by Sofia Daniel
“Who’s there?”
The person kept to the shadows and didn’t answer. I clenched my fists. If this was a hunter checking me for signs of disloyalty, I was screwed.
“Could you raise your torch?” I asked the knocker.
He didn’t reply.
I swallowed hard. This one had obviously been programmed to open doors, turn on lights, and very little else.
“Look,” I said with a bit of menace in my voice. “I don’t know who’s out there, but I’m armed and not in the mood for an ambush.”
In the blink of an eye, someone whizzed past, clamped a hand around my mouth, and held me to a large, familiar body. The masculine, woody scents of sandalwood, cypress, and cedar engulfed my senses, giving me a sense of family and belonging.
“Quiet, Alicia,” he whispered.
Joy surged through my heart, and tears filled my eyes. It was Raphael. I gave him a sharp nod, and he released my mouth. I spun around, wrapped my arms around his neck, and pressed my lips on his. Raphael tasted of red wine, and the metallic taste of blood I’d become accustomed to was gone.
He crushed me to his chest and kissed me as though this was our last day on earth. There was a roughness to his usually soft lips, as though he’d been dehydrated. My chest ached. What on earth had he suffered while his brothers were in prison and I’d been turned into a knocker?
I kissed back, melting into the warmth and the strength of his body. With Raphael free, there was hope for Dante and Nero.
When we broke apart, I brushed the copper hair off his face. His forest-green eyes appeared black in the light of the knocker’s torch.
“Where are the others?” I asked.
“In another dungeon and badly injured.” His voice broke. “Captain Tanar and Lady Mantis want them dead.”
“I don’t think we need to worry about those vampires anymore,” I whispered.
“Because of the hunters?” he asked.
“How did you know?”
“I saw the whole battle from the knocker hallways. They go everywhere in the castle and beyond. I’ve hidden here since Lady Mantis sent search parties out after me. By the time a knocker catches up with me and runs to tell them my location, I use my vampire speed to rush away.”
My heart sank. “You’re still a vampire.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” He scooped me up in his arms and rushed through the hallway.
Clinging to his neck, I tightened my jaw and stomach muscles at the speed of his movements. It was faster than the time I’d been abducted from the Velvet Lounge, and faster than the times Nero had slung me over his shoulder and raced through the hallways.
The journey was longer than I had thought, and I wasn’t sure if that was because Raphael wanted to make a false trail or because the vampires had hidden Dante and Nero somewhere far away.
After several moments, he descended a dark slope and stopped.
“Where is this place?” I whispered.
“Outside the castle. We found a network of tunnels a few years ago while exploring.”
“Right.” This was probably the fox tunnels where Gates and I had chased Ponytail.
A moment later, Raphael set me on my feet and struck a lighter. He placed the flame on the wick of a large candle that lit up a burrow smaller than Daniel’s little bedroom at home. The walls were still moist and crumbly, making me wonder if Raphael had dug it himself.
I activated my third eye, looking for signs of the kind of magic I’d seen while exploring the tunnel on Gates’ back, but there were none. But Raphael’s soul star chakra shone as bright as the north star. “Can you walk around during daylight?”
“It’s so strange,” he replied. “The sun doesn’t affect me like it used to, and Sangria makes me feel nauseous.”
I opened my eyes to find him bending over a pile of old weapons. The faint light of a glass lantern reflected on a curved dagger, which I slipped into the pocket of my knocker apron. “What do you eat?”
“The strange knocker who helped you made me a mixture of mashed up human food diluted with red wine,” said Raphael. “She says my digestive system is like a baby’s.”
My eyes bulged. He’d made contact with the onion woman?
“Where is she?” I asked.
Raphael shrugged. “I don’t know. She always manages to find me.”
The onion woman could move about while invisible. A skill I hadn’t yet mastered. “Why haven’t you helped Dante and Nero yet?”
