Blood Moon (4 page)

“Shit,” I had time to mutter disgustedly before he went for my throat again. I got him in the knees that time and had to bend backward so he wouldn’t head butt me as he doubled over.

When the others closed in, I leaped up to grab hold of the branch above my head and swung into the tree. I jumped to the next tree and the next, trying to gain ground. Two followed me up the trees like homicidal squirrels, and the other two tracked me from the undergrowth. If they’d had stakes I’d have been dead already. I ran along cedar boughs and oak limbs until the trees thinned out to a meadow. I teetered on the last branch, cursing.

I didn’t have anywhere left to go.

And I was nearly too tired to care.

I propped myself up against the trunk and waited for the
Hel-Blar
to reach me. The rotten stench of them hung in the cold air. They crashed through the leaves, teeth snapping, jaws cracking. The sound skittered over me like poisonous spiders. I was trying to decide whether to climb higher or take my chances on the ground when a new sound wrapped around us, a soft growl that shivered through the grass.

It was the best sound in the world.

Motorcycles.

My brother Duncan screeched into view, circling my tree and sliding sideways as the bike dipped. He lifted one hand and shot a miniature crossbow, catching one of the
Hel-Blar
in the chest. She hissed, grasped at the bolt, and then drifted into ashes, like snow. The
Hel-Blar
on the branch beside me was momentarily distracted. I didn’t have the energy to grapple with him so I just leaned over and shoved him right out of the tree. He fell, screaming, and by the time he hit the ground, Duncan’s backup had arrived and dispatched him.

Duncan stopped the motorcycle, glancing up at me, his jeans smeared with engine grease as usual. “Okay, little brother?”

I lowered into a crouch. “Connor, Quinn, and Christabel are still back there.” I pointed and the guards behind him took off in that direction. I slid to the ground, wiping ash and dirt off my face. “Thanks.”

Duncan took a plastic water bottle filled with blood out of his
bike satchel and tossed it to me. “Don’t thank me yet. Mom and Dad got your message about the ghost town and Saga. They sent me to get you.”

I winced and took a long pull off the bottle. “How mad are they?”

Duncan snorted. “Dad broke a chair.”

“Crap.” Mom broke furniture all the time, but Dad prided himself on his control and even temper. I felt a kind of fear that not even a feral
Hel-Blar
trying to kill me could engender. I drained the bottle and felt like I could at least make it to the camp on my own two feet, even if what I actually wanted to do was hunker down in a safe house until my parents cooled off.

Duncan and I waited until our brothers and Christabel came toward us through the trees, looking pale but grateful.

Quinn slapped me on the shoulder affectionately, then scowled. “Don’t ever do that again.”

I just snorted. We martyred ourselves for each other all the time. It was genetic.

Duncan gave another bottle to Christabel.

She grimaced. “No way.”

“You’re a
vampire
, kid,” Duncan told her. “Drink up.”

She looked at the blood through the thin plastic and gagged.

Connor slipped his arm around her shoulder, holding her up. “Uncle G. will come hook you up in the morning,” he said encouragingly. Christabel still couldn’t stomach the idea of drinking blood, even though her body not only craved it but required it for survival. Uncle Geoffrey had to give her a transfusion every time she
woke up. Connor took the bottle from her and drained it himself, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

One of the handful of guards Duncan had brought with him nodded a greeting. He wore the mark of the royal house on his shirt. He was old enough that the dawn wasn’t even fazing him. His two companions were human, lean and lethal as swords. “We’ll take rear guard,” he said. “And we’ll leave you two of the bikes.”

“Thanks.” Quinn took the keys from him before I could and climbed on the bike. He glanced at me. “Get on.”

I hopped on behind him, grumbling but too tired to argue who got to drive. Connor helped Christabel up on the bike in front of him and she sat backward, looping her arms around his neck. If she passed out before we got there, he’d have a better chance of catching her so she didn’t fall off completely. We passed another unit of royal guards before we reached the camp.

