The Den of Shadows Quartet

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  “Sarah Tigress Vida, stand up.”

  Her mother’s voice, formal and cold, instantly cleared Sarah’s mind despite the disorientation she could not seem to shake. She felt off-balance as she found her feet, trying to keep herself from shaking. She sought uselessly to smooth her wrinkled jeans.

  Adianna stood behind Dominique, her face pained as she sought Sarah’s gaze. Sarah opened her mouth to speak, but Dominique cut her off before she could say a word.

  “I want no excuses,” Dominique stated flatly. “I am not a fool, and I have known what has been going on since the start of these events.” At these words, Adianna’s gaze fell. “You were warned, and you had more than one chance to halt this … disgusting infatuation. Now this.” Dominique threw to the ground Nikolas’s poem-invitation.

  “Mother —”

  Dominique held up a hand to halt her daughter’s words. “I might have turned a blind eye upon your association with the vampires at your school, since you would have in time come to your senses, but this … lying about this killer, protecting him,” Dominique spat, “this I can not forgive.”

  Succinctly and in order, Sarah’s crimes were listed. Befriending her prey Lying to her kin. Endangering her kind by revealing them to the vampires when she told Christopher the truth. Bargaining with Nikolas, and giving up her Vida knife. Telling the human Robert who she was without Dominique’s permission. The list went on and on, including transgressions so minor they would have been overlooked any other time, and through it all Sarah had no choice but to try to stand without swaying.

  Sarah reached for her power to steady her nerves, but found herself grasping at air. She could feel the magic still humming deep in her blood, but Dominique had bound it — that explained the disorientation she had felt when she had first awakened, and that was why every sense seemed dulled. Without her magic available, she was little more than human.

  “You have until tomorrow night to prepare yourself,” Dominique announced at last.

  To prepare herself for the trial, Sarah knew. By then Dominique would have gathered the leaders of the other lines, and Sarah doubted she would be acquitted. Every word Dominique had spoken had been true.

  When Dominique turned and left the room, Sarah sank back onto the bed, dazed. Again she tried to reach for her power; she could sense it so clearly, but could not use it. What would it feel like to have it stripped away completely?

  It was only eight o’clock at night. So early, but it might as well have been the end of the world.

  “Sarah …” Adianna’s voice was soft as she closed the door and sat beside her sister. “I’m sorry. I thought you had the sense to break it off with them, and I thought you would be better off if Dominique knew right away rather than finding out sometime later …” Adianna shook her head. “I never should have let it get this far.”

  Sarah’s eyes widened as Adianna quietly ordered, “Get out of here. As it is, your magic will come back in a few days, and you still have your knife. But if you’re here tomorrow night, Dominique will disown you and take it all away.”

  “I’m not going to hide from her.”

  Adianna shook her head violently. “This isn’t about your pride anymore, Sarah. This is about your life —”

  “And when Dominique asks where I’ve gone? Will you lie for me?” Sarah demanded. “I won’t have you killed for me.”

  “I won’t be,” Adianna answered calmly. “Besides Dominique herself, no one will fault me for defending my sister.” When she saw Sarah’s hesitation, she added, “It’s your only choice, Sarah.”

  “To hide for the rest of my life from every one of my kind doesn’t seem like a very good choice.”

  Adianna swallowed thickly. “Better than being dead.” Her gaze still locked on Sarah’s, she stood up and turned away. “I’m going to bed, Sarah. I’m going to lock my door and turn on loud music, and if I don’t hear a car leaving, that’s not my fault.” She shrugged. “Good night.”

  After Adianna closed the door, Sarah sat for a moment more.

  To hide forever was not a very good option. Neither was being disowned — and she had no hope that she would be found innocent of the crimes Dominique had listed.

  Her gaze fell on the invitation Dominique had thrown to the ground, and her decision was made. There was only one way out.

  She spent about an hour orientating herself, getting used to using her body without the sixth sense her magic usually provided, and she was confident she could do what she needed to.

  She needed to kill Nikolas.

