[Viewer Discretion Is Advised.]
Back at the hotel, Jack quietly tipped-toed into Victoria's bedroom. Sound asleep, she rested peacefully in bed, unaware of his presence. As Jack felt her forehead, her fever persisted, but it wasn't alarming. However, Jack knew he needed to keep a close eye on it just to be sure.
Pregnant with vamp babies as a human meant the unborn vamp babies used Victoria's body as a host by draining most of the nourishment from her. Any severe virus could potentially kill her if she wasn't properly cared for or treated.
Stable in her condition, Jack was pleased with that. After he opened another bottle of water and placed it on the nightstand for her to drink, he exited the bedroom, leaving her undisturbed in her sleep.
Firm knocking tapped outside their hotel door as he was throwing out the empty water bottle into the trash can. Already knowing who arrived, Jack's senses immediately perked up as he hurried to answer it.
As he swung the door open, Jack wasn't surprised to see Mr. Collin and his advisors: Duncan, Gavin, Oscar; Sharlene and Eva's father, Frank; Rose's father, and Chris, Ace's father, all standing outside the doorway.
Inherently, what caught him off guard was seeing his father, Shawn, along with Cooper, Glenn's dad, and Tony, Rome's father, all of whom worked as Zen's advisors. Unlike the others in Zen's clan, who worked under his authority, they chose not to rest in a detained sleep with Alpha Zen and his wife.
"Dad?" Jack raised his brow and stepped aside to allow them entry. "I wasn't aware you were coming."
"You've panicked your mother when you didn't answer your phone," Shawn replied, noticing his grandson Ian was sleeping on the couch.
"She saw the plane crash," Jack stated, acknowledging his mother's first gift was similar to his own.
Jack detected danger quickly, but his mother could foresee terrible events as they occurred. Her vision witnessed the plane crashing; thereafter, she immediately alerted Mr. Collin about it. Unfortunately, her vision couldn't predict the outcome of the crash or if Victoria had survived, for that matter.
Alas, when Jack didn't answer his phone, her motherly worry led her to fear the worst. Full-grown adult vampire or not, this meant nothing to Jack's parents whenever it came to a serious situation. More so when Jack took Ian, their vamp-grandson with him.
"Is Victoria harmed?" Mr. Collin quietly asked as his concern for her well-being overwhelmed his heart.
Before Jack could answer, Mr. Collin had already entered her bedroom to check on her. Inside the bedroom, he examined her injured arm and double-checked the stitches for any signs that indicated an infection might be the leading cause of her fever. However, the injury appeared clean and dry, leading him to conclude that her fever was from exhaustion. Overall, he acknowledged that Kai and his friends had taken good care of her despite them disobeying his orders to return home.
Done examining her, he walked back out and looked at Jack with a strict yet gentle expression. "Where is he?" Mr. Collin sternly inquired about his son's whereabouts, though his eyes remained soft.
"At Egypt's museum," Jack respectfully replied.
"Stay with Ian and Victoria," Mr. Collin kindly instructed. "The rest of us will get them."
Under the Collin territory, the hotel building represented the safest ground to keep Victoria. Unless war broke out, enemies respected each other's territories. Beyond the building, particularly on the sidewalk, marked the boundary where the safe zone ended.
Without another word, Jack nodded before Mr. Collin disappeared off the balcony with everyone he came with.
~~~
At the museum, Mr. Collin sighed outside the doors, catching the potent stench of human blood with his keen senses.
"Spread out and find them," he whispered to his friends.
After some of them nodded, they silently dispersed, scattering into the shadows of different galleries to find Kai, Glenn, and Rome somewhere inside.
"Aah!" a woman shrieked from the first floor, scrambling to wedge herself between two statues.
By a mere hair, she barely evaded the grasp of the towering monster reaching for her.
"Relax, I promise I won't hurt you," Rome reassured her, reaching his arm in to grab her.
Unlike himself, being a tiny woman, she effortlessly squeezed herself behind the statues. Despite his best efforts to sweep his arm back and forth to grab her, Rome's muscular frame was too bulky and toned to wedge himself into the narrow space to seize her.
"Leave me alone, you demon!" she yelled, swatting at his arm with her long nails, scratching Rome's flesh to ooze blood.
"Stop that!" Rome groaned as she continuously hit him as if he were a fly.
"Stay away!" she screamed louder.
Fear sketched the true horror in her eyes as she watched his wounds heal before her gaze.
"Would you stop it!" Rome exclaimed, realizing his timing to grab her wore thinner. "I can help you."
With all this commotion, he knew it was only a matter of time before Kai would swoop in and kill her himself if this situation didn't de-escalate soon. But the more he tried to reach for her, the louder the woman bellowed.
Aside from the nine mutilated bodies of the security guards that she kept glancing at from behind him, Rome meant what he said. He genuinely planned to obliterate her memories after drugging her to sleep so he could return her back home.
"Security, help!" the woman screamed, slipping out from the side of the left statue.
She crawled out, stumbling to her feet, and fled without looking back, heedlessly unaware that Rome dashed ahead to catch her.
"No! No...no...no..." she whimpered, defensively holding her palms up as she slowly walked backward when Rome reappeared in front of her path.
With a delicate smile, Rome gently reassured her, "I promise not to harm you."
Each time she stepped back, he'd take an extra two steps forward, gradually getting closer to reach her. Just as he was about to pounce and tackle her, an arm punched out of her chest, wrenching her heart out with it.
In shock, Rome's eyes widened as he watched the light fade from her eyes as the arm twisted out of her chest. With a loud thump, she slammed against the floor as the vampire before Rome bit into her heart like a juicy peach.
After finishing off the heart, Tony remarked to his son, "I thought I taught you not to play with your food."
Unlike Rome, his father was stern and a deadly killer towards humans. He hardly cracked a joke, and the only times Rome saw his dad smile was only around his mother.
"I was trying to save her," Rome explained with a sigh, sadly looking at her lifeless body sprawled across the floor, which was now surrounded by a seeping pool of blood.
"You know the rules," Tony retorted, glaring at Rome with disapproval.
Despite feeling a pang for the tiny woman in his heart, Rome calmly muttered, "I was going to erase her memories of ever coming here tonight."
"You know Alpha Kai would likely kill her anyway," Tony replied, softening his stern voice.
With that, Rome nodded before he followed his father after hearing another scream echoing from a different floor.