Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Blood Kingdom
Daire
“Keep up, Antlers,” I hiss over my shoulder.
Against every instinct, I force myself to slow up.
But for a fae, a deal is a deal.
I swore to stick together with the Shadow Human. Live or die, we’ll face the Hunt together.
Unfortunately, it looks likely that tonight will truly be the night that I die.
Thank the Shadow Gods that I was able to meet with both Freya and Aurelius for one last time in the Dream Bond.
The daft dragon thought that he could control me with a few chains and a gag.
Doesn’t he know that he’s never been the one in control?
Also, kinky fae here. I’ve tried everything at least once. The more the dragon tries to dominate me, the more I dominate him.
I turn my head, catching the sudden movement of flitting shadows in the dark.
My pulse races.
I’ve been hunted since I was a child. Yet that was in a war, where I was a bandit and rebel.
This? Being hunted like an animal for sport?
It’s different — worse.
My heart is beating hard in my chest. Adrenaline is rushing through me. The cold night air bites my cheeks and exposed legs.
I am still only dressed in the fawn tunic. The soles of my bare feet sting, where they are sliced open on the sharp rocks and broken glass that must have been deliberately put down.
I must be leaving a nectar scented trail for every Fang Born Blood on the Hunt to follow.
Are they only toying with me?
I twirl around, extending my wings in warning.
Another flash of movement.
Is that a Blood?
My breath catches.
My ravens caw and flutter their wings. They circle me, protectively.
I hear Barnabas stumble, along with a gasp of pain.
We have been running for hours now, since the Guild of Blood Lovers released us from the City Gates out into green fields of fig and date trees.
The Shadow Humans cultivated these silent stretches of farmland for their dark gods in worship: grapes, wheat, linen, and papyrus.
It feels ironic that the vampires would hunt and claim their Blood Lovers through these lands.
Yet I could only hear excited chatter and giggles from the other Blood Lovers earlier, who kept their distance from Barnabas like he was the monster.
Barnabas hadn’t been lying that the other Shadow Humans were willing.
Where’s the line between religion, fanaticism, and cult brainwashing?
The Scarlet Temple and the Void Cult are just as bad. It’s not only the Bloods’ culture, which is built on worship, but it’s entwined with politics and the court.
Everything here is divine.
How the bloody hell do you fight against something, if someone believes that they’re doing it in the name of their living god?
At the start of the Hunt, I called my ravens to me with a whistle to stop myself from running into the nearest twisted tree.
I raised my arms. “On the sacred ash, my ravens, be my sight and guides.”
Barnabas eyed me but didn’t say anything.
After a moment, my conspiracy of ravens flocked over the city walls like feathered shadows.
“The King of the Ravens greets you.” I grinned, happy with their companionship and flooded, as I always am around my ravens, with a sense of winter forests and a frozen court that is long lost. “Show me the safest route to the Void Pyramids, aye? And don’t let any bastard Bloods catch me.”
The ravens flew around me in circles, cawing their agreement.
I didn’t miss the way that Barnabas also snatched me by the elbow, stopping me from tumbling into ditches or tripping over rocks, however, when my raven honor guard flew too high.
He didn’t make any comment on it.
I knew that he was a good deer with a cute tail.
My nose scrunches up at the scent of Barnabas’ sweet blood, which means that every Shadow Vampire can smell him too.
But then, Nebet didn’t only take her ceremonial iron knife, which had a curved hilt like a crescent moon, and slice open Barnabas’ palm like she did me, before we were shoved out of the City Gates. Instead, she cruelly leaned down and slashed across his Achilles tendon.
The fanged bitch truly does want the rebel leader to either bleed out or be hunted as nothing but sport as an example.
This isn’t about being picked as a Blood Lover for either of us.
Barnabas’ ears pinned to his head in reaction to the pain. I was impressed, however, that he forced himself to straighten, glaring at her.
Shadows flowed around Barnabas’ antlers. “Good to know that I’m so dangerous, even as an Omega Shadow Human to a god, that you can’t make this a fair Hunt. You should fear my antlers. Kill me, but you’re only turning me into a myth. My people won’t forget me.”
“Stupid Hart.” Nebet drew her tongue along the blade, relishing the blood. “They already have.”
I listen for Barnabas, as he stumbles behind me.
His breathing is labored, but he hasn’t stopped for a break once.
He’d have made a brilliant featherglass. I can see how he became a rebel leader.
When Barnabas’ hand rests on my shoulder, I relax. “Nearly there, aye?”
“Where?”
