Blood Moon (2 page)

I scowled, trying to remember the Solange I knew, covered in clay and only wanting to be left alone. “Too bad,” I said through my teeth, which weren’t nearly as impressive as hers. Her fangs gleamed when her smile widened. Bats flew in a whirlwind over her head. “Go away, Sol.”

“Mmm, I don’t think so.” She shrugged one shoulder. “You can run if you like. I’m going to start with Kieran first. You’d only taste like lemons and ash. I can smell your anger.” She wrinkled her nose as if I were spoiled meat. “It doesn’t enhance you, not like the others.”

“Gee, I’m so sorry that the fact that I want to punch you right in your princess nose might ruin your palate. We’re not bottles of wine.”

She just shrugged again.

And then she was pressing me into the van, so close I could see the blue under her skin, hear the flap of bat wings and the crackle they left in the air. I couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t snap my neck just to get to Kieran, slowly bleeding himself into a coma behind me.

So I did the only thing I could think to do.

I Tasered my best friend.

I wasn’t sure if it was the jolts of electricity running through her or the proximity of the dawn, but she fell backward onto the grass. I didn’t even have time to make sure she was all right. Technically, she was already dead, so a little shock wouldn’t hurt her for long. Okay, 1500 volts, whatever. She’d survive, but Kieran needed help now.

I paused.

She’d survive being Tasered, but not the dawn.

I’d have to bring her with me. “Shit,” I said. “This is just the worst night ever.”

I approached her carefully, nudging her with the toe of my boot. She lay still, pale and slight. “If you bite me, I’m biting you back,” I muttered, crouching down to lift her up. When she didn’t open her eyes and try to eat me, I felt marginally better. I dragged her awkwardly toward the van and stuffed her into the front seat. “If you wake up cranky, I’m so Tasering you again.” I ran around to the driver’s seat. “I’ve already blown up a town tonight, so don’t think I won’t.”

The bats, angered, dive-bombed me. I tucked my head into my collar and ran faster, hollering. The screaming didn’t scare the bats
off but it made me feel better. I felt one catch in my hair, then bounce off my shoulder.

“I really hate everybody right now,” I said, diving into the front seat. I yanked the door handle just as another bat hit the glass. Solange was slumped next to me. I kept the Taser in my right hand, contorting to start the van with my left. Kieran shifted in the backseat. “Don’t die,” I told him sternly.

He tried to chuckle but it turned into a wet gurgle. I hit the gas pedal and peeled out of the field, kicking up clods of dirt and grass.

“Don’t wake up,” I chanted at Solange. “Don’t wake up.”

The bats followed us like a black, leathery cloud. Their eyes were red when they dipped down into the spear of the headlights.

“Don’t wake up,” I said again. “And don’t be such a stereotype.
Bats.
God.”

They were so thick now, it was hard to see. I prayed really hard that I wouldn’t drive us right into a tree. I craned my neck. The Taser was heavy, making my wrist ache. A bat hit the windshield, cracking it like a rock. Blood smeared the glass.

“I’m sorry!” I yelled. “Get out of my way, you stupid flying rodents.”

Another hit, and another. A crack snaked through the windshield. Fur and blood matted in the fissure. Bile burned the back of my throat.

Solange stirred.

I jabbed the Taser at her but she was faster. She dodged out of the way. The van wobbled precariously as I fought to keep hold of
the steering wheel. Kieran was passed out in his own blood. Solange glanced back at him and licked her lips. It was a tiny moment of distraction and likely the last one I’d get. I stabbed the Taser at her again. It glanced off her shoulder, but it was enough to freeze her, her face contorting.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I repeated over and over as I slammed on the brakes. She flew into the dashboard. I reached over her while she was still stunned and opened the passenger door.

Then I shoved her out as hard as I could into the grass.

She sprawled, bats circling overhead like vultures. I sped away with the door still open, banging against tree branches. The smell of pine and cedar mixed with Kieran’s blood. I looked into the rearview mirror. Solange sat up slowly.

