I didn’t have time for this.
I tapped into my anger, always carried so close to the surface now. The familiar fury washed over me, energizing me. I could face Trainees in my sleep.
“Not as much as I have.” I angled my body to the side as I yanked his wrist tighter across my body. The move was counterintuitive, but it created a small pocket of space under his armpit. Gripping his wrist, I ducked and was free. With a spin, I wrenched his arm behind his back. “You boys should know by now it takes more than—” I finally realized who I was fighting. “Jeez! Rob! I thought you were…”
I was so startled I almost let go, but months of training kept my fingers curled tightly into his flesh.
“You thought I was dead?” He paused in his struggle to look over his shoulder at me. The last time I’d seen him, he’d been left for dead after having his face smashed repeatedly against a fencepost by Yasuo. It finished what I’d started when I’d knocked out one of his fangs. “I’m waiting for you to go first.”
I felt energy surge through his body as he readied another attack, but I was prepared. And honestly, I was probably stronger. His face was still a mangled mess. He was shaky, his eyes shifty. He’d consumed too much blood, I suspected, in an effort to heal. Though how—or what—he drank with just the one fang was something I didn’t want to consider.
I still had him from behind, and as his muscles tensed, I gave a sharp twist to his wrist. I kicked the back of one of his legs, and he toppled—knees, chest, face—onto the sand. He grunted and turned his head to spit out a mouthful of grit.
I nodded to his misshapen jawline. “What unsuspecting creature did you need to drink to fix that? Because I can’t decide if it was enough or way too much.”
I was getting cocky, and so I didn’t hear the other Trainee approach at my back until rough fingers speared through my hair, scraping my scalp as they seized a handful. “Rob, you’re such a fuckup.”
The hand wrenched my neck back.
Josh.
Betrayal stole my breath, gutting me.
“Josh?” I pulled free but fell onto my butt, feeling the
plip-plip
of hairs as they were torn from my scalp. But the pain barely registered. “What is this?”
My heart thudded back to life as two truths became instantly clear. I’d thought Josh was a friend, but I could see by the joyful menace on his face that he really wasn’t. And, more pressing, Josh was strong—easily stronger than me.
A grin spread across his beach-bum handsome face. “Happy to see me?”
There was a time when I would’ve been.
I crab-walked backward, trying to wrap my mind around this latest betrayal. Though really, the seed of doubt had been planted long ago when he’d forged an association with Lilac, my old roommate and nemesis. And later, even more so, when I’d watched him participate in a sick ritual in the heart of the vampires’ keep. Now my worst fears were being realized.
He was someone else’s ally, not mine.
I forced my heart to harden against this new worldview. “You boys are just full of surprises,” I said, silently cursing the crack in my voice. I didn’t know how much more hardening my heart could take in this world.
He swiped out a hand to grab me, and I dodged him, finally back on my game. “I thought we were friends,” I said, my voice louder now. “What did I do to you?”
Hell, what did I do to anybody to deserve any of this madness?
“We saw Tom readying his boat.” Josh’s Australian accent lilted the sentence into a question. “Headmaster thought it meant someone might be wanting to make an escape, and it looks like that someone was you. We can’t let you do that, can we?”
I popped to my feet and dusted off my hands. He wanted a fight? Fine, I’d give him one. “And you think you can stop me?”
I glanced from him to Rob, who was staring slack-jawed and one-fanged at Josh with unconcealed worship. “You and who, Hermie the dentist here?”
Rob didn’t like that one bit, and his face tightened into a glare of total hatred. “If you think you can just walk off this island, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“I’m not going to walk,” I said with all the bravado I could muster. “All
I’ve
got coming to me is a boat, taking me away from this freak show.” I’d just have to make it look like I knocked Tom out and stolen it. The last thing I wanted was for the kindly old Draug Keeper to get in trouble on my account.
I summoned my courage and began to stride back down the path. It was a desperate gamble, but I was out of choices. I could only hope Carden was out there somewhere, on his way to me.
A third Trainee appeared at the top of the ridge. “Dude, I told you guys to wait.” He hopped down and popped his knuckles, staring at me like I was a present under his Christmas tree.
I sized him up. The guy was pretty average looking, but I knew better than anyone that looks could be deceiving. For all I knew, he might’ve been an MMA champion in his former life.