Raphael’s entire body sagged. “I can’t get past the wards of their prison during the day, and at night, there are too many vampires guarding them.”
“Is this because of what happened to Micalla?”
“No-one cares about that anymore,” Raphael replied. “Captain Tanar somehow convinced Lady Mantis to join forces against Dracula. They’re planning to assassinate him when he comes to visit.”
“What?” I said.
He shook his head. “Were. I suppose now that the hunters have taken over the academy, overthrowing the vampire parliament is the least of anyone’s worries.”
I leaned against Raphael’s hard body and blew out a breath, trying to make sense of everything. “We need to get the boys out of that prison before the hunters discover their location and use them as food.”
“I know.” Raphael wrapped his arms around my shoulders and pressed his lips against my forehead.
After recent events, all I wanted was to relax in his arms, but time was running out.
Squeezing Raphael around the middle, I drew back. “Let’s go and rescue Dante and Nero.”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?” I tilted my head up and stared into his eyes.
“Four vampires guard them throughout the night. Lady Mantis and Captain Tanar need hostages so that Lord Stryx won’t oppose their leadership of the Vampire Parliament.”
My brows drew together. None of these vampire machinations meant anything to me, but if the guards wanted to trap Raphael, it meant that they probably weren’t in the dining room when the hunters arrived. “Then we’ll go during the day.”
“That’s the plan.” Raphael threaded his fingers through my hair. “You can use your frumosi magic to open a hole in the wards. Am I a bad person for being glad you didn’t manage to escape?”
I swallowed back the lump in my throat. “Of course not. Let’s get some sleep and wake up close to noon.”
Raphael pulled me into the corner of his burrow, settled us on the dog bed I had slept on last term, and wrapped the cashmere blanket around our bodies. He spooned around my back and held on to me like I might be spirited away while he slept.
I snuggled into his warmth and closed my eyes. “Sweet dreams.”
That night, I dreamed of Dante and Nero being attacked by infrared weapons at the poolside of their bathroom. Instead of Lady Mantis’ guards in their red uniforms, hunters in burgundy armor struck them down.
When they lay helpless on the ground, the hunters raised their hands and filled the ceiling with bright light. Giant, incandescent drops of sunlight rained down on the boys, turning their writhing bodies to ash.
My eyes snapped open, and I met Raphael’s gaze.
“Can’t sleep?” I asked.
“I’m too worried about the others.” He kissed me on the nose. “Close your eyes and try to get some rest. If anyone comes close, I’ll wake you.”
I let my eyes flutter shut and rested in the warmth and comfort of Raphael’s arms. After a dream like that, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to sleep knowing that Dante and Nero were at risk of being found by the hunters.
Later, Raphael pressed his lips on my eyelids. “It’s noon.”
“How can you tell?” I wrapped an arm around his neck and pulled him in for a soft kiss.
He kissed back. “Before we mated, the strength of the sun would pull me into unconsciousness. I’m still sensitive to the sun’s movements, but it doesn’t have the same effect.”
I stroked his c
hin, marveling at the new creature I had made. “What are you?”
“Some kind of day-walker, I think,” he said. “But I no longer thirst for blood.”
We both stood and dusted each other off. My muscles ached from having been tied up, but I pushed the pain to the back of my mind. It was nothing compared to what the other Stryx brothers were suffering.
“Are we going now?”
Raphael scooped me up in his arms, and we raced through the tunnels. As the moments passed, the dread lining my stomach thickened until it became a painful mass. What if we were too late, and the vampires had told the hunters where to find Dante and Nero? What if the vampires had interrogated the brothers about Raphael’s hiding place and accidentally killed them?
“We’re close.” Raphael set me onto my feet. “Whatever you see, please don’t react. If the vampires are sleeping close by, you might wake them.”
With a sharp nod, I whispered, “Alright.”
He held my hand and led me through the dark. The air in these tunnels was dry, indicating that they weren’t as freshly dug as the burrow where we had slept.
