by Kamryn Hart
“Fine,” I said. “Give me the humans. I’ll bring them back to Wolf Bridge and look after them. I don’t want to fight either. If you want peace, that’s what I will choose. But if you pull anything like you did with Caspian again, knowing he’d ‘be able to heal’ or not, I will show no mercy.”
Evie smirked. “Very well, Princess Sorissa. I hope you will keep our best interests in mind. All species’ best interests.”
I didn’t see how I’d be able to help Evie or why I should when the vampires didn’t have a record of being trustworthy—when they almost killed one of Phantom Fangs—but I would play along for now. I was being sincere too.
The fight in Wolf Bridge last night was bloody and brutal. I hurt so many werewolves—though I didn’t kill a single one. But I was the only one acting with those restraints. Everyone else was delivering killing blows, merciless, cold. Especially my Phantom Fangs. I never wanted to see that again, and I believed Evie when she said Phantom Fangs killed the last male vampire. I didn’t know how it made me feel.
Fighting a war was nothing like hunting for food. I had never been a part of anything like this nor had I ever seen anything like this. I wanted to get back to quiet. I wanted to spend nights with Phantom Fangs and leave this all behind. All my nights. I wanted to kiss them again, to hold them in my arms, because I was sure of one thing: they were mine.
CHAPTER 4
TODD
I WASN’T COMING UP with anything.
The sun was rising higher in the sky. It wasn’t very hot on this spring morning, but its bright light was starting to get to me. I wiped my forehead again, clearing away the sweat caused by overexertion. I couldn’t find a way to guarantee our safety into Crimson Caves. It was the one place with technology superior to my own—at least at this point.
Damn vampires. If only I could figure out a way to perfectly emulate sunlight. That was their one true weakness outside of malnutrition. Ultraviolet, infrared, and visible light. I thought I understood what the sun’s light was made of. I thought I could replicate it, but none of it ever worked. It was like I was missing some component. I hadn’t been able to figure it out yet, so that research was on hold. I had nothing.
Sorissa. We couldn’t make her wait any longer. It was only a tentative flickering warmth, like a candle in my chest, that made me think she was still alive. I had no physical proof, and I was worried.
What if the vampires took her away just to kill her and dump her body somewhere?
Ice flooded my veins.
I couldn’t think about that. I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead and grimaced. Caspian didn’t check my progress because he watched. He knew I was at my end.
He announced, “We’re going to go over the plan, and then we're going to implement it immediately. We’re out of time.”
I picked up my gear, and Caspian led the way back to the sparse trees where our roaders and the soldiers with us were waiting. I caught Aerre and Rodrick looking at me. I couldn’t feel what they were thinking because that mind-reading, emotion-sharing connection between us was gone. Mostly gone. There was an undercurrent of something, but all I could really feel was my own overwhelming sense of failure. I didn’t understand any of this. Sorissa was all that made sense, and I couldn’t explain why. Biology might have been the perfect explanation before, but she was beyond what I knew about biology. Sexual attraction—fine. Mental and emotional connections shared between five different werewolves—what the hell? It hadn’t bothered me at the time. I was lost in the feeling of it. Me. Lost in the feeling of it. Sorissa was a wildfire.
Everything is explainable. Worry about it after we have her back, I told myself.
“Todd, what’s the best way to kill a gun turret?” Caspian asked.
“Let’s take stock of what weapons we have with us, and I’ll tell you,” I said quietly.
Aerre and Rodrick went to one of our roaders and started unpacking the variety of weapons we threw together in the back. We had everything from knives, small handguns, shoulder cannons, grenades, and some other miscellaneous weapons. We also had some odds and ends, like those tech inhibitors Sorissa helped me assemble.
“The gun turrets have thick armor,” I said. “We’ll need heavy firepower to even attempt to bust their shells.”
Aerre picked up one of the shoulder cannons and propped it onto his shoulder, looking through the sites and feeling it out. “I’ve never used one of these before,” he said.
