“Good,” Kieran broke in. “They can take care of the rest of these Hel-Blar.”
“Good thinking.” Helena nodded approvingly. She might not eviscerate him for not getting me back to school, after all.
Uncle Geoffrey took a wickedly long syringe out of his black leather case. It was stuffed with vials of blood, bottles of Hypnos, stakes, and restraints. Apparently they’d been prepared for just about anything with this exorcism. He injected Solange with the sedative and then pulled the arrow out in one quick tug. Blood pooled in the wound. She slumped forward bonelessly. Helena caught her, lifting her up as if she were a baby.
“We’ve got three Jeeps,” Liam said. “Should be enough room for everyone.”
“I’ll go back to the caves,” Magda said.
“It’s not safe out there,” Liam argued, but Magda had already swung up into a tree and was leaping from branch to branch.
“She’ll be fine,” Isabeau assured him. “But I’ll go back with you, just in case I can help Solange more.”
“And I’ll take Lucy and Kieran back,” Nicholas offered. Kieran tossed him Logan’s keys.
Liam clasped his shoulder. “Hurry home.”
A fire truck siren wailed in the distance. “That’s our cue. Let’s get out of here and let the Huntsmen do their job.”
Uncle Geoffrey’s nostrils flared. “They’re nearly here.”
Liam looked at his sons. “Ready?” They nodded. “Go!”
Helena had already taken off with Solange, who hung limply, blood dripping from her shoulder. The Hel-Blar howled, straining to get past the others to get to her. They went mad with pheromone poisoning and their natural feral hunger. The stink of rot mixed with toxic smoke. I covered my nose and mouth with the collar of my sweater and made a run for it, Nicholas and Kieran keeping pace.
On either side of us, the Drakes fought back. The sound of bones breaking was audible, even over the murmur and hiss of the fire. Duncan did a 360 with his vehicle, sliding into perfect position. Helena tossed Solange in the backseat, then flipped up onto the roof as the others piled in. She kicked viciously at any approaching Hel-Blar. Liam escorted the second carload with equal ferocity.
Nicholas loped ahead and by the time I reached the Jeep, the passenger door was open and he was sliding across the hood to the driver’s seat. Kieran dove into the backseat behind me and I slammed my door shut. As Nicholas peeled away, I saw the first of a group of Huntsmen break out of the cover of the trees. They were armed to the teeth and more than capable of dispatching the remaining Hel-Blar. The other cars shot in the opposite direction, toward the farm.
Nicholas sped past Kieran’s smoking car and turned off on the first side road, to avoid the approaching fire trucks. We were far enough away from town that it would take them at least another five minutes to get here. Kieran called in the location as we bumped along the dirt road. The Helios-Ra were equipped to deal with officials if the Huntsmen took off before they finished the job.
I rubbed my side. “I think Quinn broke my spleen.”
“Which is nothing compared to what his mother will do to mine,” Kieran said, tilting his head back.
“Don’t worry,” I assured. “She’ll tire herself out kicking my ass first.”
Nicholas rolled all the windows down until the cold wind created a little hurricane inside the car. I pushed hair off my face to glance his way. His jaw was clenched tight.
“You okay?” I murmured.
“Fine.”
“Oh, cause that’s convincing.”
“Need my nose plugs?” Kieran asked casually, but I could see him reaching for his last stake.
Nicholas opened the skylight as well. He stopped grinding his teeth as the wind tunneled around him. “I’m good,” he said, and this time we believed him. I shivered, turning up the heaters.
“You couldn’t have sat in a car like this with both of us a few weeks ago,” I pointed out.
“I’ve been through worse since,” he replied quietly. I winced and reached for his hand. He held on tightly, weaving his fingers through mine.
“Anyone else think evil should take a vacation so we can catch a nap?” I asked lightly, trying to ease the tension. The lights of Violet Hill got closer and Nicholas slowed down to the speeding limit. He pulled up to the curb in front of Kieran’s house.
