House of Ravens

  Down the street, we finally turn right, and follow the bumpy, uneven dirt road.

  Weeks ago, I looked up the symbol the army has been using: the snake eating its own tail. The Ouroboros. It represents re-creation and eternal return. The re-creation of the Bitten, a cycle that has been going on for so long now. It also represents primordial unity. But in this cause, there is no unity. Only unwitting slaves.

  Daphne. My one and only human friend here in Silent Bend was not human. As I think about it, I haven’t seen her since I Resurrected. If I had, I would have smelled her. Could have detected so much. But she played me as a weak, unknowing human.

  She plotted so much. Our early morning meetings at Fred’s when it was just she and I. Never crossing my path when Ian and I were together. Never running into anyone who might recognize her from before she supposedly died.

  And she took care of her major problem of the sunlight limiting her. I wonder now if she had the strength to remove her eyes herself, or if she commanded one of her Debted Bitten to do it for her.

  I had felt so sorry for her, being blind, so alone.

  But she’d tricked me too carefully.

  Ian’s mother.

  The reason he was so angry about the vampires. He’d believed they’d killed her, his father, too. When she purposefully sought out a Born to conceive him, when she longed so much to join them in their immortal status.

  She’s waited so patiently. Plotted so carefully.

  Because she had so much on the line.

  Take out a Royal House. Show the vampire world that the Bitten could be just as deadly as the Royals.

  Start a revolution.

  The scent travels in the air—the smell of the Bitten. Their blood smells spoiled, slightly tainted. Not dead, but not really alive, either.

  The fields come into view. And soon, the tiny house, with the massive barn behind it. But not a soul is there to greet us. No one stands at the ready, prepared for war.

  “They’re in the barn,” Danny growls.

  “At least twenty of them by the sound of it,” Lexington says.

  “Form a square,” Anna commands. “Alivia, I want you at the center of us all. Danny, you at the center on one side, Smith the opposite. I’ll take one, and Henry, you take the other. Everyone else fill in.”

  They all shift into place, Rath standing at my side, his weapons at the ready.

  My heart races in anticipation, excitement and fear spiking in my blood. I’m ready for this. Ready for it to end. One way or the other. But I do not plan on dying today.

  Two figures from the trees suddenly jump in surprise, obviously not expecting to see us here. But their Debt is obvious as they rush out from the trees. Leigh and Samuel step out of formation just long enough to cut them down.

  The moment they hit the ground in a puddle of blood, the trees begin moving.

  First, six Bitten step from the perimeter of the field. They rush our square. But before they even reach us, another dozen step out.

  The first wave hits the protective border around me and the bodies surge inward. Christian swings a sword, slicing up through a man’s chest. Trinity moves in a flash, embedding a stake into another woman’s heart.

  Henry twirls in a circle, kicking his foot out and completely crushing a hulking man’s chest inward. He falls to the ground, dead.

  The next wave rushes us, just as another set appears from the trees. Only this time, there has to be at least twenty of them.

  And they all rush forward at once.

  My House members let out a war cry, raising their weapons, cutting down the Bitten, who move so much slower, who don’t possess anywhere near the same kind of strength. But wave after wave of bodies keeps surging inward on us.

  A spray of blood hits me in the side of the face, and I turn, taking in the details of what is really happening around me.

  Innocent people, people who were once wives and sons and cousins, don’t even know what they’re doing. They were commanded to kill us, and they have no choice but to fight. I’ve always despised the Debt, but the true weight of it has never been more apparent.

  Daphne—Cora, wanted to start a revolution, but in doing so, she failed to see that she was just creating slaves who had no voice for themselves. All she really wanted was power.

  She didn’t even take care of her soldiers. Most of them wear little more than sunglasses, which are ineffectual in blocking out the evening sun.

  Rowan stumbles back, crashing in to me. I pull a blade from my hip, slicing down the young man who attacks. He falls at Rowan’s feet, blood pooling onto the young boy’s shoes.

  Rath swings an arm out, burying a stake deep into the chest of a Bitten directly behind me.

