The Den of Shadows Quartet Read online

  For a moment, Sarah debated going for her blade. Attacking Kaleo by herself with so many of his kind near would probably mean the end of her life. But it might be worth it.

  Before Sarah could make a move, though, Kaleo glanced pointedly to the doorway behind which Sarah had hidden her prey “What excellent taste,” he congratulated her. “He was rather a pain.”

  A prepared vampire was more difficult to fight than an unsuspecting one. Without hesitation, Sarah went for her knife.

  CHAPTER 2

  YOU DROVE HOME LIKE THIS?

  Sarah nodded sharply in answer to the healer’s question.

  Caryn Smoke shook her head but made no comment.

  She was the strongest living member of her line, and had nearly been disowned recently due to her associations with vampires. Sarah had disliked the girl ever since the trial, but Caryn was an effective healer, and Sarah only turned to the best.

  Sarah had been raised to ignore pain so it would not incapacitate her in a fight, and tonight those lessons had proved invaluable. Both bones in her right forearm had broken when Kaleo grabbed her wrist and threw her into a wall; her head had hit hard enough that had she been human it would have knocked her out. Instead, she had simply drawn another knife with her left hand.

  Fortunately, Kaleo and his guests had all been more interested in the pleasures willingly provided by their human sycophants than in fighting a vampire hunter, and had quickly lost interest in Sarah and allowed her to escape.

  Sarah had been lucky. She had survived because the vampires had gotten bored. That — added to the fact that she hadn’t seen Nikolas — grated on her.

  It was almost five o’clock in the morning by the time Caryn was finished setting the arm. The healer moved on to deal with Sarah’s numerous other scrapes, bruises, and minor sprains when Dominique Vida returned from hunting and came to see her injured daughter. As she sized up Sarah’s condition, her expression was calm, but marked with distinct disapproval.

  “You were careless,” Dominique chastised, after she heard the details of Sarah’s night. “You went into that group unprepared, and you stayed past midnight.”

  Sarah lowered her gaze, but did not allow her defiant expression to fall.

  Finally Sarah spoke up, her voice sure despite Dominique’s reproach. “Nikolas was there.” Dominique could complain all she liked about Sarah’s carelessness, but if Nikolas was part of that group, then they had a lead to finding him.

  “Nikolas?” Dominique’s voice was sharp. “You saw him?”

  Sarah shook her head. “One of his prey — marked.”

  “That doesn’t help much unless you saw the vampire himself,” Dominique pointed out dryly, and Sarah set her jaw to keep from arguing. “And now we have no way of tracking him down.” Sarah did not bother turning over the invitation she had received. After having teased and released the hunter they had found in their midst, the vampires would know better than to host the bash she had mistakenly been invited to.

  “You’re set,” Caryn said, her normally quiet voice raised to interrupt the conversation. She patted the cast on Sarah’s arm gently. “You’ll need a week or so to heal completely, and until then I recommend that you take it easy. Okay?” The last was said with a sharp look to Dominique.

  The Vida matriarch nodded. “Thank you for your help, Caryn. Sorry to bother you so late.”

  Caryn shrugged, her fatigue visible. “No problem. I was in the neighborhood, at a SingleEarth hospital.”

  Dominique did not react to the remark, and Sarah copied her mother’s neutral mask. SingleEarth. The organization was growing by leaps and bounds, with humans, witches, vampires, and shapeshifters joining, all working toward a common cause: unite all the creatures on Earth. Though a noble goal, it was never going to work. Vampires were hunters, evil by nature, and most were incapable of containing their need for bloodshed. Even the vampires at SingleEarth, who survived by feeding on animals or willing donors, admitted that it was painful to live without killing.

  “I guess you probably won’t be at school tomorrow?” Caryn asked on her way out.

  Sarah glanced to her mother, but saw no sympathy. “I’ll be there.” No matter how hard a night Sarah had had, Dominique was not one to allow her daughter to slack off, not even for a few days so she could start at her new school on Monday Sarah would start bright and early on Wednesday morning.

