Fire erupted as the scent of blood filled the air.
“First blood!” someone shouted.
The injury hurt and I didn’t like the precedent, but I was glad that they’d shed my blood first. If we survived long enough to deal with the fallout, it would help prove we hadn’t intended the violence.
I pushed down the pain and tried to ignore the monster’s sudden interest in the battle. And then another fairy joined the fun.
A dagger sliced through the air. This time I kicked up, hitting his wrist and sending the weapon skittering through the air. My second kick made contact with his jaw, snapped back his head.
But he shook off the impact, then dove on me, sending us both to the ground. We grappled, blades clattering away, both of us trying to find the right grip, the superior move. In the scramble, his elbow connected with my face, and my knee caught his kidney. But neither of us found the move that would stop the other, and we both ended up on our feet again.
On my left, Lulu was fighting another fairy in close combat, blades glinting as they spun. Her father had trained her well; she fought like a champ. But she wasn’t immortal, and it was easy to see she was getting tired. Her arms were shaking from the effort of lifting the blade. I needed to get her out of here.
“Get back to the car,” I yelled, hoping she’d hear me over the noise of the fight.
“Fuck you, too,” she said, and blew hair from her face as she brought her sword down on a fairy’s forearm. He turned, but not fast enough. The blade sliced across his arm, raising a beaded line of blood that made the air smell of green things.
The temptation was sudden, and it was strong, like blood and magic were combining to compel me to drink. My eyes silvered and my fangs descended, my fingers suddenly shaking with want. I had to clench my hands to hold myself back, to keep from falling at his feet to drink the blood right from his veins.
This was the lure of fairy blood, and I wasn’t the only one interested. As if propelled by the desire, the monster broke through the barrier I’d erected to keep it quiet, to keep it secreted away. It rose like a flame, brilliant and hot in the darkness, burning away everything around it.
A red haze covered my vision, and I knew my eyes had turned the same color—a side effect of the monster’s magic. As it took control, hatred rose in my stomach like bile. I heard a scream, realized a moment later—when my throat felt like I’d swallowed broken glass—that I’d been the one who’d made the sound.
With the monster in control, I jumped forward toward the fairy. I fell on him, and we hit the ground together in a tangle of arms and legs, trying to get in a strike. I made contact first, landed a punch on his cheekbone that made his head thud dully against the ground. And because that wasn’t enough for the monster, I hit him again.
“Lis! Lis! Elisa!” I heard Lulu’s voice but couldn’t pull myself to the surface. The monster was too strong.
“Snap out of it!” she said.
The fairy beneath me, his gaze still unfocused, grabbed my hands. And then my ankles were drawn together, my feet tangled. I was dragged backward, and the shock was enough to shake the monster loose. It wanted freedom, but it didn’t want me dead. Because that wouldn’t serve its purpose. That wouldn’t set it free.
I looked back. Thin green vines had snaked around my ankles and were working their way up my calves. And others were rising from the ground like a nest of snakes, headed for my wrists.
I shifted, pulling the tendrils around my ankles. A few snapped, putting more of that vegetal scent into the air. But more vines pushed through the stones to replace them and shackled me like iron.
“Elisa!” Lulu was on her knees a few feet away, vines around her ankles, her wrists bound together. This time there was fear in her eyes.
Ruadan knelt beside me, pulled a dagger from a leather holster at his waist, held it up in the moonlight. And then the blade was at my throat, and I stopped moving. I knew what fairies with blades did to vampires.
“It would be a shame to kill you,” he said. “You are an interesting specimen, and I wish to know more about you. And your magic.”
“I’m just a vampire.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s true.” He angled the blade just enough to prick, and I felt the trickle of blood at my neck.
The look in his eyes made my stomach clench harder. Surprise and shock. Interest and intrigue.
Ruadan dabbed a droplet of my blood with a long, pale fingertip, then flicked his tongue to taste it. “Power,” he quietly said, and there was too much interest in his eyes.
My blood chilled as I realized he’d recognized something about the monster. Maybe not all the details, about the history or the origin. But he knew there was magic that wasn’t just vampiric.
Before I could respond, there was a howl outside the gatehouse. And the sound was full of anger and rage.
It came at a full run, earth pounding beneath huge paws. Silver fur and ivory fangs glinted in the moonlight, and the scents of pine and smoke and animal lifted on the wind.
It wasn’t until it reached us—until I saw its ice-blue eyes—that I knew we weren’t in danger from him.
Connor.
My heart pounded with a new kind of ferocity.
He bit through the tangle of vines at my feet. There was an answering scream in the crowd of fairies, as if his teeth had met their flesh. There must have been some magical connection to the one who’d woven the magic.
That was enough to have the other tendrils around Lulu and me shrinking back. She ran toward me, helped me to my feet. My legs felt heavy, shaky. Maybe because of the fairy magic. Maybe because of the fight. Maybe because of the monster.
Connor looked us both over, eyes narrowed, then moved in front, putting his body between us and the fairies. He surveyed them, then paced in front of them, anger rumbling in his throat. His ears lay flat, his stance slow. He was big and dangerous, and he was ready to fight.
I was shocked, awed, and a little unnerved. Not just because he’d found us and was obviously trying to protect us, but because he was showing us who he was. Letting Lulu and me see his animal form, the sacred part of himself only other shifters would normally see.
Connor reached Ruadan and bared his teeth, made another threatening growl that lifted goose bumps on my arms.
“Animal,” Ruadan spat, lip curled in obvious disgust. He clearly didn’t have any love for vampires, but he seemed to loathe shifters even more.
Connor growled again, and Ruadan inhaled sharply, nostrils flaring.
Two fairies stepped forward, one on each side of their leader, and drew their blades. This was no longer fairies versus vampires. It was fairies versus Pack.
And that, I thought, might make the difference.
“You have a decision to make,” I said, my voice hoarse from screaming. “Do you want to hurt the prince and take on the entire Pack? You know they’re dangerous. Untrustworthy,” I said, throwing his word back at him. “And very, very powerful. I doubt you’d enjoy that fight. And I doubt your queen would, either.”
There was a hot burst of magic as insult spread around the room. They might have obeyed Ruadan, protected him, but Claudia was their still queen.
Ruadan’s lip curled, his fingers fisted so tightly, his knuckles were white. But he didn’t make a move. It probably wasn’t a coincidence that he hadn’t made any moves except when I’d been bound.
He murmured something softly, the sounds shifting between soft vowels and hard consonants, the language old and powerful.
Whatever he said, his fairies got the point. The tension of their bodies, their stances, loosened. But their eyes grew no kinder. They were angry, partly because of the intrusion, partly because Ruadan had leashed them again. He’d riled them to a fight, and they wanted the satisfaction.
“We’re leaving,” I said, and Connor stepped closer to me, his fur—so soft—brushing against my fingers like a whisper.
I picked up my sword and turned Lulu so she went first, so my back was to the fairies. Connor padded behind us, and we ran down the path toward the car.
FOURTEEN
Thelma, low and menacing in a spear of moonlight, sat beside Lulu’s car. The wolf padded onto the road behind us, then circled around to face us, lips curled back over gleaming teeth.
Connor was still a wolf, and he was pissed.
“I don’t recall inviting you along on this little adventure,” Lulu said to him. “So we aren’t the only ones who have explaining to do.”
It was the driest look I’d ever seen on an animal.
Maybe that’s why he didn’t warn us before light filled the darkness, searing across my retinas as magic engulfed him. It whirled around his body, sending energy and the scents of pine needles and fur into the air. I’d never stood in the sun, never felt sunshine on my bare skin. But the scent of him made me think of those things.