“You took all the fun. Not a single one left for us,” the male said in an aristocratic accent not unlike Vander’s and some of the other higher class in Nighthaven.
“Viper, handsome, you didn’t tell us you had a new partner,” the woman crooned.
“Or apprentice? That telltale silver ring on her uniform is pretty damning. Not to mention you’re guarding her,” the man added with a wicked smile. “I thought you’d given up on that? Belladonna grows weary of waiting for you to come home, brother.”
It felt like someone struck me in the gut with a cane.Brother?My entire body buzzed. Dread began to sink my stomach. If he had lied to me about his standing with Nocturnus and the vampires there, I was all but at his mercy.
I always had been anyway.
“Belladonna can burn in the underworld,” Vander spat.
The male winced and tsked. The woman cocked her head and inhaled. “Forget about that. This one smells... different. What are you, pet?”
My muscles strained and I froze. Was I bleeding? And why weren’t we ending this? When did we ever talk to the vampires before killing them? There were rules about attacking them in Nocturnus but not here.
“She is ducai,” Vander snapped. “Now leave before I change my mind. No one will miss you.”
The woman took a step toward us, eyes locked on me like I was her next meal. “Bonecarver. I like that name. I think your little pet would make a great addition. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about changing her.”
Vander snarled and lunged at her with his sword. She jerked back, shifting into a shadowy form like thick black smoke. The male blocked Vander’s blade before it could slash through the shadows. I moved in beside him. She reformed and I swung at her. Our swords clashed hard. I kicked her in the gut and hacked at her head. She ducked and rolled to the side.
“The pet is good,” she grinned.
The male shifted into shadow, Vander jabbed left and shoved his sword through the man’s belly as he reformed. He hissed, stumbling backward and pressed a hand over the wound.
“No!” The woman shrieked and threw herself in front of Vander’s next strike. His blade stuck through her center. The man wailed with such pain it shook me as she fell into him.
Someone screamed nearby and my stomach swooped. A human scream for help. The distraction was just enough for the male vampire to turn and run in the opposite direction. The woman lay dying on the ground, gasping for breath. Vander took a step to go after him when another scream came.
“Help! Vampire!”
Instinctively I turned toward the cry, but Vander went the other way. I tilted back and forth. I had to stay with him, and yet he was ignoring someone who needed us.
“Wait! Oriana,” the vampire woman called. That stopped him. He whipped around, half shadowed from the moonlight shining down. She held a hand over her chest where blood pumped between her fingers. He must not have directly hit her heart.
“What about Oriana?” Vander glared down at her.
His sister’s name was Oriana...
She choked until liquid scarlet bubbled over her lips. Gray worked its way up her neck; her pale hands changed next. The vampire woman smiled as death overtook her, and she turned to stone.
My pulse hummed.
Vander started pacing until another scream for help ripped through the night. “Shit.” He growled, took my arm and dragged me toward the screams.
I dodged pine branches and leapt over a rotten log. “I bet she was trying to distract you from going after her friend.” That mustbe it. “But... you were going to let them go until she threatened me. Why?”
“There is an unwritten agreement that we don’t kill the vampires who are here to hunt down the groups of wildlings.”
“Is this your unwritten agreement or the guild’s?” I’d never heard anyone else talk about it.
He turned a sharp eye on me. The darkness in him terrified me—thrilled me. My body burned with heat. “It’s LOA’s.”
“They knew you,” I asserted. “He called you brother. Because you are a vampire like him, do you think?” The wheels of my mind spun. I trusted him. Jaeda trusted him, but what did I truly know about her other than she was a mage?
“Everyone knows me, Bonecarver. And I assume so.”
A young man ran toward us, fear carved into his face. “Help! Help! A vampire!” He threw himself at us and stumbled into me. I caught him before he fell. He couldn’t be more than fifteen.
