Into the Dark (Until Dawn, Book 3) Read online

  No one argued with me on that, not even Jade. They all knew my extensive history with the Sythen. I’d kill all of the scaly fuckers if given the opportunity.

  “Does this mean Baldric is coming back?” Annie asked, her eyes searching the back of William’s head. As if sensing her stare, he turned.

  “I do not know,” he replied. “It is possible.”

  Alec took the seat to my left, his hand naturally falling to my knee. “You said you thought MaryAnn was attacked to send a message. What did you mean?”

  “There was a voice…” I trailed off, remembering the fear in MaryAnn’s eyes as she tried to flee. She didn’t even get the chance to pass on the message herself.

  “A voice?” William prompted. “What did this voice say?”

  “‘Tell her we are coming for her. She belongs to him,’” I repeated the Sythen’s words, a chill creeping up my spine.

  Silence stretched across the room.

  “You’re certain that is what it said?” Alec asked, fire exploding in his eyes like burning embers.

  All I could do was nod, my eyes dropping to the table where my fingers ran over the rough wooden surface. William’s words from before the battle came rushing back to me: Believe you me, Baldric is not one to accept defeat. He will find a way. There is no doubt in my mind. If he wants you, one day, he will have you. “He’s coming back for me,” I whispered.

  William moved away from the windows, walking back and forth across the long room. I had come to learn it was never a good sign when William paced. It usually meant he didn’t know what was happening. Or worse…what to do about it.

  Well, shit.

  “But why?” Annie asked, her concerned emerald eyes going from me to William and back to me again.

  “We all know why,” Ryuu said. “Power.”

  That one word reverberated through my bones, shaking my very foundation.

  Alec shoved back from the table and started his own pacing, at a much more intense speed. I wondered who would wear a hole through the floor first.

  “Ryuu is right,” William finally said, coming to stand behind Annie. He rested his hands on her slender shoulders and I watched him visibly relax. “Baldric can tell Zoe is different from the rest of us. He knows she has ascended.”

  “Don’t forget the fact that she’s also identical to his long-lost-not lover,” Jade added, propping herself up on the edge of the table.

  William nodded. “This is true. He never did get past Seraphina’s rejection. It ultimately got her killed.”

  “Great,” Jade said. “So, as long as Sparky doesn’t reject him like she does Alec, she should be fine.”

  My face was on fire, a dangerous mix of rage and embarrassment swirling within me. I shot Jade a look that would make a normal person piss themselves. She didn’t even bat an eye, shrugging at me.

  “I said what I said.”

  Annie was blushing for me, her cheeks the same shade of red as her hair.

  I looked to Alec for help only to find him looking anywhere else.

  As if the enemy wanting me wasn’t bad enough, apparently everyone knew that I’d failed to jump my “mate’s” bones.

  We spent nearly two hours in the great hall trying to determine what our next move would be. At least, it felt like two hours. Couldn’t be sure. After we had finally moved past the topic of my inability to properly put out, we all agreed to let our people believe it was an animal that had killed MaryAnn. Although, I highly doubted any of our people were dumb enough to believe it. Still, there was no reason to raise the alarm just yet. Panic wasn’t going to solve anything.

  Alec was back to pacing around the room, his hands folded behind his back. He hadn’t said much since I’d revealed the Sythen’s message. I was sure he was thinking up all the ways he could kill Baldric before Baldric got his hands on me. He wasn’t the only one.

  “I know this isn’t the time for it, but we’re running low on food,” Annie announced. William had put her and Nurse Sloane in charge of managing supplies after the battle. Sloane had the nutritional knowledge to know how little a human or shift could consume and survive, while Annie had the compassion and people skills to deal with handing out rations to our hungry people. The way many of them responded to her kind words of encouragement, you’d think she was handing each of them a gourmet feast instead of the stale bread and overly-tough deer jerky it actually was.

  “That was the whole reason for the hunt,” Ryuu said with a nod. “The forest nymphs have been increasingly unsuccessful lately and we had hoped having a shift nose out there would help. Our supplies are dwindling and if we don’t replenish them soon, the humans and shifts will starve to death.”

