Wicked Hour

by Chloe Neill

  That had been first blood, at least between beasts and wolves, and the battle began.

  The remaining wolves jumped forward, Connor in the lead. I had to work to tamp down my fear and let him fight his battle. And being an immortal, I pulled the dagger from my boot.

  My fangs descended, my eyes silvered. Moonlight dripping down the blade, I ran forward to a human who lay facedown in the dirt, blood streaming from her arm. Her hair was long and brown, her body petite, and I had a horrible jolt at first, thinking I’d found Carlie dead.

  I steeled myself, turned her gently, checked her pulse.

  The woman wasn’t dead, and she wasn’t Carlie. There was a knot on her forehead, already purpling, and a gash across her cheek. I checked for obviously broken bones, decided she wasn’t wounded enough that she couldn’t be moved. I could carry her to the house, but I’d have to go through the fighting; that was too risky. I looked around, saw the remains of a small wooden structure—three sides sheltered from the wind—in a hilly patch of green. Probably a place used to feed grazing animals, and they’d plowed around it to set seeds in the ground.

  I put away the dagger, picked her up, watched the fight for my chance to cross the battleground, and when the chance came, I ran. The ground was dry and hard, the furrows trip hazards that made every step dangerous. I dodged a piece of flaming wood thrown clear of the fire as the debris pile moved, settled.

  I placed her beneath the shelter. She moaned when I put her down, eyes fluttering open. “What happened?”

  “Just a little mishap at the party,” I said with a light tone, since the Supernaturals were supposed to be a secret. “A very hairy mishap.”

  “What—,” she began, then sat up, her eyes growing wide as she saw a beast screaming in front of the fire, the flames reflected in her eyes.

  Then her eyes rolled back, and she fainted.

  “Probably for the best,” I said, then rose and turned to face the battle again.

  The wolves had managed to separate the beasts, were taking them on individually. Connor had Brown, and they were lunging at each other, muzzles and claws already dripping with the other’s blood.

  As always, the monster was jealous—of the blood, of the power, of the fight. But there were monsters enough here, and the broken magic of whatever had made the beasts. I couldn’t risk it. Not now.

  No, I said, and tried to ignore the urgency of its pleas.

  It was stronger, it assured me. It would fight better, and I had made a deal.

  That I was actually having a conversation with the monster was a nightmare for another time. And yes, I could have used its strength. Probably could have used its amorality. But humans here had an odd relationship with the supernatural, and we had enough to deal with. I wasn’t going to make that worse with red eyes and violence that I couldn’t control.

  I can’t deal now. It’s too dangerous.

  I felt its anger then, the internal burn of fury that I was denying what it wanted. I doubled over with the sharp shock of pain.

  I am dangerous, it said.

  The silver beast roared, drawing my attention back to the fight. Two wolves lay on the ground, chests heaving. Red was in the same shape. Only Connor and another were still fighting, their attention focused on Brown and Black.

  Silver saw me and began to move forward, the earth seeming to shudder with every step. Its paws were bigger than my head, and given those claws, it wouldn’t need an aspen stake to do plenty of damage.

  If it kills me while we’re arguing, I told the monster, we both die. Step back.

  I put my own magic behind the demand, and all the glamour I could muster. After a moment, the pain receded, and my mind became gloriously clear. But I knew the reprieve was temporary. I’d angered it, and while I won the battle, I had a sinking feeling that I wouldn’t win the next one. And possibly not the war.

  Georgia was right. It was fighting me for control. And I was losing ground. But there wasn’t time to dwell on that now. The other war still raged, and I was one of the soldiers.

  I pulled my dagger out again, worked to clear my mind of all but the blade and the enemy. I was vampire. I was predator. I had skills and power of my own. And I would use them.

  Twenty feet away, Silver roared again, blood and saliva dripping from its fangs. There were cuts along its torso, tufts of hair and skin hanging from its legs where the wolves had gotten purchase with fang and claw.

