Hunger Chronicles (Book 1): Life Bites (37 page)

Too good to be true.

I fling my branch at the nearest, and without waiting to see if it hits its mark, spin around to scramble back toward the path. Awkward with a sword sticking out of my arm, but I want to get some distance. I manage to close my hand over the crosspiece of the hilt, and then, with another scream, I yank the blade free.

And now I have a weapon.

Oh, and a useless arm that’s bleeding like a sieve. I need to bind it. Later. After I get away.

I’m fast. Just ate. If I can outrun them…

That’s right, Eva girl. You can do this.

Only I can’t. This isn’t some track meet where my dad’s boisterous yells give me that last burst of energy to outdistance the pack. I don’t even hear the vampire bearing down on me until it’s too late. A heavy weight hits me in the back, sending me sprawling to the rocky ground. My only thought is to hold the sword and I do. But that doesn’t matter when a second weight clamps down on my arm, irreversibly twisting my wrist until the bones snap and my hand drops open.

No weapon. A broken arm and one that’s half cut through. I fight with the only things I have left: my legs and my fangs. I even manage to draw blood.

The vampire I’ve bitten swears, then clocks me in the head. Lights explode behind my eyes. Seconds pass where I don’t know if I’m still face down on the ground or looking up at the stars. I blink.

Stars then.

I’m pinned. A quick test of my limbs tells me there’s no way I’m going to uproot the four vamps holding me down. Which sucks. I’m not really looking forward to another long drawn out torture session.

I glare at the vampire sitting on my left foot. “Don’t suppose you’re willing to make this quick.”

“Actually, that is what our orders are.”

I twist my head to see the vampire who’s spoken. Not one of the ones pinning me down, but the first one I’d knocked upside the head and stolen the sword from. I sense he’d much rather cut me to pieces, slowly and painfully for that infraction, but he is the queen’s man and will do as ordered.

Goosebumps rise on my skin as he pulls out a vial from a pocket in his cloak and works out the cork. Then he’s pulling something from a satchel dangling from his waist.

Syringe. Needle. A big effing needle.

He inserts it into the vial, sucking the liquid into the syringe, then takes a step toward me. Poison.

A memory of the burning fire that tore through my body after I’d been poisoned with the queen’s venom crosses my mind. Instinct kicks in and I begin to struggle in earnest. Which, unfortunately, does nothing more than earn a round of chuckles from the vampires holding me down.

Good to see my imminent death is amusing to someone.

The vampire with the needle steps over me, one foot placed on either side of my waist as he seems to study where the best place to poke me might be.

I gasp in a breath, trying to squish myself into the rock beneath me. “Do you really think this is a good idea?”

“Oh yes. I do indeed.” He smiles, flicking the syringe and pumping out a drop of liquid like they do at the hospital. As if a bubble is really going to matter when he’s pumping my veins full of poison.

“You know that killing me is going to start a war.”

“How so?” He reaches down, pokes at the side of my throat, frowns, moves to my sternum, measuring off the space with his fingers until he’s dead center above my heart.

“Raoul won’t let this stand. You kill me and he’s going to go after his mother. After he kills you, of course.”

A split second; that’s how long I see the uncertainty in his eyes, and then he’s reaching down, the syringe pointed at my breast.

I look up into the night sky, trying to center myself. This is happening. Nothing I can do about it but accept. As if my acceptance is a big squeegee for the fear coating my senses, the world around me comes into focus with crystal clarity.

I can smell the sharp scent of a hardy Joshua tree that is too stubborn to know that it’s beyond its natural boundaries. Feel the slight shift of the rocks beneath me as they slide against one another, infinitely slow. I can make out Orion and all the other stars that have guided and inspired the human race throughout time. I can sense the life all around me. Grubs, small mammals, the steady thud of five indifferent vamp hearts, and something else. One more life besides my own. Another heart, this one thrusting a torrent of fury through a beast’s limbs.

And the beast comes to save the monster from the fiends.

The needle pricks my skin, sharp pain as it slides in. My heart stutters at the intrusion.

“All right then,” I gasp, dragging my gaze back to the vampire above me. He hasn’t pushed down the plunger yet, but it’s only moments. “Just remember I told you so when you die for killing me.”

