Hearts At Stake

chapter 15

Solange

I only woke up because I had a mouthful of mud and a lump of hard dirt as a pillow.

“Ow.” I sat up, blinking blearily. “What the hell, you guys?”

“Shh,” Connor hissed at me, his hand covering my mouth. “We’re not alone.” I could barely hear him, he was speaking so softly. I couldn’t hear heartbeats or frightened porcupines or twigs snapping under combat boots, but I knew the rest of my brothers could. He drew a sun in the dirt at our feet. I could barely make out the shape in the moonlight falling through the branches. Not just vampires then.

Helios-Ra.

The wind was warm, persistent. The crickets had stopped singing, no doubt sensing predators in every corner of the forest. This was our forest, damn it. The Helios-Ra had no business here.

Shadows flitted between the trees, making an unearthly sigh of displaced air. A vampire screamed and turned to dust, billowing between the leaves. A wooden Helios-Ra stake bit the maple tree behind her as she crumbled. Someone screeched. Connor leaped into the fray before I could stop him. Marcus was fighting, and Quinn, of course, who couldn’t be kept from a good fight no matter the circumstances. Logan crouched between me and the worst of it, Duncan was farther behind, guarding our back. It was standard formation, one my mother drilled into us along with our ABCs and why we mustn’t tell anyone our parents had fangs and drank blood instead of coffee. For my mother to have been truly proud, we should have had the high ground.

We didn’t.

In fact, we weren’t even all accounted for. “Where’s London?” I asked.

“She took off,” Logan answered grimly. “She ran off down some tunnel while you were napping.”

“And you didn’t go after her?”

“Little busy for a temper tantrum.”

“She probably feels bad about dragging me to court.”

“Too busy for that, too. She’ll be fine,” he added. “And anyway, she mentioned something about doing some recon of her own. The royal guard should have been there to protect you if you were such an honored guest. She wants to know what’s going on.”

“Everything’s a sad-ass mess, is what’s going on,” I muttered. “Doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.”

I didn’t even know how far away from the farm we were, having slept through a good part of the journey. We could be half an hour away or three hours. The stars were faint above us, visible only when there was a particularly violent gust of wind. I studied their patterns, as much as I was able. The moon hung low.

“Nearly dawn,” I muttered at Logan. “We have to get out of here.”

“You think?” he muttered back, using that tone reserved for only the most annoying of little sisters. I rose to my feet, feeling as if I were moving through water. I was that tired, with my eyes burning and my throat clenched against a yawn. Logan glared at me.

“Get back down.”

I shook my head. “We’re outnumbered.”

“Not the first time,” he grunted, ramming a stake into the heart of a vampire Connor flipped toward him. A hiss, a burst of dust.

“I can smell her,” someone interrupted, excitement thrumming through his voice. I had no desire whatsoever to meet the owner of that voice. The moon continued to drop behind the horizon. I dove toward Logan, coming up at his side. I yanked stakes out of his back holster.

“Stay down, damn it.”

“She’s mine.” One of the vampires caught my scent and turned sharply away from where he’d been beating Duncan to a pulp. The vampire looked around, distracted. “Solange? I’m here for you, my love.”

“If he starts spouting poetry I’m staking him myself,” I promised through my teeth. Duncan rolled toward us, a deep gash bleeding profusely on his head. Blood matted his hair to the side of his face. Logan’s nostrils flared.

“Cutting it close, aren’t you?” he muttered.

“Bastard’s stronger than he looks,” Duncan muttered back as I propped him up against a tree. I swallowed against the gag reflex when his blood oozed over my fingers.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He wiped his face with his sleeve. “It’s healing already.”

The sounds of battle came closer.

Too close.

I heard the snap of a twig. And then Marcus roaring. Not a twig. His arm.

I threw one of my stakes. It didn’t hit the vampire’s heart but she did stumble back, hissing. Marcus hid himself in the bushes, cradling his injured arm. Quinn laughed even though he was fighting off a vampire and a Helios-Ra agent who were also fighting each other. Fists thudded into flesh. Blood splattered through the air. The darkness was fading slowly to the gray light of predawn, glinting off night-vision equipment. I sat back on my heels, stomach clenching.

“Logan,” I said. “There’s too many of them.”

“We’re fine,” he insisted.

“Are not,” I insisted right back. “You guys have to get out of here.”

“We’re trying,” Duncan grunted.

“I mean right now. Without me.”

“Forget it.”

“We have you surrounded,” a voice announced over some kind of scratchy amplifier. Quinn blinked, midpunch.

“Cops?”