“Is there a way we could just short-circuit them?” Rodrick asked. “That’s a lot of guns to get through, but they’re all automated, controlled electronically, aren’t they?”
“Yes, but only if we get the shells off,” I said. “Nothing can happen before that. After there’s an opening, we can climb up and place these tech inhibitors on whatever computer system we find inside.”
“All we have to do is place them?” Caspian asked.
“Or throw them. Aim well, and they’ll latch on with metal claws.”
I looked out at the horizon, at the large rocks and caves jutting out and sinking into the land. I was scanning for an entry point that looked the least likely to kill us, but the vampires were good about not leaving any gaps in their defenses.
“That area,” I pointed, “between those two jagged rocks that form an overhead. That’s where we should go. It has the most cover and there’s an entry point ahead—though we’ll probably have to use a lot of firepower to blow a hole in the gate. It’s solid metal, and I doubt I’ll be able to hack it. It’s risky, but we might live through it.”
“Remember we have moonlight, Todd,” Caspian said. “We’ll be able to move quickly. Very quickly.”
I nodded my head. “If a gun turret swivels, it’s active. This is going to be about speed and who can strike who first.”
“What you say goes. Everybody get equipped to move out, and we’ll move on my signal. We’re doing stealth until that isn’t an option anymore.” Caspian looked at me. “Thanks, Todd.”
My face burned. I looked away like I always did, familiarizing myself with the grass and flowers underfoot. This was one of the rare times I would be in the field with everybody else. That wasn’t usually a good idea. I would probably get in the way.
I checked my light armor along with everyone else, making sure everything was in place. I packed tech inhibitors, a handgun, and whatever else I thought might be useful. My Phantom Fangs uniform wouldn’t hold up very well under heavy fire, but it was better than nothing. It could still end up saving my life, depending on the situation.
“My useless life,” I muttered.
I nearly jumped out of my skin when Caspian snuck up behind me and said, “You’ve done enough, Todd. You have to believe in the rest of us now. It’s our job to keep you safe too. It’s like I’m always telling you troublemakers: A team has to work together.”
“I just hope everybody else is better at using moonlight,” I said sheepishly.
Caspian grinned. “It’s instinct. It’ll come easily to you—especially if the adrenaline’s running.”
He gave me a nudge with his elbow and then continued getting ready.
He was right. This time, I would have to depend on everyone else. This time, they were probably the ones who were going to keep me safe. I never doubted that about Phantom Fangs. We always had each other’s back. I trusted them, and it was easy, something I didn’t realize or acknowledge on a conscious level.
Somehow, I also felt like everything would be okay.
We’re almost there, Sorissa.
SORISSA
Gala led me back to the front of the cave. Now I understood why there were humans all lined up and sitting by trailers with wheels. They were ready to get inside once they were given the command, so they could be transferred to Wolf Bridge. They looked terrified, though. I wondered if they knew that was where they would be going or if they cared.
Evie’s parting words to me were, “Go now and wait for your werewolves.”
“
You’re not coming?” I asked.
“No. I fear what I might do if I came face to face with your Phantom Fangs. I mean every word I’ve said, Princess Sorissa, but I need a while longer before I’m prepared for that.”
“Is that why you’re in this empty room? To hide?”
“To realign myself.”
Evie was strange, but I understood her to some extent. If Gala had killed Caspian, I wouldn’t have had the slightest interest in chatting. I would have fought tooth and nail, and this would have gone nowhere. I wouldn’t have listened. I wasn’t sure what I thought of the Queen of Vampires. I knew I preferred her company over Gala’s, though.
Gala grew increasingly rougher with me when we left Evie’s presence and the white room behind. My arm was throbbing because she insisted on digging into the same place on my forearm with the exact same finger position. It was a wonder she hadn’t visibly bruised my skin. She continued to hold me in place as we stood near the cave entrance where the humongous metal gate stood, sealing it shut.