  My stomach growled at the mere thought of food. Much like the vamps with blood, the Chosen didn’t need food to survive, but it made us stronger. Much stronger. We’d hardly had anything to eat in over two months to ensure that the shifts and humans had enough food. Some of the humans had tried to start a garden a few months back, but plants needed sunlight to grow properly. Which also meant that eventually our supply of grains would run dry and we wouldn’t even have our trusty stale bread.

  If Baldric’s legion hadn’t wiped out nearly all of our people, I was sure starvation would have done the job. There was no way we could have fed nine hundred mouths. Hell, we were struggling to feed the now one hundred thirty-seven we had, and half of those weren’t even eating.

  Some of the humans and shifts donated blood to the vamps in an effort to help, but it was hard getting enough blood from already weak bodies. We’d tried animal blood, but even that was in short supply since our hunts had been largely unsuccessful. The vamps were only getting small amounts, hardly a sip per vampire per day. It wasn’t enough. Just like our ration of one piece of rock-hard bread a day wasn’t nearly enough for the Chosen.

  I cleared my throat to try to hide the sound of my stomach as it let loose another growl. What I would have done for a burger and fries. The thought alone made my mouth water. If Baldric really was coming back, we needed food or we wouldn’t stand a chance. Not that we really stood much of a chance either way.

  “How much do we have left?” William asked Annie.

  “Slo thinks we have enough for another month.” Annie grimaced. “Maybe less.”

  “All right.” Ryuu stood, patting a still-pacing Alec on the shoulder as he passed him by. “We need to plan another hunt.”

  My brows knitted together. “Another hunt? Are you kidding? Please tell me you’re kidding. Did you not see how the last hunt ended? Dead shift. Blood all over the courtyard. Sythen in our own backyard. Ringing any bells?”

  Ryuu waved me off. “It will be fine. We will take a small group, only the best of the best. We’ll go farther out than usual to find new hunting grounds since we’ve clearly overhunted our surrounding areas. Maybe that will bring us better luck.”

  “The best of the best?” I repeated. “I hate to agree with Rhett, but maybe he was right. Can we really risk losing more of our top fighters if Baldric attacks again?”

  “Can we really risk having mediocre fighters out there if that happens?” Ryuu countered.

  He had a point. “Touché.”

  “So,” Jade said, leaping off the edge of the table and stretching, “who do you suggest goes?”

  “Zoe and I will go,” he replied without skipping a beat. “We will take two of the more experience vampires, one of the shifts, and four or five of the forest nymphs—seeing as they know the land far better than any of us do.”

  Jade jabbed a thumb in my general direction. “Why would you take her?” she snapped before semi-apologetically tossing out, “No offense.” Surprisingly, that was Jade being friendly.

  “None taken,” I grumbled.

  “Now wait,” Alec started. “Jade has a point.”

  I arched a brow at him. “Care to elaborate?”

  He paused in his pacing, turning to face me. “If Baldric really is coming for you then it would be stupid to s
end you out there. We’d basically be throwing you to the wolves after slathering you in blood and rolling you in bacon. It’s suicide.”

  “I have to agree with Alec,” Annie said, not really surprising me. She liked to play things safe. “I think it’s a bad idea. I mean, wouldn’t we be putting you right where he wants you?”

  “Not necessarily,” William interjected and Alec groaned, pacing again. “I believe sending Zoe out on a hunt would be the last thing Baldric would expect us to do now that we know he is coming for her. Perhaps a hunt would be the safest place for her.”

  “But she hasn’t been on a single one of the hunts yet,” Jade argued. “I should go instead. I have more experience anyway. You know I’m right, Ryuu.”

  Ryuu’s bright eyes found mine, holding my stare. “She is quite possibly stronger and faster than the rest of us. It needs to be her. Besides,” he added with a smirk, “I enjoy her company.”

  Jade glowered at him as he planted a kiss on her cheek before she could push him away. He was lucky she didn’t hit him. I wasn’t sure she still wouldn’t.

