She didn’t look convinced.
I couldn’t compel her. Between the blindness and the nose plugs, she was as immune as Lucy. Constantine was on my side but we still couldn’t win this. The last time we’d been this outnumbered was when he’d saved me from Lady Natasha’s Furies and I’d had to save him from the Chandramaa. No sooner had the thought entered my mind than I heard the soft beat of leathery wings and the very faint squeaking of nearly a hundred bats. They flew between the red pines, filling the meadow like storm clouds with teeth. They attacked Madame Veronique, who was just now stepping out of the shadows. They bit at the handmaidens but most of all, they bit and gouged at Seki.
And I did the only thing I could do.
I ran.
Seki released silver spikes like deadly rain while the bats gnawed at her hands. Three spikes scraped me at the same time and blood stung my left elbow, right hip, and ankle. I tried to use the trees as a shield, zigzagging so I made a less predictable target. My blood sprinkled the snow and Seki paused, as if sensing my new position even through the swarm of bats. One of the handmaidens threw her own dagger. I glanced over my shoulder just as Seki grabbed her by the throat and snapped her neck. I tripped over a root. The bats flew past me in a stream of dark wings and sharp teeth.
I barely got out of the clearing before a handmaiden tackled me, despite what happened to her sister. We landed hard, branches snapping under us like gunfire. I elbowed her in the eye, struggling to get free. The handmaiden’s eyes were as wild as mine were. I was bruised and scraped all over but I barely felt the pain. There was too much adrenaline sizzling through me. A bat fell next to us, wings torn by a silver spike. She kneed me in the stomach and I flailed, falling back to the icy ground. I pulled her hair because it was all I could reach. I yanked as hard as I could, overbalancing her so that she flew off me. I scrambled to my feet and kicked the dagger out of her hand.
“Where the hell are your guards?” My cousin London crashed through the bushes, incongruous in her gelled hair and super-modern tight black pants. She still had vicious red scars under the strap of her tank top from her encounter with a Huntsman and holy water. I gaped at her. “Shit, London! Run!” I shoved her so hard she stumbled.
Behind us, Constantine emerged from his fight long enough to hurl a dagger at the back of Seki’s head. She leaned casually to the side, avoiding it. The sound of so many bats made the forest shiver. Snow and cold water shook off the pine boughs.
“London, what are you doing here?” I asked, pushing her into a run again. Stakes pierced the air between us. A bat squeaked, pinned to a tree.
“I nearly got you killed last summer but you saved my life this week. I owe you.” She threw me a humorless smile. “Besides, I’m a royalist, remember?” She stumbled, and then shoved me back. “Quit pushing at me, what’s your problem? I can handle a few handmaidens and your weird bats.”
“How about her?” I asked, still pushing her to run faster. “Can you handle that creepy-ass woman?”
London glanced back, spotted Seki between the bats and goggled. “And what the hell is that?”
And then there was just no time left for talking.
Seki had shaken off Constantine and the handmaidens as if they were flies. Her blind eyes were focused intently on me. She slapped bats away from her. And I’d run us into a field of frost and dead grass, with no shelter or shield to speak of. “London, get out of here,” I begged her as we ducked another volley of stakes. One of them stuck in my thigh, jerking me back a step. Blood oozed instantly around the weapon.
I yanked it out just as Madame Veronique strode out of the trees with three more handmaidens, as if she were back at Queen Eleanor’s courts. She was dressed in silk and furs, gold glinting at her girdle and circlet and in her braids. Viola’s hatred and fear of her roiled inside me, making me nauseated, but I didn’t exactly have time for her delicate sensibilities.
Madame Veronique nodded at Seki respectfully.
The bats turned even more vicious. Madame Veronique eyed them balefully. London and I turned sideways, facing away from each other. It was standard defense formation—we made a smaller target and could protect each other’s back. Constantine charged to our side, vampire ashes in his hair. I threw the stake I’d pulled from my leg, still bloody, at a handmaiden. It slammed through her chest and dropped her. She turned to ash as she fell.
