CHAPTER 31
AFTER WHAT FEELS LIKE an hour of walking, Ace falls into step beside me, his pace matching mine.
The others have already spread out as planned, taking different routes to the rendezvous point. It’s just the two of us now, moving through the hushed woods.
He glances sideways at me. “You should feed before we reach the outpost.”
I nearly stumble. “What?”
“You’re showing early signs of thirst. You may not feel it yet, but once you do, it’ll be too late.”
I wrap my arms around my middle as if I could contain the craving that way. “What are you proposing? It’s not like we have time to stop.”
“We do.” He nods toward a cluster of lights a short distance away. “There’s a small settlement beyond those trees. Farmers, mostly. Easy enough to approach one, feed, and leave without incident.”
I stop in my tracks, horrified. “You want me to just… snatch some innocent person from their home?”
“It doesn’t have to be nasty,” he says with infuriating calm. “It can be done civilly. Knock on a door, use a little persuasion, take what you need, and leave them with a pleasant memory.”
“You can’t be serious,” I scoff, disgust evident in my voice.
“I could catch you something.” He gestures toward the forest. “A deer, perhaps. Not nearly as satisfying, but decently nutritious.”
I consider it for a moment. Animal blood.
It’s not ideal, but better than attacking a human.
The forest is full of wildlife, and no one would know.
Still, the image of myself hunched over some poor animal, face buried in its fur as I drain its life away, makes my stomach turn with repugnance.
“No.” I shake my head vehemently. “Just give me another cigarette.”
Ace sighs but reaches into his pocket for the silver case, handing me one with a look that says he knows I’m avoiding the inevitable. I take it with shaking fingers, and he lights it for me, the flame illuminating our faces in the darkness.
“This is just postponing the problem,” he warns as I inhale deeply.
“I know,” I admit, exhaling a swelling cloud of smoke. “But it’s my problem.”
“Your moral code is fascinating.” The corner of his mouth twitches.
“You’re about to be surrounded by humans whose blood smells far too tempting for you to ignore in your current state.
You know that, right? You’d rather risk turning negotiations into a slaughter just to keep your conscience clean—is innocence really worth that much to you? ”
I hold the cigarette between my fingers, watching the ember pulse like the last bit of warmth in a dying world.
I don’t know, and he’s not wrong, but saying that out loud would give him too much.
Truth is, I simply don’t trust myself. Not when it comes to bloodsucking.
I’m too compulsive by nature, which is why I cling to control so badly.
I always tell myself I can resist, restrain, keep myself in check, but deep down, I know how fragile that resolve really is.
Because once I let myself go, I’m left at the mercy of whatever emotion or desire takes hold.
Reckless. Impulsive. All labels I’ve heard more than I care to admit.
Having no good response to him, I stay silent, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other as we resume walking.
The first sign of something wrong is the smell—a sickly-sweet odor that hangs in the air, growing stronger as we approach a small clearing.
Ace stops abruptly, holding out an arm to keep me back.
“Blood,” he whispers, his posture instantly alert. “A lot of it.”
We carefully edge forward, and that’s when I see it: bodies scattered across the forest floor, limbs bent unnaturally, throats torn open.
Redmoore uniforms, stained dark with congealed blood.
This happened hours ago, not minutes.
Ace tenses beside me, his head tilting slightly as if listening. Without warning, his hand shoots up, catching something mid-air inches from his face.
An arrow.
He snaps it in half, his eyes scanning the trees around us.
More arrows fly from the darkness.
Ace dodges most, but one catches him in the shoulder. He pulls it out with a grimace, but something’s wrong. His movements slow and become sluggish.
“Gardenia,” he mutters, staggering slightly. “In the arrowheads.”
Another volley comes, this time accompanied by the ping of lumen bullets. One catches Ace in the leg, another in his side. He drops to one knee, vitae seeping through his clothing.
Figures all around us emerge from behind the trees, their weapons trained on us—no, Ace. Among them is Lexa, her face hard with dread and determination.
“It was him,” she snaps, gesturing to the mutilated bodies around us, the same type of hatred in her eyes that I’ve always carried in mine. “Slaughtered them all.”
I freeze, my eyes darting from the carnage that are too reminiscent of the massacre, of the attack in which Mira and Henry died, to Ace’s wounded form. My heart hammers against my ribs, a sudden wave of nausea threatening to overwhelm me.
“D-did you do this?” I stammer, my voice barely audible even to my own ears.
Ace’s face remains inscrutable behind his mask, but his eyes burn with something I can’t decipher. Pain from his wounds? Rage at being ambushed? Or is it guilt?
“Answer me!” I demand, louder this time, taking a step back from him. The cigarette falls from my fingers, forgotten.