His lip curls up. “Your prince is too chicken to take me on and risk his mother’s wrath.”

“Maybe. But he’s not.” I nod my head toward the cliffs above us.

41.

A low rumble rolls across the gorge. The vampire’s head snaps up and around. Too late. A blur of fur. A heavy crash. The vampire is lifted off my chest and swept to the ground a few yards away, blood spraying like a jet from his ripped-out throat.

The other vampires spring into action. All of a sudden I’m free. The only thing left to hold me down is the syringe sticking vulgarly out of my breast. Not much of a deterrent, that.

I reach for it, only to realize my right arm hasn’t mended enough to respond. Where there’s a will... I force my left arm up, ignoring the searing pain across the closing gash in my upper arm. With a muttered oath, I yank the syringe free and clutch it in my hand. As a weapon, it’ll do.

And it looks like we need one too.

John is playing tag more than he’s attacking. Trying to divert the other vamps’ attention so I can recover. Even in were form he is no match for four healthy master vamps, and barely competition for the injured fifth who has stumbled up, his hand holding in the torn windpipe and tendons of its throat. Guess it was too much to hope that he’d bleed out.

I struggle to my feet. My arm is healed enough that it’s no longer weeping blood, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t lost enough to feel woozy. I have to take a second, half crouched over, breathing heavily. I need to help, but I’m not going to be much help if I can’t even stand straight.

I flinch as one of the vampires takes a swing; the tip of his sword grazing John’s flank as he leaps out of the way.

The vampire screams, swinging, and missing, as John leaps out of the way again. I blink, watching the blood that runs in rivulet’s down the vampire’s dark pants. A quick scan and I see that this vampire isn’t the only one who’s gotten a taste of John’s fangs. The dart and retreat attacks that I’d thought were purely diversionary in nature are making a real dent in the vampires’ hides. It’s like were fangs were made to rip through vampire flesh.

Well, duh, Eva. Mortal enemies?

Sweet.

Even so, five against one is hardly fair. Time to help even the odds.

“Stop!” I yell, hoping that at least one of the guards will turn on a tasty morsel of bait such as myself and leave John alone. I’m ultra-surprised when it works. Three of the five vampires turn. Leaving John facing only two, one of which seems stopped dead in his tracks. I can feel the vamp’s frustration as he tries, and fails, to move.

WTF? Must be the one I’d bitten. Just a drop of blood, and like my pet zombies, he’s hopelessly caught under my will.. I am not sure if I’m wigged out by this or happier than sin. No one should have this much control. Should they?

Gift horses, Eva girl.

“Kill them.” I point to the three vampires advancing on me. My vamp twists around, like a marionette on a string, his actions jerky and uncoordinated, but he lifts his sword and lunges for his closest brother. Whooyah!

My joy is short lived. My floundering vampire is worse than a fledgling with a sword and his brothers have no mercy. Three seconds later they have carved him up: head, heart, and limbs. There is no recovering from that.

Crap. Does that count as my kill?

So now it’s back to three to one. I risk a glance at John. Hoping that maybe, somehow, he can help me. He’s making progress—the vampire before him drips in blood and gore—but he’s not going to be free in the next few seconds. Which is, unfortunately, about all the time I have.

I scoot back, my feet sliding over rock and dirt as I try to make my way around the various obstacles without tripping. “Don’t suppose you guys have changed your mind about talking.”

Silence.

“You know, this whole gang up on Eva thing is getting old. Where’s your pride? All three step forward.

“Two to one?”

Surprisingly, one of the three stops, the point of his sword digging into a cacti as he leans on it as if bored. A second later, the second one stops also. Oh wow, gentlemen assassins?

I look at the vampire who is still advancing. Take in his lethal sword, the abraded temple, the healing red scar tissue of his neck.

Nope, not gentlemen. Gentlemen would kill me quickly, not leave me to their vengeful brother. Still, I’ll take what I can get in terms of breaks.

“Hey there.” I scramble around a large boulder, trying to stay firmly on the other side. Scar-throat merely leaps on top of it. And then jumps down, sword first.

I dive to the side, roll over my still mending arm, and come up onto my knees with a bloody lip from having almost bit through it.

