“I feel like I’m in the witness protection program,” Lucy whispered. “You guys need suits and dark glasses.”
“I’m not wearing a suit even for you, sweetheart,” I whispered back.
“You’re no fun.”
As the silence stretched uncomfortably, she started to hum the theme song to Mission: Impossible under her breath.
Solange smothered a startled laugh. “Are you nuts?”
“Your brothers need to meditate. They’re all stressed out and their chi is bunching up. That can’t be comfortable.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” Nicholas hissed at her. “But there’s this whole stealth thing we’re going for. You’re not helping.”
Lucy grinned at Solange. “He’s so cute when he tries to be all Alpha male.”
“This is serious, Lucy.”
She reached and pulled a piece of his hair. “I know that. But we’re barely off the driveway.”
“If you don’t stop talking I will hide all of your chocolate,” Nicholas promised. Lucy stuck her tongue out but she stopped chattering.
The forest was heavy with the sounds of scurrying animals and insects boring through trees and the ever-present wind slinking through the pine boughs. We crossed the narrow river, using a fallen oak trunk covered in moss. Everyone but Lucy moved so fast that we seemed to blur a little around the edges. She was panting for breath by the time we stopped in a meadow. “I’m going to need to take up jogging or something,” she gasped. “For that alone, I hate you.”
We let her rest for a few minutes and then continued toward the meeting spot. We didn’t expect trouble since the ceremony had only been announced to a very few select individuals soon after sunset. No advance warning made it harder for our enemies to find us and disrupt the ceremony. Isabeau found the guiding mark in a tree and pointed to her left. We followed her into another meadow, ringed with pine trees. The crickets stopped singing.
We were the first ones to arrive. It took another half hour before the other council members showed up with their attendants. The Raktapa Council was secretive to the extreme and they didn’t travel light, not even to a clandestine coronation. There were family banners and bodyguards and a lot of suspicious regal glares. The Amrita family favored caftans and saris. The Joiik were descendants of some ancient Viking vampire and were blond, pale as sunlight on armor. And we often looked like we belonged in some bizarre medieval-Victorian costume party. Of all of us there that night, only my brothers and Solange and I wore clothes from this century. Except for Logan, of course. He wore his usual eighteenth-century frock coat. And Lucy just looked like a confused time traveler, as always. Or like a little girl who’d just gone through her mother’s dress-up trunk.
Mom and Dad would be here soon. Hart wasn’t far either; I could hear the growl of his motorcycle on the other side of the grove. It was unprecedented for the leader of the Helios-Ra to be invited to a vampire coronation. We were making history in more ways than one tonight. The best part was that Aunt Hyacinth had joined us. She came out of the pine trees, still swathed in black lace veils, but at least she was here.
Lucy leaned into Nicholas, holding his hand. Logan and Isabeau were quiet but standing very close.
My brothers had the right idea.
We had time to kill, might as well have a little fun.
I caught the eye of a vampire girl from the Joiik entourage. She had long red hair and she smiled at me, flashing a provocative peek of fang. And a lot of cleavage. I grinned.
“Call me when it’s about to start,” I told Connor, following her into the woods.
Chapter 4
•
Hunter
Tuesday night
Kieran was waiting for me behind the oak tree by the lane.
“What’s going on?” I asked, yawning. I’d pulled my hair back in a messy ponytail and threw my cargo pants back on with the tank top I slept in.
“We’re going on a field trip,” he said smugly.
I blinked. “What, now?”
“Yeah, so hurry up.” The teachers’ main house was dark except for one of the upper bedrooms. The dining hall was deserted. Headmistress Bellwood’s house was farther down the driveway and dark as well. “It’s a long walk.”
“Why can’t we take one of the bikes? There’s dozens of them in the garage.” The forest was so thick and there were so many fields that motorbikes were the easiest mode of transportation most of the time. On our own two feet, we’d never outrun a vampire in a million years. Bikes gave us a fighting chance.
