Her fangs. The girl across from me wasn’t a human.
She was a vampire.
I knew vampires existed. Noah and Sage had told me about them early on in our hunt.
But this was the first vampire I’d ever seen. And her fangs, her chin with the squirrel blood still on it, and the way she was going feral at the sight of Susan’s blood was unnerving, to say the least.
If it hadn’t been for the bars keeping her in—the bars that must be extraordinarily strong, to resist her vampire strength—she would have run right over to Susan and finished her off. Judging by how hungry she looked, I’d probably be next.
Suddenly, someone appeared in the hallway between the cells. A petite woman who looked like she’d come straight from the 1920s in her flapper dress and her dark hair perfectly styled in a bob cut.
Geneva.
41
Raven
Now that I saw her, I remembered Geneva from the last dream I’d had. Well, the last memory I’d had.
It was pretty clear by now that these visions were memories, not dreams.
Geneva took one look at Susan and shook her head. “Oh, Susan.” She sounded like a mother who’d walked in on her kid making a mess in the house. “Did you really think you’d succeed in offing yourself before I found you?”
Susan simply stared at her, saying nothing.
“You didn’t even cut deep enough to hit a major artery,” Geneva continued. “At this rate, it’s going to take you hours to bleed out.”
“Make it quicker,” Susan begged, letting her arms flop to her sides. “Please.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Geneva said. “Because I need you alive. So I’m going to keep you that way.”
“You’re going to use one of those devil potions to save me, aren’t you?” Susan sounded devoid of life, as if being saved were the worst fate she could imagine.
“Of course not.” Geneva shook her head in disappointment. “There’s no point in wasting perfectly good healing potion on fatal wounds. Especially when there’s another, much simpler option.” She whisked something small out of her pocket—a dart gun—turned around, and aimed it at the vampire in the cell across from me.
Stephenie. That was the name of the vampire in the cell. Princess Stephenie. Of the vampire kingdom of the Vale.
The dart hit Stephenie straight in the neck. She sucked in a deep, painful breath, and collapsed to the floor.
“Wormwood.” Geneva smiled and looked down at the vampire’s body. “Gets them every time.”
I gripped the bars in shock. “Did you kill her?” I asked.
“No,” Geneva said. “I need her for the same reason I need the two of you.”
“And what reason is that?” I doubted she would answer, but there was no harm in trying.
“Do you really think I’m going to tell you?” She laughed. “Anyway, she’s not dead. I just knocked her out so I can take what I need from her.” She flashed out of existence for a few seconds and then reappeared inside of Stephenie’s cell holding a tube to draw blood. She leaned down, poked the needle into Stephenie’s elbow, and filled up the tube.
Once full, she tucked it away in her pocket, then removed another empty tube and filled that one up as well. With the tube full of blood in hand, she teleported into Susan’s cell and stood over the dying woman.
She reached down to touch Susan’s shoulder and teleported both of them into the cell next to Stephenie’s. “I’ll keep you here until your cell is cleaned up,” she said. “No more glass for you. Your meals will be thoroughly child proofed from now on. Now, open up.”
She leaned down and pried Susan’s mouth open with one hand. With the other hand, she uncapped the vial of Stephenie’s blood and dumped it down Susan’s throat. Then she held Susan’s mouth closed, forcing the older woman to swallow.
Once she was done, she took a step back. “Don’t force yourself to throw it up,” she said. “If you do, I’ll just get more and inject it.”
She teleported back into the hallway, her eyes locked on Susan.
I watched Susan as well, my mouth dropping open as the wounds on her arms started to close. They were healed in a minute—as if they’d never been there in the first place.
Susan stood up and looked around in a daze, touching her arms to examine her healed skin. “You,” she growled at Geneva. “What did you do to me?” She ran at the bars with supernatural speed, gripping them and yanking them with as much force as Stephenie had earlier. “Did you turn me into one of those… things?” She glanced at Stephenie when she said the final word—the vampire princess was still motionless on the floor.
That wormwood stuff had knocked her out cold.
“Of course not,” Geneva said. “You’d make a terrible vampire. Not that it would matter, since I doubt you’d survive the change. But it’s a little known fact that when a human drinks vampire blood, any injuries they have will heal. Even if the injury’s fatal. There will be some side effects—you’ll have the abilities of a vampire for twenty-four hours, and a nasty hangover when the high of the vampire blood wears off. But you’ll be alive.”
“Wow.” I leaned forward, my hands still wrapped around my cell bars. “That’s amazing. Think of all the people that could save…”
I thought about all the humans in hospitals dying from fatal injuries. A bit of vampire blood, and they’d be cured.
It was incredible.
“Which is exactly why vampires keep the healing properties of their blood a secret,” Geneva said. “They can’t risk being hunted and harvested for their blood. Not even other supernaturals know what their blood can do.”
“Then how do you know?” I asked.
“I have my ways,” she said mysteriously.
“And you don’t mind that Susan and I know?” Since the power of vampire blood was such a well-kept secret, I figured she needed Susan and I alive pretty desperately to risk giving the secret away to us.
