I whirled around.Raleigh’s face was clouded in confusion and pain, still immobilised by the cross.He hadn’t noticed that Yann was looking behind him, and he was too distracted to hear the footsteps, to sense death’s lingering presence.
Father stood in the entry hall, his crossbow levelled at Raleigh’s back.I cried out, but too late.He fired.
Raleigh choked on his scream, falling to his knees as the bolt buried itself in his shoulder.Terror forced his eyes as wide as they would go, the expression alien on him.His lips moved but no sound came out.
Father reloaded and took aim again.There was no time to think.
I lunged forward and grabbed Yann’s hand.Not the one holding the cross, but the one that hung limply in his sling.I squeezed hard, my fist closing around his shattered bones.His scream echoed into the night, and I knew it would ring in my ears for years to come.The crucifix fell into the dirt and I dived, scooping it up before he could recover, shrugging off my robe to conceal it completely.
A sharp twang cut through the night air as Father released the next bolt, but Raleigh had already vanished.The bolt sailed through empty air, whistling past me, and finally lodged itself in Yann’s thigh.His cry was louder this time, hollow with rage.
‘I should raise your taxes if you have this much silver lying around,’ Raleigh said from behind me.Father’s bolt stuck out of his shoulder.
Father levelled the bow once again.‘You won’t have the chance.’
Raleigh grinned, looping his arm around my waist.‘Time to leave, my love.’
And then the ground was gone.
Eleven
MOST PEOPLE, WHEN FINDINGthemselves thirty feet in the air, would cling for dear life onto whatever they could find, even if what they found was their vampire captor.That would be the natural response, if anything about this situation could be considered natural.My reflex, however, was to shove Raleigh away.
His hands slipped as we reached the peak of his jump.The moment seemed to last forever, suspended in midair, while I struggled to free myself from my saviour.Then we crashed onto the roof of my father’s house.I scrambled to find purchase on the shingles, but Raleigh had less luck.He fell on his injured shoulder, then rolled off the edge before he could right himself.A heavy thud sounded in the darkness.Heart in my throat, I scanned my surroundings, trying to find some way of getting down safely.Below, on the other side of the house, I could hear the outraged questioning of my father, wondering where we had vanished to.Neither he nor Yann thought to look up.They disappeared into a nearby alley, but it was only a matter of time before they worked it out.
I slid down the roof as quickly as I dared, using the gutter to stop myself before I fell.Raleigh lay in a twitching heap far below me.
To think he was once my greatest fear.
It was too far to jump, but my mother’s old window box was close enough to help me part of the way.I’d never climbed anything more than a tree in my life, and even then not for almost a decade, so my arms protested at the exertion.The old box creaked as I lowered myself onto it.I prayed it would hold my weight, but apparently God doesn’t look too favourably on those who side with infernal princes.The base of the box fell through the moment I shifted my weight, and I had to scramble to regain my hold on the gutter as the wood clattered to the ground.
I really wished I had listened to Moira.
‘Hold on,’ Raleigh called as loudly as he dared.‘I’m coming up.’
‘Hurry.’My arms were already shaking.
There was a rustle of movement somewhere below me.When the noise was close enough that I dared to look, I turned my head and instantly regretted it.I suddenly had the answer to how Raleigh had reached my window earlier.He scaled walls not by searching for handholds in the masonry, but by sprawling his legs like a spider and shimmying in a manner I was sure I would see again in my nightmares.I was used to the idea of him not being human, but this was grotesque.
He was struggling by the time he reached me.The bolt in his shoulder glinted as he hoisted himself up with his left arm, the gutter creaking dangerously under our combined weight, and then he was standing on the roof above me, hurling me back up over the edge with impressive strength.
‘What the hell was that?’I managed between breaths.Raleigh had no issue standing on the dramatically sloping roof, but if he hadn’t kept his grip on the back of my nightgown, I would have toppled right back over the eaves.
‘That was climbing.’Raleigh crouched and wrapped his arms around me in a passionless embrace.It was an odd sensation: not at all warm but comfortably solid.‘I’m going to jump off the roof and this time I need you not to struggle.Can you do that?’
‘I think so.’I squeezed my eyes shut so I wouldn’t make a liar out of myself, but it almost wasn’t enough.My stomach lurched as we fell.I clenched every muscle, waiting for the crash, but it never came.Raleigh alighted gently, then set me down.Only when my trembling legs were grounded once more did he whisper that it was all right to open my eyes.
‘We need to hide,’ he said before I had fully recovered.
I shook my head.‘We need to run.’
‘I won’t get far with this sticking out of my arm.’He jerked his head towards his injured shoulder, then winced.‘Give me ten minutes somewhere secluded to deal with this.Then we can run.’
I scanned the yard.Nowhere would hide us for long.The stable wasn’t an option; Father was likely readying his horse that very second.The old hen house, maybe?Someone would think to look there eventually, but with any luck Father wouldn’t be expecting us to stay inside the grounds.It was better than nothing.
‘This way.’
I hurtled off into the darkness, hoping Raleigh would follow.The weeds had grown dense around the old coop, slowing our progress but providing much-needed cover.In the distance the occasional yell broke through the silence as the men of Orlfen were roused, but they remained far enough away, for now.