“Kinda hard with this,” he lifted his arm, wrapped in a soft cast. He’d hurt it last week helping to take down the old vampire queen, Lady Natasha. He had all the fun. “And you know they monitor the fuel gauges in those things.”
I raised my eyebrows. “So the teachers don’t know about this little side trip.”
“No.”
“Kieran, I’m already in trouble.”
He snorted. “You’re never in trouble.”
“York.”
He winced. “Bummer. Well, forget him. Hart himself gave permission to have you there.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, so let’s go already,” he said impatiently. “It’s at least an hour’s walk from here.”
“Where the hell are we going?” I muttered as we cut through the field and into the woods. The mosquitoes swarmed almost instantly. I slapped them away. This had better be worth it.
“Vampire coronation,” he answered.
Totally worth it.
“What? Really? How did you get me clearance?”
“Hart asked for you. You shouldn’t sound so shocked; you were at the meeting last week. You did good, kid.”
“Kid? You’re barely a year older than me.”
“But I’m wise, little sister.”
“Just get us there, Obi-Wan.”
The moon poured out enough light to make the grass silver. The mosquitoes got worse the farther in we hiked and I didn’t care one bit. We were going to a vampire coronation.
Grandpa would have been horrified.
I was thrilled.
There hadn’t been one for over a hundred years. The last “queen,” Lady Natasha, had been tolerated, not officially crowned. When her lover, Montmartre, discarded her and set his sights on Solange Drake, Lady Natasha had gone crazy and tried to kill Solange. Everyone knew she was the first girl born to the Drake family in eight hundred years and prophesied to be the next queen. Only, she didn’t want to be queen—though that was hardly enough to stop Montmartre. He’d tried to abduct and marry her to take her power, but he’d been foiled by the Drakes and Isabeau St. Croix, the Hound princess I’d met at the treaty talks. And Kieran, of course, who was Solange’s boyfriend now and wore his broken arm proudly. With Montmartre finally dead, the Host, minions who had acted as his personal army, had scattered. It gave the Helios-Ra an advantage.
The hundreds of Hel-Blar that Greyhaven, Montmartre’s lieutenant, had created and left to run savage took that advantage away again.
There were so many of them that they were starting to close in on Violet Hill and other small towns in the area. The school now required twelfth-grade students to help on patrols until the problem was dealt with.
We walked for almost an hour until we reached a clearing with several parked motorcycles, all black. Helios-Ra agents. Hart and his group must have arrived already.
“Are we late?” I wished I was wearing proper clothes. I looked completely rumpled. I wasn’t sure what one wore to a vampire coronation, but I had a feeling cargos and a tank top weren’t it. I didn’t even have my jacket with the vials of Hypnos set in the sleeves. Hypnos was a fairly new drug we carried in powdered form in little pen-shaped devices. Anyone who inhaled it, vampires included, were hypnotized for a short time into doing whatever they were told. It helped balance the odds since humans were susceptible to vampire glamour. Chloe’s mom was a biochemist and had helped develop the newest versi
on of Hypnos.
Of which I had none tonight.
“I’m not prepared.” I showed him my bare wrists. No Hypnos, no daggers, nothing.
“You won’t need anything,” he assured me. “Besides, I know for a fact that you have no less than three stakes on you right now, and those boots have blades in the soles.”
“Still.”
“We don’t have time to go back.” He nudged me gently into a jog, flipping open his cell phone to use the GPS. “We’re not far. The coordinates came in just before I got you.”
“It’s not at the caves with all the pomp and ceremony?”
“No way. After two botched assassination attempts in a single week, the Drakes decided on a secret coronation.”
“That is so cool.” And I still couldn’t believe I’d been invited. “Will the council be there?”
“Representatives from each ancient family, yeah.”
The Raktapa Council were formed of the three most ancient and powerful vampire families. The Helios-Ra had a similar council.
“Who else? The Hounds?”
“Yeah, Isabeau, the princess you met last week.”