Madame Veronique didn’t lift a finger to help, not that Seki needed her help. She was perfectly capable of killing us all on her own. Still, the other handmaidens fanned out, just in case. The bats kept everyone busy. Their sheer number made them a formidable weapon, even to Seki. But they were dying too, whirling as they dropped like punctured seed pods. London looked at me grimly. “We have to—”
A stake slid under her rib cage with such force she crumpled, screaming. I grabbed for her but she was already falling. I flung my hand out, drawing a wreath of bats to hover overhead. The rest concentrated on dive-bombing Seki.
“Son of a bitch, that hurts.” London wheezed, plucking at the stake.
I tried to support her weight, even as I bit through the thin skin of my wrist so she could drink my blood. It had helped heal her before. There was a stake in the undergrowth near my knee. I reached down to grab it as London lifted my wrist to her mouth. Her eyes widened.
That was the only warning.
Suddenly she was yanking me forward and to the side, using the line of my elbow to guide me. At the same time, she swung herself around so that her back was to mine, so that she was facing whatever danger it was that she’d spotted over my shoulder. I didn’t know if it was a handmaiden or Seki or Madame Veronique. I didn’t know if it was spike or stake or sword.
I didn’t even have time to turn around before I heard the sound.
But I knew exactly what I was listening to, knew precisely what that wet fleshy sound meant.
A silver spike pierced her chest, sliding between her ribs and right through her heart. As I turned around, feeling as though my vampire speed was suddenly slow motion, I saw my cousin crumble into ash. Her clothes fell in a heap in the dried leaves and what was left of her body drifted in the frigid air.
London was gone.
I stood slowly, rising like fog off a frozen lake. Shock made me feel hollow and brittle. My triple fangs elongated until my gums felt raw. Bats dipped around me, nipping gently, as if they were trying to comfort me. The others started to screech, like a strange high-pitched battle cry. They gathered between me and the others, blocking stakes and spikes.
“Viola.” Constantine grabbed my hand, forcing me into a run. I let him drag me along until we crossed the river and headed toward the camp. The cold water slapping into my cuts, the snow falling and clinging to my eyelashes like teardrops made me stop.
Constantine turned back, gathering me into his arms. “Are you hurt?”
I shook my head mutely. London. London was hurt. “Why did the Seki mark you?” he asked, his voice feral with anger.
“You know her?”
“I know of them,” he said. “Seki is the name of an assassin clan. They abandon all personal ties, give up their names, and their blood lineage to become paid assassins. They’re incredibly rare, and deadlier even than the Chandramaa. They all answer to the name Seki, if they bother answering at all.”
I swallowed, shivering. “I’ve never even heard of them.”
“You’re safe now.” He stroked my back. My cheek rested on his bare chest. “I love you, Viola,” he murmured into my blood-and-snow-tangled hair. He still hadn’t realized that I wasn’t Viola. She responded inside my body, my heart raced, my belly tingled. Viola wanted to curl into his body and purr. She smiled at him. So I punched him in the face.
“I’m not Viola, you asshole.”
His head snapped back, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. His hands fell away from my waist. “Solange,” he said.
There were so many emotions braided into his voice that I couldn’t distinguish b
etween the threads. I could hear the whole of it, pulsing with pain.
I’d show him pain.
“You helped her possess me,” I said. Viola was trying to chew through my control. I shoved her back viciously. Sweat broke out on the back of my neck as I struggled to hold on. “Traitor.”
“Perspective, love,” he said sadly. “I’m not the villain here. I’m just a guy in love with a girl, same as anyone.”
“Not quite,” I returned.
“I didn’t kill your little hunter, did I? When I had the chance? Or your friend when she threw a stake at me? I’d say you owe me, pet.”
Ice and fire prickled through me and I was half-surprised steam didn’t vent out of my pores. “What did you do to them?” I asked, just before I kicked him right between the legs.