“Hell of a night,” Kieran said in way of a good-bye as he got out.
“Hey,” I said, leaning out the window as he walked away, limping slightly. “Are you going to the farm tomorrow?”
He paused. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” He turned his head. “Call me and tell me if she’s okay.”
We watched Kieran walk up to his front porch, covered in soot and mud.
“Think they’ll work it out?” Nicholas asked.
“The emo twins?” I asked. “They love each other, so yes. Plus, I plan to smack their heads together.”
We drove back out of town in silence, until Nicholas pulled over just before reaching the school. He switched off the lights but kept the car running so I wouldn’t freeze with the open windows. I unbuckled my seatbelt so I could turn to face him. I felt weirdly shy. Now that he was safe, I could really see the changes in him. His smile was just as serious but it carried a certain darkness it hadn’t before. He’d been pushed, the way soldiers at war are pushed. What if everything about him had changed, including the way he felt about me?
“Why is your heart racing like that?” he asked, rubbing his thumb over the pulse on the inside of my wrist.
I swallowed. “Adrenaline.”
He tilted his head. “You know I can smell when you’re lying.”
“Hey.” I scowled. “No vampire superpowers allowed.”
“I never agreed to that.” He smiled his endearingly crooked smile and it nearly batted away my doubts. “What’s going on inside that busy little head of yours, Lucy?”
“Nothing.” He just stared at me until I squirmed. “It’s stupid,” I mumbled. “Especially considering the night we just had.”
“Tell me, anyway.”
“You’re different.”
I felt him pull back slightly. “Different how?”
“Not in a bad way, you’ve just been through so much.”
“And?” He prodded.
“I’m still just me. What if . . .” I shrugged, feeling even dumber now that I had to put it into words.
“You little idiot,” he said, half laughing. “You’re the only thing that saved me. Again. You keep saving me and you don’t even know it.”
His words melted the iceberg in my chest. We stared at each other for a long time. His gray eyes were like smoke. He still had scars on his neck and arms. But he was here. We were together. There was so much to say but no words to say it with.
We reached for each other instead, falling into a kiss so deep and necessary it made every awful thing we’d just been through bearable. His mouth was wicked, nearly desperate. I traced the muscles in his arms, over his chest. I couldn’t get close enough. He dragged his lips slowly down my throat and I shivered down to my toes. I could barely catch my breath.
“You got rid of your glasses,” he said softly, running his fingertip down my nose.
“You kept fogging them up,” I teased, still kissing him. His lips curved under mine, and then the playfulness was gone and he leaned over, pressing me into the seat. He nipped at my mouth, teasing and tasting until my head spun, until my lips tingled, and my knees melted. Our tongues touched, his hand fisted in my hair. I pulled him closer. It wasn’t close enough. I wiggled to make more room in the cramped seat and smacked my elbow on the console. The pins and needles in my arm distracted me. Nicholas pulled back slightly.
“Ouch,” I said, ruefully. “I guess I should go before my detention turns to an expulsion.”
There was a promise in his gray eyes. My cheeks went hot. His thumb traced my lower lip, his gaze dropping back to my mouth. He kissed me once more, a soft lingering kiss that st
ole every coherent thought right out of my head.
He eased away and it took a long moment before I felt I could remember how to work the door handle. “I’ll get out here. You definitely can’t be on campus right now with all the extra hunters and Huntsmen. On the plus side, I’ll be perfectly safe.”
“Text me anyway when you get inside.”
“Okay. And I’ll be at the farm at sunset for when Solange finally wakes up.”
“Don’t you have class?” he asked, his hair tousled from my touch. “And detention?”
I snorted. “Yeah, like that’s going to stop me.”
Chapter 22
Solange
“I was in love,” Viola said, looking melancholy and defenseless. “Surely I have a right to be happy. Madame Veronique stole that from me.” A single tear trembled on her lower lash before falling down her cheek. “I didn’t even know what she’d done to my beloved Tristan until I was already dead, until there was no hope for us at all.”
