Blood Moon
Page 4

And I was feeling feral. I was the only Drake I knew of who was having this much trouble with the bloodchange. It had only been a couple of months, but by now I should only be dangerous right at dusk or if I was left to starve. I shouldn’t be dangerous to kiss.
I tried very hard not to think about the Hel-Blar, who attacked anything that moved, even one another. I might have more fangs than other vampires, even more than the Hounds who were ostracized for their double set, but I still had fewer than the Hel-Blar. And I wasn’t blue like they were, and I didn’t smell like mushrooms and stagnant water. Anyway, weren’t we still finding that there were undiscovered vampire races, since Lucy’s cousin Christabel was turned?
Constantine’s mouth quirked. “I can’t tell if you’re about to cry or let out a battle yell, love.”
“Neither,” I said quietly, forcing myself out of the bushes. “I’m just going to walk.” Which at the moment was a battle in itself.
“I could carry you,” he suggested.
I shook my head grimly. I’d been carried once before, had lain unconscious in Montmartre’s arms when he’d thought to trade my family’s safety for me. I wasn’t going to be that Solange anymore. I didn’t want to be rescued. I’d get to safety myself or die trying.
“I’ll walk,” I said again.
“You’re ruining my very romantic gesture, Solange,” he said. Despite the circumstances, I couldn’t help but love the way he said my name. His voice was like smoke, dangerous as a forest fire and comforting as a beach bonfire all at the same time.
I was feeling tingly over a vampire not an hour after trying to drain my boyfriend and being Tasered by my best friend. Clearly, I was going to hell. I limped along, gritting my back teeth. Don’t be such a martyr.
I frowned, glancing around. “Did you hear that?”
Constantine raised his eyebrows. “No, what?”
I shook my head. I must be more tired than I thought. “Nothing.”
“We’re still rather far from camp,” he said. “I assume that’s where you’re going?”
I nodded. He walked easily beside me, unfazed by the sun. I didn’t know how old he was or how long he’d been a vampire, but it was long enough that he could fight the approach of the dawn. I was still so newly turned I dropped before everyone, even Nicholas, who had only just turned the year before. It made me vulnerable. And it made me stupid to have been out so close to sunrise. My mother was going to kill me.
Constantine pulled a glass vial out of the inside pocket of his coat and handed it to me. I didn’t take it right away. It dangled from his fingers, and in the dark it looked more black than red. “This will give you strength.”
“I don’t want it,” I lied. My fingers were literally trembling with the need to snatch the vial away from him. I bit down hard on my lower lip to distract myself.
“You’re making me feel like a drug pusher in one of those old after-school specials,” he remarked wryly. “It’s just blood, Solange. Food. Without it you die.”
“I’m not … thirsty.”
His smile was crooked and sardonic. “You’ve just turned. You’re always thirsty.”
He was right.
“Drink it if you want to make it to camp. Otherwise you’ll have to let me carry you.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t mind, but you seem to.”
Being brought in unconscious. My family would freak right out.
I took the vial and wrenched off the silver-topped cork. I tilted it, letting the blood slide down my throat, swallowing greedily. It sparkled through me as if it were made of stars and lightning. I laughed. Constantine’s gaze raked me from head to toe and he smiled slowly, hungrily. I would have blushed if I were still human. I picked up my pace. “Let’s go,” I said.
“Of course, princess.” He gave a short bow.
I frowned at him. “I told you to stop calling me that.”
“And I told you to stop being ashamed of who you are. Most would kill, literally, to be a vampire and a princess, never mind both at once.”
“I’m not a princess.” I rolled my eyes. “And the last guy who gave me a tiara wore it through his chest.”
“You are a princess,” he said sharply, ignoring my reference to Montmartre’s untimely end by my mother’s hand. And mine. I’d been the one to shove the tiara but had needed Mom’s strength to get it through his heart. I wasn’t going to be anyone’s vampire bride. “You might wish otherwise, but lying to yourself won’t change the facts. You should be proud, love.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d said that to me. But he didn’t get it. The fact that I was a princess had nearly killed Aunt Hyacinth, had Lucy thrown in a dungeon, had assassins tracking my mother. And my being a vampire had nearly killed Kieran.
I wanted to call Lucy to see how Kieran was, but there was no cell-phone coverage whatsoever this deep into the mountain forests. I wouldn’t know until well after sunset tomorrow. The worry dimmed the fire of the blood in my system, the sweet metallic taste on my tongue. We made it to the outskirts of the camp as the mist rose off the river and trailed between the pine trees. A guard nodded to us once and let us pass.
The field that usually hosted wildflowers and bumblebees now bristled with huge canvas tents and swarms of vampires wearing such an odd combination of historical costumes it was as if we’d stumbled onto a circus. In private and for formal vampire occasions we tended to revert back to the clothing of our bloodchange. Even this close to dawn with the mists thick around our ankles and the call of the first birds in the treetops, I could see Victorian bustles, Celtic tattoos, medieval tunics, a 1920s beaded flapper dress, a woman dressed like a very pale Marie Antoinette.