Bleeding Hearts Read online

  Cameras and bugs in the halls. Act normal.

  Hidden cameras and microphones? What the hell had I gotten myself into?

  “Shit, they roomed you with Sarita?” Chloe said conversationally as I slipped my phone back into my pocket. “Classic Helios-Ra room assignment.” She shook her head. “They do it on purpose.”

  “They do? Why?”

  “To teach us how to get along with people and to see how we do under stress,” Hunter explained.

  “Please.” Chloe snorted. “It’s because they’re just plain mean.”

  “Sarita’s not so bad,” Hunter said. “She’s just … organized.”

  “Anal,” Chloe corrected. She shot me a pitying look. “And I’m pretty sure she’ll tattle. For your own good, of course.”

  Hunter wrinkled her nose. “You’re probably right about that.”

  “But hanging out with Hunter will give you a buffer,” Chloe assured me. “Sarita has a serious case of hero worship for her.”

  “She does not.” Hunter rolled her eyes.

  “She does so.”

  “Even though you have a vampire boyfriend?” I raised my eyebrows. “She seemed pretty strict about that. And I’ve only known her for about five minutes.”

  “She thinks they’re just ugly rumors,” Chloe said. “The saintly Hunter would never defile herself that way.” She smiled slowly. “Then again, Sarita’s never seen Quinn.”

  Hunter poked her.

  “What? He’s pretty.”

  The hallway seemed deserted, the dorm more quiet than it had been when I arrived. Even the lawns were empty. “Where’s everyone?”

  “At dinner.” Hunter waited for Chloe and me to step into the room before shutting the door and pressing her ear against it. Chloe was already at one of her laptops, entering in a password.

  “Okay, so what’s up?” I asked when Hunter crossed the carpet, satisfied that no one had followed us. She flipped on their stereo anyway to muffle our voices. Solange and I used that trick all the time after Logan and Nicholas turned and we wanted to make sure they weren’t eavesdropping on us.

  “Chloe intercepted messages between some of the hunters who hide out in the mountains,” Hunter told me in undertones. “One of them was flying his bush plane and found the burned remains of a maze near an abandoned ghost town.”

  I exhaled suddenly. “That’s where they kept Christabel.”

  “I know,” Hunter said grimly. “There’s at least six of them going in pretty much now. They want to take out all the Hel-Blar and anything that moves.”

  “Shit, they don’t know about Saga and the council treaty thing,” I exclaimed. “If they go in looking for a fight, they could start a civil war between the tribes. No one would believe the Drakes weren’t involved!”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “We have to tell Christabel.” I fumbled for my phone. “When she was sick, she muttered about Aidan. He saved her life, ironically. We can’t just let him get ambushed!”

  “I already texted Quinn and Kieran,” Hunter said while I copied my message to Christabel to Nicholas and Connor. I didn’t copy Solange. Usually she’d be a lethal sword in the fight, but right now she was a live grenade. She might blow us all up.

  Plus, I was holding a grudge.

  I could admit it to myself, if to no one else.

  “Can you get ahold of Hart? Have him call it off?”

  “He can’t be officially involved in vampire politics, treaty or no, any more than Liam could be involved in League business,” Hunter said. “Besides, it’s a hunter’s right and duty to take out Hel-Blar. Not to mention, Aidan essentially killed your cousin.”

  “Turned her. There’s a difference.”

  “She wouldn’t have been in danger if he hadn’t kidnapped her. Anyway, they’re out of range by now,” Chloe said.

  “It’s a different world,” Hunter said apologetically. “We’re not trained to save vampires from themselves.”

  “If there’s a civil war, everyone will be involved,” I argued.

  “I know,” she agreed calmly.

  “And the Drakes won’t be up and out for another hour at least,” I said, frustrated.

  “It’ll take us that long to drive to the maze,” Hunter said, reaching for her knapsack. I knew it was full of weapons and hiking supplies. She was prepared like that. “They can meet us there.”

  Chloe unplugged her laptop. “Ready.”

  I blinked. “You’re going? Both of you?”

  “Of course. We’re all going,” Hunter said. “Don’t be stupid.”

  Chapter 26

  Christabel

  Connor grabbed me in the hall and pressed his mouth to mine.

  “Shhh,” he murmured against my lips.

