Blood Prophecy

CHAPTER 9



Christabel


Tuesday night


I hadn’t had a chance to read an entire novel in weeks.

Whatever the others might say about politics, civil war, and hunters, the real evil here was lack of reading time. If they all read more they might freak out less. And if I was going to live forever I was going to have to start a reading list.

Starting with How to Survive Your Boyfriend’s Family.

Well, not boyfriend exactly. I’d only known him a few weeks. But we were dating . . . when we weren’t running for our lives.

Connor kept pace beside me, alert for sounds that I still couldn’t quite catalogue. After all, it’s not like I’d had much experience with the skittering of beetles under tree bark or an owl fluffing her wings a hundred feet over my head. It was disconcerting but at least it didn’t give me splitting headaches anymore. And I kind of loved that I was only wearing a thin shirt and Aidan’s wampum belt under my army jacket but I wasn’t the least bit cold. I could run faster than any other creature in the forest, even in my heavy combat boots. And even when I had mixed feelings as to where I was running to.

Aidan was the one who’d turned me into a vampire. He’d saved my life by doing so, but he’d been the one to kidnap me and put me in danger in the first place. All because he thought I was Lucy and could give him leverage with the Drakes. The Drakes, who weren’t too bothered with leverage at the moment, since their daughter had just had the mother of all temper tantrums. The temper tantrums I was used to didn’t come with tiaras.

“Your family sure is high maintenance,” I muttered, nearly tripping over a root because the sound of mole digging underneath startled me.

“Didn’t used to be.” Connor flashed me a very brief, slightly sad smile. “Not like this.”

I was an idiot. He’d basically watched his little sister go darkside, as he put it, and it had sent the whole family into a tailspin. I stopped running. “I’m sorry,” I said softly, twining my fingers through his. “Are you okay?”

He nodded, squeezing my hand. “Sure.”

“Are all your brothers as bad a liar as you are?” I asked, stepping closer. I could see the widening of his pupils, and the pale blue fire of his irises. He’d told me my eyes would change too, would go lighter until they looked like amber. I couldn’t imagine they’d be half as beautiful as his. He was gentle and self-deprecating and way tougher than people gave him credit for. And twin or not, he was even hotter than Quinn, in my humble opinion.

I kissed him hard but quick. Making out in the woods wouldn’t make him feel better the way finding a solution to his family’s dilemma would, but for now it was all I could offer.

“You’ll get through this,” I promised him, the same way he’d promised me I’d survive when I was fighting the bloodchange.

“I know.” The dangerous edge he usually kept so hidden, the one that sent all sort of delicious shivers over the backs of my knees, flashed through his usually kind expression. He crowded me back against a tree, moving so quickly it was like a backward dance too fast for human eyes to see. His kiss was considerably darker than mine had been. It made me catch my breath, even though I didn’t breathe anymore. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to that. If I thought about the emptiness in my chest where there should be a heartbeat, I got sweaty and panicky.

“We’re going to get Solange back,” he said, against my mouth. My fangs poked into my bottom lip. “Thanks to you.”

“We don’t know if Aidan will even help us,” I felt the need to point out. “And Saga’s not exactly predictable.”

“You’re our best hope.”

“If you call me Obi-Wan I’m going to kick you.”

He grinned. “Hot. Say Obi-Wan again.”

I laughed, shoving his shoulder. “Shut up.”

The only reason I was their best hope was the same reason I wore Aidan’s wampum belt: he considered me his emissary. I wasn’t just a regular vampire, I was Na-Foir like him. The rest of the vampire world was only just finding out about us. Apparently they’d been hiding for centuries, because the intense blue rivers of our veins made us appear faintly blue all over. As in Hel-Blar blue. And I’d had enough experience with the Hel-Blar to understand the fear. Still, I wasn’t Hel-Blar. I wasn’t that sick gangrene-blue and I didn’t smell like an old swamp. According to Connor, I smelled like cinnamon. That wasn’t exactly enough to convince the others; they either stared at me or went to great lengths to avoid eye contact. Except for Sky, who was more interested in convincing me to let her read one of my poems; Uncle Geoffrey, who wanted to study me; and Lucy, who didn’t seem to notice the stuff other people got all worked up about.

