Vampire Captives (From Blood to Ashes Book 1)

by Kestra Pingree

  The werewolf didn’t move.

  He didn’t blink, either. His bronze skin stole the orange of the surrounding fires, and the shadows deepening the sharp angles of his face were a menacing black, but his eyes didn’t match. Soft blue. Active moonlight meant danger, but this werewolf simply stared. Most Schengs would’ve been smiling maniacally, moonlight flaring. That was the difference. This werewolf’s moonlight was still as the surface of a lake.

  Scheng general? I was wrong. This werewolf was no Scheng. He was something worse.

  His crisp pearly white uniform and the insignia on the left side of his chest depicting a wolf howling meant he was from none other than the legendary Howling Sky. What odds? Silver Hollow had been forming an alliance with Crimson Caves, and the Schengs had been doing the same with Howling Sky. There was no other explanation. Although strange, it was fitting. Crimson Caves and Howling Sky were bitter enemies, the same as Silver Hollow and the Schengs.

  But what had Fyefa said about the crimson rat? She had called her a traitor, too.

  “Where is the vampyre white as snow?” the werewolf asked. His voice was oddly smooth, not rough like what I was used to, because he wasn’t growling. And the smoke didn’t seem to affect his vocal cords. “Adano Vice is his name.”

  What is happening? A werewolf asking a vampire a question? And about Adano no less.

  I retrieved the vial of condensed blood from my belt and popped the metal cork all while the werewolf watched me, unmoving. Thick, tart blood overpowered the taste of ash and rolled in clumps down my throat. My stomach sealed over again, though the bullet fragments remained inside. My veins bulged and rushed black, blacker than the grime soiling me, blacker than the shadows on this werewolf’s face.

  Even with all that power, my bones creaked. My body was able to take on another boost, but I’d pay for it later.

  “Impressive. I see why Crimson Caves was originally interested in this small kingdom.” The werewolf folded his rock-solid arms and stepped to the side. “Better run, little rat. If you want to live, that is.”

  A chase?

  I didn’t have time for this. I didn’t know if I could win if I faced him head-on, though. Maybe this was fortuitous. If I could outrun him, I could return to Adano, Hireh, and Pua. They needed me. They weren’t safe yet, and I made a promise.

  So, for the first time in my life, I ran away from a werewolf.

  I looked over my shoulder time and time again as I ran as if my ass were on fire, but I saw no blue, no moonlight or twisting smoke signaling the werewolf’s pursuit. When I’d found an exit to the building, he still hadn’t come. He was underestimating me by giving me this much of a head start, but I thanked Yessma for it. I wouldn’t waste it.

  Fresh air found my lungs as I burst out of the dilapidating reproduction center. Then I met water. I sucked it in the way I had sucked in air. I was able to cough and expel it, but my knees hit the concrete below. I was soaked through, and the water kept blasting me. This was a high-pressure spray. I would have been blown back had I been on my feet. I was barely hanging on with my body so low to the ground, sucking in pockets of air where I could find them.

  “Stop! You’ve caught someone in the current,” a female said.

  I drank in all the air I could as water dripped down my face. I flicked away what I could and stood. Common gliders idled in a fan-like formation in front of me, and they were equipped with high-pressure hoses that vampires aimed at the burning remains of the reproduction center.

  A vampire dressed in sunlight-resistant fireproof gear approached me. “Are you all right?”

  No time to waste.

  I waited until the vampire was on me, then I moved. I leapt several feet into the air, vaulting over her and all others as I landed in front of one of the humming gliders. Vampires shouted at me, came for me, but I had already thrown open the driver’s door. I was prepared to eject the vampire at the wheel, but she was the same orderly who had thanked me when I’d freed that group from the recreation room. Instead of hindering me, she jumped out. “Take it.”

  Since the engine was already running, I only had to shift gears and step on the gas to make my escape. I turned hard, causing the tires to squeal as I whipped the vehicle around. The hose it carried wasn’t properly attached and rolled down the glider’s back. I peeled off the concrete road and drove into dry dirt and rocks before weaving my way through narrow gaps between buildings. A shortcut was necessary if I was going to catch up to the others before they reached Shade Forest.