“You’re hurting me,” I said, curious to see if those words would change anything. I didn’t know why she needed to keep hold of me when we weren’t moving anymore. Maybe she thought I would make a run for it if given the opportunity—which was true.
She didn’t say anything, and she didn’t loosen her grip. She didn’t tighten it either, though.
“Didn’t like what your queen had to say?” I asked.
This time, her grip on my arm tightened. I flinched. My eyes watered as I glanced at the big, solid metal gate that blocked the outside world. I was a creature born of the night too, but I would have given anything to see the sun. As if to grant my wish, the gate rumbled and slid back down into the earth. All the vampires stood clear of the sunrays that managed to leak inside, and I took a relieved breath. I would have stepped into the light if I had thought Gala would let me.
I spotted a crazed-looking vampire with frizzy white-blond hair tapping buttons on a console near the gate. Maybe she had been the one to lower it. She glanced up at a large screen above a control panel. It had various smaller windows showing the scenery outside. It reminded me of Todd and all the screens he had set up inside of the lair. My heart ached when I thought of him. When I thought of any of them.
“Stop,” Gala hissed.
“What?” I asked. I wasn’t doing anything.
A human dropped down from the ceiling and landed with a sickening crack on the rock floor in front of me. It was a woman. Her neck was twisted the wrong way and smeared with blood. Her eyes were void of light and listless. I looked up to see a vampire dangling from the ceiling. Her crimson cloak hung off her like bat wings. She was preparing to take flight.
Gala’s grip loosened, and I lurched back as the vampire above dove down at me. Rocks crumbled and shot out like bullets when she landed in front of me. I raised my arms to protect my face from the abrasive spray. I barely made it two steps back before the vampire blurred in my vision. I saw a flash of bloodied fangs, elongated fingernails sharpened to dangerous points. But that was it. She was too fast for my eyes to see without the assistance of moonlight.
I was knocked to the ground. I gasped when my back hit the hard point of a rock. My lungs ached for air, and I instinctively pushed against the vampire suddenly on top of me. Her brown hair tickled my skin as she pushed past my arms, teeth grazing my neck. She was an unstoppable force. Compared to her, I was a lump of grass getting trampled by a magnificent stag, unable to do a thing about it. I squeezed my eyes shut in anticipation of her inevitable bite.
Just before her fangs could pierce my flesh, her weight vanished. Her hair was no longer tickling like spider legs against my skin. I couldn’t feel the warm, sticky blood dripping from her teeth. I couldn’t feel her hot breath.
I opened my eyes and blinked a couple times. Gala had one hand gripping the front of the vampire’s neck. She was lifting the vampire off the ground like she weighed nothing. She was squeezing hard, and the vampire’s purplish veins seemed to move in response, darting and dodging like snakes slithering away from a predator.
“You dishonor the queen,” Gala said sinisterly. She bared her fangs and hissed, spraying the captive vampire with spit.
“The queen has sentenced us to die,” the vampire choked out. Blood and spittle dripped down her purplish lips. Her dark eyes looked like they were about to roll into the back of her head. Her face was turning blue and swelling like a plum. “She put our fate in the hands of this werea. You know how wereas are treated. They have no power in their culture. They are treated like dirt. The queen has given up on us. She’s giving up entirely, throwing away our best food source and menial labor just like that. She’s running and hiding like a coward.”
“You know why she’s doing this, you sorry wretch.” Gala pierced the other vampire’s jugular with blood-red nails. Then she slammed the vampire down into the ground, creating a body-shaped crevice in the rocks with little effort. I had seen Caspian do something similar, but it was on much softer dirt and meant to stun. This was meant to kill. Gala stood and shook out her hand to clear off the rocky dust on her skin. Other vampires cloaked in crimson gathered around us.
“Take her away,” Gala ordered. Then she looked at me, held out her hand, and helped me to my feet. I let go of her hand once I was stable and wrapped my arms around myself, feeling the bruise on my back. It hurt to breathe.