I hit the gas harder.

Chapter 2
Solange

I ran because I could, because dawn was coming, because I didn’t know what else I should do.

I knew what I
wanted
to do.

Lucy might have dropped me with her Taser but I was still burning with Kieran’s blood, nearly dizzy with it. I could feel it coursing through my veins, making me feel invincible, making me feel alive again. I wanted more. More than I had ever wanted chocolate, more than Lucy wanted Johnny Depp.

The gray van sped away, gleaming like a tin can. I could peel the roof off like it was the lid. The 1500 volts of electricity Lucy shot through me might have killed me when I was human, but now it only made me pause, was merely a choke chain on the hunger. I could have snapped the chain if I’d wanted to.

Yes, let’s.

I stopped running. I didn’t actually
want
to eat my boyfriend or my best friend. It wasn’t their fault they smelled like food.

I wasn’t sure it was my fault either, though. I felt like an addict. Or maybe it was only that I was finally getting what I needed, as if I’d been anemic and hadn’t even realized it. I was a vampire. It’s not like it was wrong for me to drink blood. It was natural, necessary. Vital.

I nearly turned around then, to chase Lucy and Kieran down like rabbits.

The thought made me gag.

I went back to running, this time in the opposite direction. Kieran’s blood was on my shirt. I needed the cool wind, the pounding of my feet in the loam, the push of muscle and bones, to distract me. I wasn’t sure if he could forgive me for what I’d nearly done. I wasn’t sure I could forgive myself. I was at war inside my own skin, hunger and honor, nature and nurture, need and repulsion.

The light in the forest was changing slowly, so slowly that only another nocturnal creature would have noticed. The owls and badgers would be scurrying off to their nests as the light turned luminous. The bats that were still following me drifted away.

As the sun rose inexorably behind the trees, my steps became heavier. I was too far from any of our safe houses underground, too far from the farmhouse, which I didn’t want to return to anyway. I couldn’t bear to look at my family right now, to give them proof that I was weaker than they were. The Blood Moon encampment was closer. I’d be safe there.

I forced myself to keep running. A pine branch scraped across my cheek. The sun was like a boulder on my back. I might as well have been Sisyphus, condemned to roll a huge rock uphill every day in Tartarus as punishment for his sins. Logan had gone through a Greek myth phase, and he’d read me a new one every night the summer I was ten.

Screw Sisyphus.

I wasn’t going to just lie down and die. My family and friends had fought too hard so I could survive. Aunt Hyacinth still wore the scars on her face.

Dawn wouldn’t have me, not today.

I tripped over a root, any natural grace fleeing under the laborious heaviness of my limbs, but I wouldn’t let it stop me. I wasn’t quite fast enough to catch my balance or my footing. I fell.

Right into Constantine’s arms.

He twisted so he was dipping me, as if we were dancing in some fancy ballroom. He should have been wearing an embroidered frock coat and a velvet hair ribbon, not a plain leather coat. My hair dragged the ground. I knew the moment he saw the blood staining my shirt and dried on my chin. His fangs lengthened, his eyes gleamed violet, like amethyst beads. He bent forward, dragging the tip of his nose along my exposed throat, tickling. I should have been frightened or disgusted. Instead I just dangled there, comforted. He licked my collarbone.

“Mmm, fresh,” he murmured, his British accent thicker than usual.

He was licking Kieran’s blood off me.

I used his hand on my lower back to stabilize myself, and pushed my feet up into the air, vaulting into a backflip. I landed in the bushes a few feet away, berries scattering around me, hands clenched.

Constantine just raised his eyebrow at me, unflappable as always. I’d never seen him wear any expression except dry amusement. “Whose blood are you wearing that you won’t share, beloved?”

“My—never mind,” I said.

“It’s fresh.” He licked a drop off his left fang. I swallowed hard. He shook his head. “You’re entirely too hard on yourself. This isn’t some movie where you have to suffer and gnash your teeth to prove your goodness. You are who you are. It’s to be celebrated.”

