CHAPTER 18
KADE
Two Hundred Years Ago — Goreon Kingdom
MY BOOT CROSSES the threshold into the Goreon dungeon, Riot beside me.
We move in deathly silence through the empty jail, our soft footfalls covered by the chaos above, the shredding screams and moaning, the crying and shouting. The talking.
We follow the sound of dreamwalking.
Riot and I lift an internal door off its hinges, and the legion snakes up the stairwell.
I signal for everyone to halt and edge around the corner, peering down a gilded hallway lit with torches, gold glinting in the light of fire.
The wealth in just this hallway is astounding.
And it’s the starving children and desperate parents outside these walls who paid for it.
I shift into the empty hall, Hunters filing out of the stairwell behind me.
This is where we part ways and fan out into the castle in our predetermined groups.
Our advantage of surprise only works well if we attack and kill as many as possible in the first fucking go, hitting as wide and as fast as we can.
We gave ourselves five minutes to identify our initial targets.
“See you on the other side,” Uncle Brachett whispers, and then he, Longton, and Ned take off in opposite directions with their men.
Reaching my magic out, I try to connect to Sam.
Nothing.
Fuck.
I join my small team, which is purposefully my closest Hunter family, toward the stairwell at the end of the gilded hall. I wouldn’t be able to focus if any of them were out of my sight. Master Hull and Grace lead the way, Riot and I in the center, and Rhett behind us.
My father told me bedtime stories that included the anatomy of this castle, writing the skeleton of its rooms into my memory before I ever knew the importance of it.
We climb to the second floor, up a carpeted stairwell as wide as the streets in the city. Paintings hang along the walls: portraits of royals, depictions of infamous drainings, and the brutality that led to the Goreon empire—all on display.
We’re halfway up the stairwell when a vampire snaps into existence in front of Grace, screaming, its fangs bared and eyes vacant, and my soul leaves me.
Riot’s and my magic whips into a frenzy, gold splashing and sloshing.
Grace slashes her blades through the vampire’s neck without hesitation, and the head topples down the stairs. Her reaction time is like nothing I’ve ever seen from her.
Trust the talent you know she has, damnit. Calm the fuck down.
“Too close,” Riot whispers beside me, and I glance over at him, knowing my face is as white as it feels.
“Settle down, boys. We’re just getting started,” Grace chirps, not bothering to look back and climbs the stairs two at a time, ready and eager.
Her confidence wraps around me, and I let it, desperate to calm my racing heart. Grace has always been this way. Independent, fierce, and unpredictable.
“Yes, ma’am,” Riot says. There’s no sarcasm in his tone, and I feel his magic settle at his Heir’s words.
“Two more minutes,” I whisper as we head down a hallway, and I pick the lock into the first door. Peering around its edge, I find vampires dressed in their finest, passed out on a bed together.
I guess they partied before taking the serum.
Ducking back into the hallway, I count twenty doors behind our party and say, “Bedrooms. Clear a room and keep moving to the next until we execute the entire wing.”
We each choose a door and enter on my signal.
Six unconscious vampires are littered about on plush furniture, and one shifts at the sound of the door closing, a moan escaping its mouth.
I creep silently across the room and shove a stake through its heart.
It gurgles and jerks, eyes trying to pop open, but the serum holds them shut, and a tear slips down its cheek.
I stake the remaining five in seconds and dip back into the hallway, Riot coming out of his room beside me.
Grace is already darting through her next chosen door.
“She’s winning,” Riot whines and races to his next target.
Gods, I love my people.
I enter another bedroom, freezing in disgust. Two unconscious humans are chained to the wall with ports jammed into their thighs, a slow drip of blood falling from the attached tubes.
I cross the room and kneel before them, hand skirting to the woman’s neck and then the other.
No pulses.
I turn, rage simmering. Why even bother with the port if they’re going to drain them anyway? I guess the blood lasts longer through the port than a single-serving bite.
Anger fueling every step, I race to the lounge on the far side of the bedroom, stabbing the five vampires draped over furniture, wishing it hurt with the same pain and fear that ran through the tortured humans chained in this room.
I tamp down my desire to inflict what these vampires truly deserve because that would require much more time and consciousness.
Master Hull emerges into the hallway as I do, and we run to the end of the corridor, taking the last three rooms. I sense Rhett’s magic at the door on my left, so I open the one on the right.
The dreamwalker’s face swivels to the open door I’m standing in, eyes vacant.
“Glad you’re home, darling,” it says to me. “I’ve missed you terribly. Where have you been?”
Its face blanches even more than it already has, and I haven’t moved an inch.
“You’re turned!” it screams at me, backing away and running into the wall behind it. “My love, how?” it asks, fear and sadness lacing its tone while it scrambles to the side and stumbles over a chair.
I step into the bedroom and close the door.
“Get away from me. Don’t do this. Please, honey, it’s me,” it begs no one.
The dreamwalker pulls at my empathy, but I shove the emotion back down. There’s no mercy tonight, or ever. Once turned, I can’t think about the human life they led—that person died, and a threat was born.
I approach the vampire, its fangs popping, and a snarl rips from its throat, sensing a Hunter threat.
“I don’t want to be a vampire. Please, just leave, I beg you! If you ever loved me—”
I raise my crossbow and fire a stake through its heart.
“Wish granted,” I whisper. “Rest now.”
I stake the remaining four and rejoin my warriors.
“All clear,” Riot says, grinning through blood spatter.
“Got a bit messy with it, did you?” Rhett jests.
Riot shrugs. “Had an aggressive dreamwalker. Fucker was strong.”
Grace taps his crossbow. “You know you can use that.”
Rhett’s shoulders bounce beside her, and Riot wipes his brow with his sleeve. “I needed to warm up; the exercise felt great.”
