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  The smell of its blood pricked his hunger, causing his fangs to lengthen. He’d gotten more adept at controlling his cravings, but he’d have to make a trip to the blood bank later. The blood drinking was still his least favorite part about being a vampire; he couldn’t quite get used to the cloying way it felt sliding down his throat. He disliked that he enjoyed the taste of it so much, that he craved the warmth of it, and now had to have it to survive.

  He hadn’t become a monster; he now knew all vampires weren’t monsters. However, he couldn’t help but feel like one when he consumed blood, even if it wasn’t from a person, and he hadn’t harmed anyone in order to get it. It didn’t matter he’d never fed from a person before, and most likely never would, he couldn’t shake the feeling it was wrong to use a human in such a way.

  Stomping the snow from his boots, he stepped back into the kitchen. Ellen glanced up and smiled at him. He nodded to her before making his way into the main room. Their friend Timber, whose massive frame dwarfed the chair he sat in, had joined Max, Daniel, Xavier and Aria at a table.

  To this day, Timber was still the largest man he’d ever seen. His head nearly hit the ceiling when he stood in the tavern; his thighs were the size of most men’s chests. His brown hair fell past his shoulders and his brown eyes shone in the glow of the lanterns filling the room. His nose had been broken so many times over the years it had a perpetual turn to it and a bump in the middle.

  William shrugged off his coat as he made his way over to them. He was almost to the table when the front door swung open. A swirl of cold air and snowflakes swept through the room, blowing out some of the candles on the tables closest to the door. Braith and Jack wiped their feet on the mat before they stepped inside. Aria’s face lit up; she rose to her feet when Braith started walking toward her.

  Turning away, William slid into his chair and tipped it back to lean against the wall. He stretched his legs out before him and ordered an ale from Millie when she arrived at his side. Jack settled into the chair across from him. His black, brown and gold hair was damp from the snow and curled about his face. The candlelight lit his gray eyes and caused orange flames to flicker within them.

  “Wedding plans all done?” William inquired of him as Millie placed his tankard of ale down.

  “I think so,” Jack mumbled. “But every time I think they are, something new arises.”

  “It could be worse,” Aria said. Braith sat in the chair beside Jack; he pulled Aria into his lap and held her against his chest. “You could be getting married in the palace, with everyone watching you.”

  “You’re right, that would be much worse,” Jack agreed. He ran a hand through his hair and took hold of the mug placed beside him.

  The weather had kept many of the regular patrons at home; few felt up to braving the elements to come into the tavern for a warm meal. William barely heard what the others said as they talked until the moon was high in the sky. Long after the tavern had closed for the night, and everyone else had gone to bed, William remained sitting at the table in the quiet dining room.

  The alcohol seeping into his system did little to ease the fury festering inside him ever since Kane had ended his natural life. He could still feel the warmth of his own blood pooling around him and seeping into the ground. He could vividly recall the feeling of helplessness that filled him as he lay dying.

  His hand wrapped around the wooden tankard of ale while he watched the dying flames within the fireplace. As soon as this wedding was over, he’d set out to find Kane. The first place he planned to look for him was the mountains.

  Somewhere out there was the vampire who had killed him, and he was going to do everything he could to find him and destroy him.

  CHAPTER 2

  The shouts resounding down the street pierced the night and pulled her from her sleep. Blinking in confusion, Tempest stared at the wall across from her as she tried to figure out what was going on. More shouts filled the street outside of her window. The last remnants of sleep slid away from her, leaving her troubled as she stared at the shadows the candle cast on the wall.

  She’d lived in the town of Badwin her entire life, never once had she been roused from sleep in the middle of the night by yelling. Not even when the new king’s war had been going on had there been such commotion on the road.

  Light, from what she assumed were torches, bounced across the wall, drowning out the candle’s flame and chasing away some of the shadows. Rolling over, she tossed aside her blankets and rose to her feet. The worn floor rug muffled her steps, her nightgown brushed against her ankles as she walked.

  She didn’t bother to grab the half-burned candle on her nightstand; she didn’t want anyone to know she approached the window. Chilly air had found its way through the multiple cracks around the window; it flowed over her skin as she cautiously approached the old, warped frame. Goosebumps broke out on her flesh, but she ignored them as she peered out.

  Beneath her, on the snow-covered street a dozen horses and men had gathered. All of them wore white cloaks and had their hoods pulled up against the wintry air. The animals pranced back and forth restlessly. The breath pluming from their nostrils coiled in thick waves toward the sky. Their hooves kicked up snow around them as the group of riders tried to keep the animals steady.

  She frowned at them before glancing around her sleepy town. She hadn’t been the only one awakened by the commotion; candles and lanterns flickered to life in the houses lining the roads. One of the horses spun around completely to face the road leading into town, drawing her attention back to the group gathered in the road.

