Seduced by Blood (The Vampires' Fae Book 2)

by Sadie Moss

  “Not yet,” Jerrett returned grimly.

  “Come on.” Sol led the way down the corridor toward the heart of the castle, where screams and shouts still echoed.

  The vampire woman rose unsteadily to her feet and followed us. I shot her a glance, my heart swelling with pride for my new people. Even if Carrick wasn’t willing to defend the castle, the vampires who lived here would defend themselves.

  We careened through the winding corridors of the castle until we turned into a new hallway, and my heart stopped. It was like horrible, bloody deja vu. The hallway was littered in vampire bodies, and blood streaked the walls. As I watched, the shade who’d just impaled the young vampire from my vision yanked his blade free. The vampire collapsed, blood pulsing from the wound on the left side of his chest.

  I almost retched, the sight of so much death and blood overwhelming me. But more than that was the fact that I’d been forced to see this sight twice, and both times I’d been powerless to stop it.

  Rage filled my body like hot steam, and I stepped forward. But before I could charge the shade, it disappeared down the hallway, followed by its brethren.

  “Goddamn it!” I raced after their dark forms, the need for vengeance burning through me. “Come on!”

  We raced through the corridor, past the mutilated bodies of downed vampires. Malcolm had told me that our kind were immortal, not invincible. I’d known that. I’d believed him. But it was still surreal to see such powerful supernatural beings lying dead around us. It felt wrong somehow, like this was all just a terrible nightmare I would wake up from soon.

  But I knew that wasn’t true.

  This might be a nightmare, but unlike the vision I’d had earlier, it was very, very real. There would be no waking up from this.

  My heart cracked open as we ran. I hadn’t been able to stop it from happening. I’d tried to warn the king and failed.

  Goddamn you, Carrick.

  He’d been too busy lusting after my blood to listen to me. He’d betrayed his people for his own selfish desires.

  And now we would all pay for his mistake.

  21

  Sol

  The sounds of our footsteps bounced off the hard stone walls as we ran. There were five sets of footsteps. The vampire woman who’d been attacked by the shade—Celia, I thought her name was—still followed us. Her gait had been unsteady at first, but it had picked up strength and speed as she healed.

  I pulled alongside Willow, and Jerrett covered her other side as we raced for the weapons room. Fangs were all well and good, but against these monsters, we needed every advantage we could get. Willow had already proved herself to be adept with a blade, and what she lacked in actual training, she made up for in determination and power.

  Malcolm wrenched swords from their racks and distributed them.

  “Sol! Here!”

  He tossed one to me, and I heard the whisper of steel cutting through air as I followed the trajectory of its aura. My hand darted out, closing around the cool, leather-wrapped hilt.

  “If the shades disguised themselves as vampires to infiltrate the castle, does that mean they killed all the vampires whose places they took?” Willow’s voice was thick with worry.

  “I don’t know. They may have, but it’s also possible some disguised themselves as unknown vampires. On any given night, there are dozens of vampires from North American clans coming and going,” Malcolm answered, leading the charge as we dashed back out into the hallway.

  “Yeah, and since they covered up their fucking stench, no one would’ve thought anything of it.” Jerrett made a noise of disgust.

  We followed the loudest sounds of battle, which emanated from the great hall. When we reached the large room’s entrance, noises and scents assaulted me. Vampires shouted, and the shades emitted ungodly shrieks as they fought. Celia left our group, throwing herself into the fray.

  The four of us remained in the doorway for a moment, huddled together in a tight formation.

  “My father has disappeared,” Malcolm growled. “He won’t show his face again until this fight is over, one way or another.”

  “Just as fucking well.” Jerrett’s voice was bitter.

  “I would agree with you, but without him, the guards will be disorganized. They’ll still fight, but he’s supposed to be their leader.”

  “Damn it. Why did the shades sneak in here? Why attack now? What do they want?” Willow’s voice came from beside me, breathless and fearful.

