How to Seduce a Vampire (Without Really Trying) (Love at Stake) Read Free Page B

repeating the words they’d heard since childhood, the mantra that had comforted them for years, making them feel special and important. “We are the chosen guardians of this sacred valley and its secrets. Our mission is noble and necessary.”
    “What is noble about being forced to give away my baby?” Minerva had muttered bitterly.
    With a sigh, Neona wiped the tears from her face. The mantra no longer provided comfort. And her sister had escaped the only way she knew how. In death. The battle two weeks ago had claimed her and four others.
    “Neona!” a sharp voice reprimanded her. “You shouldn’t spend your life here among the dead.”
    Neona sat up to see Lydia approaching her. For a few seconds she considered reminding her old friend that she had some of her family members buried here among the dead. A line of five new earthen mounds now marred the hillside, alongside one older mound covered with grass. But the haggard look on Lydia’s face stopped Neona from speaking. Lydia was suffering in silence.
    All the warrior women of Beyul-La were suffering. The battle two weeks ago had been devastating. In a matter of minutes, their number had gone from eleven to six.
    Lydia stopped halfway up the hillside. “The queen has sounded the alarm. An intruder has crossed into our territory.”
    Neona leaped to her feet and rushed down the hillside. “Only one?”
    “It appears that way.” Lydia accompanied her to the small village of a half dozen stone buildings with thatched roofs.
    The other women were there, lighting a few torches before the main campfire was extinguished to leave the valley in darkness. Then the five women hurried to the cave where Neona’s mother, Queen Nima, was waiting.
    The torches were slid into brackets on the stone walls, and the large room brightened. Pink- and cream-colored stalactites glistened with moisture high overhead, and sparkling water fell from a fissure in the stone wall, splashing into the pool below. Behind the pool, a narrow corridor wound deep into the inner recesses of the sacred mountain. In front of the pool, there was a wide stone floor, worn smooth over the centuries.
    Queen Nima paced across the floor and motioned to the owl perched on the back of her throne. “He has spotted one male intruder, invading our territory from the north.”
    Lydia’s niece, Winifred, muttered a curse. “Do you think it could be Lord Liao?”
    “Possibly,” Nima replied. “Or one of Master Han’s soldiers.”
    “They’ve never gotten this close before,” Neona said. The battle two weeks ago had occurred forty miles from their border. The women warriors of Beyul-La had borrowed horses from the nearby village to travel that far to fight the enemy, for it was imperative to keep the sacred valley a secret.
    “No man can be allowed to see Beyul-La,” Nima warned them once again. “Freya, take the eastern territory. Winifred, the west. Neona, the north. And Tashi, the south. Find him. If he’s a lost villager, show him the direction home. Threaten him with death if he returns. If he’s one of Master Han’s men, kill him without hesitation.”
    The four women bowed their heads to acknowledge the acceptance of their orders.
    Neona rushed to the area where they kept their armor and weapons. She always wore the breastplate and helmet left by her father, a warrior from Greece.
    “There are only six of us now,” Winifred said as she slipped on a metal-studded leather breastplate.
    “We know that,” Lydia muttered, watching her one remaining daughter, Tashi, put on armor.
    “I think we should each consider having a daughter,” Winifred continued.
    “Perhaps,” Queen Nima replied. “We will discuss it later. First we must deal with this invasion.”
    “Oh, I see what Freddie means,” Freya said, coming to her sister’s defense. “The intruder might have potential.”
    “Exactly!” Winifred nodded. “He could be fair of face, strong, and fleet of foot.”
    Lydia snorted.