“Are you okay?” Solange practically leaped on me.
“I’m fine.”
She was heading out after her brothers when her father’s voice cut through the foyer.
“Solange.”
She stopped, looked over her shoulder. “They might need help.”
“No.”
“Dad.”
“No. They’re here for you. If you go out there, it will only make things worse.”
I knew that look on her face. She was biting her tongue. I knew how much she hated this. Helena was the warrior in the family, had been even when she was winning martial arts competitions as a human, and she’d trained her children well. Even I’d gotten the benefit of a few tricks, but none of it would do us any good tonight. Still, I was really glad I knew how to break someone’s kneecap and three ways to incapacitate using only my thumb. And to think I used to worry about midterms.
The foyer was warm and civilized, lit by warmly glowing Tiffany lamps. Liam stood between us and the battle raging in the bedraggled garden. He was nearly tall enough to obscure our vision, but we leaned sideways around him. Part of me didn’t want to see what was happening; the rest of me absolutely couldn’t handle not knowing. The shadows coalesced, and I watched fangs gleam and bodies jump higher than they should have been able to. The snarls lifted the hair on the back of my neck.
Nicholas was fast and clever but I’d never seen him like this before. His face was hard as he leaped and dodged, sent his boot into the midsection of a vampire not much older than us, with long blond hair. They both tumbled, but only Nicholas landed on his feet. I felt inordinately proud about that.
All of Solange’s brothers held their own, but only Quinn appeared to be enjoying himself. He grinned even as a fist, moving so fast it was a flesh-colored blur, broke his nose. Blood trickled down to his lip and he licked it. Helena laughed behind him, somersaulting out of the way of a stake and landing behind her attacker. He disintegrated in a cloud of dust at her feet.
“I want one alive and able to speak,” Liam called out. He shook his head at Solange. “Honestly, your mother’s worse than the boys. Helena”— he raised his voice slightly—“leave me one, damn it.”
“Spoilsport,” she muttered before reining herself in. Her flying kick only knocked the vampire into a tree instead of shattering his ribs. Hyacinth made a small sound behind us. The jet beads around her neck caught the light, glimmered.
“That’s hardly ladylike,” she said disapprovingly. Which was amusing since I’d heard the stories of what she did in her spare time— and it wasn’t taking tea and eating cucumber sandwiches.
A vampire fled, disappearing into the woods. One of them shuddered, turned to ash, and drifted into the hedges. The stake tumbled to the ground. Solange’s second-oldest brother, Sebastian, wiped his hands off dispassionately and then turned to help his mother drag the half-conscious vampire she’d thrown into the tree toward the house. Connor was speaking quietly into his cell phone to Bruno.
I pressed my back against the wall as a parade of teeth and feral smiles passed me. When they were all gathered in the parlor, I followed. I went to my favorite purple velvet armchair by the fireplace. Solange stood next to me, her eyes never leaving that of the young man currently being tied up. His shirt was torn, his dark reddish brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. His eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. I wouldn’t have opened them either if all seven Drake brothers were standing around me, glaring. Never mind Helena, who waved them aside with barely a flick of her wrist. She sniffed once, delicately.
“He smells like kith.” She whispered but shook her head. “Kind of.”
Liam frowned, sniffed as well.
“Something’s not right.” His gaze narrowed, sharpened. “Left arm.”
We all looked even though I didn’t know what I was looking at. The tip of a tattoo poked out from under his pushed-up sleeve. It looked like a stylized tribal- style sun but I couldn’t be sure.
“Damn,” Nicholas muttered. “Helios-Ra.”
Everyone looked totally bummed out over such a comic- book name. He stirred. There was a gentle waft of lilies and chocolate, almost right, but not quite. Everyone else was still scenting the air like hunting hounds, nostrils flared.
“What?” I whispered to Solange. “What’s with all the sniffing? It’s creeping me out.”
She didn’t have time to answer because he opened his eyes, suddenly, as if he’d been poked with something sharp. His eyes weren’t pale, not like every other vampire’s I’d ever seen.
They were very black and very hostile.
CHAPTER 3
Solange
“You’re . . . m-mortal,” I finally stammered. I knew Lucy liked to think all vampires had this suave quality, but I so didn’t, and not just because I wasn’t technically a vampire yet. She was the one with the beaded velvet scarves, and I was the one with the pottery clay dried on my pants. Plus, I was totally gaping at him. He was a hunter, and he worked for an organization devoted to wiping us out. The sun tattoo was proof enough of that, underscored by his expression: righteous anger.
Great.
“I don’t get it,” Lucy whispered to me. “Who is he?”
“Not one of us,” I whispered back, my gaze never leaving his. I didn’t know what I was reading there, but it was complicated, what ever it was. I’d heard of the cologne some hunters wore; it mimicked vampire pheromones, to take a potential enemy off guard. We’d believed it completely out in the garden, until he’d had to fight my mother, who would have killed him if my dad hadn’t been so adamant about having someone to question.
Nicholas half stepped in front of us, annoyingly overprotective as always. He didn’t like surprises and unanswered questions and we’d just had our fill of both. I’d been trained just like they had, but none of my brothers could get it in their thick heads that I wasn’t delicate or defenseless.
