A Shade of Vampire 81 A Bringer of Night - Bella Forrest Page 0,97

surveillance. We’re doing things my way from now on.”

“Mommy?” Thayen called out, tears rolling down his cheeks.

Danika didn’t even acknowledge him. The shock had broken her. I could only hope that it hadn’t broken her beyond repair.

“Your Grace, I beg you,” Corbin said. “Don’t make me do this.”

“Master Commander, do your job!” Danika insisted.

Valaine looked at me, genuinely alarmed. “Tristan, I can’t let them take me…”

Gold guards gathered around us. Sofia and Derek slipped out of the audience box and joined me, trying to reason with Danika, but to no avail.

“Seize them all!” she screamed, about to spiral into a ravaging meltdown.

We had no time left, and Valaine knew it. To my astonishment, she had one last trick up her sleeve. Gripping my arm, she pulled me close. “Duck! All of you, duck!” she whispered, then looked over my shoulder and shouted at Thayen. “Get down!”

Before the guards and Corbin could reach us, Valaine was enveloped in a strange humming energy. I did as she asked and ducked. So did Derek and Sofia. Thayen was also quick to react, vanishing under the table.

“Get her now!” Danika snarled.

We heard boots rumbling across the floor. Then we felt a powerful pulse explode outward. It barely grazed the top of my head, but it knocked everybody else back. It tore into the wooden paneling of the audience boxes. The chairs gave out. People fell on top of one another.

Many of them blacked out.

The mayhem was perfect. Even Danika and Corbin ended up on the floor, groaning from the unexpected pain. Valaine grabbed my hand and pulled me up. I reached for Derek and Sofia as well, and we ran.

We rushed out of the courtroom as the Aeternae scrambled to get up and come after us. Sofia handed us invisibility pills and red garnet glasses.

“This is insane!” she gasped as we bolted down the stairs, headed for the main exit.

Pulling on our hoods and masks, we put the glasses on and swallowed the pills. Within seconds, we were unseen, free to flee without anyone spotting us. Derek quickly reached out to Amal and Amane via Telluris about this. They were still at the palace. It didn’t make me feel any better, though. We’d barely escaped capture, and Danika had allowed her grief to turn her into the very thing she’d once claimed to despise—a despot. She would likely go after the twins, too.

Acheron was dead, and Thayen’s life would never be the same again.

Neither would ours.

“What do we do?” I asked, unable to let go of Valaine’s hand as we ran through the imperial city’s streets. Whistles blew somewhere behind us. Orders were shouted. Vision horses neighed as soldiers mounted them, determined to find us and bring us back.

“We don’t get caught,” Derek said.

“Where do we go?” Valaine asked. “I can’t think straight right now. That pulse took everything out of me… I don’t even remember how I did it…”

“We’ll figure that one out later,” I said.

“I’ve already alerted Amal and Amane,” Derek breathed as we turned a corner. “We just need to find a place to hide and figure out what we’re going to do.”

“Maybe call in the cavalry?!” Sofia croaked.

“Acheron is dead. He was the one who was supposed to greenlight bringing more GASP troops to Visio,” Derek reminded her.

Valaine cursed under her breath. “Let’s just find shelter first. Wait!” she gasped, finally focusing. “I know a few places around the city.”

We were all in agreement. We couldn’t rush into anything that could potentially spark a war. We, as a Shadian nation, had been through enough already. Danika had gone overboard, but maybe this wasn’t the end of the line for us.

Maybe we could still find a way to untangle this mess before anyone else got killed. Of course, this whole development had put a dent in my plan to go after my sister. I now had to figure out a way to send her a message and let her know that the imperial city was no longer safe for her.

Amal

As soon as Derek spoke to us through the comms system, Amane and I packed everything we could in our shoulder bags—the microscope, some of the glassware, and our tablets, along with as many samples as we could fit in the pockets.

Our only problem was Nethissis. We could already hear the gold guards shouting down the hallway outside on their way to arrest us.

“What do we do?” Amane asked, shaking with fear. “We can go invisible and take her with us, but