Bleeding Hearts Read online

  Still, it was just long enough for me to kick the crossbow.

  “Lucy!”

  She grabbed it and struggled to reload it. I threw another stake, with the same relatively useless effect as the first one. The Hel-Blar ignored it and leaped on Lucy.

  She lifted the bow and released the bolt just as he fell on her. She choked on ashes and dust, wiping them off her face. “That’s disgusting,” she panted, sweat fogging her glasses.

  Nicholas skidded to a halt beside her. “Did he get you? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, scrambling to her feet. She rubbed her knee. “Ow.”

  He ran his hand over her head and her arms, eyes flaring silver. His touch was tender, but his voice wasn’t. “Stay behind me, damn it,” he said, as if there were rocks and whiskey in his throat.

  “I was behind you,” she grumbled.

  I bent to pick up a strap of silver stakes. Ashes dusted my hands.

  “Oh no,” I said. “This was Emma.”

  Someone screamed inside Saga’s house.

  We ran toward it. Connor and Quinn jumped down from the roof and landed right in front of us before Lucy reached the door. Lucy whirled and nearly shot them. They were already tumbling out of the way.

  Quinn’s smirk slipped. “Careful with that thing!”

  Connor glanced at me. “You okay?”

  I nodded, relieved to see that, although his hair was standing on end and his jeans were ripped, he looked unharmed. His fangs were out and his eyes looked like blue glass beads from Greece. “You?”

  “Fine.” He looked at the house. “We’ll go around back.”

  “Where’s Hunter?” Quinn asked sharply.

  “She and Chloe are making sure we don’t all explode,” Nicholas said.

  As he reached for the doorknob, a hunter came around the side of the house. Lucy leaped between him and the rest of us, even though he was holding a throwing axe and a crossbow of his own.

  “I’m Helios-Ra!” Lucy shouted. When he relaxed slightly, seeing as she was all of sixteen, she darted forward and punched him right in the nose. “Sort of,” she amended as he reeled back, hit his head on the porch, and fell over. The stake in his hand clattered to the ground.

  “Don’t you have Hypnos?” Nicholas asked, amused.

  “Oh yeah. I forgot.” She shook out her fingers, knuckles already going red. “He had a hard nose, too. I might bruise.”

  We heard another shout from the second floor and the recognizable sounds of a fight. A musket fired above us, showering splinters. I shoved past the others and burst into the house. The table was overturned and one of the jugs was on its side, spilling rum. I took the stairs two at a time.

  “Shit, Christa, wait for me,” Connor called out, hard on my heels.

  Chaos.

  There were huge bullet holes in the walls; the window was hanging off its hinges. A human hunter lay in a heap by the door, her leg clearly broken. Connor bent long enough to relieve her of all her weapons.

  Saga was standing on a bench, barefoot and waving her cutlass. She slashed at another hunter and sent him tumbling out the window, down the overhanging roof, and to the street below. She was as blue as the center of a flame, blue as spilled gasoline. Her teeth were sharper than her daggers. The smell of rot and mildew clung to everything. Two Hel-Blar circled her in the cramped room. She refused to move, even though there was blood on her legs. Her whistle, usually hanging by a braided cord at her belt, was gone. She was protecting Aidan.

  “We got Hel-Blar down here!” Quinn yelled.

  “So do we!” Connor yelled back.

  “Well, you’re about to get more!”

  Connor swore and rushed to the landing to stop the incoming Hel-Blar that got past the others.

  Aidan was pinned to the wall behind the bed with a stake through his shoulder. He was bleeding profusely, but at least it hadn’t pierced his heart. He was trapped, though, and weak. He hadn’t fed. Even I could see that. I had to get him free.

  “Christa, stay back,” he choked.

  Too late.