“I drank from an unwilling … friend.” Could I call Kieran my boyfriend after tonight? Did I have that right? Didn’t he deserve a girlfriend who wouldn’t attack him? Someone like him, full of honor and ready to die to do the right thing. Someone Helios-Ra. Not a vampire like me.

And I was feeling feral. I was the only Drake I knew of who was having this much trouble with the bloodchange. It had only been a couple of months, but by now I should only be dangerous right at dusk or if I was left to starve. I shouldn’t be dangerous to kiss.

I tried very hard not to think about the
Hel-Blar
, who attacked anything that moved, even one another. I might have more fangs than other vampires, even more than the Hounds who were ostracized for their double set, but I still had fewer than the
Hel-Blar
. And I wasn’t blue like they were, and I didn’t smell like mushrooms
and stagnant water. Anyway, weren’t we still finding that there were undiscovered vampire races, since Lucy’s cousin Christabel was turned?

Constantine’s mouth quirked. “I can’t tell if you’re about to cry or let out a battle yell, love.”

“Neither,” I said quietly, forcing myself out of the bushes. “I’m just going to walk.” Which at the moment was a battle in itself.

“I could carry you,” he suggested.

I shook my head grimly. I’d been carried once before, had lain unconscious in Montmartre’s arms when he’d thought to trade my family’s safety for me. I wasn’t going to be that Solange anymore. I didn’t want to be rescued. I’d get to safety myself or die trying.

“I’ll walk,” I said again.

“You’re ruining my very romantic gesture, Solange,” he said. Despite the circumstances, I couldn’t help but love the way he said my name. His voice was like smoke, dangerous as a forest fire and comforting as a beach bonfire all at the same time.

I was feeling tingly over a vampire not an hour after trying to drain my boyfriend and being Tasered by my best friend. Clearly, I was going to hell. I limped along, gritting my back teeth.
Don’t be such a martyr.

I frowned, glancing around. “Did you hear that?”

Constantine raised his eyebrows. “No, what?”

I shook my head. I must be more tired than I thought. “Nothing.”

“We’re still rather far from camp,” he said. “I assume that’s where you’re going?”

I nodded. He walked easily beside me, unfazed by the sun. I didn’t know how old he was or how long he’d been a vampire, but it was long enough that he could fight the approach of the dawn. I was still so newly turned I dropped before everyone, even Nicholas, who had only just turned the year before. It made me vulnerable. And it made me stupid to have been out so close to sunrise. My mother was going to kill me.

Constantine pulled a glass vial out of the inside pocket of his coat and handed it to me. I didn’t take it right away. It dangled from his fingers, and in the dark it looked more black than red. “This will give you strength.”

“I don’t want it,” I lied. My fingers were literally trembling with the need to snatch the vial away from him. I bit down hard on my lower lip to distract myself.

“You’re making me feel like a drug pusher in one of those old after-school specials,” he remarked wryly. “It’s just blood, Solange. Food. Without it you die.”

“I’m not … thirsty.”

His smile was crooked and sardonic. “You’ve just turned. You’re
always
thirsty.”

He was right.

“Drink it if you want to make it to camp. Otherwise you’ll have to let me carry you.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t mind, but you seem to.”

Being brought in unconscious. My family would freak right out.

I took the vial and wrenched off the silver-topped cork. I tilted
it, letting the blood slide down my throat, swallowing greedily. It sparkled through me as if it were made of stars and lightning. I laughed. Constantine’s gaze raked me from head to toe and he smiled slowly, hungrily. I would have blushed if I were still human. I picked up my pace. “Let’s go,” I said.

“Of course, princess.” He gave a short bow.

I frowned at him. “I told you to stop calling me that.”

“And I told you to stop being ashamed of who you are. Most would kill, literally, to be a vampire and a princess, never mind both at once.”