  And it looked pissed.

  “Oh good,” I said merrily, and thought of the lessons I’d learned in France, in the humid basement where I’d learn to fall and rise a thousand times. And where I’d learned to make the dance mine, not to let my attacker lead.

  I had one skill I’d bet it couldn’t master.

  I sucked in a breath, moved my weight to the balls of my feet, and pushed off. I ran toward it, arms and legs pumping, then pushed up, soaring into the air, dagger extended. I landed on the animal’s torso, thrust the blade into its shoulder. Its fur was crusted, and the smell was astoundingly bad—animal and dirt and a sourness that seemed to come from the magic as much as the body.

  But it felt pain. It screamed, reared back. I grabbed handfuls of fur, but it twisted, and I flew, hitting the ground with a thud I could feel in every bone—and slamming my head against a furrow of brick-hard dirt.

  There was a yip I recognized as Connor’s, and I glanced up, found him staring at me in concern. “I’m fine,” I called out, blinking until my vision cleared.

  I looked up again, watched the beast pull out the dagger, the blade sliding wetly through muscle and flesh, and howl at the pain. It dropped the blade and turned, met my gaze.

  And then it started running.

  The movement was awkward—a wolf balancing on two legs attempting to imitate a human’s running form. It was trying to move like a human, I realized. Or more accurately, like a shifter in human form.

  “That is some very bad magic,” I said, crawling to my feet, trying to keep the world from spinning around me.

  It reached me, stretched out its awkward limbs, and swiped out. I crawled beneath its legs, kept moving toward the dagger. I heard it loping behind me, the impact of its footfalls giving me a good indication of its location. I spotted the dagger three feet away. Then two.

  It swiped again, the tips of its claws burning hot across my back, and sending me across the ground. I rolled to a stop, climbed to my feet, saw it look down at the dagger as if puzzling out what to do.

  It had known enough—was human enough—to pull the dagger from its shoulder. But it couldn’t quite remember how to wield it. Which was fine by me.

  I scrambled to my feet, lunged for the beast again, sweeping the dagger up as I raked my nails across the dirt. I kept running, putting distance between us so I could turn and face it.

  And did, brushing dirt and sweat and blood from my eyes.

  I bared my fangs, hissed out an oath as the gashes in my back pulsed with pain. The beast turned again, blood seeping from its shoulder and leaving a dark stain down its torso. Baring its fangs in a kind of dare, it loped toward me again, the fury evident in its eyes.

  This wasn’t just an animal fighting for territory. It was angry. Furiously angry. Because we’d interrupted it? Because we’d hurt it? Or because it just wanted to hurt, to kill?

  I adjusted my fingers around the dagger’s handle, crouched just enough to keep my center of gravity low, and moved the weight on the balls of my feet. The beast reached me, swiped, and I spun to avoid the claws, slashed down across its calf as I turned. I’d hoped to sever a tendon, to put it on the ground, but its skin was tougher than I’d thought, and this time I hadn’t used my bodyweight.

  I still sliced, and it still screamed, the sound high-pitched and frantic, and turned around, snatching the air to get me, to stop me. I dropped and rolled, then popped up again, slashed across the front
of its other thigh. I ducked to avoid its claw, but it grazed my shoulder, sending me off-balance. I hit the dirt again, but managed to keep the dagger, rolled onto my back.

  It loomed over me—firelight flickering across its face—and screamed again, its breath emitting a stench as bad as the rest of it. I changed my grip on the blade to prepare for an upward strike . . . when a human voice filled the air.

  “Stop, you bastard!”

  There was a mighty thud, and the beast fell to its side, revealing Carlie behind it, scratches across her face and collarbone, and a stick as thick as a baseball bat in her hands.

  “Good shot,” I said, and began to climb to my feet.

  Carlie smiled, dropped the stick. “Thank you! I was afraid it was about to—”

  That was all she managed to say, because the beast was up again and, in the space of a heartbeat, caught her in its jaws and ran toward the woods.

