Arman and Fiona just stared at him. “No, you did not see that.” She drank her water.

  “Yeah. I swear I did. One minute, I was being hit by the car, and the next, the vehicle is there, headlights shining in my eyes, and Fiona checks me to see how injured I was. But then the whole scenario changed like it rewound itself and instead of the car striking me, Fiona socks me with a big red pillow.”

  “The color of Emma’s car,” Fiona said. “It’s like you mixed up a red pillow, something soft, for the car that hit you.”

  “The pillow wasn’t all that soft when you used it on me. I mean, the way you slugged me with it, you have quite a swing,” Ruric said. “So you visited my dreams and took away my nightmare, kind of?”

  “I…I don’t remember dreaming about that. You must have just dreamed it on your own.” Fiona wondered if she would get more control over this dream business when she was eighteen, during the blood moon.

  “Maybe you just don’t remember it,” Arman said. “You told me you often don’t recall your dreams.”

  “True.” She sure wished she could remember them better.

  Then Caitlin got out of her seat and stopped by their row. “Fiona, thanks for changing my nightmare into something more pleasant.”

  “What…what were you dreaming of?” Fiona was totally puzzled by all this. How could she visit two people’s dreams, if she had, and change nightmares into something easier to cope with and not even realize she’d done it?

  “I was dreaming of sharks swimming around me in the ocean while Levka was trying to keep me safe,” Caitlin said. “I still have that nightmare from time to time after that had happened for real. The next thing I knew, Levka and I were floating in a nice warm swimming pool, and the only shark in the pool was a big float. What a relief, so thanks. Got to run to the little girl’s room.”

  Arman and Ruric looked at Fiona. She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t remember anything about dreaming anything. Truly.”

  Stasio finished his eggs. “You turned an enemy’s sword into a funnel of cotton candy.”

  “What color?” Jasmine asked, then bit into her toast.

  “Pink,” Fiona said.

  “So you remember Stasio’s dream?” Jasmine asked.

  “I visited it last night.” Fiona couldn’t understand how she remembered that dream and not the others. Then again, she hadn’t been asleep at the time.

  “Well, I dreamed a vampire hunter was about to take me down for joining up with the rest of the pack. In the real case, hunters came to my rescue. But in my dream, you came and fought with the vampire hunter using your martial arts skills and sent his sword flying. He bared his teeth at you, and you bared yours right back at him,” Jasmine said.

  “Vampire teeth? You don’t have premonitions, do you?” If Jasmine did, would that mean someone would turn Fiona?

  “No, this was just a dream I had,” Jasmine said.

  “Oh.” Fiona guessed Stasio hadn’t had any other dreams, or he would have mentioned them to her.

  Levka got out of his seat, and he glanced in her direction, but he didn’t tell her that he’d had any dream that she was instrumental in. Instead, he headed back to the bathroom. Was he afraid to tell her she had helped him with his dream also? She could imagine him acting as though he was invincible, and no one had to assist him with anything, especially his dreams. But maybe he didn’t want to even share he had them, or that he could have nightmares.

  “You said you were Welsh princes. Did you have a castle?” Fiona asked.

  “Each of us did, but they were taken away from us,” Arman said. “Someday, I’ll take you to see mine.”

  “That’s such a shame, but I would love to see the castle.”

  “It’s a hotel now, so we can even stay there.”

  “As long as no one who is hunting rogue vampires learns you are there,” Ruric said.

  “There is that,” Arman agreed.

  Caitlin came back by their row. “You are going to love your new home.”

  “I’m sure I will.” At least Fiona sure hoped so. The thing about leaving a bad home, she figured anything else had to be better.

  Then Levka returned and Caitlin took her seat.

  “Did I visit your dreams?” Fiona wasn’t afraid to ask him, and she suspected everyone was waiting for her to ask the question.

  Levka only gave her a dark smirk and then retook his seat.

  “I would take that as a yes,” Ruric said.

