Cinnamon devoured her. Xavier’s cold arm clung to her low back, picking her up off the ground. She fell forward into him. The cold of him struck her chest like she had fallen into a river in winter. His other hand drove into her hair and yanked her head to the side.

  She had held countless lives in her hands in hospitals. She fought to save them. She wanted to give them hope, more memories, and extra time. It gave her a rush that warmed her to the bone. To be the life in someone else’s hands was entirely different. To know the hands holding her thrived on death made every second feel like a gift she wasn’t sure she would have again.

  Xavier’s mouth rolled over her ear. Soft enough that only Darcy could hear, he ordered, “Act afraid.”

  Darcy forced a piercing cry that rippled throughout the branches and stirred the animals of the night. The animals ran away, but Darcy was trapped with two beasts.

  “That is mine!” Kip barked, still crouched on the ground.

  Keeping his hold on Darcy, Xavier turned at the waist and snarled at Kip. His reptile eyes were vibrant and glaring. His fangs were sharper and larger than Kip’s, but that didn’t mean Kip wasn’t as dangerous.

  Xavier growled, “I’ve hunted her since nightfall. She is mine.” His stern words silenced Kip, the woods, and Darcy. Then he turned and latched his mouth onto Darcy’s neck, drawing forth another forced cry to the world.

  Darcy rolled her eyes back to keep on the charade as Xavier sucked on her neck. His hand pressed into the small of her back. Though his hand was cold through her jacket, his mouth was warm. Then it was like a flame lit between his lips. His fangs teased her flesh, skimming but not yet breaking through.

  “Do share,” said Kip. Despite the youth of his appearance, his tone was more mature and sinister.

  “Go limp,” Xavier muttered on Darcy’s skin. “Don’t move for anything.” A growl rolled up his throat and burned on Darcy’s neck before he shook her hard at the hip. When she went limp in his arms, he leaned over and dropped her on her stomach like she was a bone cleaned of its meat.

  Grass and leaves brushed over Darcy’s face and covered her mouth. She didn’t dare open her eyes. Xavier stood and licked his lips as he turned to Kip.

  “Sorry,” said Xavier, his accent evident. “Dead blood now.”

  “What a shame,” said Kip. He pouted. “I’m hungry.”

  Xavier brushed his hands together like he was done weeding a garden. He said, “These woods rarely have much. There is a bar in town. You can’t walk in there in your case, but a lost boy a few miles down the road would get a drunk to stop.”

  “I’m not a fan of beer on the blood,” said Kip, twisting in the face like someone had offered him spinach instead of cake. “If I want to march into a bar I will. Then I’ll drink from everyone in it.”

  “Not much for being discreet?”

  “We’re vampires. Mortals shouldn’t be oblivious. They should be afraid.”

  “Ah,” said Xavier, nonchalantly. He had heard talk like this before. The notion of rising from the darkness to show mortals their nightmares were real had a cult following. Any time those like Kip tried to do anything in the name of their beliefs, something squashed them.

  Kip questioned, “Do you not wish to be free from the shackles of eating scraps in the woods?”

  Xavier wiped his lip with the back of his hand and smirked. “Never scraps. I dine on caviar.”

  Somewhere nearby, Winny called, “Xavier! Where are you?”

  Xavier groaned.

  “That’s French on your tongue,” said Kip as he peered at Xavier. Kip pushed himself up to his feet without using his hands. As the pieces came together in his mind, his youthful face aged with an angered brow and gritted teeth. “Xavier Lefont.”

  Xavier gave a playful bow. He asked, “Part of the fan club?”

  Kip hissed, “I thought you looked familiar. You were choking with Naoki when I saw you.”

  Winny emerged from the woods, sighing upon seeing Xavier. Her boots were caked with mud and leaves from running toward Darcy’s cries. “I heard screaming,” said Winny. “She wasn’t scared though.” At the sight of Darcy, Winny gaped.

  Flashing his fangs, Kip said, “Traitors.”

  Xavier said, “We prefer rebels.”

  Kip moved before Xavier realized his intention. Kip was on Winny like a rabid dog, blood foaming at his mouth. Winny ran forward with him into a tree, but Kip kept his hold on her. Then he plunged a knife into her shoulder.