  The beast had Carlie.

  The scream was stuck in my throat, and it took my brain a moment—too goddamn long—to process what had happened. Cold slicked down my back even in the fire’s enormous heat, and I stared into the woods.

  The beast had Carlie, I thought again, even as the monster insulted my fighting, my impotence. But I didn’t need the guilt. She’d been trying to save me when she’d been taken.

  And hell if I was going to give her up.

  * * *

  * * *

  I ran like I was chasing hell itself, instead of the opposite. The beast’s trail was, at least, easy to follow. It cut a swath through the trees, left a trail of dark blood and broken magic that was impossible to ignore.

  I pushed harder, ran faster. My lacerations were screaming, my head still spinning from the knock I’d taken. But pain meant nothing. Not compared to her life.

  I had to get Carlie back. There was no other option.

  I could hear the beast ahead of me, breath stuttering and footfalls growing slower. It was wounded, too, and carrying a human. A small human, but still.

  That I couldn’t hear her screaming, didn’t hear a cry for help, planted fear deep in my belly. Was some of the spilled blood hers? Had the beast’s teeth pierced something vital? Would I be too late?

  “No,” I said, and forced myself to move faster, until the trees and leaves were blurs around me and I could barely feel the trail beneath my feet.

  Ahead of me, shadows shifted and moved in the narrow beam of moonlight that managed to penetrate the trees. I saw the beast’s form, dark and hulking, and knew what I needed to do.

  I had to stop it. Had to get Carlie free of it, and given the gap between us, I’d have to use my dagger.

  I couldn’t miss.

  They were sixty feet ahead of me, and I pushed again, narrowed the gap to fifty, to forty, to thirty, until my heart felt like a piston in my chest, my lungs burning nearly as badly as the scratches on my back.

  Thirty feet.

  I couldn’t wait any longer. I held the dagger by the tip, pulled back, and let it fly. It streamed through the trees like an arrow, straight and true. I heard the punch of contact, the grunt of sensation, and the sound of something heavy hitting the ground.

  “Bingo,” I said, and ran toward it.

  I reached the small clearing made by its fallen body.

  But the beast was gone, along with my dagger.

  Carlie lay across a granite bolder, her face and hands and arms smeared with blood. Her small body broken, her skin gray, and dark blood seeping from a rip across her abdomen. Her mouth was open, eyes staring.

  “No,” I cried out. “No, no, no,” and sprinted forward, felt her carotid.

  There was a pulse, but that was generous. It was faint and irregular, and with every pump of her heart, more blood stained the ground around her.

  She was bleeding out.

  I swore again, pulled off my jacket, pressed it to her abdomen to try to stanch the bleeding, even though I knew it was futile and wasn’t going to help. Not when the beast had torn at her flesh like it wanted to shred her to pieces.

  I couldn’t call out. If I did, the beast might come back. I could lift her, carry her, but where? I was in the middle of the woods; the resort and the farmhouse were somewhere on opposite sides of me. Even if I could find a place to take her, she wouldn’t survive the trip.

  “Fuck,” I said, and pressed harder, and blood seeped warm and wet through my fingers. There was so much.

  My fangs descended, not in lust, but in reaction to the sheer volume of blood. Not even my monster was interested in her, in this death and waste and misery.

  “Come on, Carlie,” I said. “Hold it together. Be strong for Georgia, for Connor.” But she wasn’t going to hold it together. If I didn’t do something, there wasn’t going to be a happy ending here.

  I looked up, around, had to risk a scream. “Connor!”

  I listened, hoping to hear the sound of paws on the ground, of rescue. But there was nothing but the beat of my heart in my ears, of the plink of blood onto stone. Of life into stone.

  There was another way. I knew it only in possibilities, in the stages that had been explained to me by my parents, my professors . . . because I was the only vampire who’d never experienced them.

