Defiance

by Lili St. Crow

  The blade bit deep. Hawthorn wood is venomous to nosferat, deadly just like the happy stuff in a svetocha’s blood. I could probably weaken this sucker just by exhaling in his presence, once I bloomed. But right now I was stuck with an unreliable aspect and my speed beginning to flag despite the spur of bloodhunger.

  Ash darted in, and his claws flickered as they opened up the nosferat’s belly. The thing screamed, a high thin cry of hatred, and I brought my crossed malaika down. It was a risky move, and Christophe would freak out because I never pulled it off right in practice.

  This wasn’t practice. And this one time, I pulled it off. The blades turned into scissors, and they cut deep on both sides of the blond’s throat. The sucker’s cry cut off midway on a gurgle, its head lolling back and dangling from a strip of meat, and caustic black blood sprayed. I skipped back, both malaika still held at the ready. Ash fell back, too, still growling and flanking me. More footsteps, but I knew who they were.

  The wulfen flowed down the street, some of them dropping from rooftops. Their lean dark forms spilled between shadows, and their eyes were orange and yellow lamps. They descended on the struggling nosferat, and the wet ripping sounds were enough to fill my throat with bile.

  At least it got the sweet copperheat of my own blood off my tongue.

  Ash moved closer. He wasn’t growling anymore. The inky textures of his pelt moved as he did, the change rippling through him but not all the way. He still couldn’t turn back into a boy.

  On the other hand, Shanks could. He halted just beside me, shaking his head. His dark hair flew, settled into its usual emo-boy fringe across his forehead. “You hit me.”

  “Sorry about that.” I didn’t relax, staring at the knot of shaggy forms. They parted, and there was nothing but a jumbled collection of sucker bits, torn Armani, and a lake of black blood. “Really.”

  He massaged his jaw, shifting his weight from one long leg to the other. He’d probably bruise, but it wouldn’t stay more than an hour or two. “Yeah, well. Congratulations.”

  For what? My arms relaxed a little. The tips of the wooden swords did not touch the ground, though. Christophe was real keen on that. “What?”

  “Your first kill, ennit?” His shoulder bumped mine. His chest was narrow and pale under the open corduroy coat, hairless now that he wasn’t under the Change. “And Reynard not around to see it.”

  Oh. I didn’t want to think about it that way. My entire body sagged. Using superhuman strength and speed is no picnic sometimes. When you don’t have the aspect to cushion you, things get real sore real quick. And you don’t get the great part of adrenaline dump after a fight, the part where you feel like you’ve kicked the world’s ass.

  No, you get the morning after, when you wake up with bruises and pulled muscles in places you didn’t even know you had. “You guys were on sweep?”

  “Nah.” He shook his head, subtracting the malaika from me with quick grace. I gave them up without a peep—if he was taking them, it meant the fight was over. The other wulfen slid out of changeform and became boys again, moving into a loose guard ring on the off chance that there were other suckers around. “I just got a few of the boys together. We decided to hang out at a safe distance in case things got interesting. You being bait and all.”

  I was so relieved I didn’t even want to throw a fit over everyone thinking I couldn’t handle myself. I twitched like I was going to hug him, but he stepped away.

  I tried not to feel disappointed. I probably still smelled angry, and wulfen are cautious about getting physical. PDA isn’t their thing unless it’s rough, careless, or between kin. Instead, I tucked more stray curls behind my ears. “Glad you did. Did you bring Ash, or was it Christophe?”

  “Bring him? Nah. Brought himself.” Now Shanks looked amused, one corner of his mouth curling up. “I just figured you didn’t want the door to his room busted again.”

  Well, that answered that question. It hadn’t been Christophe at all. “Great.” My shoulders slumped. I felt like I’d fought through both World Wars without a break.

  Ash glanced up, a quick canine twist of his narrow head. He was oddly clean, no vampire blood on his fur. He proceeded to slump against me, almost throwing my off my feet. For such a big shaggy being, he was incredibly catlike and precise about placing his paws. And incredibly doglike when it came to leaning and gazing up adoringly.