  “I didn’t say anything,” I murmured back, baffled. But as usual, the feel of his lips on mine was distracting.

  He jerked his head toward the window. “Come on,” he mouthed. I followed him, peering down into the gardens. The tops of thorny rosebushes waved at me. Light from the conservatory spilled out onto the lawn in perfect yellow squares.

  “That’s a two-story drop,” I whispered when Connor flung his leg over the sill and waited for me to do the same. “Last I checked, vampires didn’t sprout wings.” I stared at him. “We don’t, do we?”

  He chuckled despite the solemn cast to his eyes. “No.”

  “What the hell, then?”

  “Keep your voice down,” he said. “We need to go. Now.”

  “There are these new things called stairs,” I whispered back.

  He shook his head. “You really are Lucy’s cousin. All of a sudden I can see the family resemblance. Will you please just come on?”

  “Connor,” I said patiently. “I can’t jump out of the window and I’m a lousy climber. Just let me sneak out the back.”

  He sighed. “Fine. But hurry. Meet me behind those cedars.”

  “More cedars,” I muttered. “That can’t be good.”

  Connor didn’t answer, just dropped out of view. I didn’t even hear him land. I heard some of the brothers walking around on the third floor. I went quietly down the stairs, peeking into the living room. It was empty. I snuck down the hall toward the garden conservatory. I felt like I was back home, creeping around so I wouldn’t wake my mother when she was in one of her weepy moods.

  “Hey, Christa.”

  I hollered, jumping a foot off the ground. Apparently, I’d lost my stealth entirely when I died. “Solange!”

  She tilted her head, smiling. She looked less scruffy than she used to, wearing a flowing shirt and with her hair in a neat braid. But her irises were delicately ringed with blood. My eyes were bloodshot but I’d been assured that would fade. Solange’s were getting more pronounced.

  “You’re sneaking out,” she declared knowingly.

  Crap.

  “Um. No?”

  “Are so.” She waved her hand. “Doesn’t matter. I’m sneaking out, too.”

  “You are? Where?”

  “It’s not exactly sneaking out if I tell you,” she said, grinning. “You go that way.” She pointed toward the back rooms. “I’ll go out the front.” She leaned in and the smell of her, wood smoke and roses, made me feel fuzzy. “Don’t tell anyone you saw me.”

  She was gone before I could reply. I hurried through the glass-walled room, around potted orange and lemon trees with glossy leaves and banks of red lilies. Ivy trailed around the door.

  The flagstones were littered with rose petals and acorns. I stepped onto the lawn instead and ran toward the cedars. Connor was shifting impatiently from foot to foot.

  “This way.” He turned and darted away. I chased after him through the field. The grass was tall and damp. Birds lifted out of secret weedy nooks when we passed by. I was briefly distracted by my new ability to run fast and not lose my breath. I was grinning when we stopped on the outskirts of the forest. Moonlight percolated through the pine boughs.

  “Do you know a
bout the Helios-Ra?” Connor asked.

  “Only that Lucy’s going to school at their academy outside town. Why?”

  “They’re vampire hunters.”

  “Yeah, I know that.”

  “Well, sometimes they go all survivalist wackjob in the mountains. Some of those guys found the ghost town, and they’re going in to take everyone out—not just the Hel-Blar but Saga, Aidan, and their people, too.”

  “How’d you find all this out?” I asked.

  “Lucy called me,” he replied. “She’s been at that school for less than a day.” He sounded impressed despite the worry in his shoulders.

  “That’s Lucy,” I agreed. “Shouldn’t we tell your parents or something?”

  Quinn emerged from the trees. “No. Mom will charge in, and Dad will be caught in some diplomatic trap. Meanwhile, the hunters will take out the Hel-Blar, we’ll get blamed somehow, Saga’s undead pets will be let loose, and then who knows what will happen? It’s bad enough the royal court had to negotiate with kidnappers. But we’ll send the parents a message when we get there.”

  “That’s why we’re going in,” Connor explained. “But you don’t have to. Aidan kidnapped you, after all. You’re allowed to hate him a little.”

  “But he saved my life, too,” I said. “Twice. And if he dies, I’ll never find out about myself. My new self,” I corrected.

