With only twelve hours to go until Lorenzo tries to surprise and slaughter us all, we have six until we will attack, at dawn.

We still have 332 bodies left, between Royals and Court members. And we arm every one of them. Swords, guns, nerve agents, bombs.

I wanted to drop a bomb on them all. But Maksim informed us that after seeing what we had done to Moab’s men, they dispersed. They’re all holing up in different locations, gearing up and readying for war.

We’d only be guessing as to where to drop the bombs.

If only we had one of Elle’s DNA gas bombs. We could set them up all over Austria if it would take them out.

But that would mean I’d die, too. And I’m not about to flee the country and hope that would work. Besides, there just isn’t time to have Elle develop that.

So we’re right back where we started, thousands of years ago. With swords and shields and blood on the field.

There was once a large population of humans who lived here in Roter Himmel. They farmed, they worked, and the members of Court and the Crown fed off of them, and in exchange for protection, large sums of money, and a generally more exciting existence, they let us drink their blood.

But when all of this insanity started, most of them left. One by one, they fled our city. When the real fighting began, not a single one of them remained.

So for us to feed, to refuel, because part of our curse is that we are dependent upon the blood of humans for survival, we have to hunt them.

I wonder how long it has been for most of them. Since the members of Court, or even most of the Royals had to go and stalk down their humans. So many of them have regulars who let them feed off of them. Or they drink donated, bagged blood.

But this is a new era that looks a lot like the old days.

Some things don’t change, though: Cyrus and I cannot risk extra trips outside of the castle right now. So our humans are brought to us, willing donors.

In the Great Hall, the willing woman sits in a chair. I come up behind her. And without even looking into her face, my fangs lengthen, and I sink them into the side of her neck.

It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted. The wet, coppery fluid slipping down my throat. There was a burn in there that had been eating at my stomach, my esophagus, my tongue. And as her blood slips down, it cools and rewarms and pulls a moan from me.

But I keep drinking.

Even though this is disgusting. Horrifying. I’m draining a woman of her blood.

I have drained blood out of people before. I’d replace it with embalming fluid what would help preserve the body.

But those people had been dead, and I was getting paid to do it as a mortician.

Now I do it for survival.

Cyrus releases the man he drinks from, and quietly waits for me to finish, his human leans back in the chair to recover.

I pull another, and know that I need to stop soon.

But I drink just one more time, because there’s a small little flame left in my stomach I haven’t put out just yet.

Footsteps from the doorway pull my eyes to the side, and I allow my eyes to follow for just a moment without releasing the woman.

It’s Grace Stevens, the human woman Cyrus brought here from New Orleans. The one who is a death detector. The one he forced to give up the rest of her life so she could give us warning if I was going to die soon.

Honestly, I haven’t thought about her in weeks. I feel terrible, suddenly. Because neither Cyrus nor I have thought to protect her. We haven’t checked on her. I wonder now how she survived when Moab and his people invaded the castle.

How did she survive?

The dark and confused look in her eyes is enough for me to release the human woman. The stiff set to her shoulders is enough to make me stand straight. The way her mouth hangs open just a little is enough to get Cyrus to his feet instantly.

But neither of us says a word. We keep staring at Grace, both of us utterly frozen.

Grace takes a step further into the Great Hall. Her expression doesn’t change. She doesn’t look scared to have just seen me sucking a human’s blood down. She’s seen plenty in the last three weeks since she’s been here at the castle.

She holds that look of fear and hesitancy.

“Grace,” Cyrus finally breathes, as the older woman slowly makes her way across the large space. “What is it?”

My stomach sinks, to that same place where there is a little fire still burning.

Grace’s eyes meet mine. And I feel it.

I know it.

“It starts as this…smell,” she says, her first words. They come out raspy and quiet. “Like this…cold, misty smell.”

Her eyes are locked on mine.

It isn’t Cyrus she looks at with those suspicious, fearful eyes. It could and never will be Cyrus she looks at in that way.

“Just faint, barely detectable,” she says, taking another two steps forward. “And then it gets stronger. And the bad, oppressive dark feeling starts, and the weight on my chest grows heavier.”

I hear it.

Cyrus’ heart stops.

He doesn’t breathe.

No blood pumps through his veins.

Maybe he can die.

Because everything that qualifies him as living just stops right then.

“I smelled it just a few minutes ago,” Grace says, fixing me with her gaze. “It called to me all the way up to the next level. It found me, even that far away.”

She reaches forward and takes my right hand between both of hers. She looks so scared, so sad. Emotion wells in her eyes, just slightly.

“It’s faint,” she says. She lets her eyelids fall shut, and it pushes out two tears, one from each eye. “But there’s no mistaking it.”

She opens her eyes as she turns her head toward Cyrus. “Death is closely following your wife.”