Page 107 of Bound by Vengeance
He couldn’t leave here to kill though. Hemay not care enough about himself to worry about death, but hestill cared about his friends. When that caring went away, he wouldtake his life, but until then, he would help guard over thehunters, a species of mortals he despised with every ounce of hisbeing.
Killean touched his scar as he settled ontoone of the rocks. The feel of it brought back the memory of how ithappened, but he was unwilling to travel that path. With the moodhe was in, he’d kill all the hunters in the stronghold andconsequences be damned if he opened that memory again.
CHAPTER 46
Over the next few weeks, Nathan worked toget everything straightened out as much as possible with thehunters here and the other strongholds. The leaders in BuenosAires, Bogota, Colombia, and San Salvador united in an undisclosedlocation in South America, but they had agreed to join theAlliance. Ronan contacted vampires he trusted in South America tomeet with those leaders and formulate an arrangement with them.
Despite their agreement to be in theAlliance and work with the vampires, none of those leaders werehappy about Nathan’s decision to become a vampire. They were tryingto decide if they would consider him a hunter when it was done.They wouldn’t agree to Nathan making the final decisions onanything anymore, but they did accept that he and Ronan would runthe Alliance together.
He imagined his father and ancestors wererolling in their graves, but over the weeks, he and Ronan laboredto draw everyone together and divided their rule over the huntersand vampires who joined them. Nathan would still deal with thehunters more and Ronan the vamps.
The two of them butted heads at times, butwith Joseph’s growing army, the best course was to present a lethalfront, one that would take Joseph down.
Most of the other hunter strongholds hadbeen more challenging to deal with. Edward had taken his huntersfrom England, met with the group fleeing Prague, and united withthe strongholds in Cairo and Cape Town. They’d all relocatedtogether somewhere in Africa, but they’d officially withdrawn fromthe hunter union. No one had heard from them in over a week.
The stronghold in New Delhi and the ones inBeijing and Hanoi were residing in an undisclosed area of China.They still spoke with Nathan and the other strongholds, but theyhad yet to join the Alliance. Nathan suspected Enlai was waiting tosee what would happen once Nathan became a vampire.
In Australia, Hugo had relocated his huntersfrom Perth to Sydney and retreated from the hunter union.
“Nothing against you, mate,” he’d toldNathan last week, “but we’re on an island, and we’ve been removedfrom the rest of you for years. We haven’t felt unified in a while.Your father was a good man, or at least that was the vibe I gotfrom him theonetime we met, but we have to focus on takingcare of our own. That doesn’t mean if the shit hits the fan, andyou need help, we won’t be there. If we can help, we will, but fornow, we think we’re better on our own.”
Hearing those words had staggered Nathan.Perhaps his father hadn’t been the perfect leader he pictured himbeing. His father had been a good man, a fair one, and he’d keptthe hunters together, but perhaps it hadn’t been as easy for him asNathan believed. Maybe, his father had struggled with leading toobut kept it hidden from Nathan.
The realization helped to ease some of hispersistent feelings of failure. His father had struggled with farless on his plate than Nathan had, but he’d remained steadfast.Nathan would do the same.
“If you ever change your mind,” Nathan hadsaid to Hugo.
“You’ll be the first to know,” Hugo assuredhim. “I’ll call every couple weeks or so to see how things aregoing. Those vamps attack one of our strongholds again, you let meknow.”
“I will.”
Nathan hadn’t heard from Hugo since, but hesuspected he would before all this was over.
The only one who stayed entirely with Nathanwas Alejandro. He’d relocated his hunters to Nogales, Mexico, andagreed to take in any hunters leaving Nathan’s faction. He’dalready received twenty of them. The hunters who moved from here toreside with Alejandro preferred to stay in the Alliance, but theydidn’t want to live with Nathan.
He didn’t fault them for it; he’d completelychanged all their ways in a matter of months, and soon he wouldchange from mortal to immortal.
Another group of hunters had also broken offfrom his stronghold and gone their own way last week. Their breakcut his numbers in half, and unlike those who went to live withAlejandro, they wanted nothing to do with the Alliance.
When his faction of hunters split, he’dmoved his group to another property Ronan owned on the coast ofRhode Island. Nathan had recently purchased the estate next toRonan’s, and soon they would be moving there, combining theirlands, forces, and preparing for what could only be consideredwar.
Most of the elders went with the hunters whobroke away. Only Elfry and Roland remained, and Roland had almostleft too. Not because he wanted to go, he’d confided to Nathan, butbecause, as Roland put it, “those idiots will get themselveskilled, or worse, captured and turned into Savages.”
In the end, Roland decided to stay becausehe believed the world was about to go to shit, and the best way tofight it was the way Nathan proposed.
“Besides,” Roland had said as he rolled fromone computer screen to the next, “I don’t fit in with those oldfuddy-duddies. They’ll have their followers back in the Dark Agesby next week.”
Nathan agreed with him, so last week hestood by and watched as most of the elders led half his followersaway.
He hadn’t tried to stop them. A follower whocould become a potential enemy in their midst, and one whoconsideredhiman enemy, wasn’t one he wanted. They’d forgetheir way, or they would perish.
It had still saddened him to see them go,especially Simone. He suspected she’d left because he’d embarrassedand possibly hurt her by choosing Vicky; Nathan didn’t blame herfor going, but he’d tried to get her to stay by apologizing. Hedidn’t want something to happen to her because of him.
She’d waved away his apology with a demuresmile and a flutter of her hand. “There’s no need. You cannot helpit if you love her.”
“I do love her.”
Simone bowed her head. “Then I wish you muchhappiness, Nathan.”
