My vision was clouded with red. Without thinking I handed Rhys the note and immediately went to my car.

I didn't care who it was who had sent such a threatening letter, I was going to kill them.

Luckily I knew the address listed on the letter. It was a construction site for a new shopping mall. I was also pretty sure that I was out of the gate before Rhys had even finished reading.

The trip to the construction site should have taken me 30 minutes if I was pushing the speed limit. In the end it took me 12 minutes. I didn't care if I had half of the police in Australia chasing after me, nothing was stopping me from getting to Gabe and Rose.

The construction site was crawling with people. Which was off considering the time of night. On closer inspection, it was crawling with DRONES. The red rings in their eyes I could see everywhere were dead giveaways. I had to fight a mental battle to suppress the glow in my own eyes. After all, it would be much harder to get the information and location of the people I wanted if the kidnappers were wary of me.

I ignored all the stares I was getting from the shadows and walked into the centre of the site where a clearing had been made and two massive support pillars stood, currently not bearing a load and pointing to the sky, at opposite ends of the clearing.

A raised platform stood at the head of the clearing with several people on it.

The moment I stepped into the clearing, muscular, bulky male drones restrained then handcuffed me. As I wanted to find out where my family was and who was behind all this, I just let them do it without a fight.

Even once I was 'secure' the drones still held onto me, of course, just in case.

"Welcome." Came a voice greeting me.

I must admit, it took every single ounce of my self control to not break my chains and murder Alex as he stood with his cronies, the iris of his eyes glowing completely purple. He made no attempt to hide it.

At least I know who was responsible now. The only question left to answer is where was Gabe and Rose.

"Do you like my little playground?" Alex asked me, taking my intense glare as an answer. Although it made me a little happy that he had no idea what this girl in the chains, could actually do.

"I don't believe you've had the privilege of meeting Gabe's brother Timothy." Alex purred, gesturing to one of the younger guys by his side.

Timothy looked scarily like Gabe and his movements were flawless as he bowed. One look at the violet rings in his eyes however, told me everything I needed to know about his 'illness'.

"Where are Rose and Gabe." I demanded of Alex.

Alex thought about playing dumb but seemed to think better of it as he gestured to the figures chained to the top of the pillars at either end of the clearing.

"I'm here to give you a choice little angel." Alex began arrogantly. "You see I'm a vampire, not the shitty kind that's born of that stupid virus either. I'm more like the monster from the fairy tales and I want your blood."

"So you have three options, the first option is to offer all your blood to me and sacrifice yourself so I'll let your friends go. The second option is to willingly consume my blood and become my slave forever or the third option is to choose which of your friends die" He paused then continued. "first." Option three still results in me draining you dry anyway. " The look of sheer pleasure on his face, betraying his true personality.

I stopped and counted at least 30 guys around me plus however many I couldn't see directly behind me. I had a decision to make and all I knew for certain at this point was that Alex was a Royal, both Gabe and Rose would witness whatever I was about to do and for some reason there were lots of drones around. But judging by their eye colors, they didn't belong to Alex.

Having decided on my course of action I looked up at Alex with his glowing violet eyes so he knew I was deadly serious.

"I'm going to take the fourth option Alex." It made him frown. Even in this situation pissing Alex off was fun.

"And what option might that be, angel?" Alex decided to play my game. After all, how much of a threat could I be when I was chained up and restrained.

"That's the option where you untie everyone and let us walk out of here untouched." Alex laughed but I continued in a deadly serious tone. "If you don't agree to those terms I'm going to break these chains, kick the crap out of your goons, rescue my friends and restrain you so I can get the information about your Royal parents and how to free a drone from it's master, out of you."

Alex lost some of his confidence at the use of the word 'Royal' and 'Drone'. "What do you know of the Original vampires." He demanded.

"Enough." Was my reply. "Now you have three seconds to make a decision." I was even nice enough to count them down for him.

"Three. Two." I raised my left eyebrow. "One." Alex just stood there, calling my bluff. It was probably the biggest mistake of his life. "Zero." The moment I hit zero I let go of all that self control I'd been so desperately exercising. My eyes lit up and I spread my arms apart breaking the chain between the cuffs, in the process flinging the two guys holding me down a few feet back. They landed on their backsides.