  CHAPTER 39

  ADANO

  Hireh couldn’t have had much experience driving, because she was fucking terrible. She mostly followed the roads, but Silver Hollow was in chaos, and that didn’t help. I was able to gather my bearings as the kingdom passed by outside of my window, though. What hit the reproduction center was a highly concentrated energy beam with a twelve-foot diameter. The frequencies in the air remained calm, so I wasn’t concerned about seeing another attack of that caliber. However, the aftermath was something to behold.

  So much had melted.

  The energy beam was so powerful it had cut through the mountains the same way it had Silver Hollow’s buildings. This scorching path of glowing red led directly to the origin of the attack—northwest—and we were headed north. Too close for comfort.

  “Why are we going this way?” Pua asked. “Won’t the Schengs see us?”

  Hireh made a violent turn to avoid colliding with another glider. I’d have hit my head if I hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt. Hireh shuddered a sigh and replied, “Lisette said to go to the northeast drawbridge. This is the quickest route.”

  “You trust a vampire?” Pua peeked at me, using the rearview mirror. I met her gaze and shrugged. I didn’t know what the hell was going on with us, this glider, and our destination, but I was here for the ride.

  “I trust Slayer Lisette,” Hireh said. “She saved you, brought you to me safe and sound. She didn’t have to do that.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s important to Lisette. We aren’t abandoning him.”

  I’m important to Lisette? That’s funny. And yet Hireh had said it with gusto.

  Pua’s quiet voice reached new levels of barely perceptible with the hum of the glider’s engine doing an excellent job of drowning it out. “I wasn’t suggesting we abandon him, but this whole situation is odd.”

  I had questions, but now wasn’t the ideal time to ask them. I didn’t want Hireh to total this glider with us in it. My priority was staying alive.

  But it was comforting, somehow. The fact that this thrall thought so highly of Lisette. That didn’t mean I trusted her or Lisette, but they did get me out of the reproduction center.

  Even so, I doubted we would last long outside of Silver Hollow—if we made it that far. I was convinced Lisette was out of the picture. If she wasn’t dead, she probably decided her promise wasn’t worth keeping.

  That little bit of comfort I had found crumbled. When I glimpsed Hireh’s face in the rearview mirror, I saw that dead-eyed male thrall.

  Quiet. Shut up. No point in thinking about the past or the future, I reminded myself. You have to survive the present.

  Despite the looming doom and gloom, I was stupid eager to experience Shade Forest. I knew I had missed the chance to see the butterflies’ breeding grounds, but it was fall. The leaves of deciduous trees wouldn’t be solely green—not that I would have minded green. I’d be grateful for any of it. All of it.

  Hireh sped up when we exited Silver Hollow’s industrial zone. She had to swerve around a few more gliders, but they were all heading north, so when we hit the concrete road leading northeast, the way forward was clear—kind of. Now we had Silver Hollow mountains to contend with.

  I clung to my seat as Hireh’s oversized pack, my energetic seatmate, repeatedly slammed into my side. I tried to convince myself to close my eyes, but I couldn’t do it; irrational fear said I’d die if I did. Hireh drove as if we were invincibl
e. Our glider climbed and edged around the barren, jagged mountains at a speed that would send us careening off the road with one bad move.

  For agonizing minutes after agonizing minutes, my breaths came in shallow. I held on to my synthetic-leather seat until my fingers ached, and my heart palpitated each time I thought we’d roll down a mountain face and into a mine. Those mines were deep as hell, filled with yawning tunnels and glistening machinery ready to consume us.

  I finally blinked when I saw gliders in the side-view mirrors. They didn’t disappear, so they weren’t a hallucination. And multiple gliders meant these couldn’t be Lisette—unless she had more friends she hadn’t told me about. I couldn’t confirm nor deny it.

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” I said, “but we’ve got gliders on our ass.”