“Hey. Brian, right?” I spoke as calmly as possible. Meanwhile, I was frantically assessing my situation. “What’s up?”
I realized the moment it came out that it was a rookie thing to say. Sure enough, he grabbed his crotch. “I’ll show you what’s up.”
I had a sassy reply to that, but it stuck in my throat as they closed in.
There was an explosion of limbs—mine, theirs. Mostly theirs. Josh had gotten behind me and was tying my arms behind my back.
Rob skittered closer, kicking at my ankles, trying to hook my feet. His mouth was a tightly grinning line, his lips molded unevenly, grotesquely, over the gaping hole where his left fang should’ve been.
I hopped away, but Brian was there to give me a shove. “Careful,” he taunted.
Josh shoved me from behind just as Rob kicked again.
I lost my balance and toppled.
I was in the dirt and they were over me in an instant, Josh holding my shoulders, Brian and Rob each holding a leg.
I tried to swallow to get some moisture in my suddenly dry mouth. I held very, very still. I wanted to fight them, but I also didn’t want them to find the misericordia tucked into my boot.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I demanded, but they weren’t listening. And I hadn’t needed to ask anyway. Rob had tried having his way with me before, and now he was directing the others to pin my shoulders, to hold an ankle. To move aside.
“I see what this is about,” I said, trying to use my sultriest
Hey, boys
voice. “Why don’t you free my hands? You know, so I can have free range of movement.”
It was worth a shot. I’d say anything to get my hands free.
“We’re not that stupid,” Brian said.
“Though I know you think we are,” Rob said. “You think you’re so smart. But who’s the one tied?”
“Technically I’m bound, not tied, but whatever you say, Einstein.”
His hand shot out before I could grit my teeth, smacking me hard upside my head. My ears started ringing and my mouth filled with the sharp taste of my own blood.
I stilled for a second, just long enough to come to terms with the fact that I was
not
going down this way. Sure, I’d go down eventually in my life, but I’d go fighting.
A hand slithering up my left thigh shocked me into action.
Instinctively, I kicked. My foot connected with Brian’s chin. As he fell back, Rob had to readjust, twisting sideways to try to grab and still my legs. I kicked again, and my heel caught the soft part of Rob’s throat. The contact lit me like a lightning bolt, my every nerve igniting.
“Hold her,” Brian shouted up at Josh.
Flexing my arms against my restraints, I became a wild thing, my abs working overtime as my feet flailed, legs bucking and thrusting for whatever body part I could connect with.
“I am,” Josh snarled. “You hold her. There are two of you.”
What I really needed were my weapons, still tucked in my boot. I practically felt the misericordia pulsing at my calf. Beckoning. My hands were behind my back, grinding into the dirt, but if I could reach down low enough and scoot my heel high enough…
If I could reach the blade, I’d be able to flick my wrist and slice through whatever Josh had tied me with. And then…and then the thought of what could happen next was enough to make me light-headed. I’d seen what the ancient blade had done to someone as powerful as Master Alrik Dagursson. What might it do to a few measly Trainees?
I was dying to find out.
I heard myself making crazy banshee noises as I pumped my legs out again and again like a piston, trying to propel Rob and Brian far enough from my feet to tuck my knees and snatch the blade from my boot.
But I was outnumbered, and Rob and Brian worked together to snatch my ankles while Josh kept a death grip on my shoulders, and in a moment, both my feet were pinned.
Rob grinned, briefly forgetting about his missing fang. “Gotcha.”
I was still in the fight, though, writhing beneath them. I
needed
my weapons. I would have them.
“Mediocrity,” I said, with a nod toward Brian.
He gaped at me like he didn’t understand the word. “What?”
“Mediocrity,” I repeated, trying desperately to modulate the frantic pitch of my voice. “The state of being mediocre. Or, you know, average. Because this”—I turned my ankle and twisted free of his grip, then swept my leg sideways in a crazy roundhouse kick that clocked him in his jaw—“this is what average gets you.”
His chin jerked sideways and he stumbled backward, giving me just enough of a window to tuck my leg. Rob still had my other ankle pinned, and I strained against his hands, tucking myself as tightly as I could, tight enough to feel the individual tissues in my abdominal muscles shredding.
