Page 1 of Until the Heart Stops
Chapter 1
The first gift arrived the day after solstice.
Adrienne and Liam, my two blood givers, had just settled into their parlors for the evening. The Souzterain bustled with activity—shoppers moving from one stall to another, the murmur of voices a hum on the winter wind. Oil lamps swung from their perches, candles flickered.
Then everything went dark.
Only for barely more than a second, but the blood in my veins roared with the beating of my heart. No doubt in time with those around me. Everyone in the Souzterain knew what the signal meant. Across the way, Monsieur Dubois regarded me with wide, terrified eyes.
“They’re coming, Lilith,” he rasped, lifting a trembling hand toward the curtain behind me. “Get inside.”
I took a step back, pulling my dagger from the inside of my bodice and dragging the blade across my hand. “You as well, Monsieur. Perhaps they’re not here for us.”
But the words were nothing but a fairytale and we both knew it. The soldiers flooding the mouth of the alley in thedistance were either here for him or for me, as we were the only ones who remained of the original blood dens. The velvet curtain flared as I took a step back, blood splattering onto the wooden frame. Magic hummed in the air, sealing up the entrance save for a small sliver of space through the fabric.
“Lilith what?—”
I shushed Adrienne, raising my bloody hand to stop my best friend’s approach. The Covenant’s soldiers were not hard to spot, different as they were to the usual patrol of Vyenur Demon hunters who kept our streets safe from the venefica—monstrous creatures with venom deadly enough to kill any supernatural and an appetite to consume anything in their path. No, these soldiers uniforms bore the red sigil on their chest marking them as traitors to their own kind.
“Merciful goddess,” Liam cursed, appearing from his parlor.
I hummed my agreement as they approached Monsieur Dubois’ storefront, shame crawling in my gut at the relief I felt that they were not approaching us. It was difficult to tell what the soldiers were from this distance. If they were Lycans or Vyenur Demons, or perhaps a mix of both. But whatever they were, they were ruthless as they dove into the blood den, snarling like a pack of venefica.
One of the males stopped in the center of the alley, his voice booming off the stones. “By the order of the Covenant, anyone found within the premises of a blood den, whether to provide or take from a living source, shall be put to death in the manner of their heritage.”
When the male turned slowly, I caught sight of the white scar across his cheek—the demon sigil marking him as a Vyenur. From the weapons adorning his baldric andthe epaulettes on his shoulders, it was clear he was high ranking in the Covenant’s army.
A cry pierced the night, followed by another. Screams filtered from the den until I had the urge to cover my ears. The Vyenur rested his forearm on the hilt of his sword, thin lips stretched back in a grin as his fellows dragged Monsieur Dubious out by his long black hair. But for all his terror, he did not scream.
“This man has been found guilty of providing sustenance from a living source to the great immortals of this city and therefore corrupting their better senses and ancient bloodlines.” The male made a wide sweeping gesture behind him. “Those within his blood den and control have been sent to death with a mercy they did not deserve.”
Renewed screams of agony rent the air. A muffled begging before the words became garbled, as if they were choking on their own blood. The Vyenur lifted his hand to his heart, then his lips.
“Keryes takes these offerings with gratitude, as death comes for us all.”
I held back my scoff. Vyenurs worshipped Keryes, the god of death, above all others but this bastardization of their belief was blasphemy to those who truly served him. If Noah, the Vyenur Adrienne and I lived with and who rounded out our close friend group, had been here tonight, he would have spat in this male’s face. But I thanked the goddess he was not.
Just as I was relieved my mother was not either. Though the raids had begun before I was born, in the last year they had only gotten worse. Risqeu lan Serang had been in my family for generations, providing the blood of a living source to immortals far before when the Covenant came into power. Back then, we’d had a stallon the Rachay River, beautiful twinkling lights overlooking the water—or so my grandmère had told me. But with the rise of the Covenant we’d been forced into hiding, alongside the apothecaries and other blood den owners.
By the time my mother had died last year, vampires had been forbidden to drink from a living source for almost a century. Apothecaries and talisman suppliers had also been prohibited for far longer. From what I understood, the first prohibitions had started five centuries before, when the Covenant came into power. First there were simple rules, restrictions on the types of potions an apothecary might supply. There was research into humans and their abilities—how they could channel their magic through various objects and talismans, as well as how our magic was slowly dying. The Covenant’s control strengthened so slowly it was too late before anyone realized what was happening.
We lived beneath the boot of the Covenant, the heel pressed down on our throats. And the most ironic part of all? The very beings they had risen to power to protect were now controlled and corrupted just like the rest of us.
All for the sake ofsafety. All for the sake of control.
The Souzterain had been born from necessity, this alley chosen for its proximity to the Rachay and its security. But it was perhaps the worst kept secret in all of Oylen.
“Those who survive this night do so at the mercy of my masters,” the Vyenur called even louder.
He was right about that, at least. Slowly his fellows stalked from the blood den, blood splattered across their faces and hands. A few had gore dripping from their chin, or else wiped their scythes or blades on their thighs. The one holding Monsieur Dubois hoisted him over his shoulder as if he was nothing but a sack of grain, beforeheading off toward the mouth of the alley. Taking the man I had known since childhood to his death.
What did it say of my cowardice that I did nothing but shed tears for the man? But as the last few soldiers disappeared into the night, their leader turned toward me, as if he could see me through the curtain.
“Your lives are a gift. Do not waste them.”
I held my breath, cataloguing each breath he took, each flicker of his gaze across the curtain, before he took one step back, then another, following his soldiers back into the city.
For a year I had been the last remaining of the Searah women, after my mother had died last winter, succumbing to a fever which took her within only a matter of nights. The grief was an itch I couldn’t scratch, always in the corner of my mind, never fully out of reach. It did not help that I carried her with me everywhere I went, as I was the spitting image of her with my dusting of freckles and wild curly hair. Each mirror I saw was a portal into that which I missed most.
