Hotbloods (Hotbloods #1)

I placed my bowl on the ground and waved my hands to get Angie and Lauren’s attention. When they looked, I put a finger to my lips and gestured that they follow me. Together we crept to the edge of the bush and peered around it as much as we dared.

It was hard to find them amongst all the trees, but my eyes finally settled on two tall, dark, winged figures, standing on a thick branch, about seven feet off the ground. I couldn’t make out their faces, because their backs were to us, but as I listened more closely, I realized it was Jethro and Ianthan. They had come some way from their enclosure, as the beginning of their fence was at least a ten-minute walk from here… well, probably only a few seconds of flying at their speed. But I wondered what they were doing out here, away from their plot of land.

If we weren’t in the middle of nowhere, I wouldn’t have been able to hear them from this distance, but the almost deafeningly quiet atmosphere worked to my advantage. I could just decipher their words, and from the tone of their voices, it sounded like they were having an argument.

“—didn’t think it through,” Ianthan said.

“You had plenty of time to think this through!” Jethro retorted.

“You pressured me, Father. And things seemed different when we were back home, with distance between the plan and its actual execution. I’m telling you now, I don’t…I can’t go through with this. Navan is my best friend! I’d rather face the consequences than betray him.”

“Fool boy! Navan will get caught sooner or later for deceiving Queen Gianne, regardless of our actions. You really think he can keep up this charade forever? Besides, we don’t even have to blow the whistle on him. All we need to do is follow the blood sample back to Queen Brisha—if all goes to plan, we won’t need to see the face of Queen Gianne ever again. Queen Brisha will grant us immunity from her sister’s wrath and—”

“Wha—What do you mean follow the blood sample?”

“I extracted a blood sample from one of the girls last night—hardly difficult to do while I was flying her back to their house—and sent off the sample in a pod, early this morning before Navan woke up. It’s on its way to Vysanthe now, waiting for us to follow in the ship—”

“What? That wasn’t part of the plan!”

“No, it wasn’t. But neither was those girls barging into the house. It was the perfect opportunity to get a sample on its way discreetly.”

“But—”

“Look, Ianthan. I’m sick of arguing with you. Vysanthe will discover humans at some point, whether we’re involved or not—it’s only a matter of time before they figure out how to build a ship like Navan’s. We might as well derive some benefit from Earth’s discovery. Think of your future, of your wife and children… Which side would you prefer to be on, when it all goes down? Brisha’s or Gianne’s? If you possess half a brain you’ll answer Brisha, because she will become Empress. She will be the first to bring war to Gianne’s gate, and she will be the one to unite Vysanthe. You will thank me for getting us on Brisha’s side when that happens, mark my words.”

My heart was in my throat.

Betray Navan?

Two Queens?

A blood sample taken from one of us, on its way to Vysanthe?!

Nausea rippled through me, and I looked in alarm at my two friends. All of us began frantically checking our bodies for any signs of pricked skin. I checked my arms, legs, stomach, but found nothing, then asked Angie to check the parts I couldn’t see without a mirror, while I did the same for her.

“Your neck!” she suddenly gasped, running a finger along the skin near the base of my throat, just above my collarbone. “You see that, Lauren,” she said, pulling Lauren closer to me. “Two tiny pricks—they look so small they could be mosquito bites. I guess they must be from his fangs.”

My stomach plummeted, and I suddenly felt imaginary pinpricks all over. That guy… he had bitten me while I’d been asleep. I felt utterly violated. But that was the least of my worries.

“He took my blood and—” I stopped abruptly as their conversation resumed.

“Navan and Bashrik leave in less than an hour for town, to procure more basic provisions for Ronad after his transformation,” Jethro said. “We have to leave with the ship then. It’ll be painless, I promise. Ronad still can’t walk. You won’t even have to look any of the brothers in the eye.”

There was another pause in which every part of me prayed that Ianthan would resume his moral ground and refuse to be swayed by his father’s words.

But instead he replied, in a low, resigned voice, “All right. Let’s get this over with.”

How can you say that?! I screamed at him in my mind. You said Navan is your best friend!

The two coldbloods shifted on the branch, spreading their wings to take flight. We scrambled backward to conceal ourselves behind the bush. We froze, listening to the sound of their rustling wings transporting them back to their base.

And then we stared at each other, wide-eyed and panicked.





Chapter Eleven





We had less than an hour to try to do something—if anything could even be done. Jethro already said that the pod was on its way to Vysanthe. Even if we somehow managed to warn Navan and Bashrik before they left for town, and they thwarted Jethro and Ianthan leaving with Navan’s ship, wouldn’t it still be too late?

“Maybe Navan could go after the pod in his ship and catch it before it reached Vysanthe and… whoever ‘Queen Brisha’ is,” Angie said. “His ship might be faster than the pod.”

“Right,” I said, trying to steady my racing mind, and tamp down the nausea that kept rising in my throat. “Yes, th-that’s possible. So… what do we do?”

The thing was, we weren’t supposed to remember anything about the coldbloods. Even if we managed to reach Navan, and got a word with him in private, who was to say he wouldn’t slit our throats before we could warn him? I had broken my promise, and that might be what he’d focus on. I couldn’t shake the vision of him bearing his fangs and claws at us, soon after we’d arrived at the house. He had looked downright ferocious, like he could tear us to shreds in a matter of seconds. Who knew how he would react?

But there was simply too much at stake not to try.

Angie cast a glance toward the Churnleys’ house, and I followed her gaze. It was bizarre to look across the pretty garden surrounding the couple’s home, flowers strewn and buzzing with honeybees—so at odds with the turbulent world within my brain.

“We could take some guns with us,” Angie said, her voice coming out as a croak.

“Guns,” Lauren murmured. “How will they help, exactly?”

“Well, obviously we’ve got to go back to that house and warn Navan and Bashrik,” Angie said, running her tongue over her lower lip. “And with guns, at least we won’t be as helpless as we were last time, against… whatever obstacles we might face.”

“Do you know how to use a gun, Lauren?” I asked, putting my hand on her shoulder, trying to comfort her.

“My uncle showed me how to use one, but…”