“Where to now?” Connor asked, since I was the only one who knew the directions to their hideout.

Technically.

“Is that a cedar or a pine tree?” I asked, annoyed. “And what the hell does starboard mean?”

“I think it’s pirate for ‘right,’ ” Connor replied. He was taking a risk coming with me but he wouldn’t change his mind. Aidan and Saga knew him so it would probably be all right. We kept running between the trees while I tried to remember if that boulder on the right was the one I was looking for.

And to think right now, my mother probably assumed I was home reading a book. She still had no idea what I’d become. And I wasn’t going to tell her until she was out of rehab. And stable.

The fallen log beside us looked vaguely familiar.

So did the dagger that whistled through the air and slammed into the ground in front of us. Jewels glinted in the hilt. Connor leaped in front of me while I stumbled back.

Saga laughed and we both looked up to see her standing on the edge of a rock outcropping, half hidden by the top of an enormous cedar hedge. Her hands were on her hips and her red hair streamed down her back. She wore a vest over a white shirt, ripped jeans, and tall boots. “If it isn’t my favorite scalawags. Fancy a cup of grog?”

“Um, no thanks.” Grog was the most disgusting thing I’d ever drunk, including blood. And Connor’s uncle Geoffrey still had to hook me up for blood transfusions every dusk because I just couldn’t stand the idea of swallowing blood.

“Christabel,” Aidan said quietly, emerging from the green boughs. I hadn’t even noticed him there, watching us. Judging by Connor’s violent start, he hadn’t either. “What brings you here?” He glanced at Connor. “Has your sister quit playing queen and finally called council?”

“I need to ask you something,” I said. “If you can help us, you might get your council faster.”

“Come along then,” he said, vanishing back into the cedar. We followed him to a hidden wall of rock, looking up to the caves where Saga was standing.

“Come on, lass,” she grinned. “Climb up to the eagle’s nest.”

Climbing up wasn’t easy, despite the fact that I could move faster than ever before. I still clung to thick roots and crumbling rock, muttering lines from “The Highwayman” under my breath for comfort. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until Connor came up beside me.

“Don’t worry,” he said. He scaled the rest of the outcropping and reached down to help me up. The treetops were far below us, like pointy green spears. I felt better with sturdy ground under my boots. Behind us, the cave opening led into a scattering of smaller caves. It smelled damp and cold, even with the candles burning in the dirt along the back. Saga sat on a pile of furs, drinking from a leather wineskin. Aidan crouched beside her, the bear claw around his neck swinging like a hypnotist’s pendulum.

“We need one of those copper collars,” I blurted out. So much for suave political negotiation.

“Liam sends children to parley?” Saga asked.

“Liam isn’t asking,” I said. “I am.” He didn’t even know we were here. None of the brothers had suggested telling him. Though apparently, Logan was sure Sebastian would mention it so no one had told him either.

Logan’s girlfriend Isabeau thought she might be able to undo some of the magic that Solange had unleashed by taking the crown from Helena. But we needed a collar to keep her powerless long enough to try. I didn’t really know Solange. What little I’d seen of her, I sincerely hoped she was ill, like the Drakes thought. But in the end it didn’t matter. I was doing this for Lucy and for Connor. But Aidan and Saga couldn’t know about any of it. No one could. Even I knew that if word of that kind of vulnerability got out, it would be disastrous.

“And why should we help you?”

I narrowed my eyes at them both. “I seem to recall saving you from a stake to the chest. Not to mention a horde of rabid Hel-Blar and angry Helios-Ra hunters.” And then we’d blown up the town, which Saga and Aidan had made their home base. No one was perfect.

“She has fire.” Saga approved, though her eyes were silvery and cold. “I’ll give you that.”

“If I could have just one collar, I could bring it to Solange,” I said. “We might convince her to hold the council.”

“You don’t care about the council,” Aidan pointed out. “So why do you really want the collar, Christabel?”

“Proof,” Connor interjected. We’d already decided on the proper misdirection when they started asking too many questions about Solange.

“Proof of what, boy?”

Connor’s jaw clenched. I knew he hated it when they called him ‘boy’ like that. “Proof that you still have information to share with my uncle. You said so yourself, your scientist was eaten. What if something happens to you too?”

