Lucy
I didn’t know what to say.
And I always had something to say, to anyone, at any time. Especially Solange. She was crouched next to me in the ferns, delicate and pale as a pearl. The grizzled old guard was lying in the roots of a tree. I tried not to keep staring at him.
“He’s fine,” Solange muttered.
She was right. Technically he was fine. And I was going to ruin a perfectly good moment of intrigue. I pushed a frond out of my way, trying to peer into the shadows. There were a few torches in iron stands. The rain continued to patter listlessly, barely able to slide between the branches to the forest floor. The clearing was a narrow band of grass and wildflowers around the base of the mountain. Tents had been erected, like some kind of vampire circus or a production of Arabian Nights had come to town. There was a lot of silk, gold thread, carved mahogany, and a long wooden table roughly the length of the main street in town. Tin lanterns cast a warm pattern of light over its surface.
“Your aunt must love this.” Solange’s aunt Hyacinth still thought the only rightful queen was Queen Victoria, and she was in love with pomp and circumstance and a proper bustle. She’d also nearly been killed by rogue Helios-Ra agents, and the burns to her face hadn’t healed as well as they should have. At least, that’s what we assumed, since she still refused to lift her veils.
“She’s in England.”
“What? Since when?”
“She went on a pilgrimage to Uncle Edward’s monument and to Queen Victoria’s grave.”
“Oh.”
“She’ll be back for the Blood Moon.”
We watched two burly men muscle a huge clay amphora, like ones the ancient Romans used. I guessed it wasn’t full of red wine like our history teacher told us. Well, not undoctored red wine, anyway.
“Hey.” I frowned. “They’re human.”
Solange nodded. “Yeah.”
“How come they’re allowed and I’m not?”
“They belong to Bruno,” she said. Bruno was head of the Drake family security detail. He’d skulked around our house more than once as well.
“What about her?” I pointed to a woman with large hips and a larger smile. “She’s not a bodyguard.”
“She’s a … well, Kieran would call her a bloodslave.”
My mouth dropped open. “Are you serious? He was right about that?” He’d once accused me of being a bloodslave and had looked for the telltale scars on my arms. I’d punched him in the nose, righteously indignant on behalf of my vampire family.
“She’s not ours,” Solange rushed to add. “She came with a European delegation. Apparently they think it’s cute that we drink from blood banks and animals. One of them actually called us colonial.” She didn’t sound thrilled about that. “Only humans who are under a pheromone trance can attend the festival, and they’re not allowed to speak.”
“Seriously? That’s medieval.” I frowned. “I can’t believe your dad would agree to that.”
“He thinks it’s too dangerous for humans to attend anyway. And you know what he says: one battle at a time.”
I grinned. “As opposed to your mother, who says all battles, all the time.”
“Exactly. Plus, it’s tradition. Humans don’t need to know how we govern ourselves.”
“On behalf of humans, hey.”
“You know what I mean.”
I did know what she meant, and it only made it worse.
“Who’s that?” I asked, mostly to distract myself. The girl looked in her early twenties and was wearing paint-splattered jean overalls. Her hair was a soft Afro decorated with a single pink flower.
“Sky,” Solange replied. “And that’s Sabrielle,” she added, when another girl walked by wearing a beautiful blue sari stiff with silver-thread embroidery and glass beads.
“I totally want that dress for prom,” I said.
“She serves with Constantine.” Solange’s voice changed.
I looked at her sharply. “Who’s he?”
“He’s a dignitary.”
He was something more than that, I could tell by her tone—both guarded and nearly reverent.
“And?”
“And what?”
“You can vamp out until the cows come home, Solange, but you can’t lie to me.”
“It’s noth—” She stopped and rose silently to her feet, pivoting to face behind us. Her knees bent slightly, and she had a long dagger in her hand. I didn’t even see her reach for it. I thought of disembodied Hel-Blar body parts dangling from the trees and reached for a stake. Gandhi leaped in front of me, growling. His butt knocked me over.
Quinn was suddenly standing in front of Solange. His long hair hung in his eyes. “Sol.”
Solange relaxed her stance. So did Gandhi. “Crap. You got me going.” She sheathed her dagger and then shook her hands, as if they were full of adrenaline.
“Sol, oh God,” he said. “They took Lucy. She’s gone.”
“I am?” I pushed out of the ferns, confused. “I’m right here.” Quinn gaped at me, then plucked me up in a fierce hug. “Vampire strength,” I squeaked.
He dropped me so fast I landed back on my butt in the mud. I shook my head. “What’s with you guys?”
“You’re okay!” he said, helping me up. He would have helped me brush the dirt off my backside but I slapped his hand away.
“What’s going on?” Solange asked.
“Connor intercepted a message,” he explained, “doing his computer voodoo. It said Lucy’s a hostage.”
I shivered, then scowled, hating the fear that scampered on insect feet over my spine. “Who sent it?”
“Saga.”
“Okay, but they clearly don’t have me. So what’s the deal?”