“Gods bless, you obnoxious beast,” Grace says, eyes rolling along with everyone else’s.
“Let’s move to the next hall,” I say, and we plow through the double doors and into the wing beyond.
I’m thrilled we took down so many in minutes—this is exactly what we needed. I reach out to Sam again, and the smallest blip splashes back at me, like he’s barely conscious, but it’s all I need.
“Sam is in the throne room,” I say to our party.
Grace and Master whip around with hopeful faces.
“His status?” Master asks.
I shake my head. “Not good. Barely conscious.”
He nods. “Let’s get a move on it, then.”
I feel Longton and Brachett above us, their magic whirring. They’re fighting hard, overrun with enemy targets and pushing their bodies.
“Stress above. Let’s clear this wing quickly and go help,” I say, loading my crossbow as my people sprint into action.
We fly in and out of the next wing of rooms and soon put another thirty down.
Our scouting over the years determined there are at least two hundred permanent residents within the castle. And any number could be visiting or staying, especially on a night like tonight. But that’s another perk: the opportunity to eradicate a larger population in a single night.
We spiral up the next stairwell, following the screaming and yelling, and jump into chaos. Slain headless vampires lay trampled on the ground, and blades flash throughout the hall as twelve Hunters take on the fifty dreamwalkers still standing.
Grace barrels past me and charges into the fray.
This woman.
I fire two bolts before reloading and strapping the crossbow to my back in favor of my blades.
My form hardens and my mind hones, and I’m whirling through the hall, my speed untraceable as I slash through one neck and then another.
I throw a blade in the air to free a hand and plunge a bolt from my belt into the heart of the vampire charging me from my right.
Catching my blade, I swing at the moaning dreamwalker in front of me, taking its head clean off.
My movements are a blur as instinct and training take over. I stake the next on my left and punch another to my right, sending it stumbling before I rip wood from the flesh of the crumpling vampire and plunge it into the heart of the next.
My magic screams in alarm, gold curdling, and I whip around.
Master Hull is moving like he’s seen thirty fewer years, his magic pushing him to unnatural limits, and I watch him step in front of a sword aimed for Grace’s back. He takes the blade in his shoulder.
Grace spins, her face plastered with shock as the vampire lunges for her father. Before either of them can react, it sinks its fangs into Master’s neck.
Something dark and vicious pierces Grace’s eyes as she jams a bolt into the vampire’s back, and its fangs uproot from her father’s skin.
I slash through two vampires approaching me, fighting toward the other end of the hall to get to them. Eyes pinned on my family, I watch Master Hull shove the vampire off, and it flounders and tries to crawl away, but Grace strikes her sword down hard, severing its head.
“I’m fine!” Hull shouts and shoos Grace away, but she doesn’t leave his side, inspecting her father’s wounds.
Her jaw clenches, and I can see the worry in her eyes.
She’s not overreacting. I feel Master’s magic draining.
He’s not fine.
Grace unleashes her anger, jumping up to defend her father. She’s the embodiment of fury and love, blades slashing as she dances from one vampire to the next, her speed and dexterity mesmerizing, a bird flitting and swooping, uncatchable—and killing everything in its path.
I’ve never seen something so beautiful and brutal entwine in a single moment.
She’s trying to end this so we can tend to her father, and I join her.
We work each end of the hall, killing our way toward one another.
A vampire snaps to my side, and I take the hilt of its sword in my mouth before I can react. My head jolts back, and I touch my tongue to my tooth.
Chipped. Fantastic.
Slicing the offending vampire’s head off, I refocus down the hall toward Grace.
Dim candlelight dances, steel glints, and blood sprays as an evening storm brews outside, my magic sensing the shift in temperature against my skin as wind sweeps through an open window.
Lightning strikes, and the hall illuminates, the red paint of death streaking walls and sloshing under boots.
Hunters slash and stab, fierce painted warriors deliver death until only one dreamwalker remains.
My stake pierces its heart as Grace rakes her gaze over me.
“We’re good at this,” she says before running for her father.
Obviously.
I chase after her, crouching beside Master Hull.
He’s not in good shape, and I need the heroics to end before we’re making another funeral procession to Mortifer.
“Time for you to leave,” I tell him.
He glares at me, slapping a cloth over his wound. “Tie my belt around it, Captain, and get me the fuck up.”
Unfortunately, the Hunter chain of command leaves only two people above me: Grace, and this stubborn man.
I whip his belt off and cinch it under his armpit. “Not much of a patch job,” I mutter.
My magic agrees with me; his wound is deep, and his pain is equally terrible.
I reach out to sense the Hunters. No one else is injured, and I exhale in relief.
Uncle Brachett barrels toward us, eyeing his Master.
“The throne room,” I tell Brachett, standing and pulling Master up with me. “That’s where they’re holding Sam.”
“Aye,” he says, breathing heavily.
I’m fondling the new chip in my tooth again when Riot’s face scrunches at me. “What are you doing?”
“Fucker got me in the mouth. Chipped my damn tooth.”
Grace rolls her eyes. “You’re beautiful; it just makes you more rugged,” she tells me, and I flash her a winning, bloody smile. “See? Way more handsome,” she encourages.
I huff at my wife and survey the hall.
Blood-covered warriors grin back at me.
“To the throne room, Hunters!” I call and lead the way, eager to get to my brother-in-law and get him the hell out of here.
We weave through halls and descend to the ground floor toward the main entrance of the stronghold.
My magic simmers, celebrating as we gain ground on Sam. The feeling is mutual.
We take down the enemy in our path, hallway after hallway of dreamwalkers, like the king knew we were coming and invited all of Goreon’s vampires to defend what’s theirs during the full moon. Plowing through the antechamber, we burst through the throne room doors—
Holy gods.