And still, my hands couldn’t reach my boot.
“You reaching for your stars?” Brian was wiping his mouth, leaning back toward me. He shoved Rob aside and crawled between my legs. “I guess you’re a bitch
and
an idiot, because the laws of physics tell me that you can’t do jack while you’re tied like that.”
I wrenched my shoulder in one last thrust, felt a small pop, and plunged my fingertips into the top of my boot. I felt the cold steel of the misericordia waiting for me. Cold as death, calling me, as though the metal sang a song only I could hear.
I strained to get purchase. “Not physics. Geometry. Angles, dipshit.”
I fantasized where I would plunge the misericordia first. The average neck of one average Trainee was in definite danger.
My fingertips swept the butt of the blade. Almost there.
But then Rob dove onto my leg, and I’d have sworn he tore my groin muscle wrenching me flat. “Don’t let her.”
Brian looked outraged. “What’s your problem? Dude, she’s
tied
.”
“Yeah,” Josh chimed in. “She’s just an Acari.”
That so?
I was done taking crap from these guys.
“She can’t do—”
I torqued my foot inward and clenched, freeing my leg. In a single fluid motion, I wrenched my thigh over Brian’s shoulder, knocking him off-kilter, and slung one foot, then another over his shoulders, hooking my ankles. I tucked my legs, drawing his head down between my thighs.
“Dude, she wants you,” Rob shouted.
My knees were locked tightly, Brian’s face in my crotch.
The guys’ glee faded the moment they realized what was happening. And then it was too late, because, keeping my ankles hooked, I kicked my legs out hard and snapped his neck.
I kicked my legs until he slid awkwardly onto the dirt, toppling unevenly like the dead weight he was.
“What the fuck?” Rob shrieked. “Did you kill him?” He shot a wild-eyed look to Josh. “Dude, she killed him.”
“Wanna go next?” I panted.
“I’ll fuck you up.” Rob lunged at me, grabbing my face, smashing my cheek into the gravel hard enough for me to feel the tiny rocks slicing into me.
“Fournier said to keep her alive.” Josh shoved him away.
“Fine, I’ll keep her alive.” Rob’s cheek ticked as he leveled his eyes on me. “But I’ll mess her up first.”
I mustered my best smile. “You’re messing with the wrong girl.”
“You think?” He popped his knuckles.
I couldn’t help my eye roll. “Is that supposed to scare me?”
“You’re the one pinned. You tell me.”
“Rob, let it go.” Josh’s fingers were like talons digging into my shoulders. “Let’s just get on with this.”
Rob guffawed. “
Get on this
is more like it.” He leaned down and stroked a thumb across my lips.
I snapped my jaw shut, and Rob let out the most satisfying little yelp as I sank my teeth down to the bone. For one glorious second, my eyes met his and I grinned at him around his bloodied thumb.
He smacked me again, harder this time, and it took me a second to get my breath back.
“That all you got?” I managed a bloody smile. “Because, I swear, I will get the best of you.”
And then I tensed every muscle in my body as I watched Rob draw back his arm to strike me again.
“Enough,” Josh shouted. “It’s not your place, Rob. Fournier wants her untouched.”
Rob was seething and took a moment to visibly calm his breathing. “Fine. But you play nice,” he said to me, “or I’ll overrule Josh and take you for a test drive before we bring you in.”
I froze at the oddly specific phrase. “In where?”
Josh pulled me to my feet. “It’s time for you to visit the keep.”
A scream erupted from deep in my gut as I exploded into a violent whirl of kicking and shouldering. I had to escape them. I’d been in the keep before, though the Trainees had no way of knowing that. I’d seen what happened to girls like me. They were drugged and killed, their hearts consumed in a ceremony that was savage and mindless.
I’d watched as my old roommate was stabbed…with the dagger that was now tucked in my boot.
Had the Directorate not noticed the blade was missing? Did they have other weapons like it?
Either way, I was so screwed.
I was outnumbered. Hands confined me. I screamed for Ronan, but he was long gone, and I screamed for Carden, too. But I’d sent him away. I’d broken our bond. Stupid, stupid me. I’d thought independence would make me stronger, but all it meant was my vampire wouldn’t feel my panic, my pain.