Page 4 of A Dawn Of Blood

I nod. I don’t think there’s any chance those guards will let Lorcan and Raven proceed sneaking into the town, so despite the worry gnawing at me, I don’t linger. I keep moving, rushing up the basement steps and through the winding corridors, past rows of deserted cell-like rooms and a huge, echoing chapel.

The plan is to get out of the monastery and find my way to our meeting spot, the second of the two entrances into town that Raven found using her powers. And the quicker I do it, the better.

Still, the moment I step into the entrance hall, I force myself to slow down. The last thing I need right now is to draw attention by running out of an abandoned building in an unfamiliar town.

But when I push the old wooden door open and walk outside, I immediately come to a stop, my eyebrows pulling down.

Itisalmost midnight, but it’s a town square I have in front of me, and there’s literally no one here except for me.

“This isnotgood,” my wolf states the obvious.

Frowning, I start moving away from the monastery and past one of the many half-timbered houses, looking up to try to gauge from the windows whether this entire town is deserted.

“Someone’s coming,” my wolf warns me. “Vampires.”

But I only manage to turn to my left before I see two guards — one tall and one short, both muscled — come out of an alley, their eyes fixing on me.

Damn it.

Slowly, I move to change direction.

“Hey, you,” one of them yells out.

So as not to raise suspicion, I stop, but I pull my hood down.

They come to stand in front of me. “What are you doing out?” the tall one demands.

It makes my eyebrows shoot up for a second, when I realize they don’t recognize me. My eyes dart to all the dust on my clothes from climbing through the trap door. “I fell,” I reply readily.

The short one squints at me. “What are you?”

I point at my Runes. “A fae.”

“She’s a weird one,” the short one leans to whisper to the tall one.

Do they really not recognize me?

The tall one keeps staring at me. “Prove it,” he barks out.

They really don’t know who I am. Fighting a smile, I use my Runes to shoot a small flame out of my fingers.

“Where’s your badge?” the short one asks, suspicion in his eyes.

What the… I’ve no idea what he’s talking about, but something tells me admitting that would only get me in trouble. “I lost it when I fell,” I lie.

The short one rolls his eyes. “In the name of the Holy Blood,” he drawls, then motions for me to follow. “Let’s go.”

Lorcan and Raven on my mind, I find myself hesitating.

The tall one grabs me by the upper arm. “Move it, woman, you’re going to be late.”

I frown. The whole situation is confusing to say the least, but they’re already dragging me down the square and I don’t think this would be a good moment to turn hostile.

I need to learn more first. I need to get out of this situation, find my way to our meeting point and get all three of us the hell out of this weird town.

But when the guards drag me all the way to the other end of the square, to the vampiric church perched there and then straight inside, it’s all I can do not to squirm with how unsettled the sight makes me.

Thisis where everyone is hiding. The Gothic interior is enormous, silent and dimly lit, but it’s crammed with people, all seemingly waiting for the service to begin.

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