“Are you threatening me?” Saga’s movements were silky with menace. She could have been on a ship’s deck, light on her feet and quicker than wind in a sail. Connor barely had a chance to react. By the time I’d blinked, he was flat on his back in the dirt with the tip of Saga’s dagger scraping his Adam’s apple.

I jumped forward but Aidan held me back with an arm around my waist. It stopped me so abruptly I heard something in my neck crack. I struggled briefly but I’d have had better luck snapping steel cables in half with my bare hands when I was still human. “Stop it,” I yelled.

Connor swallowed, his blue eyes not leaving hers. “I only meant, what if one of your Hel-Blar gets loose? You don’t have the whistle to control them anymore. Anything could go wrong.”

She let him up as quickly as she’d taken him down. Adrenaline spiked through me, making me tremble as Aidan released me. Connor got to his feet warily. There was a tiny drop of blood on his throat.

“It doesn’t matter,” Aidan said. “We don’t have any to spare.”

“But . . .”

“You blew up our stash, remember?” Saga pointed out. “Along with my whistle.”

Oops.

“You have to have at least one. That’s all I want. I mean, you had two of the Hel-Blar with you at the coronation.” They’d strained on their leashes, held there by the collar and the threat of Saga’s fury. The next day I’d dreamed it was me on that leash.

“I’ve no intention of making us vulnerable so you can impress your boyfriend,” Saga said darkly. “We’ve few enough left in our army. And we still have need of them, clearly. The new queen is hardly living up to expectations.”

Connor clenched his fist, struggling with his temper. I stepped partially in front of him. “There must be something.”

“Max is guarding the last of our army, before you get any ideas. And he’s under orders to kill anyone who tries to get past him. You included,” Saga added. “But I reckon you could find a few of my escaped pets near the bogs east of here. Word has it mountain lion carcasses were found there, and a mess they’d made too. You could try your luck,” she shrugged. Aidan shot her a look. She just smiled.

“Christabel, let’s go,” Connor murmured, nudging me back toward the opening of the cave. “They’re not going to help.”

The climb down the rocks was easier, since I pretty much slid down on my butt the entire way. Connor caught me before I brained myself on a boulder.

“Christabel?” Aidan said from the top of the outcropping. I glanced up through the cedar needles. “Be careful.”

Connor tugged me out of the bushes onto the path before I could reply. He glanced over his shoulder a few times before feeling safe enough to pull out his phone to message his brother. “Plan B,” he said.

Quinn met us at the river ten minutes later. I was already lost. Being a vampire didn’t suddenly negate the fact that I’d been a city girl for eighteen years. I didn’t know my way around the forest. A tree was a tree was a tree.

Quinn pushed away from a boulder he’d been leaning against, tossing his hair off his forehead. He was so much like his brother, and yet it was like looking at a stranger who’d stolen Connor’s face. “So what’s plan B, exactly?”

“You heard Saga.” I glanced at Connor. “The bogs. Saga said there are some runaway Hel-Blar with collars living there. So I’ll be bait. They’ll chase me, thinking I’m weak. And then you’ll grab one.”

Quinn looked at Connor then groaned. “Oh my God, it’s like talking to Lucy.”

Connor jerked his hand through his hair. “Christa, you can’t fight.” He took a healthy step out of range while Quinn grinned. “You’re not trained.”

“I can run,” I argued. “Look, do we need this damn collar or not?” He nodded reluctantly. “Then let’s go already.” I took off, assuming they’d catch up. When I couldn’t hear them, I stopped, turning around with a glower. “What?”

Connor’s mouth quirked. “The bogs are that way,” he said, pointing in the other direction.

“Well, crap,” I muttered, doubling back.

It took us just over an hour to get to the bogs. Quinn scaled one of the trees and jumped from branch to branch, keeping an eye out. Connor grabbed my hand.

“Christa, are you sure about this?”

“I have drunken deep of joy, And I will taste no other wine tonight” I quoted Shelley.

“I’m not sure what that means about tonight,” he returned drily. “But watch your back.”

I kissed him hard. “You too.”