  Winny hollered, the sound full and infuriated. Kip finally let her go and withdrew the blade, and she stumbled back into a streak of moonlight. The knife in his hand wasn’t large. There was a line of tiny sapphires down the middle of the blade. The handle was wooden and hand carved. The flesh around Winny’s wound sizzled like a coal burned within it.

  Xavier roared. He didn’t make it to Kip before Thomas did. Thomas latched onto Kip’s throat. Kip cackled while he swung the knife at Thomas, missing him twice. On the third swing he sliced Thomas’ elbow. Thomas held his reaction in his chest, rumbling like the Earth at the brink of eruption. Kip rolled on the ground around Thomas and went straight for Winny.

  “Don’t touch her,” Xavier warned. He stomped toward Kip with his shoulders up and his tear bared, as riled as a grizzly. Each step was just as threatening.

  Kip didn’t tremble. Bears feared him, not the other way around. He pushed Winny to her knees so he could stand behind her. He steadily held the sapphire-laced knife to her chest.

  “She deserves to bleed out for her sins,” said Kip. He yanked on Winny’s hair, slamming her head back into him. “You all do.”

  Biting into the grass and mud, Darcy focused on the pain in her fingers. Though it couldn’t be seen wedged between her stomach and the ground, she knew the blue light had come and gone. She felt the heat of it. She felt the trinket in her fingers that the light left behind.

  “We’re doing no harm,” said Thomas, hands up as a sign of peace. “We migrate. We stay below the radar and feed.”

  Xavier said, “He’s old school.”

  Thomas still yearned to keep the peace. He said, “This is our home. We did not breach anyone’s territory.”

  Kip said, “You have no claims to any territory. You gave up any marks with your treason. I can leave a mark on this traitor.”

  He pressed the knife into Winny’s chest. Her flesh sizzled as the tip drew blood. She cried out but not as loud as Kip when Darcy lunged at him from behind and rammed the sapphire pendant and its metal teeth into his right eye.

  Dropping the blade, Kip fell back into the fallen tree. The end of it shattered. He roared and hissed as his eye melted. The jewel and metal relentlessly dug deeper.

  “Bitch!” shouted Kip. He climbed out of the broken shards of the fallen tree. Then he jumped at Darcy.

  Xavier appeared and caught Kip before he could reach her. His grip tightened. Kip’s neck began to snap like a branch struggling to hold the weight that burdened it. Xavier could have made it quick, but he didn’t want to.

  Thomas took Kip from Xavier and tossed him into a standing tree. It then broke and fell, opening the clearing a bit more to the moonlight. Kip tried to stand, but the other three cold creatures growled at him.

  Like a scorned pet, Kip remained low to the ground as he crawled. He snarled at Darcy and exclaimed, “I’ll drain you and dance in your blood!”

  Darcy stepped back, calm and silent. She was enchanted by the blood that oozed out of Kip’s wound.

  “Where did you get that?” Xavier snapped, suddenly at Darcy’s side.

  Though his eye sizzled with smoke from the searing sapphire, Kip answered for her, “She got it from Winny’s neck.”

  “How did you know that?” asked Darcy.

  Kip sneered, “Naoki and I were sent to find that traitor.” Kip clawed at the pendant in his eye. Soon his hands seared from the sapphire, and he buried them in the pockets of his pants to calm the burns. Blood from his eye dripped on the superhero character on his left shoe.

  “Move and you’re done,” Xavier warned.

  “You’re done,” Kip cackled. His fangs bit through his lips, and blood drizzled down his chin. His voice bubbled in his throat as the sapphire drove far enough into his eye it disappeared from view. “You three betrayed our law. The debt will be paid.”

  Thomas deepened his voice. “Who sent you?”

  Lips peeled apart and curled, wild and relishing in vile joy. Kip said, “You know who.”

  “Say it,” Thomas ordered.

  Kip opened his mouth but not to answer. He sprung at Darcy and clamped down on the curve of her leg with his teeth.