“You’re the hero of your story,” he insisted, though his voice was choked and his eyes nearly crossed as he grabbed at himself. “And I’m the hero of mine.”
I’d thought he was my friend. He’d kissed me. I’d felt guilty but I’d liked it too. I was every bit as much a traitor to Kieran as Constantine was to me. More.
“You’re not a hero.” I choked.
“Aren’t I? Didn’t I get myself changed into a vampire after Viola died? Didn’t I search the earth for eight centuries, waiting for her to come back? Consulting witches and soothsayers?”
“That’s why you became my friend,” I said angrily.
“I knew she’d come back, eventually. There were rumors of magic, and a dead witch at the castle. And her voice, always her voice. Where better than the precious daughter of the Drakes?” His eyes were practically indigo. They glittered like summer storm clouds jagged with lightning. He grabbed my arm. “There was magic when she died. But she was always stronger than everyone assumed. I knew she’d find me. We swore to find each other no matter what.” He smiled at me tenderly. “Can you hear me, Viola? Come back to me, love. No one can stand between us ever again.”
“Until now.” I jerked out of his grasp. I imagined the pheromones sizzling under my skin, felt them rise off me like steam. “Get away from me, Constantine.”
He just looked at me calmly.
“Did you hear me?” I snapped. I flicked my hands as if that would increase my pheromones. “Back off!”
He didn’t move. First Seki, now Constantine.
“What, are my freaking pheromones broken tonight?” I muttered.
He smiled sadly. “I’m sorry, Solange. I truly am. But I can’t lose her again.” He gripped my shoulders, yanking me up against him. His chest pressed against my thin, bloodstained nightgown. I tried to knee him again but he was ready for me this time. I’d wasted a good tactic by acting out of anger. My dad wouldn’t approve. My mom just would have kicked Constantine so hard the first time he’d have passed out.
“You need to take control back, Viola. Now!”
His mouth covered mine in a searing kiss full of longing and desperation and the kind of heat that burned all thought away. I struggled against him but I was distracted, pulled in two directions. Because the kiss awakened Viola and she clawed at her tethers with increased violence. I fought back frantically. The kiss slid through me like a drug, teasing away the sharp edges, the weight of logic.
A kiss to tell the truth from a lie.
“Constantine.” It was Viola speaking, but I was still me. The juxtaposition made me feel all bleached out inside, like the bones of the dead left in the desert. I was sunlight and brittle ash. A strong wind could blow me away entirely.
“Vi!” Constantine was still kissing me. His hands dug into my hair.
“She’s . . . still fighting me,” Viola said. I felt my larynx moving, felt the vibration of sound in my throat. But I wasn’t the one forming the words.
He pulled back slightly. “Hang on! You need more blood.” He tilted his head suddenly, nostrils flaring. “And I smell someone familiar nearby.”
He tipped my head back, staring into my eyes. “Solange. I can smell your little friend Lucy,” he said darkly. “If you keep fighting us, I’ll have Viola drink her dry.”
Chapter 14
Lucy
“What’s going on?” I asked, following Nicholas up the rope ladder. It swung slowly, spinning me around. My stomach wobbled. He climbed up so quickly the ladder only had time to make one more slow, sick spin before he crawled out the trapdoor and was leaning down to lift me out. Frost crunched under my boots. We were in a part of the forest that was mostly red pine, tall and lonely. It was like walking under giants’ legs.
“Royal guards,” he said. “They’re coming this way and they smell violent.” Nicholas sped up and I had to concentrate on keeping up. My school training and workouts with Hunter must be helping because I didn’t die after the first five minutes.
“We have to get you out of here,” he said urgently. “Whoever is possessing Solange is not exactly a people person, and the royal guards obey her without question.”
“We really need to find out who’s doing this to her.” I panted, my breath forming little white clouds in the frigid air. “So we can drag him or her the hell out of Sol.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Nicholas promised.
“Don’t blow your cover.”
He shot me a smirk over his shoulder. “Duh,” he added, because it was what I usually said to him when he told me to be careful or to stay undercover while he dodged stakes and other pointy things that were bad for his health.