  One of the Hel-Blar slammed into me. My forehead bounced off the wall. Pain clouded my vision for a moment. He forced my head to the side. I struggled but I couldn’t get loose. Aidan clawed at the stake, opening his wound. I smelled his blood in the air. The Hel-Blar laughed and then licked me. Thank God all my scratches had healed already. There was shouting behind me but all I really heard were those snapping jaws and clacking teeth. I tried to kick back but the angle was all wrong. He bent my neck farther, nails like claws.

  I had a stake, and even though I couldn’t reach his heart, I could reach something. I jabbed blindly, as hard as I could. He snarled but didn’t let go. I jabbed again. I got him in the eye that time and he howled, jerking back. The stake was still stuck in his eye socket. I kicked him and he hit the floorboards. One of them broke under his weight. He stayed where he was, still howling.

  “Get him free,” Saga ordered me, leaping over the ashes at her feet and the Hel-Blar I’d blinded. “I’ll help the others.”

  I rushed to Aidan, pausing just as I reached for the stake. I gulped.

  “Um, how do I do this?”

  He grimaced, pale under the blue. “Just pull it out. Fast.”

  “Oh God,” I said, curling my fingers around the stake and yanking. “Oh God. Oh God.”

  There was resistance, a faint sucking sound, then it released suddenly. I stumbled back a few steps. Aidan grunted with pain, shoving the end of the blanket over the hole in his shoulder. His eyes veined red. “Goddamn it, that hurts.” He pushed away from the wall. “I woke up as that hunter was stabbing me. I managed to kick her off enough to change her aim.” He winced. “But not her training.”

  His steps were deliberate, as if they hurt. He kept his shirt fisted over the gash as he moved away from the bed, abandoning the blanket. He stood over the hunter, his lips lifting off impressive fangs.

  “Hey, guys?” Lucy yelled up to us. “We kind of need to get the hell out of here! Like, right now would be good!”

  “What now?”

  “The town’s about to burn to the ground,” she answered, as if that were normal. “There might be dynamite, too. We’re not sure.”

  Aidan stepped over the hunter and staggered out to the landing and down the steps. “Christabel, come on.”

  “We can’t just leave her here!”

  “She tried to kill me.”

  “We still can’t … oh, never mind.” I knew it was a lost cause, especially when he still had a huge hole through his shoulder. I reached down to help the sweating hunter up. She screamed when her leg moved. At least she’d managed to splint it with one of Saga’s swords while the rest of us were fighting for our lives. She was hard to maneuver, like a huge bag of wet sand. She kept shifting, her eyes darting around frantically. She struggled as if I were going to bite her.

  “Quit doing that,” I muttered when she accidentally kneed me.

  “I’ve got her.” Connor was on her other side, holding her up. He looked straight into her eyes, leaned close enough that even I could smell the warm licorice and soap smell of him, and said, “Stop struggling.”

  She stopped.

  “Okay, now that’s a trick I need to learn,” I said as we dragged her down the stairs. Quinn was waiting for us in the doorway.

  “Move it—I can smell the diesel,” he said tightly. He looked at the woman, disgusted. “Hunter’s going to want to save her, too,” he muttered. He grabbed the hunter from us, hoisted her over his shoulder, and started to run.

  The wind was as soft as water when I ran so fast the world was just a blur of colors and scents: mushrooms, dirt, smoke, blood, sweat, the tang of gasoline, and something else I couldn’t recognize. The others were waiting for us at the edge of the forest, bruised and exhausted. Hunter had a black eye. Quinn dumped the wounded hunter at her feet and then wrapped his arms around her.

  There was a loud rumble, almost like a sharp in
hale and then a loud exhale. A cloud of fire and smoke and debris fountained out of the ghost town. It rained embers and dust. Buildings fell in on themselves. A tree caught fire on the edge of town. The ground trembled under our feet. Pinecones and acorns rained down.

  Saga watched, her pale face furious.

  “What the hell are you doing here, anyway?” Aidan asked, leaning against a tree for support while the violent light touched us all. His chest was covered in blood and ashes.