  Everything paused for Darcy, every second passing like an hour. Her flesh around Kip’s fangs was numb, but the rest of her surely wasn’t. Heat charged up her leg and into her thigh. As though her leg had crumbled already, she fell to the ground. Kip didn’t let go until Xavier yanked him up by his hair. Blood spilled from Kip’s mouth and over Darcy’s leg.

  “He’s mad,” said Winny as she knelt at Darcy’s side and picked up her head. Even in chaos she was gentle. “You’re alright. There is nothing to—oh, you’re not afraid.”

  As Kip thrashed, he exclaimed, “They are food! They are nothing!” He reached for Darcy. His next breath was his last.

  With as much ease as one might topple a child’s tower of blocks, Xavier ripped out Kip’s throat. Kip’s knees struck the ground first. The rest of his body swayed for a moment like it had forgotten something. Then it laid over, gently and with a thud. Xavier held the head by the hair. The face already started to melt into blood.

  Thomas curled his hand into a fist and held it firmly at his chin. Doing his best to hold his composure, he said, “That wasn’t necessary.”

  “But it felt right,” said Xavier, coolly. He looked into the one open eye on Kip’s head before it melted. “Do you agree, Kip?” He nodded the head. One half of it slipped down like warmed candle wax. “Majority wins.”

  Slapping the back of one hand into the palm of the other, Thomas lost a bit of his control. He barked, “We could have had answers.”

  Xavier pressed closer, daring Thomas to do more than slap his own hand. “How many pints of Darcy’s blood is each one worth? I thought you were the righteous one.”

  “Enough,” said Winny, calmly but with a warning that they would only hear it like that once. “Priorities, boys.”

  “It’s her own fault,” said Xavier.

  Winny said, “It’s not her fault for being attacked.”

  “But stupidity is,” said Xavier.

  “Shut up,” Darcy groaned. Her neck strained as she pulled herself up to sit. Muscles in her leg throbbed. She reached down to rub the tender wound. “I thought I was helping a kid.”

  Thomas said, “You shouldn’t have wandered. Xavier is right in that.”

  Winny crawled forward and checked the bite marks on Darcy’s leg with a tender touch. She said, “Our blood can heal this.”

  “I don’t want to drink it,” said Darcy.

  “It won’t curse you,” Winny assured her. “I wouldn’t suggest drinking it. A dab right on it will do fine.” Her eyes didn’t have to go hazy for her fangs to jut outward. She pierced the tip of her thumb on her fang. The blood that followed was dark and red like any, though hers scented the air with honeysuckle. She reached down and brushed blood on Darcy’s wounds.

  “So you guys are breakable,” said Darcy.

  Winny said, “If a weapon has a sapphire in it, definitely. Our fangs can break our skin as well. A fall can break our bones, but we heal quickly if we have enough blood in us.”

  It took about thirty seconds before the bite marks on Darcy’s leg pulled back together. Winny’s thumb had healed in half the time. She sucked on her thumb and then brushed her clean hands on her coat as she stood.

  Darcy did not yet get up. Airily, she said, “You were a witch.”

  Clasping her hands, Winny said, “Any vampire’s blood can do that.”

  “No,” said Darcy in a daze. She batted her eyes like she was trying to see through the glare of the sun. “Your mother taught you. You were very young. There was a rabbit in a field.” She winced and pressed her fingers into her forehead.

  All three vampires slowly surrounded Darcy. Winny said, “Memories ride in our blood, but you only see them if you drink it and much more than that.”

  Lowering her hand, Darcy no longer smelled honeysuckle. “It’s gone,” she murmured.

  Xavier said, “I’ll tell you what’s not gone. This isn’t over. There will be more vampires that come and call for our penance.”

  “Sounds like it has nothing to do with the Redwoods,” said Darcy. Though the wound was gone, the stiffness and dirt were still there. She stood up and shifted her weight to the leg that hadn’t been attacked. “And all to do with you.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Xavier snipped.

  “That kid seemed pretty clear he was here on some revenge plot,” said Darcy. She stumbled when she tried to move onto the wounded leg. “Who did you piss off?”

  The vampires exchanged glances. Thomas sighed, “We have a few suspects.”

  Shaken, Winny said, “We should leave. She needs rest to recuperate. I’m not giving her more blood.”