Raphael stiffened, and his steps slowed. I was about to ask what was wrong when my nostrils filled with the smell of burned flesh. A fist of terror clenched at my heart. I picked up my pace and rushed through the hallway, with my arms on the wall to guide my movements. As we rounded the corner, streams of sunlight burned my eyes.
“What the hell is this?” I whispered.
“Sun cells,” said Raphael. “They’re designed to prolong the torture of any vampire.”
“How?”
“They’re positioned so that a stream of sunlight moves throughout the day when it’s difficult for vampires to wake.” He swallowed hard. “So, they lie there burning until the pain becomes too unbearable to sleep. When they crawl to the dark end of the cell, the sun moves a few hours later and burns them there.”
I clapped my hands over my mouth. “No.”
“It’s one of the worst forms of torture,” he croaked.
“Why?” I blinked several times to adjust my vision. Beyond the iron bars of the prison, two blackened figures lay in the shadows. I couldn’t tell which was Dante and which was Raphael, as the sun had burned off their hair as well as their skin.
Raphael choked. “I wanted to turn myself in, but that strange knocker said it would only make things worse.”
I shook my head. As much as the onion woman had helped me, I also knew she would never put herself at risk to save anyone’s neck. I closed my eyes and studied the cell’s barrier. An iridescent mesh of magic crisscrossed the iron bars, which I imagined made the prison impenetrable to any vampire’s brute strength.
“When I say go, I want you to pull the bars open,” I said.
“I’ve tried to do that—”
“And I’m going to dismantle the magic that’s reinforcing the bars.”
“Alright.”
When I burned a hole through the mesh, long tendrils of magic grew back to repair the damage. Bile rose to the back of my throat. Captain Tanar knew I could open and close the wards around the academy grounds, and he probably got the knockers to make them more resilient to my attacks.
I settled on the hard ground and crossed my legs. This might take a while. Last night, the hunters had shot magic out of their hands, shaped it, directed it, used it as an extension of themselves. What if I did the same?
After a long, deep breath, I pulled the light from my soul-star chakra down to my crown, my third eye, my throat, and then to my heart. I tried to picture a network of energy that stretched down to my fingers, just like I’d seen in a picture of the acupuncture points in Chinese medicine and shot out tiny tendrils of magic from my fingertips.
“How’s it going?” Raphael placed a hand on my shoulder.
With a painful jolt, double the amount of magic coursed down my arm and shot out of my fingers. Palpitations rocked through my heart. Clenching my teeth against the onslaught, I wrapped the tendrils around the network and pulled.
The magic splintered and fell on us in a rain of iridescent sparks. Triumph surged through my insides, but it was too early to celebrate. “Try again.”
“Right.” Raphael stood, taking away his magic.
He wrapped his hands around the bars and, with a mighty creak, pulled them open. The nearest figure lay beyond a four-foot-wide stream of sunlight. Raphael walked through it without flinching and knelt at his side.
I scrambled to my feet, looking from left to right. If the knockers maintaining the mesh of magic came to investigate, we’d be screwed. Raphael wouldn’t be able to spirit us all away, and the other two boys were in no condition to run.
A door creaked in the distance, and my heart rate trebled. “Hurry.”
Raphael slung the burned figure over his shoulder. A small patch of unburned dark skin indicated that it was Nero. His pained groan pulled on my heartstrings, and I sent a mental plea to Raphael to take Dante and leave. He rushed to the next figure and pulled him onto his other shoulder.
The door slammed. I reached into my apron, pulled out a dagger, and spun in the direction of the sound.
Raphael hurried out of the cell, making sure to keep to the shadows. Heavy footsteps echoed toward us.
“Run,” I whispered. “If it’s hunters, they’ll farm you for blood.”
With a nod, Raphael disappeared into the tunnels, leaving me to face whoever was approaching.
Chapter 4
My heart thudded so hard, its vibrations rattled my ribcage. I held out the dagger, my legs parted in what I hoped was an attack stance, ready to strike if whoever approached was hostile.