  “For sure,” Arman agreed.

  Now Fiona was dying to know exactly what part she had played in Levka’s dream. Maybe she had given him a nightmare, instead of a pleasant dream. He could have really been enjoying his dream until she came along. She sighed. She needed to learn how to control the dream business whenever she used it in any scenario.

  Then they finally landed and deboarded the plane. She was looking around for the vampires who had been on the flight and Arman reached down and squeezed her hand. “I don’t see them, do you?”

  “No.” She was surprised he was looking for them too. But with all the trouble he’d been in, she guessed she could understand that he would be just as wary as she was.

  “Do you see them?” Levka asked telepathically and everyone responded, “No.”

  She was glad that everyone was treating them as suspicious, just in case. But they had been sitting in first class and got off the plane first so Fiona and her companions hadn’t had any way of getting after them any quicker than… Fiona looked around. Where was Caitlin?

  Levka said to them, “Caitlin was invisible when we landed and was waiting for the vampires to get off the plane. But I don’t see her anywhere and she can’t telepathically communicate with just us, so she has to be silent.” Levka sounded worried that he’d lost her.

  “Should we spread out?” Arman asked.

  “In twos. I don’t want us all to be separated and lose more of us.” Levka glanced at Fiona as if he was even more worried about her.

  Arman said to Fiona, “Do you want to stick with me?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Ruric and Levka stayed together and Jasmine and Stasio began searching the airport too.

  13

  While searching for Caitlin at the airport, Fiona was really worried about her because she was a newly turned vampire and couldn’t fight the way the others could. Though if she remained invisible, wouldn’t she be safe? But the fact that Caitlin couldn’t send anyone telepathic messages meant only for them didn’t help the situation. Fiona was also concerned that something could have happened to her and it would all be Fiona’s fault because she was certain it would have had all to do with her.

  “Caitlin, are you safe? Where are you?” Fiona assumed Levka would have already asked her that, but Caitlin hadn’t answered him. “This is Fiona.” She thought she better add that in case Caitlin didn’t recognize her voice.

  But then she remembered that Caitlin couldn’t respond telepathically to her, or she would alert any vampire in the building that she was there, telling them where she was.

  “We need to go to baggage claim in case the vampires who were in first-class seating are picking up their luggage,” Fiona said.

  “Okay, let’s go that way. They might be going to get transportation, a rental car, or a shuttle to a parking lot also,” Arman said.

  Levka said, “Ruric and I are going to the shuttles and taxis.”

  “We’re going to baggage claim,” Fiona said.

  “We’ll check out the restrooms,” Jasmine said. “That’s the first place I go after getting off the plane.”

  “Good idea,” Arman said.

  On the way past the restrooms, Arman and Fiona didn’t see Caitlin. Jasmine went inside the women’s restroom and Stasio headed into the men’s room, but there were others too, so the vampire couple might have even gone down to the restrooms near the baggage claim or even to the restrooms near where the shuttles were.

  Fiona and Arman headed down the escalator to the baggage claim and when they got there, they saw people standing around at the conveyer belts from different flights, waiting for their luggage to be offloaded from the planes.

  “There!” Fiona saw both the male and female vampires. But no sign of Caitlin. Then she remembered Caitlin had been invisible when she left the plane.

  “I’ll tell the others the vampires are here,” Arman said to Fiona. “And hope that Caitlin is here.”

  Then someone hugged Fiona but no one was there. She nearly screamed out in fright. “Is it you, Caitlin?” She whispered the words so no one else would hear.

  Caitlin laughed and Fiona smiled. Now that was a cool, really super cool ability to have. Fiona wished she could do that. She didn’t think the dream stuff was half as worthwhile to have. Unless there was something more to it.

  Though it was startling to have an invisible person grab Fiona. But she was thrilled that Caitlin was fine, and she immediately telepathically transmitted to everyone, “Caitlin is standing next to me at the baggage claim.”