“At the end of all of this, you and Susan will either be dead or given memory potion to forget this ever happened,” she said. “I haven’t decided yet. But if you cooperate—meaning no more antics like trying to kill yourselves—I’ll be more likely to go with the second option. So from now on, I recommend you stay on your best behavior. Understood?”
Then she disappeared from the room, and as she did, I faded out of the memory as well.
42
Raven
Pain.
That was all I felt when I came to. Searing, blinding pain that consumed me from my skin down to my bones.
Except I couldn’t move or speak. I couldn’t even scream. It was like I was trapped in my own body, halfway between the real world and the memory I’d just left.
I was laid out on what felt like a table, and I heard voices around me.
“I’m sorry,” a woman said.
Was she the witch from the Nashville circle we’d gone to earlier that day? It sounded like it.
“There was, of course, a chance you didn’t give her enough healing potion earlier,” she continued. “But you watched me give her another full dose right here. It didn’t work. Her wounds are fatal. There’s unfortunately nothing more I can do.”
She was talking about me. I didn’t know how I knew—I just did.
Maybe because I was laid out on a table in so much pain that it felt like I was dying.
“No.” Noah was near—right next to me—and he was angry. “There has to be something else you can do. Anything. Even if it’s dark magic… you have to save her. Please.”
“I’m sorry,” the witch said again. “There’s nothing that can be done—not even with dark magic. Trust me, if there were I’d be happy to sell it to you.”
“So what do we do?” Sage asked.
“I recommend saying your goodbyes,” the witch replied. “Look at her—she must be in so much pain. It’s a miracle she stayed alive this long. It’ll be a blessing for her once she passes over. She won’t be in pain anymore.”
Passes over? Did she mean die?
I was so not going to die. Not yet. I had so much left to do. I had to get to Avalon, I had to get through the Angel Trials, and I had to save my mom.
Yes, I was in pain. But I refused to give into it. I was going to fight. I was going to live.
But how?
That was when I remembered—the dream. No—the memory.
Vampire blood could heal me.
I must have flashed back to that specific moment so I’d remember the secret about vampire blood. My body must have known I was dying and somehow forced the memory to come back.
I also remembered something else—only vampires knew what their blood could do. They kept it secret from all other supernaturals.
I needed to tell Noah, Sage, and the witch. They couldn’t use vampire blood to heal me if they didn’t know it was possible.
Except I couldn’t move, let alone speak.
I tried to fight it—tried to fight through the pain. But no matter what I did, I was stuck. Trapped. It was like when I’d touched that heavenly knife, I’d fried all my nerves so I could no longer move. It was like my body wasn’t mine anymore.
“No,” Noah said, and I felt something wet splash onto my arm. A tear? “She can’t die. I can’t lose her.”
“Did you love her?” the witch asked.
I hated how she was speaking about me in past tense. She needed to stop doing that. Because I was here. I wasn’t dead yet.
Noah didn’t reply. Which was a shame, since I was curious about his answer myself.
I’d never know his answer if I didn’t tell them about the vampire blood. I just needed control of my body for a few seconds. A few seconds, and I could tell them how to cure me.
But maybe I didn’t need to speak to tell him.
Maybe I could manifest it.
It was crazy, yes. But it worked when the rougarou had captured us. And when Noah was fighting the demon, I had a feeling he was manifesting his desire for me to run away onto me. Because there was no way that thought had been my own.
There was some kind of connection between our minds—it had been there since he’d kissed me in New Orleans.
And I was going to use it to save my life.
Vampire blood, I thought, willing him to receive my message with every inch of my being. If you give me vampire blood, it’ll heal me.
I thought it over and over, imagining the words floating through the air and entering Noah’s mind. It felt like it was taking forever, but I continued repeating the thought anyway.
I wouldn’t give up until I was dead.
“Vampire blood,” I finally heard Noah say. “If we give her vampire blood, it’ll heal her.”
I wished I could jump up and hug him. No—I wished I could jump up and kiss him.
Instead, I faded into unconsciousness again, glad to be free of the pain—and relieved that Noah and Sage now had the knowledge they needed to save my life.
43
Noah
“What are you talking about?” Sage asked. “How can vampire blood heal her?”
“Raven communicated with me through the imprint bond,” I said. “She said that vampire blood could heal her.”
“Imprint bond?” Gayle—the Nashville witch who was working with us—gasped. “But you’re a shifter. She’s a human…” She looked between me and Raven, wariness in her eyes. “How’s that possible?”
“It’s a long story,” I said, since I didn’t have time to explain it—and since I didn’t have any answers myself. “Have you ever heard about vampire blood being able to heal humans? Even from fatal injuries?”
“Never,” she said.
“Well, it’s worth a shot.” I spoke quickly, since we had no time to waste. “If it works, we’ll save Raven’s life. And if it doesn’t, then at least we tried. So where can we find vampires in this town?”