  Hireh cursed, but she didn’t take her eyes off the road—thank the Gods—as she spun around the last turn on this mountain. My heart was about to stop for good, but it calmed when I saw the reds, oranges, and yellows painting the level horizon ahead of us. They didn’t burn like the flames we’d left behind. They were peaceful, still. Beautiful. Until the wind blew through them, carrying leaves like embers as they danced at the wheels of a glider.

  We weren’t the first ones at the northeast drawbridge. A couple of gliders were already parked by it, and it was lowered. The glider with leaves chasing its wheels was driving across it, returning to Silver Hollow. They must have seen us, though, because the drawbridge was rising with that glider still on it.

  Also, the speeding vehicle was coming straight for us.

  “Stop!” Pua cried. Even her frantic voice was quiet.

  “We can make it!” Hireh said. “We have to. We can’t fight them off and lower the drawbridge ourselves. We’ll jump over the moat before the drawbridge is completely raised.”

  “We won’t make it!”

  I was with Pua, because she was correct. We would need greater speed than this glider was capable of to jump the moat at this point, and that glider coming for us hadn’t changed course yet. We’d either crash or plummet into deep water. I thought about opening my door and rolling out of this suicide vehicle, but we were going too fast.

  Damn it. Is this where it ends?

  Another glider jumped off the mountain we’d just cleared, flying through the air as if it had wings. My jaw dropped as it smashed down, bouncing on all four of its wheels as it sped toward us without so much as a hiccup. It would either run into us or cut off the gliders behind us, and I didn’t have time to pin down its trajectory. I was bracing for a head-on collision.

  “Hireh, the brakes!” Pua threw herself at Hireh and grabbed the wheel. Hireh’s foot was on the gas, so we spun out. The world twirled, but we didn’t roll over. Then something hit us, one of the gliders in pursuit. It jarred my body down to the bones.

  And that one did it.

  We flipped and rolled until the moat snatched us up. Water erupted like a geyser in our wake and we sank.

  CHAPTER 40

  ADANO

  Wet and cold soaked through my clothes as water entered the glider. I closed my eyes to stop the spinning, but it didn’t change the new tilt to my perspective. The vehicle had landed on its right side. Hireh’s pack was crushing me, and my right cheek was plastered to the right backseat window. Time slowed. The bubbles outside were suspended in space, bright blue against dark blue, like the stars in the night sky.

  “Out,” I said, breathless. “We have to get out. Hireh, I don’t think your door is submerged.”

  I fumbled with my seatbelt and fought around the huge pack. It was the perfect size to block me, to fill the space between the backseat and the seat in front of it. To get past it, I had to flail like a fish and squeeze through the tiniest gap and use the window to kick off. The glass cracked.

  Fucking klutz, I berated myself and climbed on top of the pack so it was being smashed against the window. “Hireh!”

  “She’s unconscious,” Pua replied. Her voice was gravelly.

  “Well, make her conscious.”

  I reached for the door handle directly above me just as water rushed atop the window. It distorted the sky, painting blue green and casting shadows like ominous storm clouds. I hesitated. “As soon as I open this door, we’re going to fill up with water fast. Can you both move? Hireh, you need to open your door at the same time.”

  A slap and groan joined the sound of cracking glass. We were sinking and the pressure was building. I couldn’t wait forever. My hand itched to move. I could get out and leave these two behind.

  But I waited.

  “I’m awake,” Hireh said. She undid her seatbelt and fell onto Pua.

  “Did you hear what I said?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then do it.”

  “On three.”

  “Now!”

  Hireh braced against Pua the moment the window below me burst. Water gurgled and the glider rotated so that Hireh’s door was out of the water while the one above me was sealed shut. Hireh unlatched the driver’s door and pushed it open, but she didn’t push hard enough. Gravity brought the door swinging back down, and it slammed shut.

  “Again!” I said as water swept across her door.

