by Ava Benton
“What’s your name?” the vampire whispered.
“Daniela. What’s yours?”
“Alexander. Daniela, you’re not a potential threat,” he snarled.
“You were singing a different tune when I had you bound just a minute or two ago, weren’t you, Alexander?”
He lunged at me, and I held my hands up, palms out. Warning him.
He stopped short, but just barely, his tongue darting over his fangs.
“What do you plan to do with him?” Claudia asked.
“That’s my business. Not yours.” I looked at her. “It’s what we’ve been doing for hundreds of years. We do not need a separate species of guardians. We can protect our own. This Nightwarden arrangement has never been natural, never the way it was intended.”
Claudia smiled—a sad, knowing smile. “I was a member of the High Council. I know all about it. I know why you do what you do.”
“So you understand why it’s important I take the Nightwarden with me. You can come as well. And once he’s safely under our control, we’ll go about finding the love you’re looking for.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Before I had the chance to defend myself further and get through to her, a crashing noise in the woods made us all jump, looking around wildly to find the source.
I caught sight of Alexander throwing an arm around Claudia’s waist and using his supernatural speed to rush off through the trees, leaving the smaller ones swaying in their wake. There was no way I could catch up.
Meanwhile, several figures emerged around me. I recognized my fellow Trackers almost instantly and screamed in fury.
“Where are they?” Gwyneth asked, coming out from behind a clump of bushes.
“Gone!” I picked up the rifle and thrust it at her. “Thanks to you. Now what are we supposed to do?”
4
Alexander
I didn’t stop until we were several miles away from Daniela, and the only thing that stopped me was the roar of what I could only describe as a train engine getting louder the closer we approached it.
“What is that sound?” I asked, putting Claudia on her feet. I didn’t relish being so close to her.
“What? The traffic from the road?” She glanced over her shoulder, then looked back at me. “Oh. I keep forgetting. I’m sorry. You’re hearing cars and trucks. We’re near a major road.”
I strained to catch sight from between the trees.
“My friend, you have a lot of catching up to do.”
I rankled at her tone. “We are not friends.”
She gasped. “I didn’t mean to—”
“You have put both of us at great risk by waking me as you did. The Tracker back there might have been repugnant and over-confident, but she made sense on one point. The High Council will stop at nothing to find out what happened to me, and that will lead them to you. How do you hope to find Ralf in such conditions? Always running from them?”
“I… I don’t know!” She held her head in her hands, eyes darting around. Then, they flew open wide. “If they are busy looking for us, they won’t be guarding him!”
I wanted to hit her, tell her how wrong she was. But she made sense. The most sense she’d made yet. I clenched my fists and forced myself to calm down. “I believe we both need a little time to form a plan. We can’t wander aimlessly.”
“So you’ll help me?” she whispered, eyes burning furiously bright.
“I said we should create a plan,” I reminded her. “And I will need a chance to truly feed. And you…”
She looked down at herself. “I realize I’ve looked better. My apologies. You’re being so generous in offering to help me, I should at least bathe and make myself presentable.”
“If you could. Do you have a camp set up anywhere nearby?”
She shook her head.
“Do you live somewhere close?”
She shook her head again.
“Where did you plan on going?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t think much about it, I realize. I’ve been so single-minded in my search for you. I slept in caves, fed on berries and edible plants.”
And her blood would be weak as a result. “We have a lot of work to do. Where can we find decent food for you?”
Decent food presented itself in short order, as the scent of deer filled my nostrils.
I froze, staring at her.
She picked up on my sudden change in demeanor and looked around, breathing short and fast.
“Quiet,” I whispered, holding a finger to my lips.
Where was it?
The scent was sharp, distinct, and I closed my eyes to block out all unnecessary distraction. It was coming from my right, from deep inside the woods.
The beast wasn’t coming toward us, but rather wandering past on its way to something else.
“Wait here.” I used my speed to practically overtake the stag before it knew I was coming. It put on speed of its own, but I leaped onto its back and sank my fangs into its throat before it got very far. The beast let out a cry of pain and terror as it fell to the ground, legs askew, still trying to fight me off by throwing its head back and grazing me with the points of its antlers.
I hated the taste of animal blood. All vampires did.
I pulled my fangs from the beast and slit its throat with my claws to bleed it more efficiently, wishing I had water to wash the sour essence from my mouth.
Once the stag stopped thrashing and the fluttering of its heartbeat ceased, I draped its carcass over my shoulders and returned to where Claudia already had a fire going.
“We’re going to have to find something a little more permanent,” I decided as I dropped the animal to the ground. I could still taste the blood, and the scent of it congealing around the beast’s shredded throat did nothing for me.
“Here.” She handed me the canteen, and I poured what was left into my mouth, then spat it onto the ground. It was better than nothing.
“How do you live?” I had to ask, sitting on a tree stump and watching in fascination. “I’ve never met a witch in all my days who didn’t live in luxury, or something like it. I could just imagine some of the High Sorceresses I’ve served doing what you’re doing now.”
