The scent of her blood still clung to the back of my throat as I stepped into the trees. Sweet and sharp. Like rose petals scattered on steel. I could feel it curling through me, taunting my restraint and scratching at the fragile edges of my control.
It had taken too much of my energy reserves to throw myself through the town to where Elias remains lay. Even more of drain to reach the girl before the damned dog ate her.
As a result, my body felt numb, my skin cold as ice, and my thoughts dulled.
I moved through the woods, not running, but slow. Conserving my energies. I needed to feed, and all I could think of was the scent of her blood.
The others were waiting for me.
I found them where the forest thickened near the ridge, shadows coiled around them like lovers. Mirelle stood tall, statuesque as ever, one pale hand clamped tight around Alec's shoulder. He trembled beneath her grip, not from fear, but rage. Hunger. Frustration.
"I said no." Mirelle's voice was cold steel, unbent and unbroken.
"She was right there," Alec snarled. His eyes glowed in the moonlight, crimson around the edges, and his fangs were out. He'd let too much of the hunter within to the surface. "Don't tell me you didn't smell her. That blood…"
"I did," Mirelle said softly. Her hand tightened. "And I'm still standing here, aren't I?"
As I stepped into view, Mirelle's head turned, lips parting slightly as she caught the scent still clinging to me.
"You were closer," she said, eyes narrowing. "You touched her. I can smell her on your skin."
"She was attacked. A dog." I lifted my shoulders in a shrug. "She was bleeding."
Alec's mouth twisted. "You touched her? You let her blood touch your skin and you didn't take a drop?"
I said nothing.
He lunged.
Or tried to at least.
Mirelle moved like a striking snake. She caught him mid-motion, twisting his arm behind his back and forcing him to his knees. He let out a snarl of pain and fury, but she didn't flinch.
"She is not for feeding," she hissed into his ear.
I didn't resist my urge to sneer as I looked down upon him.
This is what we were. At our basic level.
Predators.
A scent of blood when we hungered could drive us into a frenzy. It's why so many of our kind died young, unable to control ourselves around the human cattle. And when one came upon a scent so laced with intoxicating power like the girls, then even a hundred-and sixty-year-old vampire could struggle.
Though, to be fair, Alec had never had much self-control at the best of times.
"We need her, brother," I reminded him. "She dies, and he is released. That would be bad for all of us."
"Bad," Mirelle spat. "It would be our end. You think he would have forgiven our betrayal after almost a hundred and fifty years buried beneath the ground."
"Your betrayal!" Alec snarled. "I had no hand in it!"
Which was true. He'd had barely a decade of life as a vampire, the youngest of our siblings and firmly in thrall of our maker. It was only our bond of blood that had stayed our hands and let him live after.
Now… well, he was family.
"Let him up," I ordered Mirelle. She pouted but did as commanded, though with reluctance.
Standing, she brushed off the silver dress and muttered something about the state of her shoes before stepping back, away from Alec, who pushed himself up with a snarl. He matched my stare with one of his own, and I smiled.
"You're only a few decades older," he spat. "I could take you."
"Try."
Mirelle rolled her eyes and threw up her hands. "Boys! Enough now. We have bigger issues to argue about."
Which was true enough. I heaved a sigh.
My hunger was making me reckless.
"I need to feed," I said, glancing at the night sky. "There's little enough time before dawn."
"Use Tomas."
My lips twisted at the thought of that, and she saw. Then laughed.
"Is it because he's a man?" she asked coyly. "Some latent homophobia from that catholic upbringing of yours?"
"I dislike him," I said, refusing to be baited. "No. I disliked him before you turned him into your docile pet. Now I despise what he has become."
"Pish." Mirelle waved a hand. "He has his uses."
We walked back to the house in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts. Alec remained surly, but alert. Whoever had killed Elias was still out there and while I felt confident, they would not attack the three of us together, Elias had been centuries older and much stronger than any of us.
For someone to have killed him suggested they had power of their own, possibly enough to let them attack the three of us.
I paused at the door as the others went inside and surveyed the silent streets of the small town. There was no movement other than a cat that dashed across the road on its nightly adventures. The town slept.
Back inside, I took my seat beside the fire and brooded as I watched the flames dance. Alec paced; inactivity was something he had never enjoyed. He always needed to be moving, to be doing… something.
Mirelle sat on her velvet couch, her lips pressed to the neck of Tomas as she drank of his blood. When she was done, she looked up, the blood forming rivulets down her chin. She crooked a finger at me, and with a frown, I rose from my seat.
