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When the creature emerged, a woman this time, I gasped. She lunged for Draven with a speed I’d never seen before.
He narrowly dodged her, rolling onto his side, and pointed the rifle at her head. “Run!” he ordered.
“Draven!” I screamed for him to move as another vampire ran at him from the side, but he didn’t make it in time.
Instead, his wings spread out in a blackish gray, with bone lined underneath, reaching up into points. One of them blocked out the rising sun as the creature grabbed Draven, who hit him in the groin with the back end of the rifle. The vampire growled lowly, stumbling back as Draven’s rifle tumbled from his grip. I reached for it but was kicked back by Draven.
“Leave me. Go. Now.”
The creature sank its fangs into his neck then took off into the sky, Draven limp in its arms. “No,” I spluttered as I watched them disappear into the horizon, helpless to do anything.
All the attacks were a distraction, so most of the protectors would be on the other side of the city when they attacked the guild. A female vampire drained a protector until all the life left his face. I stood, then ran until my legs burned. I reached a wall, moving out of view from the vampires in front of the guild, when a voice rooted me to the spot.
“Good morning.” His tone was light, almost mocking.
I looked up at the sky, as if the gods might see me from down here. “Please, just kill me quickly,” I begged, hoping the creature might have some mercy, however unlikely. The best I could wish for would be for it to kill me here and now, quickly, maybe with a snap of a neck.
He closed the distance between us. The smell of pine and a hint of citrus wafted from him. I would have mistaken him as any other handsome man around my age if I’d run into him in the city.
His night-blue eyes regarded me as he tilted his head, tousling his dark-brown strands. “I don’t plan on it, love.” He swept back my hair, revealing the puncture wounds from my bite. “I see someone has had their way with you already.”
I slapped his hand away, and he grinned.
“Try not to scream.” He peered around me. “You can thank me later.”
“What—”
He swept me into his arms, pulling me close against him. I opened my mouth to scream, but his hand covered my mouth, stopping the sound before it could leave his fingers. I could hardly breathe when he whisked us both into the sky, expanding a frightening set of black wings.
I watched in disbelief as the guild turned into a dot in the distance. The wind tugged through my long hair, blowing behind me as we reached dizzying heights.
“You haven’t fainted yet,” he said against the wind, a smirk playing on his lips. “I’m impressed.”
“Let me go,” I ordered, although it was futile.
He laughed. “You don’t want me to do that.”
I peered down, then wished I hadn’t. The city grew smaller, then everything faded to black.
FOUR
My eyes fluttered open to the place that has haunted my darkest dreams since I was a child, and it was far worse than I could have ever imagined.
The two times when I woke up, I had crossed my fingers before opening my eyes. I had prayed that I was home in Ismore, and at any moment my mom was going to come through my bedroom door with some hot cocoa and soup, but it all had been true. I was trapped here as a prisoner, held up in some bedroom in a four-story house in the City of Nightmares.
It had been roughly eighteen hours since I’d landed here in the arms of the vampire who called himself Sebastian. I checked the clock on the wall and realized I’d been asleep for thirteen of them. Slowly, I reached my fingers up to the bite mark on my neck, but it had already healed.
I jumped down from the four-post bed, hitting my feet onto the cold stone. Apparently, they didn’t believe in heating here, but I didn’t dare complain. In fact, I hoped if I stayed quiet, they wouldn’t think too much of me. If it weren’t for the need for food and water, I’d happily slink into the shadows of the large room and pray to be forgotten altogether.
I pushed back the white voile drapes, which floated outward from the breeze, and closed the window. My breath fogged the air, and I rubbed my arms, hoping to instill some warmth back into my skin. My gaze ran over the lamp-lit street below. I gripped the windowsill, digging my nails into the wood. The pressure did something to alleviate the fear pulsing through me. Aniccipere—or soul vampires, as many called them—walked in groups. Unlike my kidnapper, these creatures barely resembled their blood vampire heritage, inheriting many of their features from their demon parentage.
I’d heard the stories of the soul vampires, the offspring of demons, and the sangaree. They were ruthless, deceitful creatures of the night who feasted upon a different life source altogether. I could see from the defeated expression of the mortal man they pulled along behind them that he must have been fed on frequently. He walked with a slight limp, his shoulders slumped, and he was tugged by a leash around his neck, as if he were a dog lagging behind.
Back before the vampires had broken the treaty we had in place, agreements were made between the mortal kingdoms and the vampire king. In exchange for them not attacking us, criminals of the highest order, those who were convicted of rape and murder, were sent to Sanmorte to be kept as prisoners by the vampires. Now, innocent men like the mortal below were forced to remain here, imprisoned and used as if they were nothing.
The willowy creatures moved gracefully under the yellow lights of the streetlamps, smiling their lipless, toothy mouths at one another, their gray, beady round eyes the same color as their ash-tinted skin and long, thinned hair. Thick, yellow talons protruded from their bony fingers, sending goose bumps over my arms. I didn’t want to think about the damage they could do with those things. One glanced up in my direction, and I dropped from view, pulling on one of the voiles as I dropped to my knees.
“They won’t hurt you,” a familiar voice said from the doorway. “Not while you’re here, as my—”