  “I don’t know,” Malcolm answered grimly. “But it’s obviously a coordinated attack. The weird sisters have been planning this for days while we wasted time on trials and feasts.”

  A shout rose up, followed by a crash. The vampire who’d been thrown through the door into the wall behind us picked himself up, darting back toward the battle. He would heal while he fought.

  “Shit.” I could hear Willow’s pulse pick up. “This can’t go on much longer. The shades have already killed too many. Do you think they came here for me? Should I—”

  “No!”

  My brothers and I nearly shouted the word at her in unison. If she tried to do the noble thing again and offer herself to the shades in exchange for peace, it would kill me. And we’d all seen how well her deal with Carrick had worked out. Bargains with devils never ended well.

  “No, sweetheart. I don’t think they did. If they had, they’d have sensed you and hunted you down already.”

  Jerrett’s words were hardly reassuring, but he was right. If the shades were after Willow this time, we would know it. The ones in the throne room hadn’t honed in on her, and neither had the ones here. Perhaps the sisters had given up on her after she’d proved resistant to their spell.

  But that left the question, what did they want?

  Before I had time to speak my thoughts out loud, a rush of cool, fetid air flew toward us.

  “Ah, fuck!” Jerrett ducked out of the way of the attacking shade. “Wanna dance, you asshole?”

  He grabbed its arm and swung it toward me, but it went incorporeal before I could launch an attack. A chill washed over me as the shade ran right through me.

  I swung around, waiting for the change in the creature’s aura that would tell me it had solidified again. It circled all four of us as we grouped together, backs pressed together.

  “It’s a risk for them to come here,” Malcolm murmured in a low voice. “They match us in strength and speed, but they’re not invulnerable either. The sisters are taking a chance that they’ll lose the undead army they’ve built. Why?”

  “There must be something they want here. Something they need in the Penumbra.” Jerrett’s words were followed by a grunt as the shade materialized in front of him, landing a hard blow to his body.

  I pivoted, swiping out in an arc that caught the shade in the gut before it could retreat. The thing let out a hollow shriek, and sticky blood sprayed across my hand.

  “Nice hit, Sol!” Jerrett crowed, his voice hoarse from the blow to his ribs.

  The shade started to slither away, obviously hoping to recover so it could attack again. But I wasn’t in the habit of giving my enemies time to do that. I raced down the hallway, leaping up and kicking off the wall to get extra height before coming down on the shade.

  My blade struck first, driving through the creature’s neck, and my body followed, knocking it off its feet. By the time we hit the ground, its form was already shriveling, curling in on itself like a dead bug.

  I crouched on one knee, listening to the sounds of the fight in the main hall.

  Then something else caught my ears.

  I stood, pulling my sword from the ancient monster on the floor.

  Willow stepped forward, but I put an arm around her, holding her still next to my body. “Shhh.”

  Her attention was like a warm fire on a cold day as she studied my face, but there was no time to bask in her radiance now. My brothers had frozen as well, accustomed to me calling upon my superior hearing when we hunted.
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  Dozens—hundreds—of noises filtered in from all around us, and I sorted through them quickly, attuning my hearing to pick up each nuance.

  In the main hall, a foot landed on bone with a thud and a crunch. Cries of pain and rage filled the air.

  Farther down the corridor, a vampire breathed heavily in sharp gulps.

  In the throne room, steel met with steel.

  And at the castle entrance, a whispering, whooshing sound filled the air.

  “There!” I murmured, my eyes darting back and forth beneath my closed lids as I honed in on that sound, following it.

  Willow swallowed. I could feel her curiosity burning beneath her skin, but she didn’t ask me to explain until I opened my eyes.

  “What? Where? What did you hear?” she asked as I tilted my head down at her.

  I lifted my gaze toward my brothers, squeezing Willow tighter as worry filled me. “More shades. Maybe dozens of them. Coming in through the front entrance. The ones in disguise were just the first wave. They kept us busy until their friends arrived.”