We left the motorcycles in the narrow field beside Duncan’s minigarage tent. He spent most of his time there with the tools, equipment, and jerricans. The encampment was too crowded for him, and he only joined us at dawn or for family meetings. While Connor might not like crowds, Duncan was downright antisocial. We walked into the torch-lit encampment.

Right into a cluster of belly dancers.

They shimmied around us, wearing tarnished silver coins and tribal tassels. Musicians stood in a half-moon to the side playing drums. All of a sudden it felt as if we were in some kind of ancient desert caravan. I half expected to see a camel.

“Pirates, Huron warriors, and belly dancers in one night,” I muttered. “My head hurts.”

Christabel blinked, her words slurring. “Is that real?”

One of the dancers shimmied her hips.

“Hell, yeah,” Quinn answered reverently.

Vampires gathered along the tents, watching the show. The dancers’ bare feet whispered over the grass-flattened ground. One of them began to whirl, her braided hair falls lifting in the air. She spun and spun until she was a blur of colors and textures. The drumbeat struggled to keep up. The other dancers shimmied on the spot until their coins scattered like shooting stars.

“Um, what the hell?” Connor wondered.

“Compliments of one of the Egyptian tribes,” a girl answered. She wore paint-splattered overalls and looked more like a university art student than a vampire. Her hair was a cloud of dark brown curls, her skin like milk chocolate. “This place is like an arts and culture expo. Totally awesome.”

Christabel was weaving on her feet. “‘Sometimes a troop of damsels glad …,’” she quoted.

The girl beamed at her. “
The Lady of Shalott
! That’s my favorite painting by Waterhouse.”

Christabel was momentarily distracted from her faint. “You know ‘The Lady of Shalott’?”

“I’m Sky.” The girl introduced herself, grinning. “And we should definitely hang out.”

“Totally. Anyone who—” Christabel passed out midsentence. Connor caught her.

Sky shook her head sympathetically. “Newly turned?”

“Very new,” Connor said, carrying Christabel through the crowd toward the Drake tent.

The drums reached a peak, and the belly dancers circled us in their embroidered choli blouses and beaded skirts, smelling like sandalwood incense and amber perfume. One of them flashed her fangs at me before the drums stopped suddenly and the girls dispersed into the appreciative audience.

“She was flirting with you, little brother.” Duncan grinned at me.

“She was not,” I muttered. “Give me a break.”

Sky laughed. “She totally was. She has a thing for Drake boys.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

Girls are weird.

“Ready?” Quinn asked when Sky wandered off and we couldn’t avoid the family tent anymore.

“Hell, no.”

“Me neither.”

Mom and Dad waited just inside the tent flap. The light from the oil lamps glinted off fangs, narrowed eyes, and Mom’s weapon collection.

“Congratulations.” Dad spoke first, his voice soft as smoke before it fills your lungs. “I honestly don’t know which of my children I’m angriest with right now.”

Chapter 4
Lucy

“What, are all the crazies out tonight? Moon’s not even full yet.”

Theo, the head nurse in the school infirmary, looked competent, calm, and thoroughly disgusted. Since he was still dealing with the fallout of the ghost town I helped blow up just a few hours ago, I couldn’t blame him. He eyed me sternly. “Didn’t you already blow up a bunch of people tonight?”

I nodded sheepishly. Kieran was already sprawled on a gurney. I helped Theo push him inside. He was even paler in the bright infirmary lights. There was no one in the waiting room, only empty coffee cups. The green curtains were drawn around all of the emergency beds. My nose burned with the sharp smell of antiseptic.

Kieran moaned, blood soaking through the makeshift bandage. Theo cursed. “What the hell happened to him?”

“Vampire.”

“I can see that.” He lifted Kieran’s eyelids and made a sound in the back of his throat that I couldn’t interpret.

My palms started to sweat all over again. “He’s going to be okay, right?”

