Forgiveness and Punishment

34

Timothy is sitting in his office looking at work he should be doing and instead he thinks over the last three years. It's been hard for Melissa being away from her bound, soon they will be joining her here. He sighs, Melissa has indeed proven to be extremely powerful.

Cliff had taught her a few things on how to control her abilities and given her ideas on other ways. He also taught her how to find out just what she is capable of doing in the first place.

So far there have been no attempts on her life or the seethe to get to her. Now Melissa would be a formidable opponent against an entire seethe.

Just then Melissa screams out in agony.

"Melissa!" Timothy shoots out of his chair and flies out of the room to find his girlfriend. Many vampires are down from her mental scream. Melissa is as well.

Timothy gathers her into his arms. Seeing a maid actually upright, "Find Travis, now!" Timothy stands up and carries her to his room, their room and sets her on the bed. He starts gathering their travel bags even as Travis rushes into the room. "Melissa, if you can hear me, you need to send them energy, help them to stay alive, baby. Come on, you can do it."

"What's wrong?" Travis demands then sees Melissa unconscious on the bed.

"Well, my guess is, since you are here and unhurt, that her brothers have been attacked and harmed." Timothy says even as he waits impatiently for someone to answer the call he's made.

"Travis hold her and send as many positive emotions towards her that you can. She needs the help if she is going to send energy to her brothers."

The phone is finally answered, "Cliff, I need you to get to Melissa's brothers' place. She screamed and fell unconscious, but there are no wounds on her and Travis is fine." Timothy demands even as he goes into the bathroom to gather a few things.

"I'm already on my way. They didn't check in on time and I just got out of a meeting I couldn't leave from earlier. I'm less than five minutes away. I'll call you back when I find out anything." Then he hangs up.

Timothy orders his plane to get ready before he then calls his second, Mel. "Prepare for attack, order six of our best to be ready in ten. Melissa's bound have been attacked and we need to leave."

"Are they dead?" Mel asks more than a little sick.

"No, at least not yet, or Melissa would be in far worse shape than she's in, but there is a good possibility that they still might die."

In a matter of minutes Timothy has everything packed and ready to go. Just as he's about to leave the room with Melissa in his arms, his phone rings. "They're alive. It's definitely a vampire attack though. 

"Your girlfriend is one paranoid bitch, but in this case it's a good thing she is. The main security was taken down including the cameras, but because of her paranoia we have visual. There were five vampires, but it doesn't make sense. I know one of the vampires by sight. The seethe marking he shows on his neck isn't the one of his seethe. See if you can have someone match up the faces with their last known seethe."

"I will, we are just leaving. We should be there in an hour, two at most if there are any delays in taking off." Timothy is furious even as he tells Cliff this.

"If this is an attack by vampires, they may be trying to start another purge. This needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later. I need you to call all the seethe leaders, when I say all, I mean all, and have them meet in your territory. There are many that won't come if I call as a council member. They will be afraid of a trap to kill them."

"Fine, but once they are here, what?" Cliff is annoyed, he's stayed out of things for a very long time, eschewing the power games.

"Melissa is going to be very angry at the attack on her bonded, would you rather she find the guilty parties by going through the seethe leaders, or would you rather she start a purge?"

Cliff is silent as he thinks over just what Melissa is capable of doing. "Very well, I'll have them come. Some of the closest ones will be here by the time you get here."

"Good, she won't want to be away from her bonded for long. Once she clears the leaders they will be free to leave. She is waking up now, you better talk to her about her brothers now."

"Cliff? How are they?" Melissa demands once she has the phone.

"They are fine now, I had to give them blood. Melissa, TJ was almost killed. I honestly don't know how he didn't bleed to death before I could get to him." Cliff was a bit confused by that, the wound was a killing one.

"Timothy told me to send them energy through our bond. I wasn't sure it would do anything since I wasn't there."

"Oh, it did. The wound was nearly sealed off and the bleeding stopped by the time I got here.

"Tad, wasn't hurt as badly, but he's still unconscious. I didn't think you would be able to save them from so far away. I'm glad I was wrong. 

"You need to look over the footage from the cameras you installed. The main ones were taken down and won't show you anything. I sent the footage to Timothy and he's having the images go through facial recognition and seethe logs. The most current information on them will then show up."

"I won't allow this attack to pass, Cliff. They attacked MY bonded. That is a personal attack against me."

"I know, and the council won't try to stop you. But you need to understand something Melissa, this wasn't just an attack against you, this was an attack against Timothy and his seethe as well. The last thing we want to do is start another purge when most of the vampires are innocent. Before we take action against any we need to know if they are guilty," Cliff warns.

"Oh, I will know and I'll let Timothy and you know. Will that be good enough?" Melissa purrs. She's never been so angry in her life. Not even when she realized that Timothy had turned her against her wishes.

Cliff sighs, "That will do. See you in a couple of hours or less."

With that they hang up. Timothy picks up Melissa and Travis picks up their luggage, he'll get what he needs in the other city.