Page 76 of Guarded By the Nightmare

“At least Mina put out,” Logan said. “A lot. A-lot-a-lot. Can you imagine in the olden days? Having to keep your dicks out of the girls, for reals?”

Nolan rolled down the truck window to spit out of it, making Logan bark a complaint.

“Do not get that shit on my paint, man!”

“Yeah, but in the olden days, it would’ve been easy as shit to get a girl up here. No phones, no internet, no Me Too,” Braden said.

“That’s what my dad said,” I said. I’d asked him for the story again and again. I didn’t pretend to understand the magic that we were all in service to; all I knew was that I believed. So did my dad, my dad’s dad, and his dad before that. All we had to do was a little ceremony every few years, and make sure that anyone who got one of our tattoos always gave them back.

Logan hauled his truck around a turn, slamming us all into one another, and my phone buzzed as we triggered the same camera that Mina had. “She still up here?” Trent asked.

“Yeah. Get off me,” I said, shoving Nolan back.

“Why? Scared you might actually get some?” the much bigger man teased.

“Fuck you,” I muttered, as Logan parked the truck.

“Spread out, she’s somewhere nearby,” Trent hissed.

“Did she trigger any other cameras?” Braden asked.

“Not—” I began, but then my phone buzzed. “Far side of the cabin,” I said, scrolling quickly through the screen. “On the trail into the woods.”

Nolan laughed and started running in that direction. Trent was after him in a second, and I knew I needed to keep up for appearance’s sake.

While it wasn’t my fault personally that things’d fallen through with the blonde, my entire family knew I’d been part of the group that failed to keep the bargain for our line. We’d almost finished the entire ceremony before we were interrupted—which was the only reason it hadn’t blown back in our faces—but Mina’s arrival had fucked everything up. It was too late for her virgin friend, but because she was still alive, we didn’t get the same amount of juice out of her that other cohorts had from their sacrifices. She was still tied to us, but we’d missed the window to make the full offering—the ceremony demanded perfection, and without it, the power we drew from the ritual was weakened.

In fact, we were lucky we’d gotten any powers at all—hopefully the next cohort’s sacrifice would go better. Because without the full force of the ceremony, we were living on borrowed time. The powers we had now were just a fraction of what we should’ve gained—temporary, unstable, like a spark instead of a flame. If the next cohort’s sacrifice didn’t go perfectly, we risked losing everything we’d worked for, everything our families had sacrificed for generations. The ability to sway others, win money, make women want us who were far out of our league. I didn’t even want women—but the rest of it? Fuck, yeah.

I heard a howl from ahead, then another, and I knew that they were on her trail and were just messing with her now. We’d all been taking vacations up here since we were toddlers—she’d never had a chance.

Braden ran back to get me. “You’re doing this,” he said, as I heard Mina shriek.

“What?”

“Look, I’m your friend, and I’m telling you, this is happening. Otherwise—you want us to sacrifice you? Because we could—everyone knows you’re a virgin.”

“We’re not sacrificing her!” I sputtered.

“Yeah, this is just about getting even—but you’ve gotta get in there, champ. You have a legacy to protect. Go make your dad proud.”

“Which is exactly what I want to be thinking about when?—”

Braden grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “No one here is gonna suck your dick for you. Get hard and get in and prove you’re a man.”

“Fuck you, Braden,” I cursed. But I still ran forward, grabbing my dick with my hand.

“Sylas?”

I heard Mina’s voice from far, far away.

“Baby?”

I was exerting a great force on...myself, apparently, at this point, holding a man’s shattered head in my hands. Pieces ofsplintered skull were poking out between my fingers and a low ebb of blood was pulsing out of a hole in his neck.

“I’m pretty sure he’s dead, baby. Are you . . . okay?”

Her voice was small—not because of distance, but because she was falling into herself, and away from me, afraid of whatever it was that I’d learned.

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