We left the torchlight of the Blood Moon camp behind us, along with my family and everything I’d ever known.

Chapter 15

NICHOLAS

Monday, early evening

We were patrolling on the very edges of the forest when Karim, the guard walking next to me, fell apart into ashes.

The bolt pierced his heart and thunked into a pine tree. Splinters ricocheted as I reached for a stake and launched into a run at the same time. There was no smell of mushrooms or rot, no clacking of teeth. Not Hel-Blar, but definitely vampires. They moved too fast to be hunters.

I could hear them in the trees, up in the branches, down in the ferns, everywhere. There were a lot of them; that much I could tell. I ran faster, until everything blurred. It wasn’t enough. Another crossbow bolt whistled by my head. A stake landed in the dirt by my left foot.

I was seriously outnumbered.

I hit the alarm on the GPS tag Connor had just recently programmed for everyone in the family. If we activated it, a message was sent immediately with our location. Assuming I was in range of any signal and assuming anyone else had a signal to even receive it.

Assumptions that could get me killed a whole lot faster.

I darted around a hemlock and slid into the yellowing grass of a narrow valley on the edge of the forest. I was far from the encampment, far from the farmhouse, even far from the royal caves. I’d never even seen this part of the mountains. I thought I heard screaming, faintly, but it faded and I was running too hard to be sure. If I’d still been human, my heartbeat would have drowned out every tiny sound; as it was, the rush of my blood through my veins was like needles of rain and wind. The part of me my mother had trained remained calm and removed, as if I were watching a movie. Clods of mud and dead flowers broke up under my boots as I pushed on. If I lost my cool now, I’d be dead for sure.

I had a moment to feel grateful that none of my brothers were with me. Losing Karim was bad enough. He was dead because of me. He could have been back at the encampment with his own family, or at home, wherever that might be. I’d only just met him before setting out. I didn’t even know his last name.

But dying now wouldn’t help him.

I could try to shake them in the labyrinthine caves of the mountains, but I was as likely to trap myself in a dead end as not. I might be able to outrun them, but there were no guarantees. There was also no decent place to make a stand, nothing solid to put at my back besides the mountain. A quick glance showed rock and stunted wind-bent pine trees, and another vampire sliding down toward me from up high. A flash of pale skin on my right, a gleam of fangs behind me.

“Enough play,” someone barked, violent laughter in his voice.

The first grab caught my jacket and yanked me to a stop. I had just enough room to maneuver out of the sleeves and leave it behind. The cold air slapped my bare arms, but I wore the coat mostly out of habit anyway. I didn’t need it. And I certainly didn’t need it to fight. I managed to get just out of reach, but the way was blocked by a pile of boulders from some long-ago avalanche. Moonlight fell on moss and frost and the leaf-bare silhouette of twisted trees. I leaped forward, intending to scale the uneven pile. I’d take my chances with gravity over the lot behind me.

Not that I had a choice.

A length of rope snaked over my shoulders and yanked me backward. I landed hard, my back teeth snapping together. I rolled into the fall and twisted back on my feet, shrugging out of the rope. I threw my stake as I rose out of a crouch. It caught one of my pursuers in the chest, right over his heart. I grabbed for one of the rocks I’d landed on, tearing up my pants and my knee underneath the thick fabric. Blood dripped into the mud. The vampire clutched at the stake stuck between his ribs. I threw the rock as hard as I could, and it hit the wooden stake with an audible thud. The point slid past muscles and bone, straight into his heart. He collapsed into dust, leaving behind a pile of dark clothes.

There was an angry yell from one of his companions. The rope slid away, was tossed back at me. I managed to dodge out of the way, barely. It nearly took out my left eye. I had weapons, but I had no room, no escape route. My only chance was to wear them down before I tired myself out. I wasn’t hopeful. I might have eliminated one, but there were still four others.

They circled me and I couldn’t stop them. I was too busy ducking rope and stakes. They didn’t seem to be aiming for my heart, but a pointy stick in the throat or the arm wasn’t any more fun.

“Who are you?” I snapped. I was surrounded now. There was nowhere else to go. “What the hell do you want?” Because with every moment they were proving if they’d wanted me dead, I’d be ashes already. This was about something else. Solange, my mother, my last name. It was all the same in a dark crevice in the mountains. And I wouldn’t give any of them up.

They grinned at me, showing fangs and bloodstained collars. They held thick branches, a combination of pointed-stake and short staff. They didn’t use the odd staves to run me through or bash me in the head. Instead, they held them end to end and closed in until they were close enough to punch. I raised my fists. I had every intention of going down fighting.

Instead, the one closest to me whipped a handful of Hypnos at me before I could duck. It wouldn’t have mattered; the others threw their own Hypnos and the white powder dusted over me, stinging my eyes, catching in the back of my throat. It tasted sickly sweet, like wilted lilies, chocolate, and copper.

“Stop fighting,” the vampire who seemed to be the leader ordered.

Colors changed, as if I were in an overexposed photograph; too much light here, too much dark there, and a strange acidic green to the pine trees. My fists unclenched, arms lowering. I was trapped inside a cloud of passive panic, aware of my surroundings, aware of my desperate need to put up a fight and utterly unable to do anything about it. I bared my fangs but it was all I could manage. I couldn’t even hiss.