Blood Moon (14 page)

It took me a moment to convince myself that I should step right through, that I should push my body through that weird nonform. That I wouldn’t get trapped inside the door. Or inside this dream.

When I’d asked for help, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.

I took a deep breath even though I didn’t need to breathe, and walked through. I ended up inside the one-room cottage, nauseated and exhilarated. The old woman was sitting on a bench in front of a hearth cut into the wall. An iron hook held a cauldron over the flames, but it wasn’t filled with toads’ eyes or cat tails. It smelled like lamb stew. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling, over a table with two chairs, a shelf with a horn cup and a wooden plate and bowl, and a narrow cot under a window. There was an old-fashioned spinning wheel and washed fleece in a basket. The air was smoky, the floor dirt strewn with flowers.

Just like an old cottage might look in Scotland.

In the 1500s.

Kala had sent me back to witness the prophecy as it was spoken. We’d never known for sure if it was real, if the legendary Scottish madwoman during the reign of Henry the Eighth and Anne Boleyn had even existed.

Now I knew.

A thrill went through me, even as I tried not to panic about finding my way back home. Bats fluttered at the window. The old woman didn’t seem to notice. She was too busy drawing a circle on the ground around herself with salt. It seemed to glow brighter than it should for a moment, as if it was made of light.

“Saint Brigid protect me,” she intoned. “Bride shield me from harm.”

She stirred the mushrooms and herbs into a cup of hot ale.
The smell was cloying and strange. She drew some kind of symbol in the air with her fingertip, over the cup, and then drained it, straining the bits of plant matter through her broken teeth.

Great.

The ancient prophecy everyone was so insane about had been spoken by an old lady drunk on psychedelic mushroom tea.

I crept closer as she closed her eyes and muttered some kind of singsong prayer under her breath. The fire crackled and sparked, belching smoke into the cottage. It hovered in the air and curled around the rafters. She shivered, then her head snapped up and her blind eye stared up at the smoke.

“In the violet hills, the moon’s bloodshot eye sees all.”

She blinked, her milky eye veined in red.

“When princess becomes queen, the true dragon will be seen. But beware the royal daughter, when the crown tears her asunder; for the dead will return, and the wheel stop its turn. Then only dragon by dragon defeated, and only love by love undefeated.”

The fire flared high, scattering embers. The dried lavender stalks on the ground smoldered. She blinked again, blood on her crooked teeth when she spoke.

“A warning: Unseat the dragon before her time, and increase ninefold her crimes;

And a token: A kiss to wake, a kiss to die, and a kiss to tell the truth from a lie.”

She jerked violently, as if she’d been electrocuted, and then slumped wearily. Her hair was coming loose from its braids, and the neckline of her dress was damp with sweat. Her hands trembled. “That’s what I see, mistress.”

That was when the shadowy corner moved and a woman leaned forward slightly, the warm glow from the fire touching her unnaturally pale face, the gold embroidery on her wimple, the long brown braids wrapped in matching gold cords, and the eyes like frozen water.

Madame Veronique.

I was so surprised to see her there that I jolted, tripped over my own foot, and fell backward.

Through the floor. I fell through dried lavender and dirt and landed on the rocky ground of the cave.

The small fire was turning to ashes in the circle of white stones; Kala and her rattle were gone. I lurched to my feet to squeeze through the narrow tunnels even though I was dizzy and disoriented and felt strange inside my own body. Madame Veronique knew about the prophecy all along, had known the exact words, had watched it being spoken, all while she pretended she had no interest in such things.

I had no idea what that meant.

My head spun, and when I finally stumbled outside, the thirst hit me. My throat felt as if it were full of broken glass, my veins shriveled and on fire. Whatever I’d just experienced—hallucination, drugs, time travel—it left me feeling maddeningly weak. I was so thirsty that the edges of the trees and the rocks and the mountains turned red, like a wash of paint over a photograph. I licked my painfully dry lips and scrambled down the mountainside toward the camp, the prophecy repeating in my head:
only dragon by dragon defeated.