  “Thanks,” I huff as I swing my blade once more at a Bitten who rushes from the other side.

  Another wave of Bitten rush from the trees.

  There are so many of them. The bodies from the barn haven’t even engaged yet, and there has to be at least ninety of them already in the field.

  “Cora!” I bellow as I nock an arrow and fire it at a rushing enemy. I nock another, loading in quick succession and firing. “Come out here and show your face! I know who you are!”

  Cameron gets knocked to his back behind me and I spin, flinging a stake into the heart of a woman.

  They don’t even have weapons to fight with. They aren’t trained or prepared for war. I wonder if we truly caught them off guard and unprepared or if Cora was purely relying on their mass numbers to defeat us.

  Hands grab me from behind, pulling me clean off my feet. Sharp fangs bite down into the soft flesh between my neck and shoulder. A demonic cry rips from my throat as pain sears into my flesh.

  The fangs are suddenly ripped away, and I roll over just in time to see Henry rip the man’s head clean from his shoulders. He then rocket-throws the head at a charging woman, knocking her from her feet.

  He’s covered in blood, but not a scratch on him. His eyes glow, brilliant and wild. His fangs exposed. Blood drips from his bare hands, and I watch as he buries one of them in a man’s chest, before ripping his heart out.

  My father is a calm man. A man who just wanted to be left alone. But when someone he loves is hurt or threatened, he turns into a demon who will slaughter anyone in his path.

  I whip around, grabbing a woman by the throat, shoving her back from me before plunging my blade into her chest.

  I look up as someone falls, fifteen feet in front of me. Rowan is shoved down by a huge man, and immediately, five others swarm on top of him.

  “No!” I scream, darting to help him, when I’m slammed into from the side.

  A woman wraps her hands around my throat, squeezing hard. Another man comes up from behind, throwing a massive punch to my ribs as he rounds in front of me. I buckle forward, feeling something inside my chest snap.

  Groping for the straps around my leg, I grab a stake and swing, at the same time the man takes a swing at my face, connecting, hard, with my jaw.

  I feel it crack, even as he collapses dead. Feeling the anger surge inside of me, I spear my fingers together, and plunge them straight into the woman’s chest.

  Bones crack, shatter, and scrape my hand as I blow past them. It’s wet and warm, and the pumping motion as I take hold of the vital organ almost makes me lose the contents of my stomach.

  But as I look past her, and see Rowan weakly swing at his attackers, his arm covered in blood, my mercy falls away. I rip her heart from her chest.

  Before she even falls to the ground, I’m across the field, ripping Bitten off of Rowan, stabbing as I move. Burying stakes. Three dead. Two others who cling to him, biting, clawing.

  Rowan screams, chilling my blood.

  I level the gun in front of me, shooting the man in the head. I’m about to shoot the woman when I’m tackled from the side. Another piles on top of me, and not a second later, a third is there, too.

  One pins my arms down, the other sitting on my legs. And the third, his yell
ow eyes gleaming in the fading light, smiles down at me, his fangs fully extended.

  With a demonic-sounding laugh, he bends down, and his teeth prick the skin at my throat.

  He’s about to rip it out. And I can’t move.

  A rounding kick connects to one head, freeing my arms. An arm swings, staking the one at my feet, and with a growl that makes even my skin crawl, a blade cuts the head clean from my attacker’s shoulders.

  “Liv!” Ian huffs as he pulls me up and into his arms. “You shouldn’t be here fighting. They’re all trying to kill you.”

  A set of Bitten rush at us from behind Ian. I whip around, yanking Ian’s knife from his hands, and throwing it into a woman’s chest, burying my own blade into the other’s. “We need every body we have.”

  I whip around, my eyes searching for Rowan, but he’s nowhere to be seen.

  “Is Cora still alive?” I demand as I lower my shoulder, ramming into someone else and sending them to the ground before pinning them to the ground with a stake.

  “I assume so,” Ian yells as he continues to fight. “After I wasn’t too happy with our reunion this morning, her lackeys dragged me off. Haven’t seen her since then.”