The Helios-Ra agent was wearing black nose plugs, which just proved he knew more about us than we knew about him. I reached over and yanked them out.
“What are you doing here?” I could tell he was trying to hold his breath. I could’ve told him that strategy never worked for long. He glared at me mutinously.
“Tracking,” he finally answered on a sharp exhale.
“Let me guess,” I said, disgusted. “Because I’m just so beautiful and you don’t know why but you just have to be with me?” I was really starting to hate this whole pheromone thing.
He blinked, nearly smiled. “Not exactly.”
I blinked back. “Oh.” Damn it, he was even more attractive when he didn’t seem particularly affected by my questionable charms. “Well, who are you then?”
“Helios-Ra,” he answered, his tone clipped.
“Yeah, we got that.”
“Your name?” Dad scowled.
“Kieran Black.”
“Since when has Helios-Ra been on our trail? Last time I checked, we had a treaty. We don’t eat humans, so you don’t bother us and we don’t bother you.”
My mom snorted. She hated the treaty. She preferred fighting, being much more skilled with weapons than tact, but my dad was all about practicality and the long view. He’d made the treaty before my oldest brother was born, determined to give his children a chance. He didn’t want us being harassed and followed about by the league just because we’re vampires. After all, vampires aren’t all good or all bad, any more than humans are. But try telling that to the Helios-Ra. They only recently admitted that being a vampire wasn’t a good enough reason to be killed on sight. Still, old traditions die hard with them, almost as hard as with us.
But our family, at least, has a good reputation. We mostly drink animal blood, only resorting to human blood if it’s consensual or if we’re ill and can’t heal without it. If that fails, a quick break- in at the blood bank works well enough. We’ve never gone feral; the disease has been in our bloodline too many centuries for that, and every generation is born stronger than the last. I
t’s not easy dying, even if you know you’re going to wake up afterward. And it’s even harder controlling the blood thirst. Still, hardly any of us go mad anymore during the turning. I had to remind myself of that little fact every time I looked at the calendar to see my birthday edging closer and closer. Lucy nudged me.
“You’re looking morose,” she said under her breath. “You’re thinking about it again.”
I turned my attention back to the matter at hand. I couldn’t afford to get sidetracked with self-pity—or by the fact that this particular Helios-Ra agent was really good-looking, with his dark eyes and strong cheekbones.
“Things change,” he said. “You should know. You broke the treaty.”
Mom’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
“I beg your pardon?” she said, soft as a mouse near a sleeping cat.
Uh-oh. Mom was big on that whole honor thing.
“Big mistake,” Lucy said pleasantly. She was a lot more bloodthirsty than I was, ironically enough. She would have made a better vampire than me. I shot her a look.
“What?” she asked innocently. “He was after you, he deserves it.”
Nicholas barely turned his head. “Do you two mind?”
“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered.
Mom stepped up close enough that Kieran was sweating a little and breathing as shallowly as he could. Our pheromones when we were distracting mortals to drink was nothing compared with the pheromones when we were angry. His entire body was probably flooding with adrenaline, trying to decide between fight or flight. I couldn’t sense it yet, but soon enough I’d be able to taste it on my tongue like champagne bubbles. It wasn’t a particularly comforting thought.
“Are you accusing us of breaking an oath?” Mom’s voice was like broken glass—glittery and dangerous. Beside her, Sebastian bared his teeth. His fangs were retracted, but still, there was something too sharp about his teeth. He barely spoke, even to us, and his silence was terrifying to those who didn’t know him.
“It’s common knowledge.”
“Is it?”
“Drakes,” he spat. “I know better than to trust any of you.”
Byron, one of the dogs, growled. Quinn smiled.
“Let me talk to him,” he suggested. There was always something slightly violent about his smiles. Dad held up his hand. Quinn subsided, but barely.
“We haven’t broken the treaty,” Dad said quietly.
“Helios-Ra says you have.”
“Then Helios-Ra is misinformed. And I won’t have your organization endangering my daughter.”
He glanced at me, glanced away.
“If you keep me here, you really will be breaking the treaty.” He was breathing through his mouth, as if that would help.
“Actually, since you broke the treaty by coming here in the first place”—Dad’s voice was silky—“we really needn’t concern ourselves with those rules.” Mom actually smirked.
“I . . .”
“How old are you?” Dad asked.
“Eighteen.”
Dad shook his head, dismayed. “They’re training them younger and younger.”
“They need to be able to infiltrate the high schools and colleges to spy on us,” Connor pointed out.
“I’m only doing my job. Keeping people safe from monsters like you.”
“People like you are the reason my aunt Ruby won’t leave her house anymore,” I snapped. She’d lost her husband and three sons to hunters and had never really recovered from the loss.
His face went hard. “Monsters like you are the reason my father’s dead.”
“Oh and we’ve never lost family members to hunters or Helios?” I shot back even though I felt bad that he’d lost his father.
“And they’re not monsters, you bigot,” Lucy broke in, incensed. She leaped to her feet. “It’s a disease, you ignorant prig. Are people with diabetes or arthritis monsters too?” If secrecy wasn’t so important, she would have used her theory in her personal crusade to make the world accept us.