“The Void Pyramids.” I nod toward the limestone silhouette of the three silent pyramids that dominate the countryside.
The giant flanks of the three pyramids catch the silver moonlight in fragments; they’re like the broken shards of a blade, sticking out of the stony plateau.
Their tips are striped with three glistening layers, gold and white, as if more important miniature pyramids sit on their shoulders.
The stars in the dome of the sky are brighter than normal like they are the Shadow Gods’ eyes, eagerly watching the Hunt.
Do they want to see Barnabas and me saved or savaged? Sent down to hell for our sins?
I have enough sins. I can never atone.
“What’s the plan?” Barnabas struggles to catch his breath. “We’ve laid false trails with our blood all over the valley. I saw you pressing your bloody palm to every rock we passed. But I’m still bleeding…”
“Here.” I spin him around, pushing him to the floor.
Then I raise his ankle, licking over the wound.
It needs to be bandaged. He will likely always limp. But this may at least slow the bleeding.
Then I drag off my tunic and start to rip it into narrow pieces.
“Now that we’ve misdirected those bastards…” I wrap a strip of my linen top over the wound on Barnabas’ ankle, tying it as tightly as I can. “It’s time to stop smelling like a feast.”
I lick over the shallow cut on my own palm, before starting to struggle to bind it.
“Give that here.” Barnabas scoots closer, taking the cloth from me and tying it more efficiently than I was expecting. I study his head, which is bowed over my hand. His red ears twitch. “All done. What next?”
I waggle my cut feet.
Barnabas hits me softly with his tail. “We’ve grown close, but I’m still not licking your feet.”
“Now I’m just disappointed.” Despite the fear coursing through me, I toss another couple of strips of linen at Barnabas.
He smirks, snatching them from me. I shiver, wrapping my wings around my naked body, as he smoothly moves to tie up my feet.
I won’t make this easy for the Bloods.
Barnabas rests his feet on my knee, and I bind up his sliced feet.
Then I jump up, offering my hand to Barnabas. “Look on the bright side, maybe a Blood will see our cunning and want to claim us.”
I’m not talking about Lanlin and me.
I’m not.
Aye, I’m full of bullshit.
Aurelius is flying here like a possessive idiot for my sake, which is not something that I expected.
Does it prove that Aurelius hasn’t betrayed us? Loves both Freya and me too?
But he won’t make it in time to save me.
Barnabas takes my hand, hopping up. “I bet that Nebet thought us bad boys would have our necks torn out already.”
“How pissed off do you think we can make her?”
“How about if we survive until morning?”
“What would she do then?”
Good point.
Barnabas cocks his head. “You heard the sighs of pleasure on the night air. The Hunt is meant to be ritual, when Bloods select the most beautiful Blood Lovers to join their nest. It’s only us troublemakers who are being hunted for real.
If they don’t catch us, then the cursed curs will probably set the local Shadow Humans on us. I am the infamous traitor and heretic.”
“Don’t you want to return to your people?”
Barnabas’ ears pin to his head. “I don’t have a people anymore.
I’m the fucking fool who thought that he could stand against his kingdom’s dark gods.
My own father disowned me. My village has exiled me.
I don’t… I have no home to return to. I burned it down, when I started my rebellion.
But I don’t fucking regret it. I may have failed but I failed as a free stag. ”
He pushes past me, running up the stony path.
My ravens circle in front of me, as I sprint to catch up with him.
My chest is tight. “You never intended to live through tonight, did you?”
Barnabas doesn’t look at me, as I run next to him. Our elbows brush.
“If I did,” Barnabas says, softly, “my village, father, sisters, and brothers who are Blood Lovers somewhere in this court would pay for it. I would bleed out for any of them. I was dead the moment that my uprising failed. It was just a matter of where and when.”
I twinge, as the pain from the iron poisoning claws up my shoulders and then up my throat.
“I understand.” My expression steels. “But we’re warriors and we’ll go down fighting, aye?”
Barnabas’ bright blue eyes glow in the dark, as he turns to me. “All I wanted was to show these fanged fucks that a Hart can still give them a proper chase.”
“You’ve done that.” I lay my hand on his shoulder. My eyes burn. “We won’t make this easy for the bastards. The pyramids only have one path up to them. It’s the most defensible place outside the gates for us to make a stand if a Blood finds us.”
Because they will.
There must be at least four hours left until dawn.
Barnabas nods. “Chase you to the top.”
“You’re on.”
He grins like we’re simply out having fun together.
I wish that I had met him anywhere but in the Blood Lover’s Guild.