  “Do you know how many of them are in the barn?” I call desperately as I fight three of them off.

  It feels like drowning. Just when I get my head above the surface, another wave of them comes, with ten more of them right behind the others.

  “Too many,” Ian says gravely.

  I give a great yell as I shove a yellow-eyed woman off of me, reaching for another stake—except I’m out. Yanking my knife from a man’s chest, I throw it, embedding it in the woman’s chest.

  For a brief moment, my eyes search the battlefield.

  There’s well over one hundred Bitten swarming the space. The bodies stack up and I frantically search for the members of my family.

  Lillian and Nial fight back to back. Trinity gives a great scream as she cuts a head off. Danny doesn’t even look like he’s breaking a sweat as he fights.

  But Cameron, Samuel, Leigh, Obasi—I can’t find any of them.

  And the panic swarms in my chest.

  “There’s too many of them,” I whisper. Just before another group of Bitten rush at me. Ian gives a great war cry as he spirals around, driving his blade deep into a chest. I level my gun, firing three times in quick succession before the magazine clicks empty.

  “Cora!” I scream as I stalk toward the house, breaking in a man’s face on my way. “Come out here and face me! If you want to take the House, you’re going to have to pry it from my dead hands!”

  I feel a maniac. Death and adrenaline burn through my veins, prepared to destroy kingdoms and worlds.

  A set of teeth sinks into my arm and I swing around, stabbing my attacker as blood rushes up to my skin.

  I look up, just as the front door opens to the tiny house. As the great sliding door of the barn opens. As bodies flood outside, so, so many of them.

  Cora steps out onto the front porch.

  The Daphne I knew is not the woman I see before me.

  She does not wear sunglasses as I last saw her. Now I see the hollow sockets that have been sewn shut. And while she was thin before, frail, she is skeletal now. Not an ounce of fat gives her shape. She is bone only. Terrifying. Disgusting.

  I understand now. The curse. The storm that swirled in the sky. The sense of doom that came and went, it was always for Cora. And it’s being executed in the form of her slowly decaying body. Starving.

  “You can’t win,” I call to her, at least fifty feet still from where I keep defending myself from. “With the King’s armies, with our numbers, it’ll never work.” I jump out of the grasp of a man, slicing through the air for him, missing. He grabs me by the throat, only that brings him within my reach, and I bury my blade into his ribcage, piercing his heart. “Walk away now,” I call to Cora. “Call them off, and we will let you all leave. End all of the death.”

  Her sightless face smiles in my direction. It’s wide, showing all of her teeth, too big for her face. It’s completely disturbing. The jawline is the only similarity I can draw between her and Ian right now, she’s so far gone.

  “You’ve always been such a fool,” she says, her voice again overly friendly and cheerful. “Take a look around, my poor girl. See that now is not the time for me to call surrender.”

  I do look over my shoulder, and I can only find Henry, Danny, Trinity, and Anna. All the others are nowhere to be seen.

  We’re going down, one by one, as the rising tide crushes us.

  “House of Conrath, gather!” I bellow, racing like a maniac through the masses that surround me, fighting, killing. I swing, not causing enough damage to kill, only temporarily wounding.

  Hearing my call, the others begin to make their way to the center of the battlefield. But the way isn’t easy. We’re all being swarmed. There are so many bodies lining up. My hair hangs in my face, saturated in blood. It sprays in my eyes, clouding my vision momentarily.

  The day grows dimmer as sunset bleeds into the sky to match the earth below my feet.

  And understanding dawns in my chest as it grows darker. If this battle continues into nightfall, the Bitten will be able to see with no problems from the day. They will be able to coordinate and fight better.

  If it gets dark, we won’t stand a chance.

  We’re going to die.

  I reach Anna, and we stand back to back, swinging, taking hits, bleeding everywhere. A few minutes later, Danny reaches us. I still see Henry out in the distance, surrounded by a horde.

  “We need to run,” Anna says. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard a hint of fear in her voice. “There’s too many of them.”

