I jabbed the Taser at her but she was faster. She dodged out of the way. The van wobbled precariously as I fought to keep hold of the steering wheel. Kieran was passed out in his own blood. Solange glanced back at him and licked her lips. It was a tiny moment of distraction and likely the last one I’d get. I stabbed the Taser at her again. It glanced off her shoulder, but it was enough to freeze her, her face contorting.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I repeated over and over as I slammed on the brakes. She flew into the dashboard. I reached over her while she was still stunned and opened the passenger door.

Then I shoved her out as hard as I could into the grass.

She sprawled, bats circling overhead like vultures. I sped away with the door still open, banging against tree branches. The smell of pine and cedar mixed with Kieran’s blood. I looked into the rearview mirror. Solange sat up slowly.

I hit the gas harder.

Chapter 2

Solange

I ran because I could, because dawn was coming, because I didn’t know what else I should do.

I knew what I wanted to do.

Lucy might have dropped me with her Taser but I was still burning with Kieran’s blood, nearly dizzy with it. I could feel it coursing through my veins, making me feel invincible, making me feel alive again. I wanted more. More than I had ever wanted chocolate, more than Lucy wanted Johnny Depp.

The gray van sped away, gleaming like a tin can. I could peel the roof off like it was the lid. The 1500 volts of electricity Lucy shot through me might have killed me when I was human, but now it only made me pause, was merely a choke chain on the hunger. I could have snapped the chain if I’d wanted to.

Yes, let’s.

I stopped running. I didn’t actually want to eat my boyfriend or my best friend. It wasn’t their fault they smelled like food.

I wasn’t sure it was my fault either, though. I felt like an addict. Or maybe it was only that I was finally getting what I needed, as if I’d been anemic and hadn’t even realized it. I was a vampire. It’s not like it was wrong for me to drink blood. It was natural, necessary. Vital.

I nearly turned around then, to chase Lucy and Kieran down like rabbits.

The thought made me gag.

I went back to running, this time in the opposite direction. Kieran’s blood was on my shirt. I needed the cool wind, the pounding of my feet in the loam, the push of muscle and bones, to distract me. I wasn’t sure if he could forgive me for what I’d nearly done. I wasn’t sure I could forgive myself. I was at war inside my own skin, hunger and honor, nature and nurture, need and repulsion.

The light in the forest was changing slowly, so slowly that only another nocturnal creature would have noticed. The owls and badgers would be scurrying off to their nests as the light turned luminous. The bats that were still following me drifted away.

As the sun rose inexorably behind the trees, my steps became heavier. I was too far from any of our safe houses underground, too far from the farmhouse, which I didn’t want to return to anyway. I couldn’t bear to look at my family right now, to give them proof that I was weaker than they were. The Blood Moon encampment was closer. I’d be safe there.

I forced myself to keep running. A pine branch scraped across my cheek. The sun was like a boulder on my back. I might as well have been Sisyphus, condemned to roll a huge rock uphill every day in Tartarus as punishment for his sins. Logan had gone through a Greek myth phase, and he’d read me a new one every night the summer I was ten.

Screw Sisyphus.

I wasn’t going to just lie down and die. My family and friends had fought too hard so I could survive. Aunt Hyacinth still wore the scars on her face.

Dawn wouldn’t have me, not today.

I tripped over a root, any natural grace fleeing under the laborious heaviness of my limbs, but I wouldn’t let it stop me. I wasn’t quite fast enough to catch my balance or my footing. I fell.

Right into Constantine’s arms.

He twisted so he was dipping me, as if we were dancing in some fancy ballroom. He should have been wearing an embroidered frock coat and a velvet hair ribbon, not a plain leather coat. My hair dragged the ground. I knew the moment he saw the blood staining my shirt and dried on my chin. His fangs lengthened, his eyes gleamed violet, like amethyst beads. He bent forward, dragging the tip of his nose along my exposed throat, tickling. I should have been frightened or disgusted. Instead I just dangled there, comforted. He licked my collarbone.

“Mmm, fresh,” he murmured, his British accent thicker than usual.

He was licking Kieran’s blood off me.

I used his hand on my lower back to stabilize myself, and pushed my feet up into the air, vaulting into a backflip. I landed in the bushes a few feet away, berries scattering around me, hands clenched.

Constantine just raised his eyebrow at me, unflappable as always. I’d never seen him wear any expression except dry amusement. “Whose blood are you wearing that you won’t share, beloved?”

“My—never mind,” I said.

“It’s fresh.” He licked a drop off his left fang. I swallowed hard. He shook his head. “You’re entirely too hard on yourself. This isn’t some movie where you have to suffer and gnash your teeth to prove your goodness. You are who you are. It’s to be celebrated.”

“I drank from an unwilling … friend.” Could I call Kieran my boyfriend after tonight? Did I have that right? Didn’t he deserve a girlfriend who wouldn’t attack him? Someone like him, full of honor and ready to die to do the right thing. Someone Helios-Ra. Not a vampire like me.