By now, the vampires guarding the boys were probably aware that the academy had been taken over by hunters. If they had any sense, they would look for allies, not further captives.
The heavy footsteps continued toward me, each echo quickening my pulse.
“Who’s there?” I hissed.
“Stephens?” said a familiar voice.
The tightness in my muscles loosened, and I lowered the dagger. “Gates?”
“Yeah, it’s me.” He stepped out of the shadows, clad in his denim jeans, jacket, and boots.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
He shrugged and held out a basket laden with green plants. “The alpha sort of banished me. Thought I’d make myself useful and give your vamps something to help with their sunburn.”
I took a closer look at the contents of his basket, noting the serrated edges on the long, thick, leaves. “Is that aloe vera?”
“The knockers always use it to water down the pig’s blood, and it reminded me of something my mum rubbed on her skin on holiday. Thought it might help.” He glanced into the cell. “Where are they?”
“I broke through the magic, and Raphael took them away.”
“Right.” With a frown, he tilted his head to the side. “And he left you behind?”
“I can fight vampires, you know.”
Gates shuttered his features and drew his shoulders up to his ears. Maybe he thought I was some kind of damsel in distress who was powerless against the vampires and needed constant rescuing. It didn’t matter. I was glad it was him walking through the hallways instead of the hunters.
Talking about my supposed fighting prowess just made me look desperate. I slipped the dagger back into the pocket of my knocker dress. “Are the werewolves going to help the vampires?”
“With what?”
“The academy’s been taken over.” My brows drew together. “Didn’t you know?”
He shook his head. “It was a full moon last night, and I spent it trying to keep out of the pack’s way.”
“You’d better come with me, then.” I walked in the direction where Raphael had disappeared.
Gates strolled alongside me, and I updated him on what happened since we parted ways by the wards. He snarled when I told him about the man in the tractor and snorted when I told him that hunters had killed a third of the
vampires who had fought them in the dining room.
“Thanks for pushing me through the ward,” I said.
“One of us had to get free.” He stuffed a hand in his pocket. “I thought maybe you would have better luck than I did on the outside.”
Raphael rushed back toward us, brandishing a sword. He lowered it as soon as he saw Gates. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Full moon,” replied the werewolf.
Raphael nodded as though he knew exactly what that entailed. We continued through the maze of tunnels, avoiding stalactites of magic, until we reached Raphael’s lair.
The candle flickered as we entered, casting its soft light on the charred boys who lay unmoving on the cashmere blanket. A bitter mix of fury and nausea rose to the back of my throat.
“How could they torture them so badly?” I snarled.
Raphael took one of the aloe vera plants and squeezed it onto Nero’s mouth, but the vampire didn’t stir. “I suppose that with Captain Tanar and Lady Mantis going rogue, they no longer cared about diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of Stryx.”
“Fucking bloodsuckers,” Gates snarled. “No offense.”
“They’ve been starved,” said Raphael. “I’ll have to pry their mouths open and feed them by hand, so they don’t get hurt.”
I pulled up my knocker dress over my head and slung it to the side. Cool air swirled around my naked body, and I gave Raphael a determined nod.
Gates jumped back. “What the hell are you doing?”
I wrapped my arms around my middle, my cheeks warming. “I need to donate as much nectar as I can.”
Raphael’s brows drew together. “It’s going to take a few days to produce enough for two injured vampires. And we’ll probably need blood to build up their strength.”
“Nectar?” Gates’ eyes lingered on my breasts.
Raphael glanced up at the werewolf. “The vaginal fluids of a Frumosi have healing qualities.”
“Do you need any help?” Gates’ voice turned breathy.
My traitorous nipples tightened at the thought of being stimulated by both Raphael and Gates to produce nectar. Usually, I would tell myself not to have such inappropriate ideas in such a dire situation, but this was precisely what I needed. To become aroused and wet.