  Nosferat go fast, when they go. This one was just a bubbling mass of stuff that would vaporize into ash when the sun came up. He hadn’t been particularly old, either. Just under a hundred years, if his corpse was reacting like that. All wet rot instead of dry-dusty.

  I just killed him. Or I helped kill him, it’s the same thing. The shaking was new. He would’ve killed me. I just killed him first.

  I reached down, wrapped my fingers in Ash’s fur. Braced myself. “Jesus.”

  “You gonna throw up?” Shanks looked down at me, his lean face shadowed. One corner of his thin mouth quirked up again. He looked just about too pleased with himself. “That’s real common the first time.”

  Ash growled, but softly.

  Now I was cold. My legs were naked, and the dress didn’t cover much. Sweat on bare skin cooled in the faint night breeze. At least the dress was pretty okay—I hadn’t bled on it.

  Much.

  My mother’s locket was skin-warm now, resting against my breastbone and suddenly heavy.

  I shivered. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Sure. Wanna take the subway?” He laughed, a sarcastic little bark. “Kidding, kidding! Let’s get you home.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Schola Prima masquerades as a hoity-toity New York all-boy private school, but you’ll never find the students slumming with their crested blazers thrown over a shoulder. I mean, sure, you’ll see them, but you won’t know they’re from the Schola because they just look like attractive teenage boys in civvies, doing whatever mysterious things teenage boys do. If you ask them where they go to school—nobody asks, but if you did—they’d lie. And if you ever saw them taking on the suckers or anything else that goes bump in the night, well . . . you’d either be dead or traumatized by the experience, and you’d know to keep your mouth shut. Or you’d end up in a loony bin or something. That’s not New York, that’s universal. People just don’t want to see, and the people in power collude.

  Still, I think only in the Big Apple could you drop a huge white-pillared school for the half-vampire and werwulf hunters of the dark forces onto a big piece of prime parklike Manhattan real estate and have nobody even care.

  I dropped down in the red-cushioned chair. To be properly insouciant, I should’ve put my feet up on the glossy conference table, but the skirt was short enough I didn’t want to. Even if every guy on the Council was old enough to be my grandfather. Or older.

  And none of them look a day over twenty-five. Most of them look about seventeen. Christophe muttered sometimes about being trapped in a teenage body, but I hadn’t had the courage to ask him the million questions that brought up. It’s just one of those things.

  I wondered what I’d end up looking like once I bloomed. I couldn’t even guess. If I had to be stuck in my own skinny, gawky, coltish body forever . . . well. It probably wouldn’t be so bad.

  I wouldn’t mind a little more in the chest, though. But wild horses wouldn’t drag that out of me. Ever.

  “Unacceptable,” Hiro said quietly. The word bounced off the table’s shiny surface. His long caramel-colored fingers were wrapped tightly around a white coffee mug, knuckles whitening a little. He was pale under his coloring, and his mouth was set. He looked like a disapproving samurai. “If the wulfen hadn’t been there—”

  “They were there.” I leaned my head back against the chair’s high carved back. My hair was falling down, and my arm and leg were both scabbed over so the happy stuff in my blood wouldn’t drive them all nuts. “Shanks isn’t about to let me go out alone. Just like you guys.”

  Bruce sat r
amrod straight in the chair to my left, his proud beaky nose lifted just a little. “How did they lose you? How did Reynard—”

  “It wasn’t his fault. I bolted because the suckers were covering both entrances, and they’d marked me before the combat units could do any penetration. I had to improvise.” I wished I’d had a chance to change, but debriefing came first. And it was looking like they were calling the operation a failure, even though we’d lured the suckers in that slice of the rave scene out and killed them. “I lost my earpiece while busting out of the cellar, and—”

  Hiro set his cup down and said something quietly that sounded like a curse. He leaned forward, setting his elbows against the table, and dropped his head into his hands. His shoulders actually shook under his gray silk shirt.

  It was amazing. He was always so calm.

