by Keary Taylor
Fear blankets the immortals around us. They do not dare speak. They dare not move and draw attention to themselves. They huddle together just a little closer. They are all remembering why it is Cyrus who rules them.
“Ignore the possibility that Alivia may be your resurrected Queen,” he says, his voice dropping back to normal levels. “She is of Royal blood. A descendent of the third son. Those that remain in the House of Conrath, do not soon forget your first loyalty is to this woman. Others may deceive you, they may try to change your minds, but you must never forget. This is her birthright.”
Cyrus suddenly grabs two men from my House, shoving them back into their own, new line. He stalks forward, scanning the faces of those that remain in the Conrath line up. He stares down Christian. Nial who stands beside him. Cyrus grabs the woman beside Nial, and she gives a whimper and a cry as he harshly shoves her into the new line.
Down he moves. He must see the loyalty in Anna’s eyes, and Lillian’s. He moves past them. He stares down Danny. And he grabs two young recruits and places him with the other three.
“Here are your new members, House of Allaway,” Cyrus says, holding his hands in their direction. “Take them and get the hell out.”
No one says anything for a moment, too stunned at everything that has happened to move.
“I said get out!” he bellows, spit flying through the air.
And suddenly, everyone springs to life. They disappear out the door. The five chosen to leave shuffle toward Chelsea and Charles, as though unsure if they are actually supposed to depart.
One by one, the extra bodies leave. They take their human snacks with them.
The House feels less crowded.
But all the more dangerous.
“It’s been one hell of a party,” Cyrus says. And he’s got anger in his eyes, his shoulders are tense. His body seems ready to snap at any moment. He crosses to me, and I have to make a very physical effort not to flinch away when he takes my hand. “I hope you all get some rest. Goodnight.”
Without another word, Cyrus leads us through the remaining bodies. And suddenly I am terrified at this game I’ve started. Because I cannot end it without evoking his wrath. And I do not know if I will survive it.
“ALIVA?”
It’s Anna’s voice that cuts through the door the following night. I climb out of the bed where I’m pretty sure Cyrus is pretending to sleep. My feet carefully pad over the floor, and I open the door soundlessly.
“Yes?” I say quietly. Though it’s completely pointless.
“You should get dressed,” she says. There’s urgency in her voice. “There’s something you need to see.”
I don’t ask for explanation. I only cross back into the room, dress myself in two seconds, and walk back out, side by side with my General.
She leads me through the hall and down the stairs. The dim evening glow is barely holding on to the day as we open the front doors. For a moment, my eyes sear in pain. I throw my hand in front of my eyes, blocking out the dim light.
And the moment my eyes adjust, they take in the blood at my feet. A thick, obvious trail of it leads away from my front door, down the drive.
“How far does it go?” I ask as I step out into the snow.
“You just need to see it,” Anna says with horror in her voice.
Together, we walk down the drive. Over the landscape. To the front gates, following the trail of blood. When we turn onto the road that leads to Main Street, we’re greeted with greater, larger splashes of blood. When we reach the T, I spot the first limb.
An arm pokes out of the snow, the hand down and buried, the severed stump poking out in the air for all to see. Blood saturates the snow around it. The bloody stump has been frozen over completely, the skin crystallizing and turning black.
The chill sinks into my bones as we continue walking. There’s a foot on the side of the road. A trunk without a single limb lies in the middle of the snow packed street.
A head lies just beyond that. I slowly approach, feeling all the blood in my body drain to my feet and disappear somewhere entirely.
A mass of red hair spills out to the side of the head. Using the toe of my boot, I push it to the side, turning it so the face comes into view.
Except the face has been smashed in, beaten, so badly battered it is unrecognizable. But the hair marks her clearly: Chelsea.
I swallow hard, backing away slowly.
My eyes turn to the road that leads out of town.
All along the way there are severed limbs. More heads. Blood. So, so much blood.
My enhanced brain and senses start matching up the bodies, the severed limbs. The heads. There are at least ten dismembered vampires lying around the streets of Silent Bend.
“Who would do this?” I ask in horror. I back further up, wanting to wash the horrific scene from my memory forever. To pour acid in my ear and burn the images away.
“Look at this,” Anna says. She crosses over to a snow drift with a head lying in a halo of red. To my disgust, she picks it up by the hair. And I see it.
The brand of the snake eating its own tail. The flesh around the wound, though frozen, is red and pealing. It’s fresh. It’s burned into the poor woman’s forehead.
“They’re back,” I breathe. I cross to the next nearest head I can find. I roll it over. Sure enough, there’s a snake brand there, too.
“I don’t think they ever left,” Anna says as she tosses the head back into the snow. “I think they’ve been watching us the whole time. They waited until the House of Allaway was leaving, unsuspecting.”
I shake my head, my stomach rolling. “They only came with fifteen members. That means only five of them survived the attack.”
“And there’s no human blood here,” Anna says as she surveys the deadly scene. “We’d smell it. Alivia, I think they took Allaway’s feeders and, considering everything this army is, we have to assume they turned them.”