This was way more nerve-racking than walking downtown alone in the middle of the night. At least there were streetlights there and I knew the layout of the roads and subway stations. Here it was just murky, soft mud under my boots, making a sucking sound with every step. The deeper in I went, the more it smelled like rot and mildew. I shivered.

I was trying to fight my way out of a clump of thick bulrushes when I smelled blood.

The severed remains of a cougar lay in bloody clumps a few feet away. And a few more feet beyond that, a Hel-Blar crouched, sniffing the air. I froze. He wasn’t wearing a collar. It wouldn’t do us any good if I was caught by him. I searched the cattails and bare branches for another flash of blue, or the glint of copper.

He sniffed again, with a raw snorting sound. “I smell that rotter Aidan,” he said. Most of them didn’t speak, but the ones that did were even more terrifying. Another Hel-Blar shuffled forward, hunched over as if she was walking on all fours. She wore a copper collar and was clearly beyond speech. She howled and gnashed her teeth, saliva dripping off her bloodstained chin. I didn’t know if it was the collar or captivity that had made her like that, or if she’d always been savage. Two more Hel-Blar shuffled out of the weeds to join her. I backed up a step.

Predictably, I snapped a twig under my foot.

I’d once had to climb over a violent, passed-out drunk who hung out behind my favorite bookstore downtown and he’d never even paused in his snoring. Here in the country, I was hopeless.

And about to get eaten.

“Shit!” I yelled, abandoning any pretense at dignity or stealth. I launched into a run, the twisted reeds grabbing at my feet. I slipped and fell, my knee hitting a rock. Pain shot up my leg, water soaking into my jeans. I flailed forward out of the bog. The branches poked and bit at me and I put my arms up to shield my face so I wouldn’t lose an eye.

The Hel-Blar closed in. The screeching and clacking of jaws behind me made me run faster, made me sweat.

The first Hel-Blar was the closest behind me. He snarled and spat, and was also the first to fall into dust at the end of one of Quinn’s crossbow bolts. He was perched up in a tree like a particularly vicious squirrel, laughing. Connor darted out to block the next Hel-Blar. He flung a stake, hurling the Hel-Blar off his feet and pinning him to a pine tree like an insect. It didn’t kill him, but at least it took him out of the fight temporarily.

The female curled her hands like claws, clacking her pointed needle teeth at me. She howled incoherently when I darted out of the way. My ankle hit the edge of a big rock and I stumbled, landing on my tailbone. The Hel-Blar laughed, stinking of pond scum. A crossbow bolt slammed between us, flinging mud and stones. I flung handfuls of dirt at her face until she blinked madly, covering her eyes.

Connor was fighting the other two and they circled him like hyenas with fresh meat. Their dusky blue skin and bloody teeth made them even more frightening. They widened their jaws, showing off their fangs. My own automatically extended in reaction.

Connor drove his heel into the stomach of the one nearest to him and ducked a wild swing from his howling companion. He came up, stake held against his forearm, the way he’d once taught me. The force drove the weapon into the Hel-Blar’s chest, sliding up under the skin, the muscles, and the ribs to pierce his heart. Ash clouded the cold air. Connor kicked the last one into the woman who was still trying to grab at my feet. They both sprawled in the dirt with the crack of bones and teeth.

But he’d forgotten about the one pinned to the tree.

We all had.

He’d pushed through the stake so that there was a ragged hole in his shoulder, bleeding sluggishly. “Connor!” I shouted, but I was too late.

Connor flew over me and hit a trunk, falling into the undergrowth. The tree shuddered, raining pine needles. Quinn dropped down off his branch, a stake in each hand. He jammed one of the stakes into the shoulder of the Hel-Blar who’d hurt Connor. The Hel-Blar shrieked, trying to yank the weapon out. Quinn shifted so he was shielding me.

Connor shook his head as if it was ringing, as he pushed himself back up. “Quinn, behind you!”

Quinn spun, his arm extended and stake out. He caught the Hel-Blar Connor had thrown at the woman. More ash and blood splattered and Quinn flipped out of its trajectory. Connor spun, jamming his stake into the woman’s chest as she leaped at me again. She snarled and then crumpled to ash.

Connor flipped his hand over, catching the collar before it hit the ground. He smirked, just like Quinn.

“Got it.”