“Yes, well, it’s been important for me to keep my magic concealed for a long time,” she’d explained as she pulled a hunting knife from an old belt hidden beneath her shirt.
I hadn’t noticed it.
The witch was more dangerous than she looked, but at the moment she was only dangerous to the stag’s carcass as she skinned it. She cleaned and skinned the stag with all the efficiency of a woman who’d been living in the woods for years.
“To avoid notice,” I said.
She nodded.
“I’ve had to go off the grid.” When she noticed my silence, she glanced up. “It’s a modern phrase. It means going into hiding, removing yourself from everything and everyone. No records, nothing.”
“I see. You’ve lived mostly in the woods, then?”
She thought about it, then shrugged. “Sometimes. I do whatever I can to find shelter in winter. I’ve even waited tables and tended bar over the years to make money to rent a cheap motel room. Can you imagine? I lived in a castle for decades, waited on hand and foot, and here I am.”
She ran a dirty arm over her forehead, hands covered in blood. It didn’t help her look much better.
“Why do this to yourself?”
Our eyes met, and hers narrowed. “I told you. I love him. He’s the other half of my soul. I refuse to be away from him as long as there’s something I can do to help it.”
“But… it’s been years. You’ve looked for him for years. Why not stop, make a life for yourself?”
“You’ve never been in love,” she decided with a knowing look.
“What of it?”
“If you had, you wouldn’t need to ask a question like that. None of this would seem outside the norm to you.” She skewered a hunk of meat and placed it
over the fire. “This will make a good meal. Thank you. I have to go to the stream to wash this blood off. Can you watch dinner?”
I would’ve rather gone with her, but I liked the excuse to be alone with my thoughts for a minute—and any washing she could do would be a plus.
What was I going to do with her? There was no way we would find Ralf, even without the threat of the High Council. Assuming they would come looking for us, which was a fairly wise assumption. My absence would be felt, though I wasn’t sure how when I didn’t see guards anywhere in the tunnels as we escaped.
I needed to feed. I would think better after a feeding.
The thought of imprinting on her even further wasn’t pleasant, but she was my only alternative—and she had already started the process, meaning she was the only witch I could feed from until my release from service.
I didn’t need to break any further rules and get into deeper trouble. But when would that release come, if ever? What if we never found Ralf? And it would be a miracle if we did, no doubt.
She had lost touch with reality—the fact that love was what pushed her to do it didn’t redeem her in my eyes, either.
In the back of mind, as all this was going on, was the face of that Tracker. What did she say her name was? Daniela. Daniela with the blue eyes that burned like two hot coals when I pressed her to the tree, strangling her. Wisps of hair escaping from under her hat. A small body, tight, but strong. She would be looking, too. If she was as skilled at tracking as her name promised, she wouldn’t give up until she found us.
When Claudia came back, I asked, “What about that Tracker? Since when do witches track Nightwardens? We provide a service.”
She nodded slowly, thoughtfully, as she turned the meat so it would cook more evenly.
Though I had long since lost my appetite for food, I couldn’t deny the intoxicating aroma.
“You’ve been asleep for a hundred years, after all. I suppose you were rather sheltered before then,” she decided, sitting on the ground with a sigh.
“Sheltered to the point where I’ve never heard of an entire cadre of witches?”
“They’ve always been what you’d call a fringe group. Existing on the outside of the whole. Sort of like you,” she mused. “You’re the elite of the vampire world. They don’t even know you exist, the others. If they’ve ever heard of you, it’s only through legends.”
“But I’ve never even heard of these witches. They’re that far… how did you say it? Off the grid?”
She smiled. “They are. Most of the time. How I didn’t notice the girl tracking me, I’ll never know.” I
knew. I wasn’t even there at the time, but I knew.
Claudia was obsessed to the point of ignoring everything else around her. Finding The Fold was all she could think about, breathe about, smell about. Daniela could’ve been five steps behind her, and she wouldn’t have noticed.
“And she wants to kill me,” I growled.
“You don’t know that.”
“She said it was none of my business, which is a fancy way of announcing she wants to kill me. Why, I don’t know—but it isn’t as though my kind hasn’t been hunted before.”
“Are you worried?”
I scoffed. “Hardly. I’m more concerned with how we’ll find Ralf.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes,” she promised.
“Yes. I’m sure you will.” And that was what worried me, much more than the supposed threat of a witch with a rifle.
5
Daniela
“There is absolutely no excuse for what you did! Do you have any idea how disappointed I am with you right now?” My throat was hoarse after giving Gwyneth the dressing down of her life.
If my tongue had been a blade, she’d have bled out already. And even so, after venting all the anger and frustration, I didn’t feel better. My heart pumped furiously enough to make my head ache.
What I couldn’t stand about her was the way she turned on the innocent act when she knew she had screwed up.
