Chapter 168
The van bumped and shook as it raced away from the party scene. I heard other people whimpering and scared around us as were jostled around.
“It’s the vampires.”
“I bet Claire brought them!”
“I didn’t.”
“Quiet!” Someone shouted. “Next one who talks is getting a bullet in the leg.”
“Just let us—ah!” The gun went off and the woman who talked screeched in agony. I could smell the blood. Claire started to pant, staring at the woman’s leg.
“Her eyes…”
“She’s a vampire!”
They shuffled away from Claire as she continued to stare at the growing pool of blood.
When the van came to a screeching halt, the doors were flung open and people dragged us out. The woman who had been shot was dragged away screaming. A group of vampires forced her down and bit her wherever they could reach, draining the last of her blood.
Claire panted.
“We got them both.”
“Good, take them to him.”
I tried to struggle and fight, but the man punched me in the gut. I felt my ribs crack as pain exploded through me and the air escaped me. He dragged me along, laughing.
Claire stumbled, dizzy and growling.
“This one’s hungry. Maybe we should set her loose on some of those scraps.”
“No need to waste the blood. The prince plans to drain her.”
I looked up at the building we were being dragged towards. I could see Damian through the window, smiling down at me. He came out onto the veranda.
“What a lucky night,” he said. “Still alive, Hedy?”
I looked up at Damian, glaring at him. He laughed.
“Looking quite good for a corpse… Thank you so much for being dumb enough to turn your GPS on and us your personal account.”
My heart lurched as I realized that the messages about the party had come from people we knew, but no one had ever said they were hosting a party.
“Teenaged werewolves are so easy,” Damian said, leaping down from the balcony. “Easy to lure and easy to turn too.”
He looked at Claire. “Though rather difficult to control. I had no idea that a werewolf’s… bond,” he laughed a little. “Could be so strong. Interesting bit of magic that first wolf employed. Funny, too… or maybe it was his father’s bloodline. There’s no telling and it doesn’t really matter.”
“You’re not going to get away with this,” I said. “Candido is on the way.”
“Hedy!”
“Oh, thank you for the warning,” Damian said, chuckling. “Nothing like a heads up.”
He gestured vaguely and I looked at Claire whose expression was hard.
“I swear, you werewolves, even you half werewolves, are just… dumb. It’s incredible that most of you manage to walk, talk, and breathe at once.”
Damian laughed and stepped away, seemingly disappearing into the dark, leaving Claire and I there, still bound.
Then, I heard gunshots and the roar of jeeps.
“Hedy!” Candido yelled as the jeep roared into the clearing.
“I told you not to—” Claire hissed as Francium got out of the jeep.
“Do you think I could just leave you here? Even if this wasn’t the dumbest thing you’ve ever done, you’d be giving Damian way too much power. Get up!”
“They’ll be back,” Candido said and looked down at me.
“Candido, I—”
“Have done enough,” Candido growled and grabbed me. He hauled me up.
“That hurts!” I cried as he lifted me into the jeep with a grunt. He climbed back into the back of the jeep.
“Get ready,” Candido growled. “I can feel them.”
“Candido—”
“Shut up,” Candido growled.
“No, I’m not going to just shut up! If you hadn’t ignored me, I wouldn’t have left with Claire.”
“You’ve endangered you and Claire’s life, the entire war for some misplaced sense of being ignored?” Candido shouted. “Are you stupid?”
My eyes burned with tears. “You can’t call me stupid! You’re the one who’s stupid! Ignoring your mate. It’s your fault. If you would just pay attention to me--”
He slapped his hand over my mouth and held me against him as I struggled and kicked. Then, I heard Damian laughing.
“What can you do with stupid teenagers, Candido?”
“Fire!” Candido yelled. I bit his hand as the gunshots were fired and he yanked his hand away from my mouth. “Hedy, this is not the—”
He flew back as a bullet grazed him and cursed.
“Get down! Drivers head north!”
Tires screeched and the jeep lunged forward. I rolled towards the back of the jeep and slammed into the tailgate. I heard vampires snarling nearby. Bodies thudded off the front of the jeep. I saw faces of werewolves I knew from school flashing by.
“What about everyone else?” I asked.
“Round the building, shake them!” Candido yelled into the cab of the jeep.
“Are you listening to me?” I yelled. “There are other people—”
He snarled turning back to glare at me. I sucked in a breath. For the first time, I felt the full weight of his alpha power directed at me. It felt like a heavy weight, flattening me to the bed of the jeep’s truck bed. It made me go quiet, and I felt completely without will before what he wanted of me.
He wanted me to be quiet, and so I was. My heart raced. It was different than the power that Ian had used on me.
The tires screeched and he turned, grabbing a gun, and firing into the forest as the jeep turned sharply and almost tipped before taking off into the forest. He braced himself against the back of the jeep’s open frame and kept firing behind us.
“Keep going!” Candido yelled. “There’s a cave system within a mile from here, we’ll lose them there!”
He fired and fired again. I could hear the other jeeps and trucks behind us, trying to keep up. Then, the jeep shuddered in place.
“What?” He growled. “Fuck! Gilgamesh!”
The forest seemed to whirl around us and we were going somewhere else, but I could still hear the gunshots. Wherever the forest had taken us, wasn’t necessarily better. I smelled the alcohol and blood from the party site growing closer.
“What the…” He turned back. “Slow down!”
The jeep started to slow and circle the party site before coming to a stop.
“Oh good,” Ian’s voice came from above. “You survived. Do remember to give thanks to the goddess.”
Candido looked up at him. I lifted my head, still unable to speak, unable to even make a sound.
“You!” He growled. “What the hell were you thinking, letting them leave Lunae’s Circle?”
“It must be a werewolf impulse to control other people at all cost,” Cillian said, seemingly drifting down from the treetops. “You make it sound as if His Highness has some obligation to keep a grown woman caged.”
“You know damn well that it was dangerous. What the hell was your plan?”
“I believe we discussed that before you and your merry band of half-cocked werewolves rushed out after two stupid teenagers,” Ian said. “And it is coming to fruition.”
He growled. “People have died.”
“I assure you that many more would have died if you did not have a very personal reason for crashing Damian’s little ceremony,” Ian said.
I wanted to ask what was going on, to speak again, but I couldn’t. Ian landed on the rail of the jeep.
Then, I heard Claire screaming, “Is it so hard to understand? I just wanted a night of normalcy.”
“Did you even think of how dangerous it was to go not being able to get back on your own—”
“I’m so sick of having to worry about all of that!”
“This is war, Claire! Do you understand what could have happened? If Damian caught you? To you? To me?” Francium’s voice cracked on the end.
Candido turned in their direction. “You think your parents would be happy about this?”
Claire growled. “I’m not a child!”
Ian let out a loud sigh. “Could all of you focus on the situation at hand? Damian’s merry band of newly turned vampires will be here soon, and you all need to have a very clear understanding of what will happen when they arrive.”
He paused and looked over towards Francium and Claire.
“A very clear understanding of what you all are… Other than expendable.”
Candido growled at him.
“You are the pernicious little new blood that bit into Damian’s throat, correct? Claire, was it?”
“… yes.”
I sat up, struggling with my arms still bound behind my back. Candido didn’t even look down at me.
He hummed.
“A shame that some of your viciousness and intelligence hasn’t rubbed off on her,” he tutted. “You’d do well to remember the importance of the bond you’ve made with Francium.”
She frowned. “I… made?”
What could he possibly have meant by that? Did vampires actually have bonds like werewolves? Had Raven lied to me?
Did I have a vampiric bond with Candido too?
