Page 3 of Claimed By Blood

I can’t leave my eyes on her for too long, or Cain will suspect something, so I search the room for the other four knives.

Against all odds the corkscrew-haired girl has kept hold of her knife, and is currently brandishing it threateningly at a group of girls trying to corner her. Her rage is palpable, even from here, and I find myself wishing her luck. Another blade is in the hand of a huge, angry-looking brunette. She appears to be protecting a smaller ginger girl, who cowers behind her back.

The fourth blade is switching hands so fast I can barely trace it. Caught in a huddle of grasping palms and anguished screams as a few girls watch on like hungry lions.

But where is the fifth?

The glint of metal draws my gaze towards a large plinth displaying one of Cain’s many treasures. The rake-thin blonde who dropped her knife at the start is cowering behind it. Yet, her hands are empty.

It isn’t until she shifts that I catch sight of the steel nestled down the front of her shift.

She’s hiding with it.

The whole ordeal barely takes an hour. Fear drives the girls into a frenzy, and soon there’s only a handful left. Of course,sheis still crouched on the top of her first kill, and the remains of the handful of others who were desperate enough to approach are scattered around her. Her fair skin is painted in blood and her green dress is stained black with it.

The blonde has somehow still managed to evade detection, partly by convincing everyone who approaches her that she doesn’t have the blade. Her strategy seems to rely on staying very still and looking decidedly unthreatening.

The raging corkscrew-haired girl is almost as bloody assheis, and appears to have driven most of her attackers away, towards the struggle for the fourth blade.

The larger brunette girl is still defending the small redhead, but she’s tiring. The second she finishes off their final attacker, she sighs in relief.

Her respite only lasts a moment. The second her defender’s grip loosens on the blade, the redhead snatches it out of the larger girl’s hand and drives it straight into her back.

Beside me, Cain purses his lips in displeasure. I wonder if he considers the redhead’s actions cowardly. Yet, how can he disapprove when he just admitted hoping for cunning daughters?

Only three girls remain around the fourth blade. Their hands are bloody, and it keeps slipping between them as they fumble for it.

Until, out of nowhere, a girl with straight dark hair and chestnut skin dives between them. She’s been smart and waited until they’re all tired for her time to strike. It works. Within seconds, she’s the only one still holding the knife.

It’s over.

The five have been chosen. The blonde who hid, upon realising the danger has passed, sneaks out of her place and stands, dragging the knife out of her shift as she does so.

I wish it was silent. But it’s not. Weeping, gasping, and the gurgling sounds of tiny lungs taking their last breaths fill the air.

Those sounds will haunt me for the rest of my unnatural life.

I should never have brought those girls here. God in heaven, forgive me, for I can never forgive myself.

Every cell in my body wants to take the sword at my side and run Cain through with it.

It won’t work.

In the centuries of my long, long life, I have seen Cain survive everything which would kill any other vampire. White Oak. Silver. Beheading. Burning. Nothing works.

I have one last distant hope, and it requires me to play the long game.

The world passes in a kind of slow daze as Cain lifts his hands and begins to clap. My brothers, beside us, do the same, applauding until the five girls look up at us.Hereyes meet mine.

Perhaps her survival is God granting me a chance to make everything which happened here right. If she hadn’t lived, there would’ve been no one left with the power to end the unnaturally long life of the monster beside me.

“Congratulations,” Cain says, as the double doors sweep open and vampire guards enter the room, disarming the children and restraining them as a precaution. “You are my five chosen daughters. Forget your old life. Your families, your homes. Even your names. Today you are reborn as daughters of Cain.”

CHAPTERONE

EVELYN — 2082 PRESENT DAY

The blood dripsfrom my sword onto the marble. Human this time.

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