  Everyone else was coming down the stairs. They didn’t need to collect baggage and Levka said to everyone, “Let’s go. We have our ride.”

  Now that was nice. A limousine maybe. Fiona laughed at herself. As if.

  Then they went outside and Levka was hugging a visible Caitlin and kissing her. Fiona smiled. She was glad Caitlin was safe and the couple was back together again.

  What she couldn’t believe was Levka was standing next to a black limousine, and it was their ride.

  They climbed into it. The black-haired chauffeur was about to shut the door when the two vampires who had been on the plane, their bags in hand, tried to get into the limo.

  “Private conveyance, ma’am, sir,” the chauffeur said, holding his hand out to stop them.

  “They’re going to want us with them,” the man said.

  “Who are you?” Levka asked.

  “Someone you want on your side.”

  “Alright, we’ll bite. Get in.”

  “Is that a good idea?” Arman looked like he was worried about Fiona, and she appreciated his concern.

  “Yeah,” Levka said. “I’ve called for reinforcements just in case.”

  Fiona couldn’t believe how organized the pack of vampires were. She was really enjoying getting to know them and wow, a limousine service? This was out of this world.

  She still didn’t trust the new vampire couple in the limousine though. As soon as the chauffer started to leave the airport, Levka asked, “Do you know who we are?”

  “Yeah. The four of you are the vampire princes of Wales. Caitlin is a witch. Jasmine is a vampire hunter.” The guy shook his head. “You have formed a strange little group of vampires. And now you have Fiona in your pack who is a huntress, and she’s wanted by some powerful vampires.”

  “So what we need to know is who the two of you are,” Levka said. “And how you know all about us.”

  “I’m Shelly and this is my brother, Michail,” the woman said.

  “How do you know about Fiona?” Arman asked.

  “We know Regina and Tobias. We’re not friends of theirs but we learned they had taken Fiona hostage even though she didn’t know that she was their hostage,” Shelly said. “And that Fiona had some ability that they wanted to control. We just learned about the curse and the blood moon.”

  “Why didn’t you come to my aid then?” Fiona asked, sounding suspicious, just like Arman felt about them and their motives.

  Michail nodded. “By the time we learned what was going on with you and where you were located, Arman was trying to grab Fiona at her high school Halloween dance. We followed her home, but Tobias was watching out the window and we knew with just the two of us, we couldn’t fight him. We couldn’t believe you grabbed her at the high school the next day. We never thought all of you would pretend to be high school students. It was a brilliant move, really.”

  No one in their little pack looked like they were buying the whole scenario, but they were politely listening.

  “And you’re here now, why?” Ruric asked.

  “To help you,” Michail said.

  “Help us,” Stasio said.

  “Yeah. I know you probably don’t feel you can trust us, but we saved Fiona’s brother. We knew he wasn’t Fiona’s blood relation, but we also knew that Regina and Tobias would want to eliminate him too. They planned to kill everyone in the family so that they would be able to convince Fiona that she had no one in the world who was left that she could trust,” Shelly said.

  “Where is Justin?” Fiona asked, sounding desperate to believe them.

  Arman couldn’t believe these two vampires were here, coming to aid them, so what exactly was their deal? Did they have an agenda? Everyone usually had an agenda.

  “Justin is safe here in Scotland, actually,” Michail said. “He’s human, so he’s a lot more vulnerable to suggestion than…say…you are. We told him he was to go to Scotland because he won a lot of money and was staying at a Scottish estate. Yours, in fact. We made him forget he was going to college, or he might have resisted the idea.”

  “He’s in Scotland?” Fiona asked, sounding shocked.

  “Yes. We knew Levka and his team of vampires would take you there,” Shelly said. “Which is why we headed for Scotland after we learned the rest of you had taken Fiona from the high school. Of course, we thought you might go to Dallas to find your brother, or more news of him so we made a detour there.”

  “Wait, I saw the news about it. Levka and the others did too. He was dead, according to the papers and Regina,” Fiona said.

