Page 4 of Darkest Heart

He didn’t move. “It’s true, and it was made by the man you call a friend?Azia.”

“No,” I rebuked, shaking my head. “He would have told me.”

“Would he? Because you barely know him. You’re far too trusting.”

I wanted to say I wasn’t, but I had trusted Astor. Look where it got me. “What’s the prophecy?”

He paused, letting out a long sigh as he placed his hands on his knees. “I’ll tell you what it is, because no one else would have. They are afraid of what will happen if you know.”

A lump formed in my throat. “What is it?”

He leaned forward. “That you will bring death to all vampires.” I ran cold, goosebumps spreading down my arms. He continued, oblivious to my reaction. “The exact words are‘She who is neither mortal, nor cursed, will sit upon the throne as the first blood queen shall bring the end to all vampires.There’s more to it. We don’t know everything, which is why…”

I zoned out as he continued to speak, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. My pupils flitted over the surrounding space, my immortal eyes capturing every fracture of light. All vampires meant Sebastian, Erianna, and my mom. It couldn’t be true, and even if it was, then why was I here? All vampires meant the aniccipere as well. “Why am I not dead already?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but a growl from an aniccipere paused us both. I looked at the door as the sounds of the creature stomping closer to the room set my nerves on edge.

“You need to help us,” Astor whispered and glanced at the door. “Else they’ll kill you. Maybe not right now, but eventually. But if you talk, they might let you live.”

“How so? What are you leaving out?”

He shot me a grimace before opening the door. The aniccipere was too close. It could hear us. “Iamsorry,” he said before stepping out, but there wasn’t a hint of sorrow in his tone. Before I could ask what part he was suddenly sorry for, the creature appeared, blocking all light as it hunched under the doorframe. A hiss left its mouth, blood dripping from its needlelike teeth. I’d already been fed the poison this morning. There was no reason for it to be here.

Before I could say anything, it tore the restraints from my wrists and ankles, then wrenched me upward by my neck, dragging me through the doorway.

TWO

Niall

My shoulders tensed as the smell of blood drew me toward the ancient forest.

The sky grumbled in warning as rolling, gray clouds plunged the castle into darkness. The morning sun was obscured by the storm, the mountains fading behind a thick fog. I sprinted down the winding, stone road beyond the drawbridge, then veered into the forest.

I knew something was wrong when I’d wandered into the feeding room for breakfast and there were no mortals.

A cloying, decaying odor with a sweet undertone permeated the earthy scent. Rain lashed down, washing away what was left of the crimson-soaked dirt.

I paused upon seeing a hand sticking out from the dirt. Leaning down, I squeezed a finger. Still fresh, but the rest of the body was missing. I straightened my back, looking around for a sign of life. As I delved deeper into the trees around the castle, the evidence of a massacre surrounded me. It wasn’t unusual to encounter the occasional corpse out here. We often liked to play with our food, and some liked to party in the forest. I understood. Sometimes I also got sick of the same castle walls.

But this was different. No lone vampire was responsible for this. We only craved mortals’ blood, not their flesh. This wasn’t a feeding frenzy gone wrong.

A sense of danger tingled my spine, my stare sharpening. My fangs elongated, the tips scraping my bottom lip. Honing my senses, I tapped into the environment, listening for anything that might be out of place. Trudging forward carefully, I followed the trail of limbs and blood.

Nothing had been the same since the princess was kidnapped. One odd thing after the other occurred. Even my father struggled to make sense of it. Velda and Gwen were the only people acting as if nothing had happened. Although we all knew the aniccipere had come from the south, finally crossing the class lines into the castle and stealing the heir to the throne. They hated the monarchy, but we despised them more.

I halted on seeing a pink streak in a mess of blonde hair sticking out from the underbrush. The face of the girl was unrecognizable. Her eyes were missing, her skin frayed as if it had been gnawed on until she was nothing but a carcass. But that hair could have only belonged to one person. The woman was from Baldoria, where their modern fashion showed in the faded pink dye. I’d fed on her a handful of times, proving my fears that these mortals had come from inside the castle.

But how did they get out here?

An escape gone wrong, or something more sinister?

A bone crunched under my boot as I set off again, sending a squirrel scattering into a nearby bush. The time-chiseled trees carved out into a clearing, and a growl reverberating from my chest when I saw him. I stormed across the mess of organs toward Azia. He cast his bespectacled stare onto me, his orb like eyes widening as I closed the distance between us.

My father had told me countless times that my anger got the best of me. Truth was, I let it. I wasn’t an ask questions first kind of person. As I slammed him against the tree, I curled my fingers around his throat. “I knew it!” I yelled, sending a murder of crows into flight. There was always something off about the castle sorcerer. Now I had my evidence. “I can smell the blood from inside the castle.”

A sharp shockwave snaked through my chest, palpitating my heart. His hand burned my skin as if it were made of lava. My knees buckled under the electricity sizzling in my veins, and I fell to the ground. Rain splashed mud over me as I curled my nails into the earth, a primal rage taking over. “You’re going to regret that,” I threatened from behind clenched teeth.

As soon as the initial strike of his magic lessened, I shot upward, lunging forward. As I grabbed his arm when another shockwave rippled through me. Nausea crept through my body, my head spinning as I fell again.

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