“I only thought you needed backup,” she insisted, dark eyes wide and uncomprehending. My hand practically itched with the need to slap her silly.
“Bullshit. You knew I didn’t need backup. I had the situation well in hand, Gwyneth. I told you days ago that I had it in hand.”
“That was days ago,” she repeated in a light tone. “When you didn’t report back, what choice did we have but to send a search-and-rescue party for you?”
“Oh, damn it!” I threw my canteen across the room, bouncing it off the wall.
She barely flinched, which only made me more determined to get a reaction out of her. She needed to know what she did was wrong.
“You know damn well why you were out there. You never approved of the way I decided to approach this hunt. Just admit it and stop insulting my intelligence.”
“Why would I deliberately sabotage you?” she asked. “You had the Nightwarden right there with you, or so you say.”
“I did!”
“I never saw him,” she whispered.
“Because you were too busy sounding like a herd of elephants coming out of the brush! He had more than enough time to make his escape! How could you be so obtuse?” I turned to face the window, unable to look at her anymore. At least the view of the mountainside was pleasant, even pretty, but it did nothing to ease my temper. “I’ve never known you to deliberately sabotage something that means so much to me.”
“I would never.”
“Yes, you would. You didn’t believe the witch would lead us to a Nightwarden, and I was sure she would. You can’t stand the fact that your big sister is right.” I glanced over my shoulder. “It’s always rankled you that Mother placed me in charge of the team before she stepped down.”
She threw her head back. “What of it?”
“You’re determined to do things your way, when all you do is cause dissension and screw-ups like this morning. All you had to do was step back and let me use my judgment and experience, but you couldn’t. Now, we’ll never get out of this dump that time forgot.”
It was like the drafty old cabin heard me and sent a blast of chilly air in through the considerable gaps between the walls’ wooden planks. We both shivered, running our hands over goosebump-covered arms.
“How is it possible for it to be so much colder in here than it is out there?” she asked.
“Don’t change the subject.”
I was fairly certain it had something to do with the lack of insulation and the fact that the trees surrounding the cabin cast it in deep shadow and blocked out the sun’s warmth. I had suffered the nights full of whistling wind and rattling windows for two weeks. Even the fire I normally called up with my magic didn’t help much when the wind never stopped howling outside.
She knew I wasn’t about to accept her pitiful excuses, so she shrugged. “What do you want me to say? I’m sorry I got in the way.”
“And you won’t ever do anything like that again.”
“Sure.”
“I mean it.”
“All right.” She sighed heavily, the sigh of a person so put-upon that she can hardly stand it. I knew that feeling.
“Just think about that poor Nightwarden, too,” I added, remembering his strong, handsome features and probing eyes. “He’s suffering, and it’s our job to end that suffering. You’ve only added more time to his sentence.”
She leaned on the little table I used as a desk, palms on the maps spread across it. “You know there’s nobody as dedicated to freeing them as I am. Don’t throw that in my face.”
“Keep it in mind the next time you decide to step on my toes—I’m sorry,” I added, cutting off the protests ready to fall out of her mouth, “the next time you decide to put together a rescue mission. I can take care of myself and have been for a very long time. All right?”
She nodded sharply.
“You can go.” I was sure the team was waiting outside, listening in.
It wasn’t like they
had to try very hard with all the gaps in the walls leaking every word I said. Or screamed.
A long drink from the canteen helped cool my anger a little more, but it wasn’t enough. I had let them slip through my fingers. If I had convinced Claudia sooner that I was a friend and not the enemy, I could’ve convinced her to hand him over to me.
The funny part was, he had no idea how deep his Stockholm syndrome ran. How pitiful and pointless his existence was. And how easy it would be for me to put him out of his misery. It was all I wanted: erasing the pain of one more creature. It was all we had worked for since the beginning.
Hundreds of years, the Nightwardens had been slaves to the covens. More than half a millennium, with more still to come. Who would welcome such a prison sentence? Having to spend centuries at a time locked underground with no chance of escape until a witch woke them.
What I truly longed for, what would allow me to die with a smile on my face when the time came, was to break into The Fold and take them all out in one fell swoop.
No way would the High Council allow for a breach of that nature. There had to be dozens, maybe hundreds of layers of protection to weed out all those entering with the intent to harm. Claudia could go in without permission because she had meant no harm to her Nightwarden.
I meant no harm, either. I meant mercy. We all did, and we always had. They just didn’t define mercy the same way we did.
I pulled out my ponytail and shook out my long blonde hair like a waterfall. It made me think of Claudia’s hair. The woman needed help in more ways than one. She was probably beautiful at one time, but living high up in the Appalachian hills had done things to her. Not to mention whatever had convinced her to live in the hills in the first place.
She had mentioned love. Love for whom? Certainly not her Nightwarden. He was barely better than an animal. An animal could be handsome, even drop-dead gorgeous, but still be an animal. Anything with fangs like his and claws like his and eyes that turned blood red when was angered the way his turned red was an animal.