  She watched as a woman rode a horse down the road toward the group. The woman sat in the saddle with more men closely flanking her on both sides. She couldn’t make out any details about the woman; the hood pulled over her head obscured her face and hair. The only reason she knew it was a woman was because of the indigo dress she wore and the sidesaddle she used.

  The new arrivals rode beneath her window and continued toward the hotel at the end. They dismounted, then tied their lines to the hitching post outside the building. Before they could enter the hotel, another group of riders, nearly double the original number, pounded down the street toward them.

  “What is going on, Tempest?”

  “Shh,” she whispered still facing the window with her back to Abbott.

  The sound made by the soft pad of his feet walking toward her preceded his arrival at her side. At fifteen, he was already taller than her five-foot-eight frame. He had started to broaden out this year, his shoulders far larger and wider than her slender frame. In the glass of the window, his green eyes sparkled in the light. His black hair tumbled around his face as he rubbed at his sleep filled eyes. His coloring was a stark contrast to her silvery blonde hair and brown eyes.

  His shoulder brushed against hers as more horses emerged from the snowy night to race down the street. “Who are they?” Abbott whispered.

  “I don’t know,” she murmured.

  The number of riders swelled to well over two hundred in a matter of minutes. Her attention turned in the other direction as more riders materialized at the other end of the road. She couldn’t be certain, but it looked like they were trying to block the road off. An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of her stomach when she saw more figures emerging through the night. Not all of them rode horses; some of them were on foot. Tempest looked at the hotel again. The building was one of the biggest in town, but it would never be able to hold the numbers of white cloaked figures arriving in their town.

  Then the vampires standing directly before the hotel began to fan out, moving down the road toward the houses lining the street. She watched as the men and women moving down the road began to knock on the doors of the homes. Few doors opened immediately, some of them tried to close again, but they were shoved back open.

  Her hands began to tremble while she watched the vampires barge their way into the homes. The chill from the drafty window was nothing compared to the chill
running down her spine.

  “Get the children into the attic,” she hissed to Abbott before spinning away from the window. “I’ll try and stall them when they get here.”

  She grabbed hold of her wool pants laying on the trunk where she’d left them and tugged them on as Abbott rushed from the room. Flinging the trunk open, she dug out a sweater and pulled it on over her nightgown as a loud knock echoed through the hall below. Grabbing a ribbon, she hastily tied her hair into a loose ponytail that fell to beneath her shoulders.

  Her head lifted, she went completely still as she listened to the protests of the children being roused from their beds. It was a good thing they didn’t have any babies in the orphanage right now, there would be no keeping them quiet. Another loud knock rattled the door in its frame as she snatched up her candlestick. The children were all in the hall when she stepped out of her room. The flickering candlelight illuminated their pale faces and shadowed eyes.

  At only three, Agnes began to cry in Abbott’s arms. “Shh,” Abbott coaxed. “You must be quiet.”

  “Get them upstairs,” Tempest urged.

  Abbott nodded and with the help of eleven-year-old Nora, they hurried the children down the hall to the attic door. Tempest waited until the door closed behind them before rushing down the stairs to the front hall. Through the window in the middle of the door, she could see a lantern flame leaping and dancing outside. The tall head of a man on the other side moved before the window, but that was all she could see of whoever was out there.

  “Open up!” the man shouted. His fist landing heavily upon the door again, shaking it in its frame.

  “I’m coming!” she called back.

  She placed the candle on the table beside the door. Taking a moment, she wiped her sweat-dampened hands on her pants and tried to steady the tremor in them before grasping the knob. She opened the door to gaze out at the three men gathered on her stoop. They turned toward her, their faces red from the wind as their eyes ran over her from head to toe. Somehow, she managed to keep her knees from knocking together when their eyes came back to hers.

  What is going on? She wondered frantically. Behind the men, white cloaked figures filled the street. Shouts and cries echoed through the air as more homes were invaded. The black sky and twinkling stars were in stark contrast to the numerous torches filling the street with light.

  “Do you own this house?” one of them demanded.

  “No,” she replied honestly, proud that her voice didn’t waver.

  The man standing in the front raked her body with his gaze a second time. The look made her wish she had ten more layers of clothes on. She managed to fight the urge to cover her breasts with her arms, but she did take a step away from him. “Then what are you doing here?”

  She glanced at the sign hanging over his head, the one clearly reading Orphanage on it. “I grew up here,” she replied. “I’m watching over the place while Laverne, the woman who runs the home, is away visiting family.”

  Tempest had already moved out of the orphanage, but she still helped to care for the remaining children. The couple who had lived here, and run the orphanage before Laverne had taken over, had rarely been here.

  After the war, the couple had fled before the new king’s troops could arrive in town to establish order. Tempest and her friend, Pallas, had stepped in to take care of the children after they’d been abandoned. Laverne had come to town as one of the king’s peacekeepers. She’d volunteered to run the orphanage with Tempest to help introduce her to the children, and work with her after she settled in. Tempest would have taken the job on alone, but at the time, she hadn’t stopped aging and was considered too young to take on the position full-time without help.

