Not for food. Not for sleep.
Blood.
We’d been fueled by adrenaline for hours—the flight, the castle, the confrontation with Vex, the escape. Now that the immediate danger had passed, my body was finally screaming what it had been too terrified to say before.
I needed to feed. We all did. Every vampire in this group was running on empty, and the nearest blood source wasn’t exactly around the corner.
The baby shifted against my chest, letting out a soft, shuddering sigh. I held it tighter, a fierce protectiveness surging through me even as the hunger clawed at my insides.
I would starve before I let anything touch this child again.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Rocco
Selena hugged the whimpering baby to her chest, one hand cradling its head, her body curved around it like a shield. I scanned the keep for any sign of Vex, but there was no movement. The castle was pitch black—nothing but a jagged silhouette against the night sky. I could barely make out the first turret. That was where the altar had been. Where Vex had held that blade over an innocent child like it was nothing.
He was still in there. Somewhere in the dark behind those dead windows. Watching. Waiting.
Not pursuing. That bothered me more than if he'd come screaming out the front gate.
I put my hand on Selena's lower back and leaned close to her ear. "Move."
She didn't argue. We slipped into the trees, the others falling in behind us, moving quick and quiet through the undergrowth.
Lucien didn't wait for a plan. He launched himself into the air and swept down the mountainside, disappearing into the dark canopy below. He was back within a minute, barely winded.
"There's a village at the base of the mountain." He landed beside Raven, his breath fogging in the cold air. "Small. Quiet. Looks like there might be a hotel or a bed and breakfast."
Good enough.
I scooped Selena into my arms, careful not to jostle the baby pressed between us. Then I ran. The forest blurred around me—colors streaking past, branches snapping, my feet barely kissing the ground before launching forward again. Vampire speed turned the mountainside into a smear of dark green and shadow. Selena tucked her head against my chest, shielding the baby from the wind.
The trees thinned and the village appeared below us. Quaint. Cobblestone streets. Streetlights casting warm pools of amber light. Cars parked along the curbs. Flower boxes in the windows. The kind of place where nothing bad had ever happened and the residents intended to keep it that way.
We slowed to a walk at the edge of town, adjusting from supernatural to normal in the space of a few steps. Just a group of travelers arriving late. Nothing to see.
Selena looked down at the baby, then up at me. Its cries had faded to soft, exhausted hiccups against her shirt.
"We have to take the baby somewhere," she said. Her voice was quiet but firm. "Somewhere safe. Away from us."
The unspoken truth hung between us. As long as the baby was with us, Vex had a reason to come looking. And wherever Vex looked, people died.
Children died.
An old brick church sat at the edge of the village square, its steeple rising into the night sky like a dark finger pointing toward heaven. A cross perched at its peak, silhouetted against the moon.
Selena and I looked at each other. No words needed. We both knew.
We headed toward the church, our footsteps echoing on the cobblestones. The main doors were locked—heavy oak, iron handles, sealed tight for the night. But around the side, tucked beneath an archway draped in ivy, we found another door. Smaller. A warm glow leaked from beneath it.
I knocked. Three sharp raps against the wood.
The seconds stretched. I kept my back straight, my hands at my sides, but every nerve was firing. We were deep in Costin’s homeland, knocking on a stranger’s door in the middle of the night, covered in blood and carrying a stolen baby. There was no version of this that looked good for us.
Footsteps shuffled inside. A lock turned. The door cracked open, and an elderly nun peered out at us. Her face was lined and weathered, her eyes sharp behind wire-rimmed glasses. She looked at me, then at Selena, then at the baby cradled against Selena's chest.
Her expression softened. She didn't ask where the child came from. Didn't ask who we were or why two strangers were standing on her doorstep in the middle of the night with a trembling infant. Maybe she'd seen this before. Maybe in a village at the foot of these mountains, some questions were better left unasked.