  “Then it is settled,” William announced as he rose from the table. “The two of you will lead the hunt first thing tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” I asked. “As in, in a few hours?”

  “Yes. Baldric will not expect us to send out a second hunting party so soon. Take whatever weapons you need and do not return until you have enough food to feed our people.” He paused, tapping his fingers on the wooden table and gazing down into Annie’s eyes. “Ryuu is correct. If we do not get food soon, then our people will surely perish and Baldric will win.”

  Sometimes it felt like Baldric had already won.

  My feet faltered as they reached the open door to the medical chamber. Sloane stood on the other side of the room, hunched over MaryAnn’s body with a bloody rag in her hand. She wiped away the blood and grime, her teary blue eyes never leaving MaryAnn’s face. I suddenly felt uncomfortable, like I was intruding on a private moment.

  As I turned to leave, I heard Sloane call out, “If you’re here to ask me to go on the hunt, I already told Ryuu no. I’m of better use to you all here. I save lives a lot better than I take them.”

  “Understood,” I said as I entered the room. “But I actually just came to check on you. It’s been a while since we lost a shift. I’m sure it can’t be easy.”

  Sloane nodded stiffly. “Well, this is war.”

  I watched her for a moment. There was an almost intimacy to the way she cleaned MaryAnn’s body for burial.

  “You knew her,” I said.

  Sloane pursed her lips and nodded again. “I did,” she whispered, running her knuckles down MaryAnn’s cold cheek. “For a very long time. We were…close.”

  The way she gazed longingly upon MaryAnn’s face. I knew that look. That broken, hollow feeling. That pain.

  “I’m so sorry, Sloane,” I said and meant it. “You were so calm out there. I didn’t know…”

  She gave me a sad smile. “I’ve been a trauma nurse for decades, and a combat nurse for a century before that. I’ve learned to push my own feelings aside until the job is done. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that getting emotional doesn’t save lives.”

  Sloane tossed the blood-soaked rag into a basket in the corner, raking no-longer-steady hands through her outgrown pixie cut.

  “What Ryuu said was true, you know,” she said, her back to me. “MaryAnn did want to go on that hunt. She always wanted to help people and she had a damn good nose. The best. Things had been so quiet around here lately, I didn’t even think twice when she asked me what I thought.”

  “You couldn’t have known,” I told her. “None of us could.”

  “I suppose not,” she finally said, turning. “As far as the next hunt goes, I suggested Brock. He isn’t much to look at—not that I do much looking—but he’s got more experience than I do. He used to hole up in the Scottish hills. He’s your man.”

  Sloane paused, inhaling deeply. “You’d do good to keep that to yourself for now,” she continued, her eyes locking onto the door. “Better to ask forgiveness than permission with this one.”

  I knew exactly who “this one” was before he stomped into the room.

  “We’re ready, Slo,” a raspy male voice said. I turned to find Rhett standing in the doorway. When he saw me, his eyes flashed yellow and then back to brown. He huffed as he stormed past me and I resisted the urge to ask him how his hand was doing.

  “What’s she doing here?” he muttered.

  Sloane shrugged. “Paying her respects.”

  Rhett grunted in response as if that was hard to believe.

  As I watched the burly man gingerly pick up MaryAnn’s limp body and carry her out of the room with Sloane in tow, I understood what she’d been trying to tell me: Rhett was an asshole, but he cared about his people. Just as much as Markus had. Maybe even more. He would never agree to sending another shift out, let alone a highly experienced one.

  Lucky for him, he likely wouldn’t find out until we were long gone.

  Finally back in my room, I sat on the edge of the bed, gazing into the dwindling flames of the once-roaring fire. The room was already growing colder. Annie would need to put more logs on while I was gone. If she planned to sleep in our room, that was.

  I sighed, wishing I could grab a couple more hours of sleep, thoroughly regretting not going back to bed earlier when Alec had told me to. Now there wasn’t enough time. The hunt was right around the corner. Ryuu and William were downstairs assembling our team. Annie was putting together supplies, and Jade was prepping our weapons. For all I knew, Alec was still pacing the great hall, trying to think of a way to stop William and Ryuu from sending me on the hunt. That or thinking up more creative ways to kill Baldric. Get in line, buddy.