“I don’t like leaving you here.” I squeezed his hand tighter. “Madame Veronique wants to kill Solange. Did you know that?”
He stopped so suddenly I nearly broke my nose on his shoulder. There would have been a certain karmic beauty to it. “Ow.” I rubbed my nose, eyes stinging. Nicholas’s eyes flared like ice. He tilted his head, like a wolf hearing the soft pad of a rabbit’s foot.
“No time,” he snapped. “We have to go up.”
“Shit,” I said, my heart responding to the darkness in his gaze. Adrenaline spiked through me like crystalized honey, sweet but sharp. “I suck at climbing trees,” I added, in case he’d forgotten.
“There are walkways up near the top branches,” he assured me. He peered up an impossibly tall tree, frowned, then moved to the next one.
“What are you looking for?” I asked, the back of my neck prickling. I jumped at every small shift of the wind.
“One of the ropes,” he replied. I darted between the trees, helping him search.
“Here,” I called softly after a few minutes. He was at my side before I’d finished exhaling.
“I’m going to go up first,” he told me. “And then I’ll pull you up. Just hold on tight.”
“Wait.” I stopped him as he closed his hands around the rope, arm muscles straining. “They took all my weapons at the camp.”
He pulled a stake from the back of his belt and handed it to me, before shimmying up the rope, unconcerned with little things like gravity and falling to a messy death. I wrapped the rope around my waist, then gripped it as tightly as I could. He hauled me up and I gritted my teeth and tried not to imagine what all my bones breaking when I fell would sound like. Sweat stung the rope burns on my palms. Nicholas pulled me up onto a circular platform that ran around the trunk. Narrow bridges led from tree to tree, from platform to platform. The smell of pine was thick and green.
“I never even knew this existed,” I said, staring at the intricate knotwork of bridges.
“It was built for the Blood Moon,” Nicholas said as we started across the first bridge. “As an escape route in case of Hunters or civil war or whatever. And I think the Chandramaa have the same setup, only closer to camp.”
It was sturdier than it looked and the rope handles made me feel more secure. “This is seriously cool,” I said, risking a downward glance. Bats dipped and whirled beneath us. “Terrifying, but cool.”
Nicholas slipped behind me to guard my back as we hurried between the treetops. “There’s this thing called gravity,” I re
minded him as the rope bridge swung wildly and I tried not to throw up.
“There’s also this thing where I’d rather my baby sister’s minions didn’t eat my girlfriend.” He gave me a little push.
I ran faster, blood welling on my chafed hands. The air rushed past my face, and pine needles dragged through my hair and scratched my cheeks. It was like being beaten up by Christmas. It was too dark and too high for me to see any vampires down below, but Nicholas was running as if they were right there with us.
“Shit,” he said, just before Solange’s voice drifted up to us, sharp and arrogant.
“Nicholas, why are we playing hide-and-seek?”
He shot me a warning glance as we stumbled to a stop. “Because I’m not in the mood to share,” he called back, sounding bored. I tried to peek through the branches at her.
“Families share,” she returned as vampires moved below us, like beetles scurrying in the undergrowth. They weren’t trying to be quiet or stealthy, and there were enough of them that even I could make them out from this distance.
“I’m beginning to wonder about you, big brother.” Her tone changed, seemed to throb with power. Nicholas flinched. “So come down here and bring her.”
“Lucy?” he murmured.
“Yeah?”
“We’re going to need to run.”
Easier said than done.
“Maybe I could talk to her?” I asked dubiously. Nicholas just shook his head. I knew he was right but it still felt wrong to run away from Solange.
“Can you exorcise her?” Nicholas asked. There was sweat on his brow and his jaw was clenched. He was holding himself as if he were in the center of a storm.
“Well, no.”
“Then wait until you can.”
“Well, if you’re going to be all logical about it,” I muttered. I reached for his hand, squeezing tightly, while he struggled against the insidious compulsion.
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