I’d feel a lot sorrier for her if she wasn’t such a psychotic bitch.
“What about all those people at Bornebow Hall?” I asked.
“That was . . . an accident.” Her regret seemed genuine, even if it weighed a lot less than her selfish need for Constantine. Her lower lip trembled. “I didn’t know what I was. I woke up covered in blood.”
That part I could almost forgive. If she’d had no idea she was changing, how would she know how to leash the hunger? I was still struggling and I’d had centuries of practice essentially encoded in my DNA. Mind you, I’d been dealing with both of our needs without even realizing it.
“I saw what you did,” I replied steadily. “Even before Veronique was involved.”
“We could be great together,” she said. “We could be queen. Not even our grandmother could stop us.”
“I have no intention of being stuck with you forever,” I told her, the light flaring through my silver cord. It felt like tiny electrical shocks pinging through my belly, like someone was yanking it from the other end. “And how many times do I have to say it? I don’t want to be freaking queen of the freaking vampires.”
“Forget the crown then,” she said, proving that it was secondary to her plans. We’d been right in thinking the crown was just a symbol, something that focused her will. That’s all magic is, in the end. Focused will. I remember Isabeau telling me that once. “I only want Tristan. We deserve a chance to be together.”
“Not more than Kieran and I deserve to be together. Not more than my family and my friends deserve their own happiness.”
Her maiden-in-distress mask crumpled like poorly fired clay. “She took him from me,” she hissed. Bats circled, squeaking. She flicked her fingers, sending them dive-bombing my way. I held up my palm and they stopped as if hitting an invisible wall. If I had to carry her sins, I’d damn well take my compensation with her other gifts. She snarled. “She killed me, did she tell you that?”
“Madame Veronique didn’t tell me anything about you,” I murmured, watching blood pour out of the tree behind her. It trickled through the grass toward her feet, staining the hem of her kirtle. I remembered her walking through the tournament camp looking very similar. “She was ashamed of you and erased your name from our family tree.”
I knew it would enrage her. I’d spent long enough walking through her memories and trapped in her head to know which buttons to push. And Dad always says, if you act in anger you lose the battle.
“I only did what she made me do.”
“My dad has a whole responsibility speech you should hear,” I said. “Only I really don’t want to be here for a second longer.”
“Agreed.” Her hands curled like claws as she closed them around a sword hilt she plucked from one of her knights. The blade was starting to rust, shedding copper-colored flakes. She swung at me and I leaped back, easily avoiding the strike. She wasn’t very good. I parried the next stab and spun around, elbowing her in the face. She howled and swung blindly.
And then I realized she wasn’t trying to run me through.
She was trying to sever the silver cord that linked me to my body, to cut off my only way home.
I blocked another lunge and pushed at her arm so she was forced to continue the movement, angling away from me. I drove the sword hilt into the back of her neck and she stumbled, shrieking. The flowers in her hair were wilting and the fine embroidery was unraveling off her sleeves. Only the pendant stayed polished and perfect, the painted happy couple mocking me with every sway.
I waited for her to spin back around to face me and as it lifted in the air, I swung at it. The sharp blade sliced through the chain. Before the pendant landed, our swords clashed again, viciously and brutally. Bits of iron and rust exploded.
The pendant fell into the grass between us.
For a moment everything faded to shades of gray, as if the pendant had leeched all the color out of the world and kept them for itself. The painted dress, Constantine’s violet eyes, Viola’s red lips.
Her gaze shot to mine, showing real fear for the first time.
We both lunged for it simultaneously. She pulled up abruptly, clotheslining me even as I dove for the pendant. The force of her arm across my throat had me gagging and seeing stars. As I fell, I flipped in midair, slamming the soles of my feet into her chest. We crashed to the ground so hard it trembled under us. Stones toppled from the wall as moss and ivy began to grow between them, pulling apart the mortar. Viola bared her teeth at me as she tried to push up on her elbows, glancing around for help that wasn’t coming. Isabeau had demolished her backup.