  A rustling sound under the bed caught my attention. I watched as the oversized orange tabby scrambled out from under my feet before leaping up beside me. Mr. Whiskers crawled onto my lap, nuzzling into my arms and purring loudly. I stroked his soft fur and, if it were possible, he purred louder. His long whiskers tickled my skin and a small smile touched my lips, enjoying the brief moment of familiarity. Those small blessings and all.

  The smile was short-lived.

  “He’s coming for me, Cody,” I whispered. “That’s why the Sythen came. That’s why MaryAnn was attacked. Baldric is coming back for me.”

  He lifted his head and let out an angry hiss.

  “Yeah,” I mumbled. “You’re telling me.”

  A knock on the bedroom door drew out another hiss from my cat, his yellow eyes locked on the wooden door.

  “Who is it?” I called.

  “Alec.”

  Mr. Whiskers’s fur bristled as I told Alec to come in. Rather than open the door and walk in like a normal person, Alec materialized in front of the bed, his golden eyes boring into me.

  Alec watched me for a moment before reaching down and grabbing Mr. Whiskers by the scruff. He carried him to the door, opening it and rather unceremoniously tossing him out of the room before clicking the door shut. He clearly wasn’t a cat person. Or maybe he wasn’t a Cody person. I’d place all my bets on the latter. Seeing Cody with his tongue down my throat probably hadn’t helped matters.

  Alec returned to the bed, taking a seat next to me. He wrapped his strong arm around my waist and pulled me into his side, his lips finding my temple. I nuzzled into him, savoring the feeling of his fingers brushing against my hip, of his breath against my cheek.

  “I love you, Zoe,” he whispered. “So very much. I won’t let anything happen to you. I won’t let him have you. I promise.”

  I’d come to have little faith in promises.

  Alec leaned back on the bed, propping himself up on his elbows. His eyes never left me. “Are you nervous about the hunt?”

  I shrugged. “It would be foolish not to be at least a little nervous.”

  “It worries me as well. The thought of you out there and not being there t
o protect you. It’s not too late, I could tell William I’m coming along.”

  I stood from the bed in a huff, Alec’s eyes following me. “I can protect myself, Alec,” I almost snapped. “I’m not a child or some helpless damsel. I don’t need some big strong man to save me. I’m fully capable of keeping my head on my own shoulders, thank you very much.”

  His eyes shifted to the fireplace. “I know you are,” he said, his voice laced with pain. “I just…I don’t want to lose you. Not ever.”

  The sincerity in his words made me feel like a total bitch. The man just wanted to keep me safe. Was that so bad? I took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. The anger growing within me dissipated, if only a little.

  “I know, Alec,” I finally said, drawing his eyes back to mine. “We’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. Ryuu and I are more than capable of playing bodyguards. And you aren’t going to lose me. Remember, immortal creatures and all? Besides, you heard Annie and Ryuu,” I continued. “This hunt has to happen. If it doesn’t, then none of us will survive—Baldric or not. And if something does happen, we’ll handle it.”

  “I just worry about you.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I repeated, slightly exasperated. As quickly as it had faded, I felt the anger welling within me once more. “Contrary to popular belief, I do know what I’m doing.” Mostly. “Why are you so worked up about this anyway? It’s just a damn hunt.”

  “You said so yourself,” Alec said through clenched teeth. “Baldric wants you. He’s coming for you. Why wouldn’t I be worried, Zoe? He wants to take away what’s mine.”

  I hated when he talked about me like some sort of possession and he damn well knew it.

  “You can’t keep me in a bubble, Alec. And I can’t—I won’t—spend the rest of eternity hiding. I’m no coward.”

  “I don’t think you are. It’s just, lately, you’ve been so…” He paused, standing from the bed.

  “Choose your next words carefully,” I warned, already knowing I wasn’t going to like whatever it was he was going to say.