“Worse,” the vampire currently ducking hissed. “Helios-Ra.”

“Damn it all to hell, they’re not even being subtle about it.”

“We only want the girl, not the bounty,” the amplified voice shouted out. “We’re willing to let the rest of you go.”

“Bite me,” Quinn suggested.

“And me,” his new friend agreed.

The sun was hovering on the edge of the horizon. I could see it in my brothers’ faces. A fine sweat beaded Logan’s forehead, and vampire body temperature was generally much lower than human temperature. To see one sweat was rare. Very rare. His face looked drawn too, nearly gray with fatigue. Duncan’s hand shook as he shoved himself to his feet.

We could probably fight our way through the others. After all, they’d have to seek cover soon, just as we would. But even if we did get through them with minor damage, we still had to get through the Helios-Ra, who could lie out in the bright sunlight and just wait for my brothers to sicken and die. My choices were narrowing drastically. I knew what I had to do. I also knew that each and every one of my pig- headed brothers was faster than me. I couldn’t hope to outrun them.

But I could take them by surprise.

I let them mutter among themselves, let Logan pull me to my feet. The other vampires scattered, like earwigs under a shifted stone. The leaves barely trembled at their passing. Quinn and Marcus closed in and Connor moved toward us through the undergrowth. An arrow whistled between the trees and hit him in the shoulder. He jerked back, clutching at his bloody arm.

“I’m all right,” he told us, jaw clenched in pain.

“A warning shot,” an agent called out. “Next time we hit the heart.”

My brothers were scowling at each other, dragging Connor to safety.

Now or never.

If I thought about it too long I might wimp out.

Now.

I eased away from Duncan, who was half–turned away to prop up Connor. Only Logan blocked me and he wasn’t expecting me to knee him in the kidney and then leapfrog over him as he doubled over.

So that was exactly what I did.

A rain of Helios-Ra arrows flew over me, biting the ground behind me like the ramparts of a castle fort. They protected me from my brothers, who had to halt their forward charge, if only for a moment.

“Your word,” I yelled, running even though my legs felt like lead and my lungs burned. “Your word my brothers go free.”

“Take her.”

They swarmed around me like beetles. I jerked away, all instinct and thrumming adrenaline. They were faceless, eye goggles obscuring their features, and black vests, black pants, black boots.

The sun crested the horizon, dripping softly between the leaves.

“Run, you idiots!” I hollered at my brothers as my arms were seized. I knew they didn’t really have any other option. The sun was now bleeding through the trees. They wouldn’t even be able to make it home. They’d have to use one of the caves or the secret safe houses, and by house, I really meant hole in the ground.

“Got her.”

“This is her?” one of the agents said as they began to march me through the forest. A few of his companions were hobbling, one was being carried. “She’s just a kid.”

I knew what he saw: a fifteen- year-old girl in a muddy slip dress and scratches all over her arms from running through the woods. His companion shrugged.

“Bounty’s the same. And anyway, come her birthday she’ll be a monster like the rest of them.”

“The Drakes are all right,” someone else muttered. “They’re on the Raktapa Council, at least. Now, would you stop your damn gossip and hurry the hell up?”

I was so tired I could barely see straight. I shuffled my feet, hardly having the energy to lift them off the ground.

“What’s the matter with you?” he snapped. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m tired.”

“Fresh out of coffee, princess, so move your ass.”

The morning continued to unfurl around us in pink misty dampness, as if we sat in the center of a rose after a rain. The leaves shivered above us, so green they nearly glowed. Birds sang cheerfully, oblivious to my predicament. Pine needles crunched under our passage.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked, biting back a yawn.

They didn’t answer as they formed a tight circle around me, one I knew I had no hope of breaking through, especially since I felt about as strong as a wet noodle. I squinted at the sunlight, eyes tearing. I hoped my brothers were safe. They’d be nearly defenseless. Each of them was still new enough to the bloodchange that they slept hard, too hard to defend themselves quickly if there was an attack.

We continued to march along until I began to recognize where we were. The mountains were on our right and a small lake glistened in a lower valley. The tunnel ran right underneath us, no one the wiser. I was so close to an escape and it might as well have been on the other side of the planet for all the good it did me. Even if I could get to one of the doorways, which was doubtful, I couldn’t afford to give away the secret location to the Helios-Ra. I was thinking so hard I didn’t see the shadow leap down from a tall gray aspen, scowling fiercely. He wore unrelieved black like the others and was armed to the teeth. His dark eyes pinned me.

“What the hell is she doing here?”

Kieran Black.