  “We could use you,” Quinn admitted. “You might have negotiating power. You’re Aidan’s bloodkin now.”

  My blood ran cold. Aidan wasn’t my father, but he was the closest thing to it in my new world. The Na-Foir were basically an unknown, according to Connor and his family—according to Aidan and Saga, too. I wouldn’t get answers about my bloodchange from anyone else. “I’m coming.”

  “I figured,” Connor said, rifling through the pack his brother handed him. He pulled out a handful of stakes and gave them to me. “Here. But stay behind us when we get there. You barely know how to use these.”

  “Let’s go,” Quinn urged. “Lucy and Hunter might already be there by now. The hunters were trying to go in before sunset to ambush them at their weakest. We might be too late. Nicholas already left.”

  “Do you know the way back?” I asked Connor.

  “I left a trail,” he answered, zipping up his hoodie. “Between that and the GPS coordinates I got from the hunters’ bush plane, we’re fine.”

  “Are we running all the way there?” I asked. I might not have to worry about wheezing myself into an asthmatic fit, but running would take too long. I remembered that much about finding our way back.

  “We’ve got a motorcycle trail that will take us most of the way,” Connor said as we skirted the edge of the forest, leaping over ferns and fallen trunks. Startled and sleepy squirrels chittered angrily over our heads. We ducked into the woods proper, on the other side of a copse of birch trees. It was another few minutes to the bushes where Quinn had stashed two motorcycles. The engines shattered the forest quiet, rolling out plumes of exhaust. I clutched the back of Connor’s jacket with two hands and we rattled and bumped over the uneven ground. It wasn’t a trail so much as a way in unencumbered by broken trees or large boulders. When the thick undergrowth gave way to sparse red pine, we stopped the bikes and hopped off.

  I could smell the faint taint of smoke even before we came out of the trees. We stayed in the shadows, circling around the crooked street of the ghost town to assess the situation from a safe distance. The charred remains of the maze were sad lumps of blackened tree trunks and burned barbed wire. The pen where Saga had kept some of her Hel-Blar was empty. There was movement, a shifting of shadows by the wooden houses. A window broke and there was a shout. Footsteps scraped the dirt. A door slammed shut repeatedly, caught by the wind.

  Quinn’s phone vibrated in his inside coat pocket. I wouldn’t have heard it if I’d still had regular human hearing. He skimmed the text, then motioned for us to follow him. We went around back, aiming for a narrow alley between two houses. We met Nicholas along the way.

  “What’s the word?” Quinn asked.

  “Just got here,” Nicholas said. “Had some trouble with a Hel-Blar.”

  “I’ll go this way.” Quinn nodded toward one of the alleys. He and Connor exchanged a look before he raced off. We joined Lucy, Hunter, and another girl at the end near the street. They were armed with so many stakes, they looked like porcupines. Nicholas rushed forward.

  Behind us, a Hel-Blar jumped out from a pile of firewood. He clacked his jaws, grabbing Connor’s shoulder. Connor whirled, dislodging his hold. Nicholas turned back to help but Connor had already staked the Hel-Blar. Mushroom-colored ash drifted to our feet.

  “You made it.” Lucy breathed. She was incongruous in her peasant blouse and crystals next to her friends’ military-style cargos. She hugged me tightly. “Are you okay?”

  I thought about it. Not long ago I hadn’t even been able to recite my favorite poem. That had been the scariest part.

  “ ‘One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I’m after a prize tonight,’ ” I quoted. “ ‘But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light.’ ”

  Lucy rolled her eyes. “Back to normal.”

  “Whoa,” Chloe said. “You’re kinda blue.”

  “Not Hel-Blar,” Connor explained. “Na-Foir.”

  “Na-Foir? What the hell’s that?”

  “A new breed of vampire,” he said. “Well, old breed.”

  Chloe groaned. “Seriously? Like we don’t have enough weird names of vampire tribes to memorize for exams already?”

  “The hunters had staked half the Hel-Blar by the time we got here,” Hunter said. “A whole bunch more were released after that. They’re everywhere, and the fight called the others hiding in the mountains.”

  “And the hunters?” Nicholas asked, flattening himself against the wall and sneaking a peek down the road.

  “Mostly on the rooftops now,” Hunter replied. “Where’s Quinn?”