  Hireh screamed as she pushed the door open again, and this time Pua helped spring her upward so she could use her entire body to keep the door from falling. Water dropped inside like mini waterfalls, and we sank faster. Hireh crawled up and out, stood on the glider’s metal side, caught Pua’s arm, and pulled her up. But now the glider was filling up by the gallons, and Hireh lost her balance. She and Pua fell into the moat as I tried to weave my way into the front of the vehicle. I didn’t make it. Water blasted my face and the door fell shut, locking me inside.

  Every crack in the vehicle let in more water as I sank deeper. The sun glimmering on the water’s surface, casting subdued sunrays into the green and blue water, grew darker. Then there was only darkness and cold as water reached my throat. I kicked against the backseat and the pack, chasing the last air pocket.

  I was going to drown. The window above me wouldn’t break open.

  Just as I swallowed my last breath of air before water completely filled the vehicle, glass shattered. It wasn’t that classic tinkling like a chorus of bells. It was a roar, the release of built-up pressure. Before the water warped my vision, I glimpsed something white, fluttering like a butterfly.

  The door disappeared, impossibly torn off its hinges, and a strong hand gripped the synthetic leather concealing my chest. I reflexively grabbed that hand’s wrist and kicked. My damn boot caught on the oversized pack, and a shoulder strap ended up twisting around my ankle. The pack ascended with me as the glider descended into the darkness of the moat Silver Hollow had made so fucking deep.

  As my vision threatened to blow out from the lack of oxygen, I breached the surface. I coughed and sucked in air and burned because sunlight touched my uncovered face, but another hand pulled down my sopping hood while the other wrapped around my waist to keep me afloat. I was relieved. Because did I know how to swim? Of course not.

  But who was holding me? How were they moving so quickly? I could hardly see anything from underneath my hood, but we were nearing the other side of the moat, where Shade Forest towered.

  “You’re heavier than I thought,” my rescuer said, huffing. “Our gear doesn’t help with swimming, but this is a bit much.”

  “Monster?” I coughed so hard I almost hacked up a lung. I had no idea how much water I expelled, but it was enough to make me lightheaded. I was delirious, sounded like it, when I said, “You’re everywhere today.”

  “I have to be. You’re always in distress.”

  I grunted. “Hireh’s pack is tangled around my ankle.”

  “That explains the extra weight. Perhaps you have great insight.”

  “More like luck.” It was potentially good luck since Lisette could handle it and therefore we might have some supplies we wouldn’t have otherwise. I had no idea wh
at Hireh had put in the pack beyond those two sets of sunlight-resistant gear.

  Gunshots pocked the air and pounded on my eardrums. My ears were already ringing, but there was more: growls many times louder than a glider’s humming engine.

  “What the hell?” I tried to look over my shoulder, but my neck wouldn’t allow it. I must have wrenched it in the crash.

  “Werewolves,” Lisette said. “They came from the west in their moonlight forms when I leapt out of my glider to save your ass again.”

  I didn’t have a chance to say anything else, because we reached the moat’s rocky wall, the last hurdle before we could enter Shade Forest. Lisette thrust me forward and said, “Grab on.”

  I latched on to the slippery, mossy rocks as Lisette climbed. I tried climbing too, but I slid back down. It didn’t help that one of my feet was out of commission.

  Once Lisette made it over, she held down her hand to me. I grabbed a hold, and she used her ridiculous strength to haul me up. She caught the pack when she could and flipped me and it over her. I landed on my back, which knocked the rest of the water out of my lungs. I rolled onto my stomach so I wouldn’t choke on it. My gear clung to me and my cloak tangled around me. I shivered, wet and miserable, against the cold breeze. Then something bitter filled my nose and ignited my tongue.

  Such a strong scent.

  Soft grass met my palms. Soft. It wasn’t poking grass, because the soil was rich, dark, hidden by thick greens and vivid leaves. Long shadows blocked the sun, and hefty tree branches beckoned me forward. I saw Hireh and Pua stumbling toward Shade Forest, accepting the invitation. I wanted to join them, but the potent scent wasn’t coming from that direction, and it froze me in place. It was familiar, too familiar.