  Sarah had been expelled from her last school for fighting on school grounds. In the process of extinguishing a vampire, some school property had been broken, and the administration had not been particularly understanding. Only some quick thinking by Sarah’s sister, Adianna, had kept anyone from finding the body.

  After the incident, Dominique had decided to move her daughter away from the constant excitement of the city and into a dull Massachusetts suburb named Acton. Caryn and her family lived there.

  Dominique returned upstairs to sleep, and Caryn caught Sarah’s good arm.

  “I should warn you. There are a few vampires in the school.” Upon Sarah’s look, she added sternly, “They’re harmless, and they have every right to be there. If you hurt any of them —”

  “If they’re harmless, I’ll just ignore them. I can’t afford to get kicked out of another school, anyway. Okay?” Sarah offered. Caryn nodded.

  Sarah’s pride, already ground into the dirt, deflated even more when the door opened again and her sister entered the house.

  “Hey little sis,” Adianna greeted her. Noticing the cast, she added, “Rough night?”

  Adianna Vida, one year Sarah’s senior, was almost as perfect as their mother — intelligent and controlled. She had graduated last year, but was taking a semester off before starting college to train harder, and to “look out for” her little sister.

  Right then Adianna’s blond hair was tousled, and Sarah saw a smear of blood on her dark blue jeans as if she had wiped a knife clean. She had obviously been fighting, and she had just as obviously won.

  Adianna patted her sister’s shoulder as she passed toward the stairs. “Rest up. The world will survive without you for a week or so.”

  CHAPTER 3

  SEVEN-THIRTY-FIVE is a beastly hour to begin school, Sarah thought, as she opened her locker. The bell rang and she sighed. Hopefully being the new girl would excuse her tardiness. It certainly had no other perks. She thought fleetingly of the hunting companions she had left behind, with whom she had crashed bashes and stalked the darkest corners of the city By morning, rarely had a blade been left clean.

  She forcibly banished such thoughts. She was here now, and it was time to begin this new life.

  Her first block was American history, and though she located it easily, the class had already begun when she slipped through the door.

  “Sarah Green?” the teacher confirmed as Sarah turned over the folded pink pass from the office. Mr. Smith was a balding, tired-looking man whose crisp suit pants and shirt seemed out of place in the high school. He gestured toward the class. “Take a seat … there’s one open right next to Robert —”

  “Actually, someone’s sitting there,” one of the boys in the back of the room called. As Sarah’s attention turned to Robert, she realized that he looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place his face in her memory. He had looked up just long enough to see who had come in the door, and was now writing something in a notebook. The desk next to him appeared empty to Sarah; the chair was vacant.

  Mr. Smith looked surprised, but he skimmed the class again.

  “There’s a seat here,” someone else called, and Sarah glanced to see who had spoken.

  Black hair, fair skin, black eyes. Vampire. She recognized him instantly, but Mr. Smith was already hustling her toward the empty seat.

  “Christopher Ravena,” the leech said, introducing himself as she slid into her chair. He nodded across the class. “That’s my sister, Nissa.” The girl he had gestured to waved slightly Though her hair was a shade lighter, the resemblance between the siblings wa
s marked — including the mild vampiric aura.

  “Nice to meet you,” she answered politely though inside she grimaced. This could be a very long year.

  The aura of the vampire beside her was so faint that her skin wasn’t even tingling. He was either very young or very weak, and she could tell that he did not feed on human prey. Probably SingleEarth, harmless as Caryn had said. His sister was almost as weak, and although her aura showed a hint of human blood — probably from one of the plethora of humans at SingleEarth willing to bare their throats — it was obvious she did not kill when she hunted. Neither of them would be able to sense Sarah’s aura, so unless they knew her by sight, they would likely assume that she was just another human.

  Mr. Smith was talking to her again, and she turned her attention back to him. “Sarah, as you’ll see, I like to begin class with a conversation about current events, to keep us involved in the present as well as the history” Raising his voice to address all the students, he asked, “Now, who has something to share?”

