Ava resisted, kicking and screaming when they came at her. Recalling just what they’d done to her brother and sister when they’d gotten their hands on them, it was hard to allow them to take her. Very, very hard. The best she could do was hope that they’d planned to wait for them to get to Dale before starting her humiliation and torture.

One of the men managed to get his hand around her mouth and nose. An unpleasant stench filled her nostrils and she almost immediately started to lose focus, slowly blacking out.

How predictable they were. Still, she was pretty glad she’d been right, given that the alternative had been them just breaking her neck and getting it over with.

But she knew Roberto, Max, Antonio, Neri, and she most definitely knew Angela. Others had joined them, but as the old Enforcers, they were the main force behind the treason. They wouldn’t have been able to resist making a show of it, demonstrating that she wasn’t better than them.

Two of them were Richard’s age, the others, older, and she’d known them all her life. She couldn’t recall ever saying one unkind thing to them, or acting like a superior brat, for that matter. That wasn’t her personality.

Aria had been a little on the arrogant side, perhaps. Rupert, too, although his vanity was mainly about his abilities; he’d loved to spar with the Enforcers, knowing he’d win.

Still, none of that mattered. Her time away from Dale had taught her that what she’d considered normal for so long, what her family had, really wasn’t natural.

Most other kinds of shifters had ruling packs, prides, and flocks, like wolves and felines, but those groups left the rest of their peers to do what they wanted on an ongoing basis; they only interfered when there was a true need for it. The Flavians hadn’t overseen the rest of the flocks; they’d ruled. And their monarchy had been despotic. Fair, just, caring, she’d liked to think, but still absolute.

It had only been a matter of time before someone rebelled, and, honestly, Ava even saw it as a necessary thing. As she’d said to the other Alphas, it was the twenty-first century, and even vampires had realized that no one liked to be ruled.

They hadn’t only desired to overthrow them, though. They wanted to eradicate them, not realizing that it would really mean their own doom. They’d done what they’d seen as necessary.

Well, not just that. They’d enjoyed killing her family and they’d taken pleasure in hurting her siblings.

Ava didn’t have a choice.

The drug they’d used only knocked her out for an hour, but she had the sense to control her breathing, and pretend sleep, because while her consciousness came back quickly, she didn’t immediately regain control of her body.

If they’d paid attention, the shifters driving her would have felt the difference, but they were too giddy and victorious to care.

Although her eyes were blindfolded, and closed underneath, she felt it the second she passed the immaterial barrier keeping the rest of the world away from Dale. Some of her weariness disappeared, and, in her heart, despite everything that had happened here, she knew she was home.

“Did Max get everyone to the forum?” she heard Neri ask.

“No, just us. He said he wanted to make sure the bitch was broken before he showed her to the flock. You never know, they might try to free her or something. Why they all seem to care so much about her, I’ll never know.”

“She wasn’t the worst of them,” Roberto admitted reluctantly. “I would have preferred getting my talons on her brother.”

She managed to keep her gasp quiet. So Richard was alive. She hadn’t let herself think about it too much; if she didn’t know, she wasn’t one hundred percent sure he was gone.

She smelled a familiar fragrance, indicating they’d reached the far edge of the city, where the Bianchi family made the best wines and cheese; they were close. Tentatively, she attempted to move a finger, and smirked when it worked.

Then, she waited.

If she wasn’t mistaken, she had three abductors. They parked the van and walked out towards the back to grab her, chatting casually along the way.

“What do you think Max will do to her, then?”

“Oh, I don’t know, but he’s going to make a point - if we make it dirty and let the word spread, no doubt her brother will rush here to defend her honor. Then, we can get them all.”

Great plan, actually. Just not as good as hers.

“What if…” Neri cleared his throat. “I know they showed us proof that they weren’t even around when they said they were, that they aren’t related to the Flavia, but what if they were wrong? You know. Killing them both… that could mean our own end.”

“Don’t you worry about that. Max doesn’t plan on risking it. Richard, we’ll kill, but we’re keeping the bitch alive, just in…”

He’d opened the door, the idiot. Her eagle burst out of her skin so fast the chains binding her hands and feet were torn to shreds, along with her clothes. Although the animal would have loved to stay and scratch their eyes out, she just bulldozed her way through the three shifters. Her absolute priority was in line with Ava’s.

They needed Coveney here.

And, alright, a few other allies wouldn’t hurt, but if they didn’t succeed, they’d never see him again. Which wasn’t an option.

She heard a high-pitched call, too close to ignore, but, against her instincts to turn and fight whoever was coming at her, she flew straight towards the very place where they’d wanted her.

She was lucky they had been fed some nonsense that made them disregard everything her family had said. Otherwise, they might never have brought her to Dale. Otherwise, they definitely wouldn’t have planned to take her to the forum, a long open roofed hall with high columns at each side, each of which was adorned with statues. Unlike the rest of what may have been done back in the day, it wasn’t effigies of gods; they were symbols of nature - trees, leaves, fire, air, earth. Some showed stars, too.

Never slowing to soften her landing, she crashed onto the floor, and begged her eagle to let her shift back immediately. The bird relented instantly, giving her back her limbs, and more importantly, her vocal cords.

There, right in the middle of the place where their initial protection spell had been cast, she said one simple word.

“Aperire.”

Good thing she was proficient in Latin, too.

As they were bid by their rightful owner, every ward clouding Dale from the eyes of the world opened.