“Shit,” I breathe. My hands go to my hips and I turn in a circle, surveying our surroundings, searching for spying eyes.
“I think you need to get back to the House and make some phone calls, Alivia.”
Anna and I whip around, the both of us instantly producing weapons.
But it’s Danny we turn to find. He surveys the mass murder scene. And the look on his face says that he knows this is horrific, but he also doesn’t look scared or shocked. “You two get back. I’ll clean up the evidence. Can’t have people seein’ this.”
“You sure you can handle it?” Anna asks.
“Yeah,” he says as he steps forward. He grabs an arm, and then a leg, and throws them in the middle of the road to begin a pile. He takes a lighter from his pocket and lights some unidentifiable item of clothing.
“Thank you,” I say, swallowing the bile in my throat. “I really appreciate this.”
He grunts in acknowledgement and throws one of the heads into the flames.
Anna and I walk back through the front doors just moments later. “Rath?” I say loudly into the dark house.
A few moments later, he walks out from the direction of the kitchen. “Yes, Alivia.”
“There’s been a horrible attack,” I say, pacing in the foyer. “The House of Allaway…”
“Someone slaughtered them on their way out of town last night,” Anna fills in when I can’t make the words form.
Markov walks down the hall toward us, his hands in his pockets, a look of great concern on his face. “Who?”
“Whoever was making the attacks on Jasmine,” I say. My mind is reeling. There are so many implications over this. So much to be figured out. “They’re making a new move.”
“They killed over half the Allaway House,” Anna says.
And just as she finishes speaking, the phone on the table in the foyer rings. Everyone falls deadly silent. It’s me who takes the first step toward it.
“Hello?” I ask as I raise it to my ear. Were I still human, my hands might have shaken.
&nb
sp; “Is this Alivia?” A terrified, angry, shaking voice asks from the other line.
“Yes,” I say, my heart racing. “Charles?”
“Yes, it’s Charles!” he bellows, his voice barely understandable as it shakes with rage. “Can you explain to me what happened last night? We leave your House and are almost immediately attacked by a hoard of Bitten!”
“You’re sure they were Bitten?” I ask as Anna, Rath, and Markov tighten around me, listening in.
“Of course I’m sure!” he hisses. “The yellow eyes are quite unmistakable. They came at us with an army and those glowing red irons. They…” his voice wavers. “They slaughtered our people and all we could do was run.”
“How many of them were there?” Anna asks. She doesn’t have to speak any louder for Charles to hear her.
“At least fifty of them. Maybe more,” he says. He’s begun to calm, his tone confused and hoarse. “They ambushed us. Took us completely unsuspecting.”
“Where are you now?” I ask. “Are you safe?”
“The rest of us ran as fast as we could,” Charles says, the fear he must have experienced creeping back into his tone. “We got to our vehicles outside of town and drove the rest of the day. We’re at a hotel in Virginia right now.”
I nod, looking around to those around me. “Good. Keep going. Don’t look back. I don’t think they’ll come after you again. It’s us here they want.”
“You’d better get your shit straight, Lady Conrath,” he spits my name. “Your region is a bloody disaster and a shame to our kind. And now, my sister is dead because of you!”
The line goes dead.
I hold the phone away from my ear, just staring at it for a long time.
“It’s an official declaration,” Anna says. Slowly, I turn to face her. “Remember how we talked about a Civil War coming? This is the first battle.”
“You have to stop this,” Markov says, his expression growing dark. “As leader and regent, it is your job.”
I nod, fighting off the overwhelmed feeling trying to claw its way up my throat. I take one deep breath. Two.
“Okay,” I say, gathering myself. An eerily calm manner takes me over. I remember that I am a leader. I remind myself that I am a Royal. “Anna, I want you to go to the Institute and gather the others. Bring them here and I’ll give orders.”
“Yes, your highness.” And it’s the first time ever someone has said it to me. The first time it’s felt right, because I’ve just given my first order as regent in a time of war.
She’s gone in an instant.
“Gather the others into the ballroom,” I tell Markov. He gives a nod before walking back down the hall. “Rath, I need a map of town.”
Rath gives me a slight bow before he walks away. And the motion feels completely wrong coming from him.
I wait in the ballroom, pacing back and forth. It’s Cyrus who first walks in, and in his hand is my crown. “It should most certainly be worn when giving your first command as a regent.” He offers an approving smile as he places it on my head.
“I am sorry this happened the night of your party and in my region,” I say sincerely.
“Oh, my dear,” Cyrus says with a slightly condescending smile. “Do you think you are the only area with insurrection and war? There is a reason we do not have a larger population. We have a tendency of killing each other off.”
Raheem walks into the ballroom, and when I meet his gaze, there’s distance in his eyes.
“As my most accomplished spy, I would have expected you to catch such an event as this,” Cyrus chides. And his tone grows colder with each word.
“My mission here in Silent Bend has been accomplished,” he says, not intimidated by the King in the least. I remember him saying that he was too valuable to the King for him to be disposed of. I wonder what secrets he possesses to hold the guarantee of his position. “You never gave another assignment.”