Another nurse rushed over from one of the back rooms, her uniform askew, muttering. “That old hunter they brought in from the ghost town? The one who thinks he’s all tough?” She shook her head. “Big baby.” Her eyes widened when she saw Kieran. “Isn’t that Hart’s nephew?” Hart was the leader of the Helios-Ra and everyone’s boss. Technically, I guess he was my boss now too. Hah. The only person I’d take orders from was Helena Drake.

“
Hel-Blar
?” Theo asked me.

I shook my head quickly. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Kieran coughed weakly. “Not
Hel-Blar
,” he confirmed.

Theo nodded to the other nurse. “Get him on saline, and have the doctor check him out.”

“Right away.” She pushed Kieran behind one of the curtains.

I went to follow but Theo stopped me. “We got him,” he said. “He might not even need a transfusion, just rest. Like you.”

I blinked because there were two of him. Relief made my muscles weak, and the fatigue I’d been holding off rushed in. I wobbled. Theo frowned. “Go to bed, Lucy. Now.”

“I’ll just nap in the chair until the doctor’s checked Kieran out.”

He pushed me toward the door. “Go to bed,” he repeated. “I promise I’ll call if anything changes.”

“But …”

He closed the glass door in my face and locked it.

Rude.

I went back to the dorm because I was too tired to do anything else. Birds sang from the rooftops. Hanging out with vampires was hell on a girl’s sleeping patterns.

I dragged my feet along the path as the sun rose just enough to light the mist off the pond and snaking between the trees. I was glad campus was deserted so no one saw my pathetic shuffle-walk. I yawned so widely a bear could’ve mistaken my mouth for a cave and crawled in to hibernate for the winter. The grass glittered with dew and made the metal handle of the dormitory door slick and cold. There’d be frost in the mountains, settling over the embers and ashes of the ghost town where my cousin had been imprisoned.

I hauled myself up the stairs and down the hall to my new room. My roommate, Sarita, didn’t even stir when I came in, sleeping with her blankets tucked perfectly around her. She even slept neatly. I fell into bed still wearing my soot- and blood-stained clothes and muddy shoes. I should call Hunter and tell her Kieran was in the infir—

I fell asleep reaching for the phone.

I would have slept straight through dinner if Sarita hadn’t kept waking me up.

Clearly no one had told her it’s not smart to wake up a sleeping
girl covered in weapons and mud. Seems basic to me, but then, I’d grown up with the Drakes.

“What?” I grumbled when I opened one eye to find her just standing by my bed. I slept better in a house full of vampires. This whole roommate thing wasn’t off to a great start.

“Are you sick?”

“Yes,” I mumbled, hoping it would make her go away. I pulled the pillow over my head.

“It’s not that flu, is it? Students died from that, you know.”

“That wasn’t a flu,” I said through my pillow. “That was some weird pill one of your teachers was slipping students.” Students with ties to vampires, to be precise. So, said vampires would drink from them, get sick, and die. Hunter discovered the secret plot and saved the school. And then Quinn saved her, so it all worked out in the end. I was still getting a kick out of seeing him so into a girl. Just one girl. He’d even erased the other numbers on his phone. In Quinn’s world that was cataclysmic. He may as well have serenaded her on the front lawn of the school for all to see.

“How do you know that?” Sarita asked.

The explanation would make her head hurt.

“And do you always sleep this late? It’s five thirty.”

I groaned. “Sarita?”

“Yes?”

Everything I wanted to say was rude or violent.

I bit my tongue. See, I was learning stuff already at this school. “Never mind.” I got up and went down the hall to the bathroom. I wasn’t awake enough to remember the events of last night until I
was back in my room. I got dressed quickly so I could get to the infirmary to check on Kieran. The sun was already fading. It would be dusk soon. I texted Solange and then Nicholas.

“We studied the historic vampire clans of the Raktapa Council last year,” Sarita interrupted me, peering closer at the cameo I always wore. “Isn’t that the Drake family insignia?”