  “Dr. Shaw,” said Thomas. “Would you mind getting the pendant and the blade? We’ll take you back to your car, and I’ll drive you home.”

  “I can drive,” said Darcy, huffing at the idea of being escorted around like a child.

  “A vampire wound and blood in the same night,” said Thomas. He looked her over. She was pale but not clammy and hurt but not fragile. Still, he worried. He always worried. “You don’t know what that could do. Let me take you.”

  Winny warned, “Dawn is coming. You’ll have to come home by foot.”

  “I’ll take her,” said Xavier, not eager at all. “I’m faster.”

  “I’m fine,” Darcy said, sternly.

  “Then walk,” said Xavier. “There are other vampires out. I can smell them.”

  Wincing again from her leg, Darcy grumbled through gritted teeth. When she conceded to the plan, Winny took up Darcy’s arm and helped her to the car. The night air was frosted, but Darcy’s body was slick with sweat from the heat coursing through her blood.

  ξ

  The ride back to the Morgan house was layered with arguments between Xavier and Thomas and Xavier and Darcy and Xavier and himself a few times. Winny and Thomas escaped, but Darcy was stuck with Xavier. For the entire ride to her house he didn’t say a word.

  The second Xavier parked Darcy’s car in her driveway, Darcy threw the passenger door open and freed herself from cinnamon and the loathsome silence. Pain shot up the back of her leg when her heel hit the ground, and she leaned into the door until the pain passed.

  “Shaw,” said Xavier, slowly to let the sound linger on the tip of his tongue. Standing outside the car, he stared up at the Shaw home that seemed as though it was bound to the rock on which it stood. “I didn’t think you were from here.”

  “I’m not,” said Darcy as she closed the car door behind her. She wrapped her arms around her ribs and strode toward the front door.

  Xavier questioned, “Were you related to these Shaws?”

  Darcy gasped, “You mean people with the same last name had the house that was left to my father?” Under her breath, she begged for the sun to come early.

  Xavier appeared at her side suddenly and without a sound. He said, “I didn’t know Carter had a daughter.”

  She snapped, “You don’t have to walk me to the door. This isn’t a date.”

  “I did gnaw at your neck,” he said as he strolled alongside her.

  Darcy stepped onto the porch and laughed, “I’ve had better.”

  She pressed her back into the door. The sound of the waves behind the house was calm in this in-between hour when the horror of the night scurried to rest. The saving rays of sun prepared to strike across the sky. Some dangers lingered into the last minutes of darkness.

  “Thank you for getting me out of that situation,” Darcy sighed. Without turning, she pulled her keys out from her back pocket and fumbled with the lock behind her.

  Xavier leaned into the porch banister. “Your curiosity put Winny in trouble too,” he said.

  “I’m sorry for that, but I can’t be sorry for checking on a child,” she said. “It’s because I care that you’re here.”

  “What?” he scoffed.

  She replied, “I saved you in the morgue with my light.”

  He cackled, once. “I would have recovered on my own,” he said.

  Arching one eyebrow, she said, “Unless Naoki got to you first. He didn’t need any help at all.”

  His tongue skimmed his lips. He questioned, “Was it that you cared or that you were curious?”

  She shrugged and said, “Just like with the kid, my intentions were good. I’m not going to let fear keep me from helping people.”

  “Hard to help people when you’re dead.”

  “You helped me. You could’ve bitten me instead of pretending.”

  The breeze brushed three pieces of his wild hair over his brow. “I’ve had many chances already,” he said.

  “But you didn’t.”

  “In my free life I do not feed on the unwilling.”

  “Thomas’ rule?”

  “Mine,” he said. Dropping his hand, he smirked as his mind raced through memories. He took one step toward Darcy. “Of course, I do make exceptions for the deserving. My line is far easier to cross than Thomas’.”

  The lock clicked, and the front door crept open. Watson was there and eager to see her. Darcy pushed back inside the house, one foot crossing the threshold and then the other a little faster than the first. Xavier’s next step suddenly brought him right against the doorframe.

  He tilted his head. “You’re banking on vampire folklore, aren’t you? You’ve seen what we’re capable of yet you think a threshold will keep us out.”

 

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