Grace was busy trying not to get killed herself.
The stake descended.
And then Solange was suddenly there.
She dropped down from a tree so quickly the hunter must have thought she could fly. I barely saw her, just a wash of pale skin, a battle yell, and a frenzy of bats in the air. The hunter fell back just enough that I could break free of his boot. I yanked on his foot and he fell to one knee. I pushed up, coughing.
Solange was a good fighter, and stronger, but he’d had more years to practice. He wasn’t easy to best. I limped forward but I was too slow. He punched Solange with a fist the size of a bread box, as if he was a retired wrestler turned hunter. He got her in the cheek close enough that her fangs cut her lip open. Blood spattered like a fine mist. It hit the hunter in the left eye, over his nose, and across his mouth.
I saw the exact moment he tasted Solange’s blood on his tongue.
The moon was bright enough that she looked like pale porcelain, except for the veins prominent at her wrists and throat. The blue was like the center of a flame, like the sky before a storm. And I knew what he saw when he looked at that blue.
Hel-Blar.
His partners stirred, the unconscious woman sitting up blearily, the other man snapping his shoulder back into the right place. They saw Solange the same way. The woman shouted. The bearded hunter wiped his face and started at the blood on his fingertips for a moment. He reached for another stake, this one stainless steel and made with such lethal precision it would pierce flesh and slide through bone with little effort.
He didn’t aim it at Solange.
He just spat the blood out of his mouth and then stabbed himself with the stake, right in the heart.
Time slowed down. The other hunters froze, looking sad and furious.
But not surprised.
He gurgled and fell, making wheezing sounds of undiluted pain. He had just enough strength left to pull out the stake. Blood pooled out of the wound, stained his shirt, and dripped into grass. Solange turned away. The rest of us stared, unable to do anything else. He jerked once, his eyes rolling back in his head. The smell of his blood and sweat and fear was rancid in my nostrils. It galvanized me into action.
“We need something to press on the wound and stop the bleeding. He needs a hospit—”
He died before I could finish my sentence.
“He killed himself,” Solange croaked in disbelief. “He just … killed himself.”
“Better dead than undead,” the woman hunter said viciously, coldly. “He did right.”
Solange whirled, her eyes flaring, her fangs elongated. “I’m not Hel-Blar, you idiots.”
Grace stepped between them. “Don’t bother, princess.”
The male hunter’s gaze snapped on her. “Princess?” He reached for another stake.
“We’re losing her!” Logan yelled, lifting London into his arms. She was pale and limp, the wound in her shoulder blistering. “There’s no time for this!”
The hunters looked grim and exhausted and utterly unwilling to back down. Solange lifted her hand, and then brought it down again, pointing at them.
Bats dove out of the branches. They attacked the hunters, nipping at their eyes, but avoided the rest of us entirely. The hunters punched and swatted frantically but there were too many bats, too many teeth and leathery wings. The sound they made was unholy.
“Run,” Solange suggested darkly.
The hunters ran. Logan did the same, in the opposite direction, with London. Grace stood over the body of the dead hunter. He was human and didn’t conveniently blow away like vampire ashes did.
“Call Bruno,” I told her, jerking a hand through my hair. The bruises on my throat were already fading but my knee still throbbed. “He’ll know what to do, and if he doesn’t, Hart will.”
“I can’t leave Logan.”
“You don’t have to, he just left you.”
Grace hesitated. “Still, my orders …”
Solange put her hand on Grace’s arm. “Grace, look at me.”
She was going to use her pheromones and compel her. I shoved between them.
“Solange, no.” I glanced over my shoulder at Grace. “Just make the call. We’ll go with Logan.”
Then I pushed Solange into a run. We followed the trail of London’s blood until we caught up with Logan. London should be healing enough by now not to drip blood over the forest floor. She didn’t look right, too pale and too gray. I dialed Uncle Geoffrey’s cell phone as we paced like wolves between the pine trees. We’d be out of range soon, and we needed to know if we should take London to the farm or the camp. He wasn’t answering.
“Damn it,” I snapped. Both the caves and the royal courts had dodgy reception. We didn’t have the time to run around searching him out. London didn’t have the time.
“Call Mom,” I told Solange as I called Dad. No reply. Solange shook her head as well.
“Where the hell is everyone?” I tried Aunt Hyacinth on the off chance she actually bothered to answer her phone.
“Hello?”
“Thank God. Where’s Uncle Geoffrey?”
“He’s at the cam—” I hung up before she could finish. “Camp,” I said to Logan. We turned left at the river, ran at full speed for another ten minutes, then charged past the guards and the vampires milling about under the torchlight. We burst into the family tent, Logan carrying London’s arms and me holding up her legs.
Dad rose from his chair. “What—” He cut himself off. “Find Geoffrey,” he said to the courtier he’d been talking to. I recognized her from the royal caves.