“That is so cool.” I nearly bounced on my toes. “Thanks for coming to get me.”
“Just don’t tell Caleb it was me.”
“As if I’m telling Grandpa at all.”
“Good plan.”
The concept of treaties between the peaceful vampire families, the Helios-Ra, and the Hounds was exciting to me. As exciting as firearms and surprise nest-takedowns was to Grandpa. And we’d almost lost the chance at an alliance entirely when Hope, one of the higher-ups, had sent her own rogue unit to attack the Drakes. She’d nearly taken down the entire society with her, putting any future hope of diplomacy in serious danger. I really admired Hart and what he was trying to do. Especially since Hope had killed his brother and partner, Kieran’s father, in order to rule with Hart. Grandpa, of course, wasn’t exactly full of admiration for the treaty. Big surprise. I hated to disobey him even when I knew he was wrong. So if he didn’t know about it, he couldn’t forbid me to be a part of it and I wouldn’t have to lie and do it anyway.
“Can’t we go any faster?” I urged, nearly plucking the GPS out of Kieran’s hand. This was better than prom.
He swatted me away. “Cut it out.”
“Can you believe we’re doing this?” I shook my head. “I thought you were usually on Grandpa’s side with this stuff.”
“Yeah, then I met a girl.”
I smirked. “I totally love that.”
“Yeah, yeah. It also helped to learn that vampires didn’t kill my father.”
We stepped around a copse of elm trees and came face-to-face with a vampire, armed to his pointy fang-teeth. Instinct had me reach for my stake. He was wrestler-huge and bone-pale.
“We got the call,” Kieran said, stepping in front of me. He stomped on my foot while he was at it. I fell back, but only a little. I might be thrilled to be here but I was still in training. I didn’t smile prettily at vampires in the middle of the night in the middle of the woods. I was no Little Red Riding Hood.
“Password?”
Kieran glanced down at his phone’s display and read off a word in a language I’d never heard before. It sounded old.
The guard nodded. “Go ahead. Turn right at the cedars and go straight through into the pine forest.”
“Thanks.”
It felt weird to turn my back on a vampire. I must have more of Grandpa in me than I thought.
The red pines towered above us, the ground a carpet of fallen needles and not much else. In the center, Helena Drake and her husband, Liam, waited, along with most of their sons, Isabeau, Lucy, and a bald human bodyguard. Hart was on Liam’s left, with three more hunters. The Raktapa families were there, each with a guard holding up a banner painted with their family insignia. The Drake banner was a dragon entwined with ivy and Latin words I couldn’t read. There were other vampires as well, nearly a dozen of them.
I didn’t see Quinn.
Not that I was looking for him.
And not that his twin, Connor, wasn’t standing right next to Solange, looking exactly like him. Except that Connor’s hair was shorter.
Still.
I followed Kieran to Hart’s side. He kept sending Solange sidelong glances. She smiled, pale as a pearl. Her fangs were very sharp but delicate. Treaties were all well and good in theory but something else entirely when a vampire was flashing fangs at someone you considered to be your brother. I wondered if I should worry about him.
“Hunter.” Hart smiled at me. “Glad you could make it.”
“Thank you, sir.” I tried not to flutter and went overboard into formal cadet stance. He was the head of the entire society and he knew my name and he’d asked for me specifically.
“At ease,” he said. “You’re here to witness history, not do battle,” he added.
“Yes, sir.”
“We’re nearly ready,” Liam called out pointedly.
Quinn sauntered out of the woods, a vampire girl on his arm. They were both grinning and it was totally obvious what they’d been doing. He was just as gorgeous as I remembered, his long hair falling nearly to his shoulders, his eyes so blue they didn’t seem real. The girl giggled.
I refused to stare. Mostly.
It wasn’t my fault if I could still see him out of my peripheral vision. It was a hunter’s duty to be aware of her surroundings.
Even if those surroundings included a beautiful vampire with a charming smile who liked to flirt with anything that had boobs.