“It’s not the same.”
“It is so.”
“My dad’s throat was ripped out.”
There was silence. Then Dad frowned. “Only the Hel-Blar rip out throats, son.”
“A vampire’s a vampire,” Kieran insisted stubbornly. Lucy went red in the face.
“Why are you really here?” Dad pressed before she could explode.
“Because of the bounty,” he answered tightly.
Mom went unnaturally still. Her eyes caught the light and reflected it. “What bounty?”
“The bounty on the Drake family.”
Someone snarled. The air was so charged I was vaguely surprised it didn’t spark and catch fire. Dad stalked toward the phone on the desk. He barked orders into the receiver, not even bothering with a greeting. “Double the patrols. Get word to everyone. Yes, even her. And the council.” He switched to the cell phone in his pocket, dialing grimly. His voice muted to a soft murmur I couldn’t entirely make out. My hearing wasn’t sharp enough. Yet.
“What the hell’s the bounty for?” Sebastian demanded.
“I don’t know.”
Quinn sauntered over, leaned in close. “You’ll tell us.”
Kieran paled slightly, trying to break eye contact. Quinn’s hand closed over his throat. Kieran seemed a little dazed when he finally answered.
“It was posted tonight.” He shuddered. Sweat beaded on his upper lip.
“Is this about Solange?”
“I don’t know.” He choked, tried to swallow. “I don’t know,” he repeated. “I heard there was a bounty, and I wanted in.” Something in his voice made me think it was less about the bounty and more about the chance to stick it to our family specifically.
Quinn eased back, letting his hand drop to his side. “Some agency, attacking a fifteen-year- old girl.” He spat. “Cowards.”
Kieran took several deep ragged breaths. “We protect the innocent.”
“This isn’t a comic book, idiot,” Lucy muttered crossly.
“If you’re going to kill me too, get it over with.”
“We don’t drink from people like you,” Nicholas sneered, making it sound as insulting as he could.
“Do you drink from her?” Kieran nodded at Lucy. “Have you made her your slave?”
“Who, Lucy?” Nicholas snickered.
“Hey!” Lucy snapped. “Shut up.”
I wasn’t entirely sure which one she was talking to.
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Duncan said quietly. Like Sebastian, he rarely lost his temper or his focus. “Let’s not get sidetracked.” He tied a black bandana over Kieran’s mouth, knotting it securely. Dad nodded approvingly before pointing toward the kitchen.
“Kitchen. Now.”
Our kitchen looked like any farm kitchen: a huge wooden table, ladderback chairs, painted cupboards, and a kettle on the stove. There was a basket on the counter full of red apples and pomegranates and even food in the fridge, mostly for me and for Lucy when she stayed over. In fact, she was already pouring herself a glass of cranberry juice. The blood was kept in an old wine cellar, hidden in the wall and locked with three deadbolts and an alarm system. That was a fairly new precaution, ever since one of Logan’s ex-girlfriend’s brothers had barged in after Logan had broken up with his sister. The guards hadn’t stopped him; it would have seemed suspicious to have them swarm out just because someone came to the front door uninvited. The dogs had stopped him though, even before Mom had. He hadn’t made it past the front hall. It was only luck that he hadn’t seen into the kitchen, with the jug of blood on the counter. Needless to say, we were strongly encouraged not to date humans after that.
Now Quinn paced beside that same counter; Nicholas leaned against the wall, arms crossed. The rest of my brothers sat, though their muscles were tensed for sudden movement. I watched the dark fields on the other side of the glass with suspicion. Dad’s phone rang again. Mom glanced at Lucy.
“We should call your
parents.”
“Can’t.” She set her glass down. “They’re at the ashram for two weeks, remember?” The sun was edging up over the horizon. “And they always leave early to watch the sun rise over the lake.”
She sighed. “Of course. You’ll stay here then.”
“I will? But no one’s after me.”
“You’re part of this family, young lady, and your mother would never forgive me if I left you unprotected, especially now,” Mom told Lucy sternly.
“Yes, ma’am.” My mother was the only person on the planet who was able to get that meek tone out of Lucy. No one else would have even known it existed. I dropped into the chair next to her and stole a sip of her juice. I tried not to imagine what it would be like to drink blood instead. My stomach tilted.
“This is unacceptable,” Aunt Hyacinth fumed. “The Drake family has a good and honorable name. They’ve no right to do this. We’re on the council.”
“Let’s go straight to the Helios-Ra headquarters,” Quinn added, his expression hard. “I can clear this up.”
“As if your temper has ever helped us.” Logan snorted.
“Careful, little brother.”
They were all talking over each other until my mother cleared her throat.
“Boys.”
Silence fell, reluctantly but quickly. Dad switched off his phone. There were lines around his mouth I’d never seen before. “The boy was right. Bounty’s been set.”
Mom cursed. “Why?” she asked.
“That may take a while to figure out. There’ve been a few disappearances, rumors that don’t make sense. I’ve got people on it.” He leaned down on the counter, his fists clenched. “I’ve put a call in to Hart and to Lady Natasha.”