"Last chance." I informed Alex, now looking at him with my eyes ablaze with a fierce green glow. Alex looked pale, like he couldn't believe his eyes. He yelled his only command to his drones "KILL HER!"

They all came at me at once which suited me just fine, they were only drones after all and I'd been training for months to deal with situations like this. Block and counter, over and over. The problem for the drones was that my counter more often than not, left them in a newly formed hole in the ground or embedded in a tree.

It was rather cathartic letting the anger and frustration out on these mindless people. I know I should really be trying to find a way to help them, but right now I needed to vent my anger.

Block and counter, I was having fun with this routine until Alex snuck up behind me and restrained me. He was a lot stronger than the drones, but still wouldn't be much of a challenge.

I felt his head draw back in what I assume was the action to draw his fangs out of their protective sockets.

I waiting until he bought his weight forward and down to bite into my neck before I bent forward, carrying and amplifying the momentum Alex had already created as he literally flew over my shoulder.

Does everyone know those movies where cars flip at really high speed then bounce before wrapping themselves around something solid, be it a tree, rock or metal pole?

Well that's what happened to Alex. He hit a steel beam at a very high velocity and I was very surprised he didn't split in half. As it was, the back of his head was resting on the back of his feet. He'd hit the steel beam backwards which had forced him into a perfect U shape. No doubt everything in his abdomen was broken.

If there were any drones left then they'd run as fast as they could, Although Timothy was still standing blankly on the stage. He'd been given no orders to execute.

I freed Rose first. They'd manage to somehow secure both Rose and Gabe a good ten meters off the ground, which doesn't seem like much, but trust me, it's enough to hurt if you fell. I undid Rose's binding and removed her gag. I told her to hold onto me very tightly and jumped. I tried to absorb as much of the impact as I possibly could but it still must have hurt poor Rose.

Gabe was up next. When I reached Gabe I saw the absolute fear in her eyes. She must have known about Original vampires all along and was being forced to do goodness knows what with her brother as leverage.

"I'm not going to hurt you and I need to you to trust me until we at least get down. You're allowed to freak out after that." I waited for a response from Gabe before continuing. If I untied her at this height and she struggled free, the drop would seriously hurt her.

Gabe finally nodded, tears streaming down her face. I undid her gag first so she felt less restricted before undoing her bindings.

"I'm going to need you to hold onto be tightly while I get us down." I instructed the terrified Gabe, who did not comply. In fact she got as far away from me as she possibly could without falling.

I could have suppressed the glow in my eyes again to make it easier for her, but that also meant suppressing the strength I needed to get us down. So I attempted to talk to her instead. "I need you to know that Alex and I are nothing, and I really mean nothing, alike. I will NEVER hurt you Gabe. I promise on my sister's life."

She looked at me, her eyes still terrified but she took a leap of faith anyway and grabbed hold of me, gripping me for dear life. Just as before I jumped as softly as I could and absorbed as much of the impact of landing as was possible.

Once we were on the ground I carried Gabe over to where Rose was resting and placed her beside my sister.

"Rose really is my full blooded sister." I informed Gabe, trying to give her a reason to let go of just a little of the tension she was carrying. "She's also full blooded human, just like you. I'm the only vampire freak in this family, I promise."

I saw Gabe look into Rose's eyes and cling to her when she realized I was telling the truth. I could also hear cars in the distance heading this way, judging by the feelings coming from that direction it was the rest of my Ethereal family.

Which meant there was only one more problem left to be dealt with. That problem being the currently healing mess of a vampire named Alex. I was thankful that he was Royal and not Ethereal, because if he was then he'd already be fully healed.

I grabbed the heavy chains lying around the construction site and bound Alex tightly, paying no mind to his bones re breaking and I twisted him into the position I wanted to ensure he couldn't escape.

I sat him in front of me after that. I wanted to know how to release Gabe's brother from being in drone servitude to him. Alex himself was going to tell me or I was going to show him exactly why Lingchi, also known as the lingering death or death by a thousand cuts, was banned in 1905.

Authors note:

Hi everyone, Kitty Chan here.

I have a new discord server and you're all welcome to come and hang out in it.

Whether  it's discussing my works, waiting for new updates or just having a general chat, everyone is welcome there. Plus cat pics are always appreciated.

I will be available to answer questions there if you have any. I still won't give spoilers though.

https://discord.gg/BZGJWyM

I look forward to chatting to everyone there.