  “He went around the other side,” Connor replied. “Stealth mode.”

  A war whoop and a mocking laugh belied that comment.

  Hunter sighed. “He’s across the street, being a lunatic, you mean.”

  “That’s stealth mode for him.” Connor threw us a grin before rushing out to help his twin. I watched him disappear into the saloon. It sounded like a bar brawl was going on in there, between the splintering of furniture and the breaking of bottles.

  Hunter looked at Nicholas. “He’s not following any plan I’ve ever heard of.”

  “Does Quinn ever?”

  “We were going to do a quiet sweep.”

  A Hel-Blar flew out of the saloon doors, rolled off the porch, and exploded into ashes.

  “That’s Quinn’s version of a sweep,” Nicholas replied.

  “The Hel-Blar are running loose, one of the hunters is dead, and the others are talking about setting the whole town on fire,” Lucy updated us.

  “I nearly did that,” I said. “It could work, unfortunately.”

  “They have the gasoline for it,” Hunter said. “There are jerricans down by what’s left of the maze there, and a big guy with a lighter.”

  “Anyone seen Aidan or Saga?” I asked. Saga was more like Quinn; she’d have been shooting her way through the hunters with her blunderbuss. That she wasn’t meant she couldn’t.

  Lucy shook her head. “Every time we move from this spot, the Hel-Blar think it’s dinnertime.”

  “I was about to go out there and be the distraction,” Chloe said, “until Quinn decided it was playtime.”

  “Aidan might be with Saga in that house on the right. The one with the blue hand nailed to the door.” I stepped out of the alley toward it.

  Nicholas and Lucy yanked me back. “Whoa,” Nicholas said. “Hang on a minute.”

  “We don’t have a minute,” I pointed out.

  “And you don’t have the proper training yet,” he shot back. “So just wait.” He jerked his hand through his hair as Quinn let ou
t another yell across the street. I hoped he didn’t get Connor killed. “Lucy, Christabel, and I can head for the house,” Nicholas suggested to Hunter. “Why don’t you and Chloe see what you can do about the gasoline. Don’t let anyone light it.”

  Hunter nodded. She and Chloe snuck out the back of the alley, where we’d come in. Nicholas threw a stake behind them, catching the Hel-Blar who’d caught their scent and darted after them. The Hel-Blar clutched his wounded arm, turning to snarl at us. Blood oozed between his fingers. Lucy’s crossbow bolt hit him right in the heart. His blood was still dripping, caught in midair as he turned to ashes.

  Nicholas crept out slowly, checking rooftops. When he waved us out, we followed quickly. Lucy had our backs with her surprisingly deadly miniature crossbow. The light glinted off all her silver jewelry. Down the street, the silhouettes of Hunter and Chloe grappled with a hugely muscled hunter. Even from a hundred yards away, I could see he was built like a bull, all neck and shoulders.

  We couldn’t help them right now, though, not with three Hel-Blar suddenly on us. Nicholas staked one right away but the other two were quicker and more savage. They were chomping at the air, trying to get to Lucy. I kicked out but, since I wasn’t used to my recently developed speed and strength, I just ended up spinning myself around. Everything blurred as if I were on a merry-go-round. I spun back, trying not to be dizzy. Nicholas jumped in front of Lucy so quickly she stumbled back. She tripped, landing in the dirt. Her crossbow flew out of her hands.

  A Hel-Blar grabbed my hair, saliva dripping onto my shoulder. I jabbed back with my elbow and heard his ribs snap. Whoa. Superstrength. I jabbed again, using the stake. The stench of mushrooms and blood was palpable. Nicholas threw his own stake, dispatching the Hel-Blar before his jaws could clamp down on my throat. He crumbled to ash.

  The other one took advantage of Nicholas’s momentary distraction and punched him so hard in the stomach, Nicholas flew backward, sailed over Lucy, and landed half in an empty horse trough. He groaned, trying to get to his feet.

  A Hel-Blar licked his lips at Lucy, teeth gleaming. She scrabbled wildly but her crossbow was out of reach. He shuffled closer, eyes so red even his pupils gleamed bloodily. Nicholas was too far away. My aim was nowhere nearly good enough. I threw a stake anyway, just to break his concentration on my cousin as his next meal. He batted the stake away.