“She will be punished,” Gala said.
“She isn’t dead?” I rasped. She looked pretty broken to me, flopping every which way as the other vampires dragged her off deeper into the cave along with the woman who certainly was dead. No one mourned her. The humans didn’t make a single noise.
“Not yet,” Gala said.
Were vampires made of steel?
“Don’t hold this against the queen. She would be furious. She will be furious when she hears.”
I ached, and my insides felt all jittery. Evie was trying to appeal to me, but obviously not all of her vampires were in agreement.
All eyes in this part of the cave were trained on me. The humans were looking at me with fear, the whites of their eyes clearly visible. The vampires were looking at me with stone-cold, unreadable expressions. Vampires were a lot harder to read than werewolves or humans. At least, these ones were.
What was I supposed to do about any of this?
I looked longingly out into the distance, the fields of rocks and grass beyond the caves. I imagined seeing Phantom Fangs on the horizon.
My heart was full of contradictions. I wanted them to be there—but I also didn’t.
What would they do? I kissed them, and something changed between us, connected us. There was a possibility they hated me for it. Wasn’t there? I hadn’t asked for their permission. I hadn’t known what I was doing. But I didn’t regret it. I knew I made the right choice. I could feel it.
CHAPTER 5
AERRE
WE DARTED FORWARD FROM boulder to boulder, jagged rock to jagged rock. So far, the entry point Todd singled out was turning out to be an okay place to shoot for. I hoped it stayed that way. I also hoped we’d be able to get into Crimson Caves without getting stuck at the door. Blowing through solid metal wasn’t exactly the easiest thing to do.
The gun turrets were still as death. According to Todd, that meant we went undetected. These damn rocks were working as blind spots like he thought they might. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t been in the middle of them, evading vampire motion sensors, myself. It didn’t sit right. I trusted Todd and tried to ignore my gut, but the worry wouldn’t go away.
If a gun turret did turn on us, we were supposed to use moonlight to speed up while darting back and forth instead of running in a straight line ahead. Todd said that would be enough to give the automated machines the slip. Whoever had the guns trained on them was instructed to keep running while the rest of us got into position with shoulder cannons and grenades. Then we’d blow the target to Hell—hopefully. Todd didn’t seem complete
ly convinced, and that wasn’t good for the anxiety I hated to acknowledge.
I knew I needed to keep my mind on the task at hand. This was kind of fucking important, but I wasn’t just worrying about one thing. I kept looking over my shoulder at Koren. Phantom Fangs was in the front, and the soldiers were in the back since that was how Caspian wanted it. It made us feel separate, like we weren’t being assisted at all. Outcasts. We would always be outcasts. I didn’t mind that until it came to my sister and mother. I didn’t want them to be a part of it.
I tried to ignore the questions burning inside of me. They needed to wait until the time was right, until we returned to Wolf Bridge probably. But even if I got the chance to ask them, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to bring myself to. I didn’t know where to begin.
Focus on staying alive, Aerre. You can’t save anyone if you’re dead, I told myself.
I darted behind another rock and peeked to my left. The gun turrets were still immobile.
Caspian shifted to my right. I looked him over quickly, focusing on his neck. His black skin was perfect, smooth. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a mark. No one would have known he had his throat slit clean through to his carotid artery just last night. Gods, he scared the shit out of me. There was so much red, all coming out of Caspian’s throat like a damn fountain. I was sure that was it. He was dead. He would have died if Sorissa hadn’t… done whatever she’d done to fill us to the brim with moonlight.
Kissed us.
“What’s wrong?” Caspian asked. His dark eyes were wide and questioning, eyebrows reaching up to the dark curls of his bangs. “Tell me now before we get to the point of no return.”
I shook my head. “It’s nothing.”
“Then don’t look at me like that.”
“Why? Does it make you uncomfortable?”
“Are you flirting with me, Aerre? The pressure of our current situation has gone straight to your brain.”