  Sarah wrote a note to Adianna and Dominique, stating her intent. Dominique had accused her of endangering her kin and protecting Nikolas — which, in her attempt to protect Nissa and Christopher, she had done. The only possible way out of this mess was to confront Nikolas.

  In truth, Nikolas wasn’t the worst of his kind — he didn’t torture his prey and he didn’t kill nearly so wantonly as his strength would allow. He hunted, as all vampires hunted, to kill the bloodlust. His marks were the only element that made his kills more obvious than kills by others of his kind. Had Christopher not separated from his brother before Dominique had started organizing the chaotic mess her predecessors had allowed the Vida records to become, his marks and name would have been just as infamous as his brother’s.

  This was not the time to ponder Christopher’s guilt or Nikolas’s innocence. This was the reason hunters knew better than to mix with their prey It created shades of gray where there had once been just black and white.

  She didn’t know what she would do when Nissa and Christopher hunted her down. She refused to kill them. But she also refused to run; hiding until she died, old and lonely, seemed worse by far than dying the quick death every hunter knew marked the end.

  She didn’t bother to hide her knives when she left, but instead put on a black tank top and black shorts; over everything she threw her leather jacket, so the weapons wouldn’t be quite so obvious while she was still in the human world.

  After taking the keys to her Jaguar from the dresser, she went outside and started the car.

  The clock read 11:59 as she pulled into the driveway at Nikolas’s house.

  CHAPTER 27

  NIKOLAS TOOK HER COAT as she entered. The house was empty except for the two of them.

  Three of us, she realized, as Nikolas led her into the living room, where Christopher was pacing.

  “Are you losing your resolve, Sarah?” Nikolas asked, and Christopher halted in his pacing. “You’ve been near enough to kill me for a whole two minutes, and you haven’t even drawn a knife.”

  “Is Christine okay?” Sarah asked, not acknowledging Nikolas’s question.

  Nikolas sighed. “Christine is fine. Even Kaleo is still alive. In fact, I haven’t had a chance to kill anyone noteworthy in the ten hours since I last spoke with you. Does that settle your curiosity?”

  Sarah ignored the taunt. “Christopher, what are you doing here?”

  Christopher shrugged. “My brother asked me to come.”

  He looked much the same physically as he had the last time she had seen him, but there was an energy about him that was different.

  Christopher had fed. Though she could read his aura easily enough to know he had not killed, he had obviously taken human blood, probably just after their fight, when his bloodlust had been so overwhelming.

  Sarah examined his face for a sign of whether he was going to help her or hurt her, but though his expression showed no anger, it showed no compassion either.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Nikolas offered, and Sarah laughed.

  Sure, she thought sarcastically, wondering what vampires served to drink. A Bloody Mary — shaken, not sliced.

  “What are you up to, Nikolas?” she asked instead.

  “I invited you to my home. I can at least be a gracious host before you try to kill me.”

  He was going to wait for her to move? That could make this a very long evening indeed, because she had b
een planning to wait for his attack. If she killed Nikolas now, unprovoked, she had no illusions that she would not need to kill Christopher, too.

  “I’ll have something.”

  Sarah turned to see a girl no older than sixteen. She was wearing a white cotton dress with silver embroidery, and her skin was fair, but not ghostly. Her hair was dark brown.

  “Christine?” Sarah whispered, hardly able to believe it. Could this girl be the same wraith Sarah had seen earlier that day, huddled in a corner? She had obviously been cleaned up, dressed, fed … the change was so amazing, it seemed impossible.

  “Yes,” the girl said lightly. “I never caught your name, though.”

  “Sarah,” she answered. She shook Christine’s hand as if this were a normal situation, though it was absurd to be introducing herself to this girl now, in the midst of a den of monsters.

  She views her world through the eyes of others./Black and white; there are no colors,/As she looks down upon a shattered youth./A shattered mirror shows a shattered truth.

  Sarah had never doubted herself before, but this nymph in white caused her hatred of Nikolas to fade a bit. Christine stood on tiptoe to open a tin that was sitting on the mantel above the fireplace.

