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“Considerate of you.” He held it up. “Couldn’t you have made it a bit more stylish?”
“Fashion wasn’t our primary concern.” Hoyt didn’t quite snap out the words, but it was close. “Protecting your sorry self was.”
“I’ll be sure to thank you for it if I’m not a pile of inarticulate ash at the end of the day.”
“And so you should.” Moira condemned him with one quiet look. “They worked through the night, and all through this day with only you in mind. And while you’ve slept the rest of us have been working as well.”
“I had work of my own, Your Highness.” He dismissed her simply by turning his back. “Well, it’s unlikely to be an issue as your stone circle rejects my sort.”
“You have to trust in the gods,” Hoyt told him.
“I’m forced to remind you, yet again. Vampire. Vampires and gods aren’t drinking buddies.”
Glenna stepped up to Cian, laid a hand over his. “Wear it. Please.”
“For you, Red.” He tipped her face up, kissed her lightly on the lips. Then he stepped back, swirled it on. “Feel like a bloody B movie extra. Or worse, a sodding monk.”
He didn’t look like a monk, Moira thought. He looked dangerous.
Blair and Larkin came in. “We’re as secure as we’re going to be,” Blair said, then lifted her eyebrows at Cian. “Hey, you look like Zorro.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You know, that scene where he’s in the chapel with the girl, and he’s pretending to be the priest. Only, jeez, the kind of priest we used to call Father What a Waste. Anyway, sun’s down. If we’re going to go, we’d better.”
Hoyt nodded, looked at Cian. “You’ll stay close.”
“Close enough.”
Blair might have wished they’d taken time to practice the maneuver, but it was too late for wishes. No more talk, she thought. No more discussion—and no dress rehearsals. It was now or never.
After a quick nod, a quick breath, she and Larkin went through the door first. Even as he changed, she was leaping up, then reaching a hand down to help Moira vault behind her.
They rode away from the stables at a hard run, with the hope of drawing any that waited in ambush. She barely saw Cian streak out. He was at the stable doors in seconds, releasing the stallion.
Then he was gone again, and Hoyt and Glenna were on Vlad’s back.
With barely a glimmer of moonlight to guide them, a gallop was risky once they reached the trees. Blair kept Larkin to a trot, trusting him to watch the path as she scanned the woods.
“Nothing yet, nothing. If they’re around they’re hanging back.”
“Can you see Cian?” With her bow ready, Moira tried to look everywhere at once. “Sense him?”
“No, there’s nothing.” Blair shifted in the saddle to look over Moira’s shoulder at Hoyt. “Watch the flank. They may come at us from behind.”
They rode in absolute silence, with only the sound of hooves on the path. And that, Blair thought, was a problem. Where were the nightbirds? Where were all the little rustles and peeps of the small animals in a night woods?
Demon hunters, she knew, weren’t the only creatures who could sense vampires.
“Be ready,” Blair said under her breath.
She heard it then, the clash of steel, a sudden scream. She didn’t have to urge Larkin on with words or a nudge of her heels. He was already at a gallop.
She sensed them seconds before they charged out of the trees. Foot soldiers this time, she judged, with some seasoning and wearing light armor. She sliced down with her sword even as Moira’s arrows began to fly.
Hooves struck out, and trampled whatever fell beneath them. But the enemy came from everywhere, blocking the circle, and barring the path to the Dance. Blair kicked out, knocking one back as it clawed at her leg. Too many, she thought. T
oo many to make a stand.
