Page 1 of The Vipers and Their Vendetta

CHAPTER 1

Vani

Pain ripsthrough me as the man carrying me jolts my body with every step through the woods.

My left side is an inferno of agony, and my head feels as if tiny elves are hammering at my skull with mini pickaxes. The pain is the only thing preventing me from sliding back into unconsciousness.

“Help!” I try to cry, but it comes out as a strangled whisper.

A low grumble comes from above me. “Iamhelping.”

I want to struggle, to fight against the arms pinning me to his chest, but I don’t seem to have it in me. My brain refuses to communicate with my muscles enough to allow me to break free.

Where is he taking me?

Home. He’d said home. But what did that even mean? His home or mine?

The night is quiet except for the occasional, chilling screech of a fox. A sliver of moonlight peers from around a cloud, and, groggily, I lift my head from the man’s shoulder and lean back in my captor’s arms to try to see him.

He is tall and broad and seems to carry me with ease. I feel from his build, however, that he’s not as big as Zane. I wish Icould see who it is, but not only is it dark, his face is partially obscured by a hood.

All that’s visible is a heavy brow and the blade of his nose.

“Who are you?” I manage to croak. “What do you want from me?”

He doesn’t reply.

It’s too much effort to hold my head up, so I let it drop back against his shoulder as he carries me God knows where. My heart is pounding, but I’m too injured, stunned, and weak to fight. Depending on how bad my injuries are, he could have killed me by picking me up. That alone tells me this person is crazy. I wonder if he’s even part of the college. It would be just my luck to have been out in the woods at the same time as a serial killer.

Just like in the moments before I crashed my bike, the faces of everyone I’ve loved flip through my mind. I think of how broken my father will be if I go missing. He’ll never forgive himself and, knowing him, will spend the rest of his life blaming himself.

Why did I try to ride out at that time of night, and in these conditions?

It was the wrong thing to do.

Where the hell did I think I was going? Home? Tail between my legs?

No, that’s not me. I can’t go back, as tempting as it is. I still need to find out exactly what happened to my sister. In fact, the more I think about this, the more I realize I want to find out exactly which one of the Vipers caused her death. Then I want to make them pay.

I’d laugh if I wasn’t so fucking terrified and in pain. Here I am plotting my revenge on the Vipers, when I’m half unconscious and being carried through the woods by a crazy man. I’m probably going to be dead and buried by tomorrow.

Will they miss me? My broken, dark men. Will they care? Have they even noticed I’m gone?

I doubt it, if the twins’ only thought at Reagan’s awful death was for their stupid car.

I’m unsure what distance I traveled on my bike. I’d been lost in a whirlwind of grief and rage, and I hadn’t been paying attention. Plus, I don’t know these roads. Other than the day I arrived, when I’d been safely following the rest of the club on their bikes, I hadn’t ridden that route. It’s also dark, which makes everything harder to distinguish. Things that might look familiar in the day take on a whole other form at night.

At the thought of my bike, I flail weakly over the strange man’s shoulder as though hoping to somehow reach it, even though we’ve left it far behind now. I hate to think of my poor abandoned Harley. I hope the damage isn’t too bad.

Fuck, my dad is going to kill me. I’ve really made a mess of my bike. It’s worth a fucking fortune.

“My bike…” I manage to groan. The words sound stronger in my head than they do coming from my lips. It’s barely a murmur I doubt anyone can understand.

Tears slip down my cheeks. I feel utterly helpless. My dad is going to be so fucking angry—not only because the bike is damaged and I got hurt, but because I rode out on strange roads, in the dark, on my own.

He’d taught me better than that.

And now look at me, bouncing along on the shoulder of a complete stranger who seems to think it’s okay to scoop up injured women from the road and carry them home.

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