  Willow stepped away from me, and I already missed her presence. I wanted to lock her up in some safe corner of the castle until this was over, but I knew I couldn’t. She’d refuse to follow the same coward’s path Carrick had, and although worry for her made it hard to think straight, her honor and fighting spirit were part of what I loved about her.

  “Where are they headed? The throne room? The main hall?” Her voice shook only slightly, and I heard her adjust her grip on her weapon.

  I listened again. The whooshing sound of several shades moving at once was easier to pick up now. They’d moved farther into the castle. But neither of Willow’s guesses were correct.

  Cocking my head, I compared the sounds I was hearing to my internal map of the castle, trying to piece together the shades’ destination.

  The noise of the new shadow creatures grew louder, then faded a bit as they veered off toward the northwest wing of the castle.

  “Sol?” Jerrett’s voice was low but urgent.

  My brow furrowed as I turned my head in his direction. Impatience and battle fever churned in his aura.

  “They’re heading toward the artifact room.”

  22

  Willow

  “Motherfucker!”

  Jerrett cursed, and the three brothers turned and raced down the hallway. I allowed myself to be swept along with them, although I didn’t exactly understand what was so bad about Sol’s answer. If the shades who were fighting in the main hall never got reinforcements, it was only a matter of time before the vampires overpowered them.

  “What do they want in the artifact room?” I asked, as we tore down the hallway and up a set of stairs to the next level.

  “I don’t know.” Sol’s voice was heavy with worry. “But that’s definitely where they’re all headed.”

  “My father is a collector of ancient and powerful objects.” Malcolm glanced down at me from where he ran beside me. “He’s obsessed with magically imbued artifacts and charmed trinkets. As if the power we wield isn’t enough, he’s spent his long life gathering more to add to his collection.”

  “Oh shit,” I breathed, remembering how he’d boasted of it when he barged into my room that night. “And the sisters want something he collected.”

  “I’d bet my life on it.”

  We ran up several more flights of stairs and dashed down a corridor, Sol and Jerrett in the lead.

  The hallway turned sharply up ahead at the far northwestern corner of the sweeping castle. A large wooden door was set in the wall near the corner.

  “That leads to the tower where the artifact room is. We took the shorter route, so—”

  Malcolm’s words were cut off by a screech echoing down the intersecting hallway ahead of us.

  “Damn it. The shades are almost here. Hurry!” Sol called back.

  As we reached the corner, I glanced down the other hallway and my blood froze. At least a dozen shades poured down the corridor toward us, as if night itself were coming to eat us alive.

  We braced ourselves, weapons drawn. For a moment, I had an insane urge to laugh at the image of myself standing here surrounded by vampires, brandishing a sword as if I had any real clue how to use it besides “insert pointy end into enemy’s body.”

  But the laugh died in my throat as the shades bore down on us like a whispering, deadly tidal wave.

  Nothing about this was fucking funny.

  Then they reached us, and there was no more time to think. There was only time to react as dark, claw-tipped hands whipped out, clawing and scratching. I swung my blade at a shade who reached for me, opening a gash along its shadowy arm. Beside me, Sol decapitated another, and Malcolm ran one through with his blade.

  The injured shade shrank away from me, right into Jerrett’s sword. He dragged his blade across its back, sending a spray of dark blood flying.

  But there were so many.

  Another monster immediately took the first one’s place, bearing down on me. I readied my sword, holding it with both hands. Before I could strike, the thing faded away into a smoky shadow and darted past me, passing easily through the door to the tower.

  “Shit! He went through the—”

  Before I could finish, two more shades had broken away from the fight and slipped through the heavy door.

  “Fuck my fucking earhole!” Jerrett growled in frustration, rattling the handle before throwing himself at the locked door.