“He doesn’t need to answer.” Lexa trains her crossbow steadily on Ace’s heart, unaware it won’t kill him. “I saw him tear everyone apart with my own eyes.”
“Seraph,” Ace calls, his eyes burning into mine with a desperation I have never seen on him before. “Think.” He tries to rise, but he’s been weakened too much. “I was with you in the cave until sunset. When would I’ve had time?”
“You left,” I say, recalling the fresh blood I smelled on him when he returned from ‘scouting.’ Even if he hadn’t done it with his own hands, he could’ve commanded it—the unspoken agreement passing between them right before our departure. The reason why they split from us.
He coughs, vitae speckling his lips. “For an hour.”
“Vampires can move fast when they want to.” Lexa steps closer, her weapon never wavering. “Especially vampires like you.” The way she’s looking at him, with such fear and loathing, makes me realize how far I have drifted from my Redmoore roots. Just weeks ago, I looked at him the same way.
And I never should have stopped.
“If I wanted them dead,” Ace says, trying to reason with me, “why would I leave them here for you to find? Why not hide the bodies?”
“Have you ever?” I spit, anger flaring, my chest flooding with heat.
“If you didn’t want an alliance,” Lexa says, her gaze cold now, ready to pull the trigger, “you could’ve said so, instead of going behind our backs to save face in front of Seraph. That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You cult leader. This was all a part of your plan to get her on your side.”
Sudden movement erupts from the forest edge. Kale and Palina leap from the shadows to defend their leader.
Lexa reacts instantly, firing her crossbow at Kale while drawing a blade with her free hand. Reece and Irene shouldn’t be too far either.
I’m about to scramble for anything I can use as a weapon when Lexa shouts at me, “Come on!”
She grabs my arm and pulls me away from the chaos. I let her drag me, my instincts screaming that something’s wrong but unable to place what. Behind us, Ace roars in unbridled ferocity despite his injuries, the sounds of combat growing more intense.
We run until the noise fades, stopping in a small hollow surrounded by dense undergrowth. Lexa leans against a tree, breathing hard.
“We don’t have much time,” she says.
I shake my head, struggling to process. “It doesn’t make sense. Why would he do that right before our meeting? When we’re trying to form an alliance?”
“Because they’re not interested in an alliance, Seraph.” She grabs my shoulders, frustration building. “They’re playing you. Using you to get inside Redmoore’s defenses. Think about it. They’ve always hated us. Why change now?”
Her logic makes a twisted kind of sense, but it’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that they’d jeopardize Saul’s rescue.
Unless that was never their intention.
“You don’t understand,” I counter, though my argument feels like it’s losing its foundation. “He’s not the type to orchestrate something like this. He’d be way more discreet.”
Stress is evident in her face. And I get it. If anyone has seen as many deaths by vampires as I have, it’d be Lexa. “Are you hearing yourself right now? Nothing about that massacre was discreet, and neither was Operation Wraith. What makes you think this time’d be different?”
She’s right. Why would I take his word over his actions in the past?
My heart sinks. All the times I allowed myself to tune out while they debated strategy—was that my biggest mistake? Should I have seen the signs? Did I ignore them because I decided to give Ace a chance? I feel stupid, embarrassed, naive.
I replay every glance, every word I half-listened to, trying to piece together something I should have known. What is their real plan? Was I ever truly part of it, or just a weapon waiting to be pointed?
“What now?” I ask, voice strained.
Lexa’s posture relaxes, though her eyes remain vigilant, scanning the forest around us. “Reinforcements are on the way. General Lee is aware of the situation.” She holsters her weapons with a decisive click. “The deal is off.”
The finality of her words rips away the hope I’d been clinging to.
Everything we’ve worked for, the tenuous alliance that might have saved my brother and mother…
gone. I turn away from her, unable to bear the pity in her eyes.
My hands find their way to my hair, fingers digging into my scalp as if I could physically pull the confusion from my mind.
My head throbs, each pulse bringing a new wave of doubt and recrimination.
How could I have been so blind? So willing to believe? To trust.
“I’m sorry, Seraph,” Lexa says softly behind me.
Something in her tone makes me pause.
It’s too gentle, too practiced.
I start to turn back toward her. “Why are you—”
A sharp sting in my neck cuts off my words.
My hand flies up, feeling the dart protruding from my skin. I try to pull it out, but my fingers are already growing numb, refusing to obey my commands.
“What are you…” The words slur as they leave my mouth, the world tilting sideways around me.
Lexa’s face swims before me, her features blurring into a mask I no longer recognize. I try to step toward her, willing my legs to move, but they have already buckled. The ground rushes up to meet me, though I never feel the impact.
Darkness swallows me whole.