“What do you mean?” A lump formed in my throat as the hilarity of it all wore off.
“I don’t have time to enlighten you right now. I need you to save Luka,” she barked.
“I’d rather die than save that demon!” I snarled.
She bared her teeth. “That is a problem for me because he’s my husband’s best friend and the future king of the vampires. If we can win him the crown, we can be sure to end the war with the vampires. So, I need you to get up and feed him and knock this shit off!” With that, she gestured to the open doorway and I peered out to see the same helicopter from before.
Was Luka in there right now?
“No!” I shouted in her face with as much anger as I could muster in my delirium.
Demi cried out in frustration, raising her arms up into the air. “I’d force you to do it, but Luka said he’ll only feed from you willingly.”
I didn’t believe her. He was dying, of course he’d feed from me right now whether I wanted him to or not!
Demi snapped her fingers, and Izzy rushed forward and handed her a smart phone. The female alpha looked at Liv, who was flattened against the wall, staring at us both. “You might as well both see this,” Demi told her, and then called Liv over.
“Show them how you do it—quickly,” Demi instructed Izzy.
Izzy nodded, throwing a glare my way, and sat on the edge of the couch as Liv and I looked expectantly over at her phone.
“What is th—?” I stopped as I saw her tap an app called VHS. When it opened, “Vampire Hunter Society” scrolled across the screen and then four logos. I gasped when I saw they were the four hunter Houses of Rose, Thorn, Ashes, and Skulls. She touched the House of Rose logo. The app opened and my jaw unhinged when Izzy tapped the word “Mark.”
She typed in Luka Drake and then uploaded a photo of her cousin. Liv and I stared wide-eyed as she then used a dropdown menu to select her bounty price.
It wasn’t until she tapped “Choose Your Hunter” that a whimper left my throat.
There, next to Vasquez and Liv, was my picture. It had my stats underneath: kill rating, age, everything. All of our names were there. “I’d have taken you deeper into the app but this is all I can access without WiFi.” Izzy looked sideways at me as she closed the app and canceled the hit. “There are no families or chief of police that hire you.Wedo. Rival vampires, fey, witches, whoever. You’re hired assassins,” Izzy said blankly.
“No,” Liv whimpered, shaking her head vigorously.
I’d noticed that the lowest bounty able to be paid was twenty thousand. But we only got five. That meant Maz was taking seventy-five percent. Bile rose in my throat as my body went into shock. Nothing was real.
“Aspen, it’s not real. This is a trick,” Liv said.
But I knew in my bones that it wasn’t and I didn’t feel anything about it. I just felt numb, cold, void of … anything. My tower of beliefs had just been knocked down and I was crushed between the rubble.
My whole life was a lie.
I stood, unsteady on my feet as I began to shuffle towards the sound of whirring helicopter blades outside. I started to fall forward when I got to the doorway as dizziness overtook me, but Sage caught me.
“Don’t do it! It’s a lie!” I heard Liv wail, but the tone of her voice was full of heartbreak. She felt the truth as I did.
With Sage’s help, I walked barefoot and shivering across the yard toward the open helicopter door.
Sawyer, the other alpha, was at Luka’s feet, his head hung low in his hands. My eyes flicked to Luka, who was barely conscious. His body was shriveled inward, like a rotting cucumber, and it killed me to know that I did that to him. Sawyer’s head snapped up as I stepped onto the helicopter and Sage helped me to kneel at Luka’s side.
“Let’s give them privacy.” Sage yanked on Sawyer, who didn’t move, he just glared down at me with fearsome glowing yellow eyes.
“You better save him or I’ll kill everyone you care about.” The alpha’s threat sounded real, but his voice was laced with hurt.
Sage pulled him backward and then it was just me and Luka. Tears rolled down my face and dropped onto his bare chest. He was so pale, so near death, and it was all because of me. His eyes tracked me, but he didn’t move.
A sob ripped from my throat. “Why didn’t you tell me? If you knew this whole time, why not tell me!”
Luka reached up with a shaky hand and caught a chunk of my red hair in his brittle fingers.
“I … thought your faith … was kind of beautiful. I didn’t want to be … the one to make you…” His voice was so soft and weak, I had to lean in closer to hear him. “To make you hate God.”