  The coffee smelled good, but I didn’t want it. I kept going. “—and I escaped. I was only followed by one sucker; stayed ahead of him long enough for Shanks and the others to move in. Ash was there, and Shanks brought my malaika. It actually went really well. And we’re not going to have any more kids going down under sucker attacks from that bunch, too.” Which was the important thing, right?

  I mean, it was to me.

  The Council room was long and windowless, the buffet up along one wall empty except for the silver samovar and a carafe of hot water for tea. It was always the same in here, right down to the uncomfortable, highly carved, thronelike wooden chairs. Bruce steepled his fingers in front of his chest. The sharply handsome lines of his dark face all conspired to make him a picture of disappointment. How he could look so official, even wearing blue jeans, was beyond me.

  “You are far too precious to risk yourself in this manner,” he said, for the fiftieth time. “You are the only svetocha we—”

  Oh, Lord. Not this again. “I didn’t risk myself. The operation went off successfully, at least as far as my part. I got my first kill. Aren’t you even going to congratulate me?” I managed to sound like I was proud of killing, instead of half sick with a stomach full of nervous bile.

  Hiro stood up, scraping his chair back and tugging at his cuffs to make his sleeves fall right. He must buy those shirts in job lots, because they’re all he wears. Sometimes, if he’s getting really American, he’ll wear dark-wash jeans instead of the loose black trousers. But it’s always a high-collared gray silk shirt and those weird black shoes, with the big toe separated from the rest of the toes and the grippy soles. I was working up the courage to ask him where he got them, Chinatown or something?

  So far, there hadn’t been a good time for that little conversation.

  I was saved further lecturing by the door at the far end of the room opening. Christophe stalked in, his aspect sleeking his hair back and a colorless fume of rage boiling off him like heat-haze above pavement.

  Blue eyes, burning like they were going to set fire to the rest of him. His face worked together well, every line perfectly proportioned to give him just enough handsomeness without going over the top into “too pretty to take seriously.” When he was under the aspect, his hair was dark, lying close to the skull; when he relaxed, it sprang up and the blond streaks came through. I caught my breath.

  Black sweater, a pair of jeans—no sucker blood on him. He was completely clean.

  Good. My shoulders relaxed a little.

  He didn’t even break stride. “Bruce, Hiro. We have confirmed kills.”

  “Including mine?” I tried to find a more comfortable way to slouch in the chair, but nothing worked.

  He brushed past Hiro, the aspect boiling between the two of them and Hiro’s head jerking aside like he smelled something bad. Christophe descended on me, grabbed my shoulders, and hauled me out of the chair. It went over backward and landed with a gun-crack sound, and Bruce let out a yell and shot to his feet.

  “Are you damaged? Are you hurt?” Christophe held me at arm’s length, his fingers gentle but iron-hard. He checked me from top to toe, and his eyes narrowed when he saw the dried blood crusting on my arm and the scrape on my leg.

  “I’m fine.” I said it a little louder than I necessarily had to, but I didn’t try to shake him off. It went better when I let him reassure himself that I was okay. “Really. I did the scissors thing right, too. Shanks had malaika. Ash was there too.”

  “You are never playing bait again.” A muscle flicked once in his cheek. “Never. Do you hear me, moj maly ptasku? They swarmed the club. They knew you were there!”

  “Of course they knew. I’ve been going raving for two weeks to draw out this group of happy little bloodsucking assholes. We made sure they knew. Plus, they’ve done lure-and-kill at every rave from Chelsea to Newark we’ve been able to check.” I leaned forward, but his arms didn’t bend. “I’m fine, Christophe. Only one of them chased me. I got away and—”

  He looked about ready to explode. “I should never have allowed—”

  Oh, for Chrissake. “Allow? What’s this allow? I was ready, wasn’t I? Next time it’ll be better. I got my first kill, Christophe! I used the malaika! Ash was there, too!”

  Well, that was the wrong thing to say. His mouth turned down like I’d just offered him a plate of caterpillars. “I will not trust your safety to the Silverhead.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s more faithful than some I could name.” I shut my mouth, but it was too late. The damage was done. And I’d been sucking at keeping my mouth to myself lately.