Tomas smiled as I approached and held out his arm. I snarled at him, baring my fangs until he looked away, and only then did I sit beside my sister.
"Drink, brother," she cooed. "You need your strength."
My fingers curled tightly around Tomas's forearm. His pulse fluttered beneath his skin, quick with anticipation or fear.
I didn't care which.
I lowered my mouth, the scent of fresh blood rising to meet me, coppery and warm, laced with the faintest hint of his last meal. My fangs slid free with a whisper of movement, and I sank them into his flesh.
The skin parted with ease.
Blood spilled into my mouth, hot and heady. It carried the taste of life-salt and spice, sweat and fear, the sweetness of youth and the dull tang of resignation. I drank deeply, the warmth flooding through me like fire through frozen veins, chasing away the fatigue that had been dragging at my bones.
Tomas stiffened, a strangled gasp escaping his lips, and I tightened my grip to keep him still. Mirelle purred her approval beside me, watching with eyes that gleamed like cut garnet in the low light.
Each pull of blood stoked the hunger inside of me further, but I reined it in, forced myself to stop before it became too much.
I was not Alec. I would not lose myself to the thirst.
When I pulled back, I licked the wound clean with a lazy swipe of my tongue.
Tomas swayed, dazed, a faint smile curving his lips. He wouldn't remember the pain, only the pleasure.
I let go of his arm and leaned back, wiping a smear of blood from my mouth with the back of my hand.
Mirelle chuckled. "Better?"
I ignored her and instead rose and stalked silently back to my chair before the fire. She patted Tomas on the shoulder and instructed him to leave to tend to the bites, then settled back on the couch, watching me.
Her scent still haunted me. It was everything I could do not to rush back to the inn and take her for my own. To sink my fangs into her neck. To drain her dry.
A shiver ran through me.
There was no greater joy than feeling the heartbeat start to slow as you drank down their lifeblood, to feel their struggles weaken, their eyes start to close, their life to fade.
It was a sublime joy that made our race true monsters.
But for her… that thought did not bring the same feeling as it should have. That familiar anticipation. That aching need inside of me.
It was blunted. Dull.
Replaced by something else, something I had not felt for a very long time.
"A penny for your thoughts, brother," Mirelle said.
I looked her way. "Elias is dead. This concerns me."
"As it should," she agreed, though her tone suggested she knew I was lying.
"We have enemies," Alec added, stopping his pacing long enough to look at us both.
"Why would they come for him now?" Mirelle scoffed. "Unless it is connected to the girl in some way."
It all came back to her.
The rituals and wards binding him below the earth, were also bound to the cottage, as much as to her bloodline. Ownership gave dominion over the land, and so, whoever owned the cottage, could perform the ritual to release, or bind him tighter.
Who, then, of our enemies, would have a desire to do either?
"We should call, Mara," Mirelle suggested. "She was supposed to be coming with Elias."
"You think she killed him?" I cocked a brow her way at that. It was laughable. Of all of us, Mara had been the closest to Elias. She'd even liked him, for some unfathomable reason, which was more that could be said for the rest of us. "I don't see it."
"No," Mirelle agreed. "She wouldn't, but she should have been with him."
"You think she's been taken?"
A shrug from Mirelle, and silence from Alec. Neither wanted to believe that to be the case as that would only make things harder for us.
"Keep trying to call her then," I snapped. "You do not need my permission to do so."
"I wasn't asking!"
I ignored that and went back to my brooding.
Someone had made a move against us. That hadn't happened in almost sixty years. There were few families that would have the strength and none of them would have any desire to stop us redoing the binding.
Which left the humans.
But that made no sense, as they would have even less reason to want that monster released.
"One thing concerns me," I said, voice soft as I grasped at a thought that threatened to vanish like mist.
"What is that?" Mirelle asked sulkily.
"Why is she alone?"
"Who, the girl?"
"Yes."
I turned, then, to look at my sister. She stared back, and I saw the realisation dawn in her eyes.
"There's a fellow I know," she said. "I can have him look into it."
"He's fast?"
Mirelle nodded. "And good. He's done work for me before."
That would have to be enough.
"There's not much time. We need her to be ready and from what I can glean, she knows nothing."
"What do you propose?"
"We watch, and wait," I said, tapping thoughtfully at my chin. "For the moment. The clues are contained in the cottage. She just has to find them."
And stay alive long enough to do so.
Which meant our main role, would be to ensure that she could do that.