Page 130 of You’re So Vein

We are being ground down.

Fear coils in my gut, not for myself, but for Hannah, and for everyone I led to their doom trying to save her. For Komal, somewhere in the storm-slashed sky, flying blind and afraid. For the knowledge that I may die here, leaving my daughter in the hands of the Ordo Exsecrati.

Kael reads my fear on my face. He laughs again. I crouch down beside Hannah, slamming my palm onto the stone. My power surges through my veins and spreads out through the atoms and veins of rock, beneath the earth into the bones of the hill itself, and into the towering standing stone behind Kael.

I push.

The stone groans and topples forward. Kael whips around, briefly startled, as the sky cracks again. He throws out a hand and catches it, shoving the stone away. It crashes to the earth, shaking the ground beneath us.

He looks back at me, eyes bright.

He’s toying with me.

“Augie,” Hannah cries.

“I’m here.” My voice breaks. “I’m right here.”

“Where’s Reginald? They took him…”

I scan the field, but it’s impossible to see in the driving rain. I listen for the rush of Reginald’s heartbeat, but don’t hear it. I don’t smell him, either, but I can’t think about him, now.

I shoot my tendrils down into Hannah’s bonds, but they’re infused with some kind of Dusk Court magic. My vines start to pull them apart but it will take more time than I have.

“I always had an inkling that your father was hiding something,” Kael growls as he circles the altar. “The Ordo Exsecrati had been watching him for some time, ever since he started arguing with the elders and taking out books about Dhampir and human–vampire relations. The night that abomination was born, I snuck into their wing and lay in hiding. I heard the human woman give birth, heard the baby utter its first unholy cry. I knew exactly what I was dealing with. A Dhampir. How low your ancient family did fall!”

“Stop monologuing like a cartoon villain and fight me,” I yell.

He chuckles as he knocks a sword out of my hand, leaving me with just one. “Why bother when I can pick you and your friends off at my leisure? It’s more fun that way, and ever since we farewelled the good old days when humans were food, this is the only fun I get to have. This ancient altar of my ancestors will see a river of blood tonight.”

“Leave the others alone.” Anger rises inside me. I can’t hear the helicopter’s motor over the storm. Is Komal in trouble? I aim a downward cut at Kael’s neck, which he dodges with ease. “This is between you and me.”

“Wrong. This is between the true order of the world and the ones like you who seek to undermine it, by allowing humans and vampires to wed, to breed.”

He charges.

I’m too slow. I have only a fraction of a second to twist away, to adjust my body to protect Hannah. The full force of his weight slams into me.

The impact hurls me off the altar. My back slams against the wet earth. Kael’s weight crushes me and then—

Agony.

His sword punches through my shoulder, the silver inlay biting deep, pinning me to the earth. The pain is catastrophic, annihilating, a black hole that devours thought and reason.

The silver holds the wound open. My body can’t push it out, can’t heal, can’t do anything but weep and gibber with agony.

I am nothing but pain.

I am a failure.

Behind me, Hannah sits up, one of her arms free. She sobs as she claws at the other.

Go. Run.

I try to yell, but blood bubbles past my lips.

Kael stands over me, a smirk playing across his face. He wrenches my sword from my slack fingers and twirls it in his hand, taking his time with me. “I might have saved your little human’s life if she’d given you up, but she’s gone and fallen in love with you. You’re a disgrace to your blood. You’re too young, too full of your own foolish desires. You haven’t lived through the terror we faced at the hands of Dhampir. You haven’t seen whole villages of our kin wiped out by a single one of their silver-inlaid blades. That is no child you’re protecting. It is a grenade, and when it goes off, it will kill everyone you care about. You think me a monster, but I am fighting the most noble battle of all – the battle to save Upyr.”

“How is this saving Upyr?” I croak out, spitting blood. The pain is all I have left now. “Everyone should know about Dhampir. We shouldn’t try to hide them away. They’re a part of our history, a part of our blood, and if we work together with humans, they could be part of our future.”