I was in the meadow on the outskirts when a woman smiled at me from the birch trees, her neck bare and crisscrossed with scars.

“Princess, you look peaked. Do you need to feed?” She tilted her head, baring her throat politely, as if offering me a cup of tea. It was Penelope. I’d fed from her before, when Kieran, Nicholas, and Lucy found me drunk on her blood.

I swallowed. “My family doesn’t … um …”

She stepped closer. “I don’t mind. It’s why I’m here.”

She was offering willingly. And after Kala’s magic I felt like a corn-husk doll, papery and lifeless. I needed blood. She was offering. Constantine was right. It was simple. So why complicate it by resisting?

She pushed up the loose sleeve of her sweater and extended her arm, pebbled with goose bumps. I lowered my mouth to the crease of her elbow where her pulse beat, eschewing her neck, silvery with faded scars. It was like sharing a cup that had already been drunk from too many times. My fangs bit down slowly but firmly. I didn’t want to hurt her, only wanted the warmth of her blood in my mouth, the flowering of my veins like a cactus taken suddenly out of the desert and planted into a rain forest. It was primal, beautiful. Survival instinct.

I forgot that I should only take a little, just enough to get me back to the tent and the bottled blood, easier to digest. I just wanted more.

Penelope stood still, like a painted marionette whose strings I held. Her eyes were adoring. She barely even winced, only waited patiently.

That more than anything made me stop. There was something faintly creepy about her passive eagerness. I pulled away, wiping my mouth clean. She was still smiling glassily.

“Wouldn’t you like more, princess?”

I shook my head mutely. I pushed past her to the camp, my body thrilled, the rest of me utterly conflicted.

“Wait!” She held up her wrists, her veins fierce and vulnerable. “Princess!” She started to beg as I left her behind. “Please. Please, princess.”

Chapter 12
NICHOLAS

We waited for Solange in the family tent.

Sebastian sat next to Dad; Marcus and Uncle Geoffrey stood behind Aunt Hyacinth’s chair. Quinn and Connor shared a bench, and London lay on one of the sofas, eyes closed. Duncan sprawled in a chair with his arms crossed. Isabeau and Mom stood as severe and beautiful as spears in front of Logan. Even Madame Veronique was here, perched on a bench, pale and still as a bone statue with a handmaiden on either side. She never came to family meetings, preferring to keep her distance and refusing to meet us at all until we’d survived our bloodchange. And we still didn’t know what she’d do. She could either take Solange away to indoctrinate her or kill her on the spot. Or buy her a pony, actually. You really just couldn’t know for sure.

She’d scared the crap out of me when I was sixteen, demanding I compose a sonnet in iambic pentameter on the spot. In French.
Archaic
French. I didn’t even speak modern French.

She still terrified me. And I could admit it freely, because she scared the crap out of everyone. She was just so …
other.
You couldn’t predict what she might do in the name of family honor. And now here she sat, coldly patient.

Just another Drake family reunion.

But at least we were all here and no one seemed to be missing any vital organs.

When Solange came in she smiled at us vaguely, a single drop of blood freshly bloomed on her shirt. “I’m really tired.” Then she sighed softly and languidly, as if she was ready to curl up for a nap. But she didn’t look tired, she looked painfully energized. “Good night.”

Mom moved to stand on top of the trapdoor to the underground bunker. “Solange, we’d like to talk to you.”

She paused. “I didn’t miss curfew.” She saw Madame Veronique and something very close to fear flickered in her face. Madame Veronique tilted her head slightly, like a bird. “Can we do this tomorrow?” Solange whispered.

“No,” Mom said sharply.

“I’m afraid not,” Dad added, softening his tone. Good cop, bad cop. They did it all the time.

Solange made a complete turn on her heel to eye us suspiciously. “What’s going on? What’s everyone doing here?”

“We’re here for you,” Dad answered. “We think you might need help.”