“Fair enough,” Cyrus concedes as others begin flocking into the ballroom.
The front door opens, exposing the now dark night outside, and the others from the Institute flock inside. One by one, they gather around me.
I stand before the crowd, my head held high, my hands clasped behind my back.
“Something unspeakable has happened in our town,” I say as I look out over the seventeen House members and eight Court representatives. “I’m sure you can smell it, if you pay attention. Outside our doors is blood. The blood of our own kind.”
I study the faces, looking for readiness. Will they fight if it comes to that? Do they feel the need to keep our species hidden? Do they see the injustice that has been done in creating this army? Do they recognize the lives that have been lost and the choices that have been taken away?
“Someone has been building an army for some time now,” I say, my voice growing louder. They all watch me quietly, with baited breath. “At first, we thought it was a few isolated incidents. I myself was attacked by what was thought to be a rogue Bitten when I first arrived in Silent Bend. But since then, there have been more and more people that have gone missing in this area. People are being turned. They are being weighted with a Debt they cannot fight.”
I step forward, and the crowd parts around me. I stand at the center of them. “The sad thing is that I saw this coming,” I say, my voice quiet and low. “The Bitten have been slaves. They have been looked down upon as little more than bloodlust accidents. I do believe this is the beginning of a civil war.”
“So, what the hell are you going to do about it?” I turn to see that it is Lexington who’s spoken up. He stares at me with judgmental eyes, and I have to remind myself that he’s only just left the House that was just slaughtered last night. He probably would have been dead, too, had he not been traded.
I walk toward him, holding his gaze. “We’re going to search this town. And if we unearth them, we will end this army.”
Cameron gives out a war cry. It was all for show—I know he’s not going to be the one leading the raid. But it has his intended effect when the rest of them raise their hands into the air and cry out, as well.
“Anna will give you your perimeters,” I call loudly as Rath hands her the map of Silent Bend. “Do as she says. She will not lead you astray.”
And for the next ten minutes, I watch from the back as Anna sections off the town, doling out assignments, areas to search. They will all go out and scour in groups of four. If they find the army, they are not to engage until they’ve received the reinforcements of our entire House.
We’re outnumbered in this. But the Born are stronger, faster, more coordinated, and none of us are hindered by a Debt.
“Well done,” Cyrus compliments me as the last group leaves. “Your first case of insurrection and you handled it like a much more experienced leader.”
“Thanks,” I say absentmindedly. I walk through the ballroom, out onto the front porch. I lean on one of the great pillars, looking out into the dark night.
A pillar of smoke rises into the air out toward town, and I make out the faint scent of burning flesh and hair.
I pull my cell phone from my pocket and dial.
“What is that smell?” the voice answers, annoyed.
“You don’t want to know,” I tell Luke. “More bad things happened. The town still isn’t safe. How are things looking from your end?”
The sheriff sighs, and I hear him stand and boots click over a hardwood floor. “I’ve been patrolling the borders of town. People have been trying to come back and it’s no shock. This has been going on for three weeks.”
“What are you telling them to keep them out?” Anxiety hitches up in my chest at the thought of more innocent victims coming into this bloody town.
“That some sewer pipes froze, burst, and contaminated the water supply,” Luke says. I can just imagine him looking out his window at the mess of weather outside. “They all think the whole town is toxic right now.”
“The town is toxic,” I say under my breath.
I shake my head, even though he can’t see it. “I don’t know. But I have a feeling things are going to get worse before they get better.”
“How could they possibly get worse?” he asks in disbelief.
I explain to him what’s been happening. The bodies. The snake brands. The numbers Charles told me about.
“I told you the number of missing person’s cases in the area has skyrocketed,” Luke says.
“They all have a Debt to a master that is awfully careful.” I pace on the porch. I want to fight. I want to do something about this.
“This isn’t going to end well for anyone, is it?” he asks.
“I’m trying.” The words come out harsher than I intend. But I feel desperate.
“Just get that King out of here,” Luke says. “That’s a start.”
And he hangs up.
Get the King out of here. It is a start. One I have control over.
We need to finish the last part of his game. And then, I can reveal the truth. That I’m not his wife. And he can leave.
It’s a start.
“I DON’T GET IT,” ANNA says as she throws her hands up in exasperation. “It’s like they just disappear without a trace. There’s not a single sign of them around Silent Bend.”
I study the map on the desk in the office, rubbing two fingers over my lips. The twelve squares of the grid she made are all covered in red Xs. In their groups of four, they trickled back to the House as the sun began to rise. All gave reports. They’ve found nothing. No clues. Not a trace of the Bitten army.
“They must not be staying in town,” I say as I sink into the chair at the desk. “It’s the only solution that makes sense.”
“That doesn’t help us, either,” Anna says.
“They could be staying anywhere,” Raheem fills in. I look up to meet his eyes. He’s focused once more. Raheem is an elite spy, a man of plots and secrets. This is his element, and I’m glad to see him able to focus on something else again.