  “We’re coming in,” the man told her.

  “I can’t allow that.” She’d barely gotten the words out before his hand smashed against the door and he shoved it open. The force with which he hit the door knocked Tempest off balance. She stumbled back into the hall table and almost toppled the candle over but managed to steady it in time. “Wait, you can’t…”

  “We can,” the next man through the door told her. “We’ll be staying in this town for some time. All residents will have to make room for us.”

  “What?” she blurted. “Is this for the king?”

  He released a disgusted snort and moved aside to let the last man in. Tempest managed to keep her mouth from dropping open when her eyes latched onto the ugly vampire who stepped through the door. A jagged scar started at the edge of his close-cropped hairline; it curved to his right ear before going to his chin and winding back up toward his thin lips. His beady hazel eyes surveyed her with cool disdain. He was only a couple of inches taller than she was, but his stocky frame took up almost the entire doorway. His nose had to have been broken numerous times over the years as it now sat in a permanently crooked position.

  “This is for the queen,” he told her brusquely.

  Tempest glanced out the window as she recalled the woman on the horse, but what would the queen be doing here without the king? From the stories she’d heard from the local vampires and humans, they were inseparable.

  “Will the king be joining her?” she inquired.

  The man turned away and slammed the door shut with an air of finality. Tempest couldn’t stop herself from jumping as the rattling crash echoed through the house. Shouts and cries from the street still floated through the air, but the closing door made it feel as if the world outside had ceased to exist. All she wanted was to run as far from here as possible, but she could never leave the children alone with these men. She would never forgive herself if the kids were injured in any way.

  “No,” the ugly man answered. “Show us to our rooms.”

  “We have no available rooms, the children…”

  “Make room!” he snapped. “Or I’ll throw you into the street, along with the children.”

  Tempest’s blood ran cold; her gaze darted toward the stairwell. Screams echoed from somewhere down the street; the cries of agony made her hands shake. Without thinking, she stepped to the window and looked out to see a man and woman being dragged down the street toward the stocks outside of the prison. She’d assumed they were about to be locked into the stocks, but they were pulled past the jail and toward the blood bank. Confusion filled her when the couple was led up the stairs and taken inside the building.

  They were humans, she knew them as they’d all grown more accustomed to living together after the last war. There had been some distrust on both sides of the species, and there still was a little, but the new laws the king imposed had established clear boundaries and a safer world for both races. Over the year and a half following the fall of the old king, their world had become less turbulent. They’d all learned how to work together and now socialized with each other on many occasions. They’d finally known peace…

  Until now.

  The ugly vampire grabbed hold of her arm, jerking her back and drawing her attention to him. “Find us rooms,” he commanded.

  Her teeth clenched; it took all she had not to tell him to get out, but she had no idea what they would do to her, and more importantly the children, if she did. She didn’t see what other choice she had; there were only about five hundred residents in Badwin. She had a feeling they were about to be outnumbered.

  The man gave her arm a brusque shake, “Now.” Snatching the candle up from the table, he tossed her arm away from him. Everything in her screamed to run, adrenaline coursed through her body, but somehow she managed to walk calmly up the stairs. “One room for each of us,” he called up to her. “And no children in them.”

  She hesitated with her foot in the air, before continuing onward. Turning the corner, she glanced back to make sure she was out of view before rushing down the hall to the attic door. She gave it three quick raps and stepped back to wait for Abbott to open it up.

  “What’s happening?” he whispered.

  “Nothing good. Get the children.”

  He disa
ppeared back up the stairs. Tempest hurried into the room at the end of the hall. Gathering as much clothing as she could, she shoved it into the small hamper in the closet. The children had gathered in the doorway when she emerged from the closet, all five sets of eyes were on her.

  “We must get as many of your things out of these three rooms as we can.” She pointed to the two bedrooms next to the one she stood in. “We’ll have to double up the best we can.”

  None of them argued with her, she hadn’t expected them to. Before things had changed following the war, the children had little of anything and were used to going without. They spent the next ten minutes reorganizing people and rooms before everyone settled into their new places.

  “All of you are to stay in your rooms,” she told them as she held the flickering candle up to reveal their wide-eyes and quivering lower lips.

  “I’m coming with you,” Abbott said.

  She glanced toward the stairs when she caught the sound of voices from below. Outside, the screams and shouts had quieted a little, but wails of suffering continued to pierce the night. Flickering light from the torches spilled into the windows of the orphanage. She didn’t want to look back outside again, and she definitely didn’t want the children to.

  “No, stay here with the children,” she whispered before returning downstairs.

  The men remained waiting for her by the door. When they lifted their heads to look at her, she knew with unfailing certainty her life had just been completely turned upside down. Things in their tranquil town would never be the same again, and not in a good way.