  “Not so sure we can get out of this field,” Danny says, shaking his head as he kicks out his booted foot, crushing in a man’s head. “They’re gonna follow if we run.”

  “We gotta do someth-”

  But I’m cut off, completely drowned out by the sound of a deep horn. Shaking, thunderous, deep and wild. It vibrates out over the masses, shaking every one of us deep down to the core.

  Everybody stills momentarily, eyes turning back toward the main road.

  It’s quiet for just a moment. But the ground begins to shake, the vibrations of so many feet pounding the earth.

  Down the road, with Noriko at the head of what must be one hundred Born, comes an army.

  They explode into the masses, limbs and blood spraying through the air. Long swords flash through the dying light. Screams of pain and war leap and echo through the air.

  “Conraths assemble!” I bellow into the air. Because there’s no way this army will be able to take the time to tell the difference between Born and Bitten.

  Through the crowd, I see Ian surface, slashing and shooting, surging up from the masses. He cuts his way through the Bitten. Out a little further, I see Smith, followed by Nial.

  Where are the rest?

  Our small circles dart toward one another, swinging and slashing, doing our best not to be overrun. Suddenly, Markov pops out of the masses, his eyes glowing, his body covered in blood.

  “Get Cora!” I bellow as we fight. “I want her alive. For now.”

  We run. We slaughter. We’re bitten, scratched, attacked. But slowly, we work our way toward the house, while the House of Himura mows down the Bitten army from behind.

  The tiny house sits so close, and out the back, I see Cora slip, a bag over her shoulder, her skeletal frame facing the woods.

  “She’s escaping!” Anna bellows.

  Suddenly, Markov and Danny are lifting Ian, who is curled into a ball. With a great heave, they launch Ian over the top of so many heads. He sails through the air, body outstretched, before crashing into Cora. The two of them roll to the ground, him wrestling her into the dirt, arms pinned behind her.

  “Not those ones,” I suddenly hear a voice from behind. I turn to see the Himura warriors closing in, the warriors on the outskirts of their
pack still slaying the few remaining Bitten. Noriko’s eyes fix on me and my House members. “The Conraths are not to be harmed.”

  Through their ranks, I see Christian, Henry, and Leigh move toward us.

  Within twenty minutes of the House of Himura’s arrival, they’ve slayed the last of the Bitten.

  Bodies pile so high. There are hundreds of them. Each an innocent life taken by Cora and her desire for revolution. All killed for something they had no control over.

  Ian and Smith drag Cora back to the front steps of the tiny house she’s been living in. It’s amazing how much expression is carried in the eyes. Her not having any, it’s hard to tell what she’s feeling.

  But the look on Ian’s face is quite clear: Disgust. Horror. Disbelief.

  I can’t even imagine how this must feel for him.

  “Why?” Ian asks in a ragged breath. “All of this? Why would you do this?”

  The emotions are all there, just under the surface. He’s barely keeping himself under control. I see it in his white knuckles. In the way his teeth are clenched. In the brightness of his eyes.

  “I tried to give you something more,” she says with absolute confidence in her voice. “I tried to give you the life I so badly wanted. There are so many great, big things in this world, things even you do not understand. Why shouldn’t all of us have the chance to grasp them?”

  “Look at all these people!” Ian screams, throwing out his hand to the bodies that surround us. She cannot actually look at them, but in this moment, it doesn’t matter. “They are all dead because of this. You did this.”

  “I tried to change the world,” she says quietly, still with no regret in her voice. “When the one person I thought would have my back turned on me, when he broke his promise that he would not contribute to this mad system, I knew something had to be changed.”

  “It was you, wasn’t?” I ask through the crowd. “You dug up my mother, not Jasmine. It was you who triggered me. All the chaos and the politics and war.” Emotion bites my eyes as I recall the moment that finally broke me. That day changed me for the worse.

  “The potential was already there, my friend,” Cora says as the smile begins to grow on her face. It’s a cold and terrifying thing. “You only needed a little push.”