  I didn’t even ask if it was a good idea. I just faded into an ephemeral state and passed through the wood too. Another shade came through right after me, and I shuddered as its body passed through mine. It didn’t linger to fight me though, so I solidified and unlocked the door, pushing it open to see Jerrett, Sol, and Malcolm still battling back the remaining shades on the other side.

  The shades howled—I couldn’t tell if it was in joy or anger that I’d opened the door—and rushed forward. Sol and Jerrett stepped into their path, moving in a whirlwind of limbs and sharp metal.

  “Go! Go! We’ll keep these ones busy!” Jerrett shouted.

  Malcolm rushed through the door, racing up the winding spiral stairs two at a time.

  I raced up after him, trying not to think about the eerie similarity between this moment and the last time we’d fought a group of shades. Why did we keep ending up in towers? At least there’d be no hole in the floor of this one like there had been in the bell tower.

  When we reached the landing at the top, the door to the artifact room already stood open. Inside, shades flitted about the room.

  The room itself was large and round, with several tall, narrow windows spaced at equal intervals, and massive shelves lining the curved walls. Several tables and stands were arranged around the room too, crammed full of strange, ornate objects.

  Malcolm had been right. The shades were definitely searching for something. Every object in this room must be worth a fortune, and many likely possessed spells whose power I could barely comprehend. But the shadowy creatures weren’t pillaging the room, taking everything they could get their hands on. They were after only one thing.

  But what one thing?

  My gaze scanned the room as Malcolm and I entered. He leapt toward the closest shade, and it was only then that I noticed the shade was missing an arm. It must be the one we’d fought outside my apartment. Malcolm clearly realized it too, because a growl rumbled in his chest and he reached for it, probably intending to repeat Jerrett’s limb-removal trick with its other arm.

  A flash of movement to my left caught my attention, and I turned to see a shade rushing toward me. I phased out, allowing it to charge right through me, and as soon as it cleared my body, I solidified, cleanly decapitating the monster with a sweeping slash.

  The shade’s head fell from its body, and triumph welled in my heart. Maybe we could do this. If we dealt with the creatures up here, and Jerrett and Sol kept the ones downstairs from reaching us, maybe we could keep this room protected
—keep them from finding whatever prize they were after.

  But as usual, I’d gotten my hopes up too soon. Almost as soon as the thought registered in my brain, several more shades floated through the door.

  Of course. Jerrett and Sol had temporarily put the monsters back on their heels downstairs. But no matter how well the two of them fought, all the shadow creatures had to do was go incorporeal to pass through the door. The brothers couldn’t stop them.

  “Goddamnit!” Jerrett bellowed.

  “We’re coming!”

  Their shouts echoed up the stairwell as I turned to face the new threat. The large room now held seven shades, their dark forms overwhelming the space. The only reason we were alive right now was because the monsters were more focused on their search than on fighting.

  But we couldn’t let them find what they wanted.

  I threw myself toward a group of them just as a horrible ripping noise sounded from behind me. Malcolm had torn off the shade’s other arm. He tossed it aside, aiming a booted foot at the creature’s midsection. The shade stumbled backward, unable to reach out to catch its balance. It plowed into a shelf near the door, knocking a glowing green ball off a small wooden pedestal.

  The ball flashed like an emerald as it fell through the air.

  Then it hit the ground and exploded.

  I was thrown backward by the force of the blast, and I had a sudden fearful thought that this explosion was about to set off a chain reaction in this room full of dangerous spells.

  My back slammed into a window, cracking the glass with the impact, and I fell to the floor, my ears ringing.

  A loud rumbling noise filled the room.

  The entire tower shook. For a moment, I thought my dire prediction had come true, and more unstable spells had been set off by the blast.

  But no other artifacts exploded. Dust and debris filled the air, and as I looked up through the haze, I saw what had caused the rumbling and shaking. The stone arch of the doorway had collapsed. The entrance to the room was now blocked by giant, jagged pieces of stone. A hole had appeared in the roof near the door, and moonlight filtered into the room.