“Anyone know what’s going on?” I asked Hunter, Kieran, and Chloe. They all shook their heads, as confused as I was. When Liam and Hart walked away, we followed. They led us to a pile of boulders on the edge of the battleground. Bruno and his men had Hope handcuffed and her guards tied up on the ground. Hart motioned to a woman with a small camera. She switched it on to record and aimed it at Hope.
“Okay, that’s weird,” I whispered. “I mean weirder than usual. Right?”
“Hope,” Liam said, his pupils dilating dangerously. Hope shrank back from the compulsion cast by his pheromones but she had nowhere to go. Bruno held her in place. “Do you have anything to confess?”
She opened her mouth, then snapped it shut. It opened again, as if she couldn’t help herself. Her eyes rolled in her head like a wild, panicked horse. “I, Hope MacAllister, confess to killing Roarke Black. I also organized the kidnapping of Kieran Black and Lucy Hamilton. I confess to other kidnappings and forcible confinement and the draining of blood from several victims taken from Violet Hill, attributed to the Dracula Killer.” Sweat beaded on her upper lip. She shook her head desperately. “No,” she moaned.
The woman switched the camera off. Liam approached Hope, pulling paper and a pen out of the inside pocket of his coat. We blinked at him. I, for one, had expected a sword or at the very least a Taser. I’d lend him mine. “Sign here.” He pointed at the document.
She struggled, sweat now rolling off the side of her neck. “What is that?”
“Signed confession.”
“No,” she moaned again. “What did you do to me?”
Liam leaned in very close. I didn’t see the change in his expression but I saw the fear suddenly shooting off Hope. “Sign here or I will remember in very great detail how it felt to know that you had my son kidnapped and tortured while trying to frame my daughter. Not to mention the innocent humans you’ve killed, and your treatment of Lucy Hamilton, who is under our protection.”
“You won’t kill me.” Hope swallowed. “Not the peaceful Liam Drake.”
“No, “ he admitted with a sudden smile that made her flinch. “But I will turn you into a vampire.”
She went gray, then green. She grabbed for the pen, awkwardly signing the confession with bound hands.
“Remember what I said, Hope,” Liam added silkily, before stepping away. “You’ll be tagged, just like my son was. I will always be able to find you. You’ll only be safe in prison. Am I clear?”
Fear made her gag on whatever else she’d been about to say.
Hart gestured for his men to take her away.
“Isabeau worked a truth spell on her,” Liam told us with a brief smile. “Now go home, all of you. Hart has a van waiting on the road, if you think you can walk that far. Or we can find a tent for you for a few hours.”
“I just want to go home.” Chloe shivered.
I glanced at the torn-up field and the burning ropes swinging from the trees.
“Me too.”
Chapter 45
Solange
Monday evening
The snow all around the decimated camp was clogged with ashes and blood. I barely had time to register the aftermath of broken tent poles, scorched trees, and discarded vampire clothing before my brothers and I were hurried away. Some of the surviving vampires were wandering out of the tents over the underground bunkers and the rest followed the tunnels out to safer ground. The caves would be full with the overflow tonight.
The stunned silence had a texture, like lace curtains muffling all sound. Hart had managed to keep the League occupied over the course of the day, but only barely. We had a couple of hours, at most, to abandon the Blood Moon before other Huntsmen and hunters came to finish the job. Not to mention the Hel-Blar, who’d return for the carrion feast.
It was two days before I had a chance to leave the farm. I spent the first night listening to my parents planning around the kitchen table as the dogs snored at their feet, only waking long enough to bark at the vampires Mom trusted enough to allow on the farm. Hart would drop by later when he’d dealt with his own League fallout. Dad suggested biannual council meetings until we figured out the best way to run the new political system. Even after Hope’s infiltration, most of us wanted to try to make the council work. Or maybe, because of her attack. It had reminded even solitary vampires that they couldn’t stand alone anymore. Not all the time.
The Raktapa Council families and a few others temporarily pitched their tents over one of the tunnel entrances at the edge of the property, under the shadow of the mountains. The Host were locked up in the dungeons Hope had created. Nicholas removed all the torture devices himself the very first night after the battle. He incinerated them and then refused to speak of it again. Hart was going to have the hunters who’d worked with Hope on the kidnappings brought up on aiding and abetting charges.
I called Lucy again, but her roommate said she was still sleeping. I wandered into the living room. The moon was waning, pouring faint light over the snow and glittering on the frost nibbling at the windows. Lalita, one of the many Amrita daughters, was curled up on the velvet couch while our parents talked. She looked up from fiddling with her phone and smiled at me, her fangs dimpling her lower lip. Her eyes were the green of the mint tea Aunt Hyacinth told me she drank once in Marrakesh.
“Hi,” I said politely. I’d been relegated to hostess duties, which I considered penance. And vaguely ironic, since people were still too scared to be rude to me in my parents’ house. “Can I get you anything?” I couldn’t remember if the Amrita family drank human blood or animal blood.