Blood Moon (10 page)

He shifted so I was sitting on the ground and he was in a crouch, balanced on the balls of his feet.

“Go away!” I yelled, jumping up.

“We’re just doing our duty,” Jody shouted back. I could make out her outline by the cedars, if I squinted. “You know,
killing
vampires instead of kissing them.”

I turned on one heel and glared at her. “Bite me, Jody.”

Nicholas stood slowly, unfurling like deadly smoke. I knew what they saw: pale skin, gleaming eyes, sharp fangs. I just saw someone worth protecting.

“I mean it, you guys,” I added fiercely. “Back off.”

The first stake would have caught me in the shoulder if Nicholas hadn’t shoved me out of the way.

“Hey! Watch it!” If punching other students was against school policy, I was pretty sure we weren’t allowed to stake them either. And I’d dropped my CD and nearly stepped on it. Now I was really cranky.

“Friends of yours?” Nicholas asked drily.

“Yeah, they’re thinking of making me prom queen,” I shot back. I stepped in front of him to shield him. He cursed and nudged me back, trying to block me.

“Stop it.”

“You stop it!”

I tripped him. Then he hooked his leg behind my knees and dropped me. I flailed and landed on a lump of wilted wildflowers. I scowled at him. So much for romance.

“Excuse me, but they can’t stake me,” I reminded him. “It’s illegal. And it would get them expelled.” They seemed the type to care about that.

“They can still hurt you,” Nicholas insisted stubbornly.

“Yeah, but they can
kill
you. So stop being a hero.”

“You first,” he snorted. “Can I hurt them just a little?”

I sighed, thinking of treaties and detention. “Probably not.” I had stakes but they were useless right now. “Wait,” I said, smiling slowly. I still had pepper eggs in the pouch at my belt. They looked like silly putty but they were filled with cayenne pepper. The blue one was full of Hypnos powder, but I wasn’t about to waste it on a few idiots. Hunter gave me the casings, but Marcus helped me make the mixture to put inside. It was a Helios-Ra invention based on some old ninja weapon, but Marcus was already working on a new recipe. He was the brother who worked with Uncle Geoffrey the most, so he had access to supplies the rest didn’t have.

I hurled one, still grinning. It exploded and one of the students, Ben I thought, yelled.

“Ha,” I said. “That’ll teach you to bully me.”

“Nice shot.” Nicholas approved.

“Thanks. Go home now.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Seriously. They won’t stop until you’re gone. I can handle them,” I reminded him.

“But—” He paused, tilting his head slightly. His nostrils flared.

And then he cursed, very softly. Too softly.

I swallowed nervously. “What now?”

“Not sure.” He took my hand and we ran, hunched over in the tall grass. We stopped under a tall maple tree. Nicholas scaled it quickly while I waited on the ground, keeping an eye on the bullies still throwing out taunts. Nicholas dropped beside me so suddenly
I jumped a foot in the air. I was swinging my fist before it registered that it was just him. He bent back just enough that I missed his nose.

“Bounty hunters,” he replied grimly.

I frowned. “But there’s no bounty on the Drakes anymore,” I said. “Right? So why are there vampires after you now?”

“These aren’t vampires.”

“They’re not?”

“No, they’re vampire hunters.”

I goggled.
“What?”

He nodded sharply. “Loners. Huntsmen, like the ones who attacked London. Apparently not everyone wants to toe the Helios Ra line. Some hunt on their own. No rules.”

“Well, shit.” Not that I loved rules, but I loved them more than vampire hunters without any restrictions or treaties.

“Pretty much,” Nicholas agreed.

I craned my head, searching through the undergrowth. “I can’t see them.”

“They usually wear trophy necklaces of vampire fangs.”

“That’s gross.”

He sniffed the air. “I think there’s two, maybe three.” He cursed. “Same ones that got London. Son of a bitch.”

“Can we beat them?”

“Probably not.”

I was afraid of that. “Bullies and murderers,” I said. “Not our best date, Drake.”

He snorted. “Not our worst either.” Then he kissed me quickly, fiercely. “Just stay low.”

I grabbed his sleeve as he turned away. “Not so fast.”

“No time to argue, Lucy.”

“Then don’t argue,” I shot back. “You just said we can’t take them.”

“So?”

“So, don’t be dumb. I like you better undead than dead.” I made a fist on his sleeve and dug my heels in the dirt to keep him from bolting heroically. “I can distract them while you run.”

His fangs poked out of his gums. “No.”

I just raised an eyebrow at him. “Yes.”

“They’re getting closer. From the east, from behind those cedars, I think.”

I pressed on. “So I’ll throw the rest of my eggs at them while you take off in the opposite direction.”

“I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to. But the fact is, I’m not in danger. You are. So don’t piss me off, Nicky.”

He nearly grinned. I could see his lips twitching. “Don’t push it,
Lucky
.”

I let go of his shirt and filled my hands with my last two eggs. “Ready?”

“Not quite.”

He whirled me around and bent me backward over his arm, kissing me until I felt too hot to be inside my skin. “I’ll see you after the Blood Moon.”

And then he was gone.

I had to remind myself that it was only for a few weeks and it was stupid to feel like crying.

Better to kick some ass.

I waited until I was sure Nicholas was well away before I shouted, “Vampire!”

When the first bounty hunter charged out of the bushes, a pepper egg hit him square on the forehead. He sneezed and cursed, blindly throwing a stake in my direction. I had to dive out of the way. I landed hard, spitting dandelions and mud out of my mouth.