Sage took a deep breath and watched me closely, her eyes sad. “We can’t just go up to a random vampire and ask for their blood,” she said.
“Why not?” I glared at her. I’d do anything to save Raven, and I thought Sage was on my side.
“Because no one’s ever heard of vampire blood being able to heal humans,” she said. “If it’s true—which for Raven’s sake, I hope it is—then the vampires are keeping the healing property of their blood a secret. They’ve been keeping it a secret for centuries. If we go to a vampire we can’t trust and reveal that know we know this secret, they’ll kill us.”
I frowned, since Sage had a point. I mean, I could hold my own against a single vampire, but…
With that thought, an idea crossed my mind. But I couldn’t say it in front of Gayle.
“Would you mind leaving us alone for a few minutes?” I asked the witch.
“No problem,” she said. “As long as you don’t touch anything. If anything in here is broken or gone when I return, you’ll be billed double its worth.”
“Understood,” I said.
The witch gave Raven one last pitying look, then left us alone in the apothecary.
“You have a plan,” Sage said. “And I’m not going to like it.”
She knew me too well.
“We’ll find a vampire that’s alone,” I said, blocking out all feelings about what I was going to say next. “We’ll take their blood for Raven, and then we’ll silence them.”
“Silence them?” She looked at me like she didn’t know me. “You mean kill them?”
“It’s our only option.” I squeezed Raven’s hand—I hadn’t let go of it the entire time we’d been here. “I can’t lose her. I just… can’t.”
“You’re wrong.” Sage crossed her arms and looked at me in challenge. “Because there is another option. We can go to a vampire we trust.”
“There are no vampires I trust.” My most recent experience with a vampire—Princess Karina of the Carpathian Kingdom—had solidified my less than stellar opinion of the species. “Except for Prince Jacen, but he’s in Avalon and we can’t get to Avalon yet. Not without killing one more demon first. And by the time we find a demon, hunt it down, kill it, and get to the Vale… well, I don’t think Raven will make it that long. Besides, I’m not leaving her alone in this condition. So this is it. We’ll do it my way. You don’t have to come with me. Just promise me you’ll watch over Raven, and let me handle it. All right?”
“No can do,” she said. “Because while there might not be any vampires you trust, there does happens to be a vampire I trust.”
“Oh yeah?” I’d never heard Sage say anything positive about vampires. She’d always shared my opinion that they were conniving, manipulative, cold-hearted creatures. So the fact that she trusted even one of them was a shock, to say the least.
“The Bettencourt vampires.” Her eyes went hard as she mentioned them—as if speaking about them pained her. “More specifically, the leader of their coven. Thomas Bettencourt.”
There was a long, painful story behind her relationship with this man—Thomas Bettencourt. I could see it in her eyes.
But I couldn’t waste time asking questions. If Sage said she trusted this man, I believed her.
“We don’t know how much longer Raven has,” I said. “Where’s the Bettencourt coven located?”
If they weren’t close enough, I’d revert to my previous plan to find a nearby vampire and kill him for his blood myself. I wouldn’t feel good about it—no one deserved to die for no reason, including vampires—but I’d feel worse if I lost Raven.
Maybe that made me selfish. But right now, I didn’t care.
All I cared about was saving her.
“They’re in Chicago,” she said. “Which is approximately…” She brought her phone out and did a search. “Seven hours from here.”
“Seven hours.” I touched Raven’s charred face, hating that it had come to this. It tore me up to see her in so much pain. She’d done this to herself for me, and now there was a chance I could lose her.
She deserved so much more. She
deserved to live.
“Do you think you can hold on for seven hours?” I wasn’t sure if she could hear me, but it was worth a try.
Her heartbeat strengthened slightly, and I felt a surge of brightness through the imprint bond. Hope and determination.
Raven wanted us to bring her to the Bettencourt vampires.
“Noah?” Sage said softly. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking we have no time to waste.” I picked Raven up off the table and pulled her to my chest, trying to send as much strength to her through the imprint bond as possible.
She would make it. She had to make it.
Then I looked at Sage, confident that now, we had a real chance to save Raven’s life. “Come on,” I said, cradling Raven’s limp body to my chest as I walked toward the door. “We're going to Chicago.”
44
Thomas
I was lounging in my penthouse apartment that looked over the Chicago skyline, drinking my evening cup of blood while watching the human news, when my phone rang with a call from Flint Montgomery.
I hadn’t heard from the Montgomery alpha in years.
Curiosity got the best of me. The human news had been fascinating recently—violence had increased in the past few months, which I assumed was an effect of the demons that had been unleashed onto the Earth. Every day it seemed like there was another robbery, shooting, or hate crime. The demons were bringing out the worst in humanity, and it wasn’t pretty.
It was also only going to get worse from here.
But despite my interest in the news, a call from Flint was far more fascinating. So I turned off the television and accepted his call.
“Flint Montgomery.” I always liked to be the first to speak. It asserted my dominance, even over the alpha of a powerful shifter pack. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
The Angel Trials- The Complete Series Page 30