  Christophe’s face slammed shut, almost audibly. The aspect fled, blond streaks moving back through his hair as if painted by invisible brushes. He examined me one more time, let go of me finger by finger. “I trust you’re not flinging accusations, Milady.”

  That actually managed to hurt me. “Of course not. I just . . . goddammit, Christophe, can’t you be happy? I got away! I fought! I did what you’ve been training me for!”

  “Nobody’s disputing that.” As usual, Bruce stepped in to smooth things over. He was good at that. I should be taking lessons. “You did very well. We’re just worried for your safety, Milady.”

  I wished I could tell him to quit calling me that.

  It was what they called Anna. Each time one of them used the word it was like a pinch in an already-sore spot. The word bruised me on a daily basis.

  Christophe leaned forward. “You shouldn’t have—”

  Oh, he was so not going to Monday-morning quarterback me. “What, I should have just stayed in there and waited for them to move in and kill me before the combat units could get to me? Then I would have had to fight off six of them instead of just one.”

  “I was on the roof,” he said quietly. “You don’t think I’d send you in alone?”

  Well, it was kind of comforting knowing he’d been there, and the sound of outside I’d gotten through the earpiece made sense now. But still. “You were supposed to! You were home control! You said I was ready!” Ready for an easy operation, ready for the closest thing to safe you can get while hunting suckers!

  “You are ready, but not without me.” His hands flickered forward, and before I knew it, they were cupping my face. He was so damnably fast. “I would not put my little bird in the jaws of a trap without being near enough to make sure it wouldn’t close on her.” Warm skin against mine, and he leaned in. He did smell like a Christmas candle, warm apple spice. It was familiar, and comforting.

  He reeled me in. Our foreheads touched.

  For the first time since the sun went down that evening, I felt safe. He breathed out and I breathed in, and the shaking in me went away little by little. I was vaguely aware of the others watching, but it didn’t seem important. Nothing seemed important when he did this.

  Except sometimes I wished he was someone else. Someone in a long dark coat, with the smell of wulf and wild and strawberry incense on him.

  Which was, again, the wrong thought. My chest tightened, and a shiver went through me.

  Christophe murmured something I didn’t quite catch. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to
pretend it didn’t matter. And also tried to pretend most of me wasn’t running with soft lightning because he was so close. It was like my hormones had decided to stage a revolt whenever he got within a ten-foot radius.

  And wasn’t that confusing and unwelcome? Yessir, it was. Right next to being the best thing I’d felt since the night before Dad’s dead meatless fingers tapped at the glass on our frozen back door, way up in the Dakotas.

  The night everything went sideways and my life imploded.

  He finally pulled away a little and pressed his lips to my forehead, a soft touch. “Nathalie and Benjamin are outside. I’ll be along.”

  In other words, I was dismissed. Bruce was looking up over my head, his face set and a little embarrassed. Hiro had folded his arms and turned, staring at the samovar’s gleam.

  “What about the rest of the Council?” I tried not to sound petulant. Probably failed miserably.

  Christophe’s half-smile would have been chilling if his eyes hadn’t been so soft. He never looked at anyone else like this, and it was a mystery to me how the same blue eyes could be so cold one moment and warm and giving the next. “Would you care to wait for them? I am certain there will be an argument about the night’s events, at which I will be taken to account for risking your safety. It should be most entertaining.”

  He had a point. “Okay. I’ll leave you to take care of that, then.”

  Christophe actually grinned. Without the aspect, his teeth were perfect, white, and wholly human. “I thought so. Happy to be of service, skowroneczko moja. Tomorrow, bright and early. More malaika practice.”

  “Great.” I scrubbed at my forehead with the back of my right hand and scooped the tiny purse off the table. “Bruce, Hiro. Sorry to worry you.” That was as far as I’d go.

  Bruce nodded. His aspect had retreated, and he was just a cute Middle Eastern guy in a green cable-knit sweater and fashionably frayed designer jeans. “We’ll celebrate your first kill, Milady. It’s tradition, after all.”

  The sick feeling returned. “No. I mean, no thanks. It’s okay. Really.”