her sentiment. Cybil was perhaps closer to being vampire than anything else. After her brutal transition, her soul was lost. Dane refused to accept that his little sister, the last of his mortal family, was gone, so he clung to the hope that he might one day save her.

“If Isaiah took her, I don’t know how long she has.”

Juniper frowned. “I don’t know about that. The way that thing acted with Dane… It was like he was trying to protect her. He saw Dane as the threat. I don’t think he wanted to hurt her.”

“Isaiah has committed unspeakable atrocities. I assure you, he is not protecting that child—may God have mercy on her soul.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in God.”

“I never said that. I said my faith had crumbled long ago. I believe in a God, but I don’t necessarily believe He is good and always on our side.”

“I can respect that.” She shook her head, her brow scrunching as she watched the road. “I can’t stop picturing it. He carried her off like a rag doll. Maybe it’s best she doesn’t know what’s going on.” Glancing at Adriel, she asked, “How long can you guys play dead?”

“I wouldn’t categorize it as playing. There is pain and then…emptiness. Peace. It’s disorienting when we come back, but… I think Cybil’s mind’s beyond the point of addling.”

Adriel shut her eyes, recalling the many times she’d gasp back to life only to find herself still in the grip of her vicious mate.

The thought of Cerberus filled her with unease. He was still out there. Adriel wished she knew how far behind he was or if he had a handle on their location. She wasn’t sure shelter would bring any real peace, but she was anxious to reach their next destination.

“How much longer do you expect we’ll be traveling?”

“About an hour. Maybe two before we find a house for you to dazzle. Why?” Juniper glanced at Adriel. “Do you have to pee?”

“No. I, um, will need to feed.”

Juniper’s horrified expression preceded the wild thumping of her racing heart. “Don’t look at me. I’m not on the menu.”

“I meant we should stop, preferably somewhere with animals. Anything larger than a raccoon will suffice.”

“Right. I’ll, uh, just pull over at the first petting zoo we pass.”