But we were still inside her head, and she’d been doing this a lot longer than I had.
“Tristan!”
I hadn’t even pushed up to my knees before Constantine came racing around the other side of the hill, a dozen knights on horseback behind him. Swords and spears stabbed at the sky. Their battle yell reverberated all around.
I tried one last leap for the pendant before I was trampled under hooves. Viola couldn’t get to her feet. She looked as broken as I felt. Instead she wriggled down and tried to kick me in the face. I dodged, but she caught my shoulder and pain shot sparks down my arm. Bats tangled in my hair.
She was really starting to get on my nerves.
My silver cord flared, going from starlight to sunlight and blinding her momentarily. That was something, at least. But not enough.
The knights surrounded us, horses pawing at the ground. Constantine lowered his lance, the wickedly pointed tip aimed at my already bruised throat. His eyes were the same violet color, but without the vampire intensity. His black hair curled over his chain-mail and there were scars on his hands. This was Viola’s Tristan. He wasn’t a vampire yet, just a human knight.
I scrounged in the dirt for my sword hilt, shrinking back from the lance. The sound of blades leaving their scabbards hissed all around me, like poisonous serpents. Viola had her resurrected knights, and her true love. They’d die for her. And they’d cheerfully kill for her. They weren’t even technically real, just figments of her past. Memories.
But in this place, memories could kill.
There was only one other person left whom she couldn’t control, who was as real as I was.
Gwyneth.
She stood in the arch of the gate, the ivy and moss growing wildly behind her, pulling down stones and cracking the walls. Her bare muddy toes dug into the grass and the ground fractured like spiderweb cracks in a windshield.
“You!” Viola snapped, with equal fear and hatred. “It’s not possible. Get her!” she ordered, and half the knights charged Gwyneth, hooves flinging clumps of dirt all over me. In the momentary pause, I managed to grab hold of my sword and blocked Tristan’s lance, shoving it aside. I rolled beyond its range and into the space abandoned by the knight behind me. I landed on the balls of my feet, springing up, sword at the ready. The nearest horse tried to bite me. Constantine’s lance was still between me and the pendant.
“Call t
he dragon!” Gwyneth yelled to me, as the ground heaved and buckled around her. The knights reined in their horses, pacing side to side, trying to find a way through.
“How?” I yelled back. “This isn’t The Lord of the Rings!”
“Blood to blood,” she said. “Only you can end this now.”
The dragon would serve me. It contained Viola’s memory of Madame Veronique and the entire Drake clan and she feared it because she feared her family.
I didn’t. It was the very source of my strength.
I needed Viola’s blood but I couldn’t get to her, not with Constantine and his knights protecting her. I needed some kind of diversion. I pointed at one of the bats and flicked my hand, directing it at Constantine. The bat dipped low at his head. He ducked, swearing. I sent three more, like a music conductor leading a symphony of bats. His horse shied nervously. I guided the other bats to the other knights, leaving the rest to hover over the pendant in a frantic black cloud when Viola crawled forward. She waved them away and they pinged between us, confused.
Time was running out. Already one of the bats was being skewered by a lance.
I ran to the tree, dragging my hand along the sword blade. Blood sprang to the surface as my cut sliced open. It hurt a lot more than it looked like it did in the movies. I slapped my palm over one of the bleeding gouges in the tree trunk and waited. Viola screamed and ran at me.
And then the dragon tore out of the sky as if it was made of nothing more than glittery indigo tissue paper.
It was just as huge as I remembered, all blue-and-silver scales and ridges on its spine as tall as standing stones. It circled over us, menacing and awe inspiring. Its tail whipped back and forth, creating a powerful wind that flattened the grass. Smoke and sparks streamed out of its nostrils.
Viola made a choking sound as she gave into fear and turned back to scramble up into the saddle behind Constantine. The pendant was still on the ground. The dragon opened its enormous jaws and shot out a ball of fire like a comet. It trailed enough sparks to singe the grass and blacken the stones. The horse reared, panicking.