Quinn jerked a hand through his dark hair. “Your car’s dead on Cedar Road.”
“What?” I thought about Christabel, borrowing my crappy car to get home after detention. “Oh shit. Shit!” I felt sick. “It’s not me they have—it’s my cousin.”
Solange swore. “We have to get her out. Have you told Mom and Dad yet?”
“I sent texts, but they’re bloody well out of signal range, too. I have to tell Nicholas you’re okay,” Quinn said. “He didn’t look … right. I don’t know if Connor can control him.”
Solange swore again. “Okay, Quinn, you get to a signal spot and send out the call. I’ll go with Lucy to find Nick.”
“He was at your car, tracking for you. It’s on Cedar, on the outskirts of town where it turns into a dirt road.” Quinn was already running. He jumped over the prone guard. “What’s with him?”
“He’s fine.” Solange waved her hand. “Just go.”
“Call my parents!” I yelled after him. I was running too, but he was long gone. I leaped over an exposed tree root and got slapped in the face with a low-hanging pine bough, but I barely noticed.
Nicholas would do something monumentally stupid if he thought it would save me.
And Christabel wasn’t with regular vampires. She was with the worst of the worst.
I ran faster even though I was getting a stitch in my side and spots danced through my vision. My lungs could explode later. I didn’t have time. I did have time to be vaguely grateful for the Helios-Ra training—I wasn’t able to run half this fast before. Gandhi loped beside me and Solange was a blur in front of us, barely disturbing the vegetation. She was waiting at the car with the doors open. Gandhi scrambled into the back, panting.
“Go,” Solange yelled, shutting the door.
I fumbled, trying to jab my key into the ignition. “Where are you going?”
“I can’t ride in the car with you,” she said. “I’ll try to keep up, but don’t wait for me.”
I planned to go way the hell over the speed limit, so I doubted very much she would keep up. A vampire couldn’t sustain that kind of speed for long. She’d be okay over the rutted lane, but once I hit pavement, I’d stand on the gas pedal if I had to.
I rattled over the potholes and washed out divots in the muddy lane, rain spattering my windshield. Gandhi’s breath fogged the side window. I couldn’t even see Solange anymore. The transmission of my mom’s car protested violently as I slammed into another rock, but I just kept going. I finally turned onto a paved road and floored it. The tires slid out a little with the smell of burning rubber, but luckily there were no other cars. I jerked into my lane.
“It’ll be okay,” I told Gandhi, mostly to reassure myself. “It has to be okay.” He licked my ear. I cut across a deserted field and came out of a clump of yellow mullein stalks, perpendicular to my abandoned car. The passenger side door was still open.
Nicholas stood by the hood, looking stark and a little wild. I saw the pale gray of his eyes, like lightning, even from a distance. I went to throw myself out of the car but he was already there, yanking me out of my seat belt and crushing me up against his chest. His face was buried in my neck and his hands clutched me as if he were drowning in the rain. His lips were moving—I felt them against my wet skin but I couldn’t decipher what he was saying.
And then his mouth was on mine and I knew his words; they were poetry, they were rain, lilies, sugar, chocolate. I drank them in. I forgot for one tiny moment that everything was falling apart and we didn’t know how to put it back together again. He held me and I held him and I wasn’t sure how the rain even managed to sneak between us. We kissed so deeply, everything in me ached and burned and stretched out like a cat in the sunlight.
“I thought …” He trailed off.
I touched his cheek. “I’m fine.”
He nodded once, resting his forehead against mine so that we created a corner of the wet, angry world that was just ours. “There are traces of Hypnos powder in your car.” His jaw clenched. “I couldn’t find you.”
My fingers tangled in his hair. “I’m right here.” My throat constricted. “It’s Christabel.”
“We know that now,” he said darkly.
I pulled away slightly, looking around. “Where’s Connor?”
“He caught Christabel’s trail,” Nicholas said grimly. “He’s gone.”
“He went alone?”
“He wouldn’t wait. And I don’t know her scent, especially not with all this rain.” He looked apologetic. “You’re all I smell.”
From anyone else, that would have sounded weird.
I wiped rain off my face. “What do we do now?” I whispered. “Poor Christa.” She wouldn’t know what was going on. Or how to defend herself. I bit my lip to stop from crying. It strangled the sob in my throat but a tear still leaked out, hot on my cold cheek.
“We’ll find her,” Nicholas promised. “Somehow, we’ll find her.”
“It’s almost dawn.”
“I know,” he said grimly. “Let’s get back to the farm. I’m sure your parents will be there by now.”
Solange emerged from the field, soaked to the skin, her eyes the blue gray of polished abalone shell. Nicholas frowned at her.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Fine.” She jerked her head. “Let’s go.”
She stepped onto the hood and then slid up to the roof, perched like a crow. Nicholas followed. I drove down the back roads of Violet Hill in the middle of the night with my best friend and my boyfriend sitting on the roof of my mom’s car.
It was the most normal part of my night so far.