  “Right. Like you can trust anything Regina or Tobias say. No, Justin isn’t dead. We actually made it look that way so that Regina and Tobias wouldn’t actually be able to terminate him. Would you like to talk to him?” Shelly handed a cell phone to Fiona.

  She hesitated to take it. Then she took a deep breath, took it, and called her brother’s number.

  “Hello?” Justin asked.

  “Ohmigod, Justin, is that really you?”

  “Fiona?”

  “Yes. Are you in Scotland?”

  “Yeah. I…uhm, am at some swanky castle-like estate. It’s amazing. I won a trip here and ten-thousand dollars.”

  “Where is he?” Fiona asked Shelly.

  “Like Michail said, he’s at the estate that Levka and the rest of them call home. We dropped him off there to keep him safe, then returned to the States to rescue you before the blood moon,” Shelly said.

  “Look, we learned who you were and what you’ve done in Scotland,” Michail said to Levka and the others. “We found the estate you had taken over. We knew you all had been trying to right some wrongs and we felt you would be good for Fiona. And that’s why we took Justin there. Now, it’s up to Fiona, but we think it would be safer for Justin if he was turned.”

  Fiona’s mouth dropped open. “No.”

  Michail shrugged. “You and he would both be safer against the threat. It won’t take Regina and Tobias long to learn where you’ve been taken to, and they’ll bring reinforcements. We had considered taking Justin somewhere else where he wouldn’t be around you and probably safer in a way. But we also knew you would want to see him. And he possibly could be safer with your friends.”

  “Justin, are you still there?” Fiona asked.

  “Yeah. Are you close by?” Justin asked.

  “We’re, I mean, I’m coming to see you.”

  “Okay, that’s great. They have a swimming pool and everything.”

  “Wonderful. I’ll see you in…” Fiona glanced at Arman.

  “Two hours.”

  “Two hours,” Fiona said to her brother.

  “Super. I’ll see you then.”

  She ended the call and handed the phone back to Shelly. “Do you know anything about my parents and where they might be?”

  “Oh, they sent us,” Michail said.

  “What? Why didn’t you say that first?” Fiona asked.

  Arman thought she didn’t believe them. He had a hard time believing it too. As soon as Shelly and Michail tried to gain entrance into the limo, that was the first thing they should have mentioned.

  “There’s just so much to tell before Levka and his friends decided we were the enemy and tried to eliminate us,” Shelly said. “We took an awful risk moving your brother from his dorm when Regina and Tobias intended to eliminate him. We had to make it look like he had died. We took just as much of a risk getting into the limo with all of you. We talked openly on the plane telepathically so you would hear us. Do you think we were just being careless? We did it on purpose to let you know we were there. We took first class seats so that if any of Tobias or Regina’s minions had followed you, we would have dealt with them.”

  Now Arman was surprised to hear that.

  “Where are my parents?” Fiona asked.

  “We were good friends of theirs for years.”

  “Were you hunters first too?” Fiona asked.

  “No. We got to know them after they had been turned. We’d known Tobias and Regina back then, and we helped your parents to find human parents who could raise you before Tobias and Regina learned you even existed. But the problem was that Regina and Tobias found out about you just a few weeks before your foster parents’ car accident.”

  “Did you know my foster dad was an alcoholic and my mother was an enabler?” Fiona asked, sounded irritated to the core.

  “No. Your parents had tried to find hunter parents to take you in, hunters who had been friends of theirs for years, but no one would do it for them even though you were a huntress. So your mother and father had to quickly find human parents before Tobias and Regina learned of you. Your parents found a young couple with a son that needed the money, and they made arrangements to pay them monthly allotments to take care of both you and their son so that it appeared you were both their children,” Shelly said.

  “Where are my parents now?” Fiona asked.

  Michail said, “They are coming to Scotland. They have kept in touch with us and we’ve let them know what has happened in the last several weeks, but they have been out of the country for years.”