  “Chocolate?” she offered, but Sarah shook her head.

  “No, thank you.”

  Christine glided out of the room again and Sarah watched her go, entranced.

  “Nikolas, what do you want?” Christopher finally asked once Christine was out of sight. He sounded drained, tired. “Why am I here?”

  “I wanted to give you a chance, Brother,” Nikolas said. He reached into his pocket, pulled something out, and tossed it to Christopher.

  For a moment Sarah thought the knife was Nikolas s, but as Christopher snapped it open she realized the handle was black with white inlay the reverse of Nikolas’s — Kristopher’s, Sarah assumed, left over from the time when the two brothers still hunted together.

  Christopher closed the knife. “A chance to do what?”

  “To share this one with me,” Nikolas answered, and Sarah realized it might be time to start fighting.

  But she didn’t move.

  “You’re going to blood bond her to yourself,” Christopher said, knowing how his brother’s mind worked. “That’s why you didn’t kill her when you marked her.”

  “For you, Brother. You wanted her, but she turned you down, Christopher,” Nikolas answered. “Now’s your chance to make her yours. To make her ours.”

  “Like Marguerite,” Christopher whispered, understanding. “Nikolas, no. Marguerite wanted it. Sarah doesn’t.”

  “She hurt you, Christopher,” Nikolas said, pleading. “I heard you scream. You told me not to kill her — fine, I won’t kill her, but there are very few choices left. I can let her go, in which case her own family is going to kill her, or I can blood bond her to myself.”

  “I’m not going to help you with this, Nikolas —”

  “Fine,” he answered, his voice childlike and resigned at the same time.

  Sarah stepped back out of Nikolas’s line of sight, and saw him turn to keep her in his view.

  She went for her knife, and an instant later Nikolas was behind her, with his hand around her throat. She drew the knife from her thigh and flipped it in her hand, driving it into his side.

  Nikolas cursed, throwing her away from him, and Sarah landed awkwardly on her knife, slicing open her right palm. A moment later a knife blade was at her throat.

  Christopher’s.

  Christopher had Sarah pinned on the floor, with the blade of his knife against her skin.

  “Slice me open, Christopher,” she hissed. “If you’re really willing, then do it.”

  Though Christopher didn’t let the knife cut her, he pressed the blade harder against her skin. If she moved, she would slit her own throat.

  Nikolas recovered and knelt by his brother’s side, then reached toward the knife on Sarah’s back so he could disarm her. His brother caught his wrist, stopping him, and Nikolas nodded.

  Christopher moved his knife away and pulled her to her feet, and then he let her go.

  Nikolas followed Sarah with his gaze. “Christopher —”

  “I’m not going to kill her for defending herself,” Christopher interrupted.

  “The Kristopher I used to know — my brother — would have killed her as soon as he found out she was a Vida. You’ve tasted her blood. How can you not want it?”

  “I want it,” Christopher said softly. “I want it as much as humans want to breathe, but I have control.”

  Sarah backed away, and noticed that, though Nikolas kept a hawk’s gaze on her, Christopher was only watching his brother. When she realized how easy it would be to kill him, bile rose in her throat.

  “Come back to me, Kristopher. Hunt with me,” Nikolas pleaded. He stepped toward his brother, moving closer to Sarah at the same time — he obviously did not trust her at his brother’s back. “Why do you let the bloodlust burn you every night and every day? We need to feed to survive. Would a starving man on the verge of death turn down a dinner because it was chicken and he was a vegetarian? Or would he eat it anyway, because it was all he had that could stop the pain?”

  Sarah did not wait for Christopher’s answer. Instead, she drew the knife from her wrist. The blade had barely cleared its sheath when Nikolas pounced, sending her to the ground; the breath rushed from her lungs, but she kept her grip on her weapon.