  The number of hands raised — none — was not overly surprising. Most of the students looked like they were still asleep.

  “I know it’s early” Mr. Smith said, encouragingly, “but you are allowed to wake up any time now. Who heard the news last night? What happened in our world?”

  Finally a few hands tiredly rose, but most of the students had better things to do. The girl sitting in front of Sarah was reading a book that looked like it was probably an English assignment. Nearby, another student was doing Spanish homework. The teacher was either oblivious, or he just didn’t care. The news story that was being repeated by a girl in the first row wasn’t all that fascinating, anyway.

  “Did you just move in?” Christopher asked, his voice quiet to avoid the teacher’s attention. He had a slight accent — not quite a drawl, but smooth and unhurried, with a hint of the South.

  Sarah nodded, trying to keep a small portion of her attention focused on the dull classroom conversation, while keeping the rest on the two vampires. “My mother got a new job, teaching in the next town.” It was a plausible lie, which she had come up with earlier.

  Mr. Smith moved back in time to the Civil War, and Sarah took notes furiously for an excuse to avoid Christopher’s attempts at conversation. The class was dull, and she already knew most of the information, but if she made a good impression now, Mr. Smith was more likely to cut her some slack later.

  Christopher’s silence lasted only until the bell. “How’d you hurt your arm?” he asked as Sarah awkwardly shuffled papers into her backpack after class.

  “Thrown off a horse,” Sarah lied effortlessly. “She’s usually a sweet creature, but something spooked her.” As she lifted the heavy backpack, she wondered how in the world humans could possibly carry these things around all day. Her witch blood made Sarah stronger than an average human — her five-foot-four, 130-pound body could bench-press 300 pounds — but she wondered how the humans managed.

  “Do you need help with that?” Christopher offered, gesturing to the bag. “What class do you have next?”

  “Chemistry,” she answered. “I can handle it.”

  “I didn’t mean to suggest you couldn’t,” Christopher responded smoothly. “You just shouldn’t have to bother. I’ve got biology next, anyway, so our classes are near each other.”

  She examined his expression, but he appeared sincere. For whatever his reasons, he was honestly trying to play the part of a human teenage boy — an unusually polite one, but human nevertheless.

  She didn’t want to make a scene, so she surrendered her backpack, and Christopher carried it without effort, which did not surprise her. If she could lift 300 pounds, as a weak vampire he could probably bench-press a ten-wheeler with about as much effort.

  “Thanks,” she forced out, glad the words sounded sincere.

  Though her chemistry class was blessedly human, Christopher’s sister was in sculpture with Sarah for the third block of the day.

  Sarah’s skills with clay were minimal; she had signed up for this class mainly so she could do something low stress without homework. She’d be lucky if she could make a ball. Nissa, on the other hand, had a great deal of talent, which helped Sarah place her in a way that the girl’s weak aura had not: Kendra’s line.

  Kendra was the fourth fledgling of Siete, creator of all the vampires. Though Sarah had never met her, the woman was rumored to be stunning in form and fierce in temper. She was a lover of all the arts, as were almost all of her descendents. Kaleo, with whom Sarah had had her uncomfortable run-in the night before, was Kendra’s first fledgling.

  All these thoughts passed through Sarah’s mind quickly as she watched Nissa craft a young man’s figure in the soft clay, humming quietly to herself as she worked. He sat upon a rustic bench, a violin perched on his shoulder. The bow was a fine coil of clay supported by a piece of wire at its neck.

  Nissa looked up from her work and noticed Sarah watching.

  “That’s really impressive,” Sarah offered, surprised to find her words completely sincere.

  “Thanks.” Nissa smiled, looking back at the form. “But I can’t get the face quite right.” She indicated the shapeless globe where the features should be, surrounded by carefully etched hair.

  “Better than mine.”

  Nissa laughed lightly “Considering you just started today and you’re only working with your left hand, it’s not bad.”

