“Let’s move out!”Blade’s voice cuts through the noise.“Chrome, Fury, you’re on point.Prophet rides with me.Vex and Tessa, center position.Rooster, Scout, take the rear.We ride hard, we ride fast, and we watch each other’s backs.”
“Nobody fucks with the Kings!”someone shouts, and the cry is taken up by every brother present.
“Nobody fucks with the Kings!”
The words reverberate through my chest, through the bond, through the very ground beneath our feet.This is what it means to be part of something bigger than yourself.To have brothers, a family, willing to ride into death for you.
Vex swings onto his bike, and I climb on behind him.The moment I settle against his back, arms wrapped around his waist, the world narrows to just us.His strength, solid and reassuring.His scent or leather and winter and something uniquely him.The steady presence of him through the bond, a constant reminder I’m not alone in this.
The engine roars to life between my thighs, vibration traveling up my spine.
Then we’re moving.
The convoy rolls out of the compound in perfect formation, headlights cutting through the darkness.The road is empty at this hour, snow-covered and treacherous, but these men know how to ride.They’ve been doing it for decades.
We leave the compound behind quickly, civilization falling away until there’s nothing but wilderness and winter and the distant mountains rising against the star-studded sky.The temperature drops with every mile, cold seeping through my layers despite the leather.But Vex’s body is warm against my front, and the new vampire traits coursing through my veins helps me regulate better than I could have before.
The mark on my shoulder pulses in time with the engine.
At first, it’s subtle, a gentle throb that could be mistaken for the vibration of the bike.But the farther we ride, the more insistent it becomes.It’s not painful, not yet, but I can feel the pull.The seal site calling to the mark, or maybe the devourer calling to me through it.
Soon,something whispers in my mind.So soon now, little warden.
I press closer to Vex, and he must feel my tension because one hand leaves the handlebar long enough to squeeze my thigh in reassurance.
We’ve been riding for maybe an hour when Chrome’s voice crackles through the comms.
“Contact ahead.Two hundred yards.Multiple signatures.”
“Formation delta,” Blade orders.“Stay tight.”
The bikes shift, creating a defensive pattern with me and Vex at the center.My heart rate kicks up, and through the bond I feel Vex’s predatory focus sharpen to a razor edge.
Then I see them.
Ice shades.Dozens of them, materializing from the snow like they’ve always been there.They’re not solid, more like suggestions of form made from frozen mist and malice.Humanoid shapes with too many joints, too many angles, faces that shift between familiar and alien depending on how the moonlight hits them.
And they’re not alone.
Animals move between the shades, wolves and bears and things that might once have been moose but are now twisted into nightmare fuel.Their eyes glow with cold blue light, frost coating their fur in crystalline patterns.Steam rises from their mouths, but it’s not warm breath.It’s cold exhaust, like they’re breathing out winter itself.
“Here we go,” Fury mutters over the comms.
The first shade lunges for Chrome’s bike.He swerves, raises his sawed-off shotgun, and blasts it apart in an eruption of snow and shrieking frost, only for three more take its place.
Then everything explodes into violence.
Bikes scatter as the creatures swarm.Vex accelerates, weaving between shades with precision that would be impossible for a human.I cling to him, feeling every shift of his body, every adjustment of balance through our connection.
A twisted wolf leaps for us.Vex doesn’t slow, he draws a gun with his free hand and fires three rounds.The wolf explodes into fragments of ice and corrupted flesh.
“Left!”I shout, seeing a shade materializing directly in our path.
Vex banks hard, and I lean with him, our bodies moving in perfect synchronization.The shade’s clawed hand whistles past my head close enough that I feel the cold of it against my cheek.
Behind us, Scout’s wings burst from his back, gossamer and iridescent even in the darkness.He rises above the chaos, silver light gathering in his hands before he releases it in a wave that disintegrates half a dozen shades at once.
“Keep moving!”Blade’s voice is steady despite the carnage.“Don’t let them bog us down!”