Except for me, apparently.
I did not just think that.
Luckily the ceremony began before I embarrassed myself completely. I was also exceedingly grateful that vampires couldn’t read minds.
Quinn was only smirking at me because he smirked at everybody.
Helena stepped forward, flanked in a semicircle by Liam and Hart on one side, the Council representatives and Isabeau on the other. The rest of us stepped back to form a loose clump of bystanders who eyed each other cautiously. We’d all lost family members to each other at some point in our history. You didn’t automatically forget that.
“Weapons down,” Helena said grimly.
The reaction was equally grim. No one wanted to be the first to relinquish any weapon, not in this crowd. Glances flickered back and forth, mouths tightened, hands curled into fists. No one moved.
Until Solange lifted her chin and pulled three stakes from her belt, holding them up so that everyone could see. Then she dropped them in the grass.
Silence. The kind you can only get when you’re surrounded by vampires. It made my shoulders tense.
Helena was the next to disarm herself. She had a small arsenal on the ground by the time she was done. Everyone else followed their lead until we stood in a circle of discarded stakes, swords, daggers, crossbows, and Helios-Ra UV guns.
The coronation was simple and quick; there were too many Hel-Blar in the area and too many unproven loyalties. I imagined the more traditional version was longer and full of grand speeches and costumes. This one was as impressive in its own way. At least, I thought so. The pine trees were solemn, silent witnesses and the wind was warm and smelled of wet earth, tossing the boughs aside to show us glimpses of the stars. A wolf howled in the distance. Fireflies glimmered all around us.
Liam’s voice was warm as whiskey and just as strong. “Do you acknowledge Helena Drake as the queen of the vampire tribes by right of conquest?”
One by one the representatives knelt, saying “aye.” The council members wore elaborate gowns and suits. Isabeau didn’t kneel, but she inclined her head respectfully. The Hounds offered fealty to no one but their Shamanka. Spencer would have given his left arm to meet that Shamanka but she wasn’t here. Apparently she never left her caves. Hart nodded as well.
I tried not to look as awed as I felt. Helena stepped forward. Her hair was in a long black braid down her back and she wore a s
leeveless black dress with a wide belt that normally hung with daggers and stakes. Her boots made me drool. I was sure she could have concealed at least four different kinds of knives in them. I so had to get myself a pair.
“I promise to stand between the tribes and danger, to foster autonomy and respect between the families, the councils, and the society. I promise to be your queen until such time as my daughter might choose to relieve me.”
“Oh, Mom, not you too,” I distinctly heard Solange mutter. Kieran reached for her hand. She leaned into him. A few of the vampires stared at them. Someone hissed and was elbowed into silence.
Helena dropped to one knee after everyone else had risen again.
“I serve the tribes.”
Liam unwrapped a velvet bundle, producing a slender silver circlet. It was set with three huge rubies and smaller pearls. Liam crowned his wife, looking proud. Isabeau tilted her head faintly, frowning thoughtfully at the crown.
There was a round of applause and silver pendants were handed out to the assembled group. They looked kind of like Catholic saint medallions, only they were imprinted with the Drake insignia on one side and the royal symbol on the other—a ruby-encrusted crown and sword. I slipped mine into my pocket. I couldn’t wait to get back to the dorm where I could properly admire it.
The way another vampire, a different girl this time, was admiring Quinn.
There was no doubt he was a player, and there was no doubt none of his girlfriends minded. I turned away, waiting for Kieran and Solange to finish their discreet snuggling. The council was already leaving, to spread the word of the coronation. I shivered lightly in my tank top as the night cooled.
“Hey, Buffy.”
I froze.
Quinn.
I turned slowly on my heel. “My name’s Hunter.”
“I know.” He grinned. He was wearing his medallion around his neck on a silver chain. “But you’ve got the whole Buffy thing going. Though I think you might be cuter.”
I was not going to giggle. I wasn’t that kind of girl.