  The vampire carefully wrapped her figure in plastic so it would not dry, and then shifted over to offer suggestions on Sarah’s project, which was a sickly-looking clay dog. They worked together for the last ten minutes of class, during which Sarah almost forgot what she was talking to.

  “You could put a wire in his tail so it wouldn’t fall like that. What kind of dog is it?” Nissa asked.

  Sarah shrugged. “I don’t really know. My mother doesn’t like dogs, so I’ve never had one.”

  In fact, Dominique hated dogs. She was very against animals and witches mixing; the Vida line was one of the few that had never used familiars in its magic.

  “It could kind of look like a Lab, if you squared off the nose,” the girl suggested. Under Nissa’s expert assistance the smooth white clay turned into an almost-recognizable animal.

  “What do you have next?” Nissa asked as they packed the dog in plastic.

  “Lunch, I think.”

  “Great! You’re with Christopher and me.” The girl’s exuberance was infectious, but still Sarah hesitated at Nissa’s implied invitation. She could be sociable during class, but there were pages of laws in the Vida books detailing how far any relations with vampires could go. While the school cafeteria was not mentioned by name, Sarah was pretty sure it would be considered unnecessary association.

  Still, Nissa walked with her through the halls, and even followed Sarah to her locker when she tried to use it as an excuse to drop the vampire.

  Inside the locker, on the top shelf, Sarah noticed something she had not put there: a white piece of paper, on which a profile had been drawn carefully in pencil. She immediately recognized the figure as herself; her hair spilled over her shoulders and onto the desk as she wrote.

  Nissa just shrugged when she saw the drawing and gave an understanding smile as Sarah read the initials signed in light script in the bottom corner. CR. It was from Christopher; he had probably drawn it while sitting right next to her in history class, when Sarah had been trying to ignore him.

  CHAPTER 4

  NISSA LED THE WAY to the table where she and her brother usually sat; Christopher was already there. Sarah thought again how lucky it was that neither Christopher nor Nissa was strong enough to read her aura.

  Lucky … yeah, right. If she had been lucky they would have recognized her and avoided her from the start. As it was, she was going to need to find some way to break off the friendship they were obviously attempting to form — preferably without broadcasting her heritage to two vampires she knew next to nothing about.

&nb
sp; “Sarah, sit down,” Christopher called. “How was sculpture?”

  “Much more interesting than Mr. Smith’s history lecture,” Sarah answered vaguely. She hesitated by the table’s side, but as Nissa tossed her backpack on one of the chairs, Sarah reluctantly grabbed a seat of her own.

  “Hey Nissa …” A human boy approached Nissa, but hesitated when he saw Sarah. She recognized him as Robert, the boy from her first class. The look he directed at her was anything but friendly. He turned back to Nissa. “I was wondering … if you’re going to the dance this weekend.”

  Nissa looked from Robert to Sarah. “I’m going stag.”

  “Oh, um …” He paused, then said something hurriedly that might have been, “See you there,” before he slipped back into the mass of students.

  “What was that about?” Nissa asked as soon as the boy was gone. “Did you kill the boy’s baby sister or something? Robert usually goes after anything with legs,” she joked.

  “I never met him before today” Sarah answered honestly, watching his sandy brown hair bob through the crowd.

  Christopher shrugged. “Don’t worry you’re not missing much,” he said lightly “Robert has been hitting on Nissa ever since he first saw her, and he’s a royal pain.”

  Sarah did not brush off the interaction as lightly as Christopher and Nissa, but she did allow them to change the subject, while her mind stayed focused on the incident.

  Sarah was of average human height, and well shaped from a high metabolism and a vigorous exercise routine. Her fair blond hair was long, with enough body that it fell down her back in soft waves, and her sapphire eyes were stunning. To top it off, her aura was powerfully charismatic, and humans were drawn to it. Though she had heard about humans who were naturally anxious around vampires and humanity’s other predators, that was obviously not the case with Robert; and while Sarah had received numerous phone numbers from strange boys, she had never met one who instinctively disliked her.