It could have ended then, should have, but the crazy idiot stopped, testing the edge of his sword as he waited for me to scramble to my feet.

I take advantage of the reprieve and start edging my way along the cliff face behind me.

He smiles, his arm flashing out. I manage to duck the sword, but have no time to avoid the well-placed kick. Only it never connects. John leaps in front of me, the vampire’s boot smashing into his ribs with a sickening crunch. The force of the blow lifts John off the ground, sending him flying… into me.

Together we crash into the gorge wall. My spine screams, my head, well, I think it just may have split open. The world spins, my ears ring. And I can’t get up. John is one heavy mutt. I look back at the vampire. He arches his brow, his sword swishing back and forth. Practicing the final strike or showing off.

Frantically, I push at John. He whimpers, but doesn’t move. “Stupid mutt. What were you thinking?” I squirm, trying to wiggle out from beneath him, my fist pushing on his chest. Wait. My fist. My hand is still fisted around the syringe. Holy crap. I still have the syringe. I can’t hope to kill them all, but maybe I can take this one out, give John a chance to wake up and slink away.

If he’s capable of slinking away.

No. Not going to think that.

I give one last heave and manage to slip free, right as a hand grabs hold of my sweatshirt, lifting me up and smashing me into the cliff face. My feet dangle in air.

“You are a real pain in my ass,” crazy vamp hisses in my face, his fangs inches from me.

“I’d say I’m sorry, but…”

I smack into stone again. This time I’m sure I feel blood dribbling down the back of my head.

Pain sears across my throat as the vampire’s fangs dig into my neck. I scream, my entire being fighting tooth and nail to reject the presence that is trying to overpower mine.

No. No. NO! Not going to let him win. I… will… not let this foul mind overpower me.

And then I’m not the only one screaming. Or rather roaring. At first I think it’s my mind splitting apart, but then crazy vamp yanks his fangs out of my neck, twisting his head to see what the commotion is.

Don’t know, don’t care.

I don’t think. Just twist my wrist, jabbing the needle deep into the vampire’s side. His head whips back around at the same time that I slam my thumb down on the plunger. His eyes widen, his mouth opening in silent denial.

“Don’t act so surprised,” I hiss. “I told you that you’d die for trying to kill me.”

His body jerks, the arms holding me up shaking with effort. There is a gagging noise in the back of his throat and his eyes start to roll back.

His grip slips and I fall a good two feet, the ground smacking up through my legs. I watch in amazement as my captor collapses. First to his knees, his arms lifting as if in supplication. And then he’s nothing but a ball of agony upon the ground. He writhes, drawing his legs into a fetal position, then flinging them out like he’s strung out on the rack. Finally, finally, he is still, his blank eyes staring at me accusingly.

Okay, maybe I hadn’t said anything about “trying” to kill me, but still.

Another scream, cut short, has me jerking my attention away from my former nemesis. I blink, twice. I’d been so wrapped up in my own perils I hadn’t thought about who or what had distracted him.

Raoul. He’s come to my rescue like some sort of vengeful angel. His eyes smoldering crimson, his hair shimmering in the starlight as he yanks his jeweled sword from the vampire he’s just skewered and draws back, spinning around to lop off the second’s head.

And just like that, they are dead. One to the queen’s poison, one to John’s fangs, one puppet down—I’m still claiming points for that one—and two for Raoul’s royal sword.

Boy is Mommy Dearest going to be pissed.

“Eva…” Raoul starts for me, passing by the lump of fur on the ground.

Lump of fur.

“John!” I brush by Raoul, barely registering his astonished face as I race to John, lifting his head off the ground. He’s warm, his belly rising and falling evenly. Thank God.

My hands run over his fur, checking for wounds, broken limbs. If he’s permanently injured because of me…

“Eva.”

Something shakes my shoulder. I ignore it in lieu of pulling back one of John’s lids. I have no idea what exactly I’m checking for, but it seems like the thing to do.

“Eva?”

The eye rolls, the lid flicking out of my fingers as John blinks, then opens his eye again, struggling out of my hold.

“Here, let me—” I reach out to steady him.

The weight on my shoulder tightens, pulling me back. “Eva!”