The next one was smarter, not leaving the cover of leaves and darkness. The moonlight showed barely a glimpse of a tooth necklace and then nothing at all. I crawled through the brush, being poked by dried grass, tickled by dried Queen Anne’s lace, and pinched by burrs. “Just once I’d like to go out without someone flinging stakes about,” I muttered, crawling faster. “I’m going to get a complex at this rate.” I stopped behind a half-naked dogwood, using it for as much cover as I could.

“He went south!” I called out, knowing Nicholas had gone north.

“No,” Jody shouted. “He went west!”

Since she was wrong and actually helping to add to the confusion that would protect Nicholas, I didn’t throw my last pepper egg at her.

Even though I really wanted to.

“We’re Helios-Ra,” I shouted, not wanting them to start hunting us too.

There was a loud sigh from the bounty hunter still in the bushes. “Then go home, children.”

I might have bristled at that if I didn’t want to get out of here as much as they wanted us to. I peeked out slowly. “Don’t shoot!”

The bounty hunter I’d attacked was still rubbing his eyes. “Get out of here before you really piss me off.”

I ran. So did the others.

“This isn’t over,” Jody hissed as we burst out of the woods and back onto the campus lawns.

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, shut up.”

Chapter 8
Solange

No matter how well I hid, Constantine always seemed to find me.

He was leaning against a huge boulder that had fallen off the mountain over a century ago. It was soft with moss and lichen. His eyes were violet, even in the darkness. “There you are, princess.”

“Hi.” He made me feel like I was ten years old and a thousand years old at the same time. It was confusing.

“What’s the matter here?” He pushed away from the rock and approached me slowly, languidly, as if the air were honey. “You’ve been crying.”

I didn’t say anything.

“That bad?” he pressed.

“My cousin nearly died. I had a fight with my best friend. I … almost attacked her.”

“And did she deserve it?”

“She used a stun gun on me.”

“She deserved it, then,” he said dismissively. He was close enough that I could see the flecks of gray in his irises and my own face reflected in his pupils. I looked pale and pathetic.

I lifted my chin. “And I broke up with my boyfriend.”

He looked almost satisfied. I must have imagined that. All he said in a husky voice was, “The human boy?”

For some reason I didn’t like hearing Kieran referred to as a boy. “He’s a hunter.”

“Worse and worse.”

I frowned. “Could you not gloat?”

His smile was quick and unapologetic. “Why mourn the inevitable? A vampire princess and a vampire hunter. The basic mathematics of it was flawed, pet.”

I thought of Lucy and Nicholas and Quinn and Hunter. “I don’t believe that.”

But he’s right, you know. You have to be careful. You have to be strong.

He shrugged one shoulder. “And yet you’ve broken up with him.”

“Not because he’s a hunter.” Because he was human. I didn’t want Constantine to be right. And I didn’t want to feel this way. I didn’t want to think or wonder or worry. I just wanted it to stop. But it wasn’t.

It was getting worse.

I couldn’t pretend otherwise, not anymore. Not to myself, anyway. I’d go on pretending to my family for as long as I possibly
could. They spent enough time worrying about me as it was. And I certainly couldn’t admit to them that it gave me a kind of rush to use my pheromones, to know I was powerful all by myself, without the sword of the Drake name.

But the truth was, it made me feel like more than the overprotected, prophesied daughter born to a royal family. More than the girl other vampires only wanted for politics or greed or delusions of rare vampire babies. I
liked
that feeling. I liked knowing I could keep people away without lifting a hand, without a weapon of any kind, without even the help of my infamous brothers.

Only Constantine understood. I didn’t scare him. And lately, I scared everyone, even Lucy.

Because she’s human. They don’t understand you, not like I do.

“What is it?” Constantine asked.

I realized I was rubbing my ear. My hand dropped. “Nothing.” This voice seemed different, like it was not my own anymore.

“Are there other side effects if you drink from the vein?” I asked. “Ones that I don’t know about?”

“Being strong, healthy. Nothing you can’t handle, love.”

Everyone else wanted to keep me safe, and I appreciated it, don’t get me wrong, but Constantine just wanted to make me powerful. His death wouldn’t be on my hands; I wouldn’t have to carry the burden that at any time he could be staked just for knowing me or for trying to protect me. He trusted I could take care of myself. There was something seductive in that. Well, for me anyway.

Besides, being with Constantine stopped me from obsessing over Kieran.

I missed him already. I could feel the grief howling inside my chest, like a wolf on the tundra. And I already knew I’d be checking the tree for messages even as I told myself I shouldn’t. He’d taken on the League, and his entire belief system, to be with me.

And then I’d tried to eat him.

Girlfriend of the Year, that’s me.

“You look positively maudlin,” Constantine said, slipping his arm over my shoulders. It sent a tickle through my throat. He leaned down so that his mouth was very close to my ear. “What you need is distraction. And I have just the thing, love.”

I knew exactly what Lucy would have done. She would have scoffed at what was an obvious line, would have elbowed him in the stomach and flounced away, secure in her disdain. That was, no doubt, the smart thing to do.

But she’d never met Constantine.

She didn’t know the way his dark voice sent shivers over the back of my neck, the way he was impossibly beautiful, all dark colors and romantic shadows.

And I was tired of doing the smart, responsible thing.

I wanted to have fun. Uncomplicated, unpolitical fun.

I smiled back at him, leaning in closer. “Let’s go.”