Her mouth dropped open slightly. “Is this an
intervention
? That’s lame.” She shook her head. “I don’t do drugs.”

“This isn’t about drugs.”

“We’re worried about you, kid,” Duncan said quietly.

She made a rude sound. “God, not this again. Honestly, you guys need a hobby.” She giggled, then stopped as if the sound startled her, clapping a hand over her mouth. Mom and Dad exchanged a grim glance.

Madame Veronique rose to her feet, like an empress. Solange backed away so quickly she crashed right into me.

I steadied her. “What’s the matter with you?”

“I can smell it on her,” Madame Veronique murmured. “Blood and something else, something curious. Magic.”

Solange backed away again and stepped on my foot. “I thought the Drakes didn’t believe in magic.”

Madame Veronique arched an eyebrow imperiously. “Due to being exiled, your parents have been … isolated in these mountains.”

“Did she just call us hillbillies?” Quinn drawled.

“Hey,” Duncan broke in mildly. “Some of my friends are hillbillies.”

“Are they horror-movie mountain folk like us?”

“I’ll be sure to ask Bryn next time I see her.” Bryn was Duncan’s closest friend. His only friend, actually, and she liked people about as much as he did. She was human and worked as a mechanic, which was how they got to be friends. Her family was even more reclusive than us, living in the mountains and coming down for supplies only a couple of times a year.

“Boys,” Dad said repressively. “Stop right there,” he added to Solange as she tried to sneak around me. Her cheeks were nearly flushed. That meant only one thing: she’d fed on live blood again. Her eyes glittered. She looked nearly as drunk as the night Lucy and I had found her.

Frowning, Uncle Geoffrey lifted her chin and looked at her eyes carefully, and her triple fangs. “She’s taken from the vein,” he confirmed flatly.

“Hello?” Solange said. “Vampire. I drink blood. Big shocker.”

“Not from the vein, not so young as you are,” Dad said. “You know this.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Well, I don’t agree. Fresh blood makes me feel strong.”

“It feeds the animal, not the soul.”

“Oh, Dad, come on. It’s not that big a deal.”

“Tell that to Kieran,” Mom said quietly, almost gently.

Solange recoiled as if she’d been slapped. “What?”

“We know, Solange.”

She stared at me accusingly. I held up my hands, palms out. “I didn’t tell them,” I pointed out grimly. “How could I?
You
didn’t tell
me.
”

“You could have killed him,” Dad said.

“I
know
.” She sounded broken, wobbling on the edge of tears. Then she visibly straightened her spine. She licked her lips as if she could still taste the blood. I could smell it, faint and metallic.

“It’s addictive,” Uncle Geoffrey pointed out. “Not for everyone but for you, certainly. I can see the effects. You don’t have the control you need yet.”

“You’ve drunk from the vein.”

“I’m considerably older than you.”

“In my time,” Madame Veronique murmured, “we’d have killed you.”

Mom’s hand went to her sword hilt. Solange’s eyes widened. “For drinking live blood?”

“For being reckless. We didn’t have the luxury you have now. Those who were a threat to our secrecy were dispatched.”

“But I’m strong,” she insisted. “Nicholas, tell them. I fought that Huntsman.”

“She’s strong,” I confirmed flatly.

“It’s probably not a big deal,” Quinn interjected. “Just lay off the juice until you can handle it. End of drama.”

“I can handle it now,” she maintained stubbornly.

“By nearly killing your boyfriend?” Sebastian asked, sounding just like Dad. He had the same calm, unruffled tone, the same piercing look.

“He’s not my boyfriend anymore,” she shot back. “Everyone’s always saying how different I am, right? So maybe this is part of it. Maybe it’s actually a good thing. Ever think of that?” The roses faded from her cheeks, but her fangs looked just as sharp, and the blue irises of her eyes were ringed in red. “I really don’t want to talk about this.”

“You can’t just ignore it. Not after you compelled two guards.” Mom arched an eyebrow. “Did you think we wouldn’t find out? The one you compelled tonight never came back.”