He gathered what dignity he could and moved with purpose back to the elevator and pressed the arrow button. He stepped into the elevator as soon as it started opening and he punched the sixth-floor button; trying to hide his nervousness and his need to be out of this office and away from Kenneth.

Nova watched the video feed of the 3rd floor just as a werewolf ripped into three vampires and tore one's head off. She didn't show any emotion from the display.

Kenneth asked, "What troubles you, Nova? We're safe here, in the heart of the tower."

Nova turned her deep brown eyes on her mate and Head of House, "For how long, Kenneth? The wolves will over run us eventually. We are barely slowing them down."

Kenneth nodded with a wry smile, "Our home can defend itself. Do not worry my mate, we are far from beaten. By the end of the day the wolves will regret coming here."

* * * * *

"Can someone please tell me what the hell we're doing here?" Nicolas asked to nobody in particular.

"I would like to know the same thing," one of the other Shape shifters said. "I grew up in Spain and have been a citizen of the City under the Rock for almost thirty years. The Rock of Gibraltar isn't the most glamorous place in the world, but at least I know what I'm doing and why. I have no idea why I'm here in your City of Angels fighting your American vampires, and for what? Do we ever call upon you for help with our problems?"

"Enough" Aceso growled. "I thought we all agreed that vampires are a threat that needs to be eradicated. Are you saying we should let these vampires live?"

"Of course not," the one who spoke began "But…"

"Give it up kid," Thom said. Thom's brown fur had been spattered with vampire blood that was smeared over his silver streaks of fur running along his sides. "Short answer is, you're here because your people said to be here. Sometimes that all you need to know."

"So, we have no real control of ourselves and our people control us?" Dutch asked, his silver-grey fur almost glowed under the dim lights of the hallway they were in.

Thom gave the naïve wolf born Shape shifter a sideways glance but it was Aceso that answered, "That answer is more complicated and never a simple yes or no. I will explain it to you, but not now. When our hunt is over, we'll speak on this and many other things." Dutch nodded his head, bowing to the alpha.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"Where are we and how many more floors are there?" Amanda asked bringing everyone back to the task at hand.

William replied, "We're on the sixth floor, as to how many floors there are, who knows? I didn't get a good count from outside."

"The building has fifty-five floors, so we still have a long way to go," Aceso responded.

"And just how in the hell do you know that?" Nicolas asked.

"Because I saw the blueprints of this place before we got here," Aceso answered.

The building suddenly lurched under their feet. A rumble that was felt in their bones vibrated through the whole floor, and then the catastrophic sound of explosions washed over them.

Grabbing at their ears against the sudden audio assault Katherine yelled, "What the hell was that?"

In that instant, the far side of the hallway exploded and another consecutive blast, closer to them, ripped up the floor of the hallway and caused the walls around it to cave in.

William turned and darted through to the end of the hallway, and throwing the door open found a stairwell. He turned around and yelled over the sounds of the rapidly approaching explosions for everyone to go up the stairs.

The group moved with speed and flowed up the stairway even as the hallway where they had been standing only a moment ago, was blasted up in fire and heat and fell back down collapsing in on itself and falling down to the floor below.

William slammed the door leading back into the stairway shut, and heaved a heavy sigh of relief to know that they had all escaped the explosions.

"What the FUCK?!" Nicolas shouted to no one in particular. "They can't kill us, so they're going to bring the whole tower down on us and hope the explosions and rubble kills us?"

"Thanks for the news update, Captain obvious," Amanda scoffed.

Nicolas wheeled on the youngest member of their pack, but before he could say anything Aceso shouted, "Stop it both of you! We survived this attack, and we now know to what lengths these vampires will go to stop us. I only wonder how many were killed in that blast and how many escaped."

William's eyes were locked on the door to the stairway, his thoughts on the explosions, the hallway, and the tons of debris that had dropped onto the floor below them.

Katherine placed a hand on William's shoulder and said softly, "I'm sure that Ansuya made it."

William found himself nodding mechanically, not wanting to let his mind even consider her being dead as any sort of plausible outcome.

"Ok," Nicolas started, "We're still here and the tower isn't crumbling down around us. So, we have to assume that those blasts were set up in such a way that the structural and load bearing integrity of the building wouldn't be damaged, right?"

Aceso nodded, "What's your point?"

Nicolas responded, "My point is that the vamps can't do that too many more times, and if you saw the blueprints then we should be able to avoid those kinds of attacks by staying close to the load bearing members and structures of the building, right?"

Charles nodded, "You make a good argument and it does sound like a sound strategy."

"Keep this up and I might have to change my opinion of your intelligence level, instead of an idiot jock, you're more of a tradesmen jock," smirked Amanda.

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