  “She’s saving you,” Lucy replied, pointing at me. “The rest of us are averting a vampire civil war. You know, the usual.”

  Nicholas gave her his lopsided grin, turning away from watching the destruction of the town. “I hope that damn hunter plane blows up, too—”

  “Behind you!” Lucy yelled. A Hel-Blar ran at him, maddened by the fire and the blood.

  Nicholas dodged but he was slow, taken by surprise.

  His brothers tried to get to him, but they were too far away.

  “Down!” Lucy added, fumbling with her crossbow.

  Nicholas dropped.

  Lucy fired.

  There was a moment of stunned silence as we wondered what would be faster, gravity or the momentum of that sharpened bolt.

  And then Nicholas straightened, shaking ashes out of his hair.

  “Damn,” Quinn said. “Nice shot.”

  Lucy grinned at him, then at Nicholas, who kissed her passionately and with enough tongue to make us look away. Lucy’s blouse was ripped and dirt matted her hair, but she looked as smug as only a girl surrounded by appreciative Drake brothers could.

  “The fact is,” she said, “you Drakes would be lost without me.”

  Epilogue

  Lucy

  I’d barely made it through the front door of the dorm when my phone vibrated. Hunter and Chloe shuffled off to their room. The wounded hunter was at the hospital. Aidan and Saga had taken off somewhere. Christabel went back with the Drakes, and for the first time I didn’t envy her. Helena and Liam would be infuriated, even more than when Solange and I took off one night when we were twelve to explore the underground tunnels leading out of the farmhouse.

  Speaking of Solange.

  Oak tree. Now. Please.

  I stared at the screen. I hurt all over. I was covered in ashes and dirt and I kind of smelled like old mushrooms. I just wanted a shower. And I was still mad at her.

  But the oak tree call trumped all.

  Muttering to myself, I turned around and stomped back outside. At this rate I was going to get kicked out of the academy before my very first class. Good thing Hunter had already shown me the best way to sneak off campus and where the contraband keys for the school van parked in the bushes were hidden.

  I parked at the edge of the field so I wouldn’t get the van stuck in the mud. Solange was standing under the tree, pale as a winter cloud even through the branches. I hurried toward her.

  “This better be good, Sol,” I muttered. “I need chocolate, soap, and sleep. In that order.”

  She stepped out of the concealing leaves. Her eyes were haunted, wild.

  And she was covered in blood.

  “Oh God, Sol,” I said. “Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head. “It’s not my blood.”

  “Okay, that’s good.”

  She shook her head, sobbing.

  “That’s not good?” I corrected. “Whose blood is it?”

  Her mouth trembled, her voice as tiny as mouseprints in the snow.

  “Kieran’s.”

  About the Author

  ALYXANDRA HARVEY is the author of the Drake Chronicles and Haunting Violet. She likes medieval dresses and tattoos and has been accused of being born in the wrong century—except that she really likes running water, women’s rights, and ice cream. Alyx lives in an old Victorian farmhouse in Ontario, Canada, with her husband, dogs, and a few resident ghosts.

  www.alyxandraharvey.com

  www.facebook.com/thedrakechronicles

  Also by Alyxandra Harvey

  The Drake Chronicles in reading order:

  My Love Lies Bleeding

  Blood Feud

  Out for Blood

  . . .

  Haunting Violet

  Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Berlin, New York and Sydney

  First published in Great Britain in October 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  49–51 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP

  First published in the USA in November 2011 by Walker Publishing Company

  175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010

  Text copyright © Alyxandra Harvey 2011

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  This electronic edition published in September 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  All rights reserved You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request

  eISBN 9781408824412

  Visit www.bloomsbury.com to find out more about our authors and their books You will find extracts, author interviews, author events and you can sign up for newsletters to be the first to hear about our latest releases and special offers

  Table of Contents

  Contents

  Map

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  The Drake Family Tree

  About the Author

  Also by Alyxandra Harvey