  The time that elapsed between her heartbeats grew longer, the beats softer, no longer a pulsing of muscle, but a sigh. A releasing. There was no more time to wait. Not for rescue. No one was coming to save her now. Which meant I had to, whether she wanted it or not.

  “I’m sorry,” I told her, pushing back the hair from her face.

  And sank my fangs into her neck.

  Her blood was a sweet song, and I was torn between thirst, desire, and guilt. But the latter couldn’t matter; I had to do this, and I had to hope it worked.

  The concept was simple: Bite, spreading the agent that prevented coagulation and triggered the mutation. Drain the human blood and replace it with my own blood, which would feed the mutation. And then wait for the physical transformation to be complete—three days of pain and terror as human biology transformed to vampire.

  Unless it didn’t.

  Only Master vampires—those tested and recognized as Master vampires by the AAM—were officially considered strong enough to ensure the transformation would be successful—and wouldn’t simply kill the human. They were also the only vampires considered experienced and resourceful enough to manage the emotional and psychic connection that linked the Master and the vampire he or she created.

  I was twenty-three and could barely manage my own life, much less anyone else’s. But that couldn’t be helped, any more than the risk could be avoided.

  The beast had taken Carlie’s life. Here, in the forest alone, this was her only real chance to live again.

  She barely moved as I drank, neither conscious nor strong enough to fight me. And I thought it was better that way. She’d seen, experienced enough horror for the night. There was no point in adding to the burden she’d already carry.

  It took only minutes for me to drink, my body hungry and depleted from the fight. She was a limp doll cradled in my arms, skin translucent, cheeks hollow, dark half-moon shadows beneath her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again. Full of blood and power and oblivious to pain, I snicked fangs into my own wrist so the blood welled in two dark streams. I held my bloodied wrist to her, let droplets fall upon her lips, and waited.

  But she was still as a stone, an alabaster rendering of the woman I’d met at Georgia’s. The woman who’d attacked a beast with a stick to save me from harm.

  “Come on, Carlie,” I said, and maneuvered more droplets onto her lips, the contrast between bright blood and pale lips so obvious, so terrifying.

  For another minute more, there was nothing. No movement, no sound, no attempt to take the blood I’d offered her. Despair covered me like a blanket. The possibility that I
had not saved her, but hastened her death.

  And then her lips parted, and the blood licked away. Hope rose, and I offered my wrist again.

  Her eyes flashed open, stared up at me. She dug fingers, bloodied nails, into my arm, wrenched it against her mouth, and then began to drink. The sensation was strange—not bad, not good—but strange. My own power, life force, being taken, used, to complete the transformation. And literally sucked away.

  “Ow,” I said as her teeth began to sharpen and dig into my skin, but I was glad of the pain. It was penance, and little enough cost for the havoc I’d be wreaking on her life.

  Magic rose, cold but bracing, as it began the first stages of its work—mending what was broken. With my free hand, I pushed away the jacket I’d used to put pressure on her wound, watched as the jagged edges knitted together until the skin was whole again. Still sickly gray, but whole.

  She would never see the sun again, but she’d heal quickly. Assuming she survived the rest of it.

  There were footsteps, movement through the trees, and I wrapped my free arm protectively around her, gaze darting from tree to tree to find the threat.

  Connor stepped into the clearing, in muddy jeans and shoes, a shirt rolled and snaked into his waistband. He must have picked up his clothes while searching for us. His torso was bloodied, punctures and lacerations tracking across his arms, his belly.

  Relief crossed his face first—gratitude that I was alive. And then he looked closer, saw Carlie, my arm, her lips around my wrist.

  His mouth opened, but he didn’t speak, just stared at us until, I guessed, he could comprehend what he was seeing. It would have been a shock, I knew. A horror, probably, to see the girl he considered a little sister bloodied in my arms.

  And to watch her drink.

  But we were on a schedule, and there was no time to waste. So I had to add insult to injury and hope we’d find our way out the other side. Because while I understood the process, I wasn’t a Master, and Carlie deserved more than my inexperience.