Page 41 of Flirting with Darkness

We galloped hard through the morning. My horse, the one Vale had given me, was strong and fast. Farrow’s, however, was not used to running for so long and over such uneven terrain.

“Don’t slow for me,” Farrow called after me, and I let out a rough, wild laugh that I was grateful he didn’t hear. I never planned on slowing for him. I’d ride as fast as I could.

I felt like a fool.

A fool because I had spent all this time worried about the dangers my relationship with Vale would pose to me, my sister, my town. But it had never occurred to me thatIwould be dangerous tohim.

Thomassen had gone after Vale with several dozen men, Farrow had told me as we ran—young and strong ones. They’d brought weapons and explosives and fire. And they’d brought the most dangerous things of all: desperation and rage.

The acolytes believed that Vale was the reason for the curse. They convinced themselves that slaughtering him, offering his tainted blood to Vitarus, could end the plague. They convinced themselves that they could only save themselves, save their families, through this murder.

It didn’t matter that Vale had lived here far longer than the plague had. It didn’t matter that we had sacrificed to Vitarus many times before, and it hadn’t worked. It didn’t matter that they had no evidence that Vitarus even remembered us at all—even remembered he had damned us.

No, logic doesn’t matter in the face of fear and emotion. Logic falls to its knees before hatred, and hatred flourishes in fear—and my people were terrified.

I was terrified, too.

I knew Vale’s blood so intimately, now. I knew what it would look like spilled over the steps of his home, spattered over the faces of the people who came to kill him. I’d dissected many animals, many cadavers. I knew what Vale would look like with his guts pulled apart.

I raised my eyes to the sky. The sun was now high, beating down on my back and forehead through the tree leaves.

That, I did not know. What would happen to a vampire in daylight. I thought that after all I had seen, known things were the most terrifying. But this—this unknown—made me sick to my stomach.

I smelled the fire before I saw it. Burning flesh—in a plague, one recognizes that scent innately.

Finally, I saw the gates of Vale’s estate glint through the tree branches, open and gently-swaying in the breeze.

I kicked my horse and tore through it.

Behind me, Farrow shouted my name, and I ignored him.

Because before me, there was only blood.

17

Vale had fought them.

The house was bleeding. Blood dripped down the white stone face, pouring from a broken window on the second story, where a limp body hung draped over broken glass, a sword dangling from his motionless grip.

Blood painted the front steps of the entryway, smears of it, pools. Handprints on the door, on the handles. Strokes of it ran in rivulets down the pathway, collecting in the spaces between the brick pavers. It sank into the rose bushes. Into the grass.

Was it horrible that I wasn’t horrified? Was it horrible that I was relieved?

Because it was all red blood—human blood. Blood that belonged to the lifeless bodies strewn around the property. So many I couldn’t count them. A massacre had happened here.

Farrow had told me that Thomassen had come with two dozen men. Surely few of them remained.

Maybe Vale had escaped. Maybe he…

But then, as my horse slowed to a trot beyond the gates, I saw it: the black blood mixed in with all that red. Smears in the grass, along the path. More of it down the path to the back of the house.

Too much of it.

I kicked my horse and ran to the back of the house, ignoring Farrow’s calls after me.

And when I saw him, my heart sank and leapt at the same time.

For some reason, the phrase that flew through my mind was,Vale.

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