  Christopher reacted instantly and grabbed his brother’s arm, dragging Nikolas to the side, ignoring Sarah as if she posed no threat. Slaughtering her sense of fair play, Sarah rolled, knocking the momentarily defenseless vampire away Nikolas cried as her blade touched his skin, and the sound caused Sarah’s gut to clench. He looked so much like Christopher — so vulnerable.

  She realized that she had hesitated only when Christopher’s hand clamped over her wrist, stopping the knife from completing the killing blow. He tightened his grip until she dropped the weapon, and Nikolas tossed her knife away while Christopher dragged her away from his brother.

  Most vampires were solitary hunters. Sarah had been trained to take down enemies one by one, but Nikolas and Christopher fought like one entity. When one was in danger, the other reacted.

  Self-preservation replaced all loyalty to her friend as Sarah slammed an elbow into Christopher’s gut, forcing him to release her, in the same moment that Nikolas knocked her legs from beneath her.

  She rolled away from both vampires, drawing her last knife. Breathing heavily, she paused, waiting for one of the vampires to move.

  Nikolas edged toward her slowly, and she found her feet, her eyes never straying from him. Her right hand was still bleeding, and she saw his gaze fall to it, and the knife she was holding.

  She was watching Nikolas, but it was Christopher who caught her wrist, Christopher who was suddenly restraining her. She had fallen for the same mistake he had, only moments before — she had assumed he would not hurt her unless she attacked him, and so had not been paying attention when he had disappeared from in front of her.

  Christopher had lost his reasons for refusing, and all three of them knew it. Sarah’s blood was in the air, along with the tension from the fight. Christopher’s control was already weak, and now the predator had taken control.

  Nikolas reached around Sarah and held her wrists, as Kristopher wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her still.

  Sarah gasped as twin sets of fangs pierced her skin, Kristopher on the right and Nikolas on the left. Without her magic she had no further defense, and she collapsed beneath the combined pressure of their minds. With Nikolas and Kristopher still at her throat, she sank to her knees.

  Both brothers pulled away after a few moments, and their gazes met for barely a second.

  Nikolas turned away first, bent to retrieve Kristopher’s knife from where it had fallen, and handed it to his brother.

  Kristopher took the knife as if he were in a trance and made a cut jus
t below his own throat.

  Sarah turned her head away, but Kristopher forced her to look at him — and at the line of blood that beaded on his skin. They had barely taken any of her blood, but even so she could feel the thirst that always fell on a vampire’s prey and she could not look away.

  “No.” Her voice was soft, almost frightened.

  Kristopher touched his fingers to his own blood and painted her lips with it, forcing her mouth open. She tasted the blood of the damned, and she could not resist.

  Leaning her head forward to the cut on his chest, she drank. The blood was sweet and thick and magical, and she wanted it so much —

  He pushed her away after a moment, and Nikolas turned her to himself, drawing his blade across his own skin, a mirror wound to Kristopher’s.

  Once again she drank.

  Then Nikolas pushed her away too, and she felt her mind spin downward as the blood entered her system. Blackness finally swallowed her, and she fell into the oblivion of unconsciousness.

  CHAPTER 28

  ADIANNA HAD HER KNIFE in her hand as she shouldered open the front door, but she already knew there were no vampires within a mile of her. Her senses were stretched so far she could feel the heartbeats of the human inside and those of most of the humans on this block. Worse, she could feel Sarah, her aura muted from Dominique’s binding of her powers, and her heart beating frantically.

  All this she knew before she even stepped into the front hall of the house. Her eyes took in, but her mind ignored, the artwork, the roses on the table, and the open box of chocolates on the mantel.

  More vividly she saw the droplets of deep red blood, not yet dried, but scattered as if from a minor wound on a fighting person.

  She should have guessed what Sarah would do. Adianna herself would have done the same, if somehow she had ended up in the same situation. Better to die than to face the humiliation of being disowned. Better to die with your pride intact than to live without it. They had both been raised that way but Adianna had hoped so fiercely that Sarah would choose life. It had been almost two hours later that she had sneaked back to Sarah’s room, only to find her already gone.