CHAPTER 1
“He’s still breathing.”
“Should we kill him?”
“I don’t know.”
Isabel crouched down next to Gavin’s motionless body. He looked transfixed, as if put under a spell, but when Isabel pressed two of her fingers to his neck he still had a pulse. She looked to her side. The chair leg was still there, staring back at her, begging to be driven into his chest, not only once, but tens of times more. Gavin had to be demolished; he needed to be wiped out. “I think… I think we should let him live.”
“What good would that do?” Presten asked, his eyes darting from Isabel to Gavin’s limp body and back again. “The whole house is in flames, we need to move fast.”
“Let’s take him to the other mansion.”
“The other mansion? Where the rest of us are?” Presten asked, furrowing his eyebrows. Smoke filled his view as he looked around, then a bright glint of orange. The fire screamed and Isabel held back a sob as she watched the house being swallowed up in engorging flames. All they could hear was the crackle of the white paint chipping., It was only then that they realized they needed to get out of there, and they needed to do it now.
“Quick, grab him by his legs,” Isabel said in a panic. They carried his motionless body along the flaming shards of wood that were thrown all over the place. The entire time, Isabel felt invincible. She felt like she could conquer anything. There she was, all partnered up with a man she had just met, and they were fighting evil together. Nothing could beat that feeling, the feeling of sheer empowerment; there was no turning back now.
“The entrances are blocked. I think the ceiling might collapse at any second,” Presten said, his eyes darting back and forth frantically. The tethered draperies had all caught fire, and they were blocking the windows, the only escape they had left.
“Wait— over there!” Isabel said, cocking her head towards a crack in the wall that she knew was part of a secret passageway. They exchanged brief glances before they charged for the entryway. Presten dragged Gavin’s body across the floor. Isabel ducked and held her hand out to him. They crouched down as near to the floor as possible and scurried outside. “We’re almost there,” Isabel said. “Just keep your eyes on the light at the end of the tunnel.”
“There is no light, Isabel,” Presten said.
“But there is.”
Suddenly the bluish hue of the night swam into view, and they found themselves out in the woods again. A cool rush of fresh air came over Isabel and caressed her face; she felt whole again. Presten stood by her side. Gavin’s body was spread out over the muddy grass. They knew they had no choice but to make their way to the other mansion.
“What do you think we should do with him?” Presten asked, turning to look at Isabel.
“We’re going to use him to our advantage; we’re going to make him ours,” she replied, staring out into the distance. Presten eyed her admiringly. He’d known before he’d even met her that she was the bravest succubus of their time, but seeing her in person was a whole other thing.
“Do you think we control him by now?” he asked, scanning the area around them. The fire wasn’t dying down, and it seemed like the place would eat away at itself until it turned into ashes. In the distance, Isabel could hear a chattering sound and as she turned around she thought she saw Ava, her red hair resembling the fire itself.
“Most definitely,” hissed the voice.
Presten jumped and turned around, his eyes wide. “Who’s there?” he asked.
“It’s Ava,” the voice said. She stepped closer to them, her face swimming into view. “Listen, Presten, you did the right thing by letting Gavin live,” she said, staring down at his motionless body. He seemed lifeless. Ava bent down to take his pulse and nodded to confirm that he was in fact still alive.
“He’s under our control now,” Isabel said again, her voice even more confident than before. “We bent him, so we might as well use that to our advantage.” Isabel caught a glimpse of something else lurking in the distant darkness; she knew it was Aden. “I wasn’t worried about you,” she said, her lips forming a smile as she called into the darkness.
“And I wasn’t worried about you,” Aden replied. “Let’s get this son of a bitch to the other mansion, the rest of the vampires can rot in hell.”
“Wait, what was that?” Isabel asked, cocking her head to the side to listen. Beyond the crackling of the fire they could hear rustling sounds. Was there yet another person lurking in the darkness? Suddenly, something jumped out at Isabel and she was knocked to the ground.
“I’m going to kill you,” a voice snarled, a voice Isabel immediately recognized as Analise’s. Isabel quickly rose to her feet and attacked with a strong right overhand punch. Analise stepped out of range, but before she could bring her hands up in defense, Isabel drove her shoulder into her chest, and she fell back, howling in pain. The rest crowded around her, throwing punches and making sure she would never be able to get back up again.
“Come on, we need to go… we don’t know how many of them are still out there,” Presten said, pulling Gavin’s body off the ground and started to make his way downhill. The rest followed, leaving Analise behind. Isabel tried to stop her mind from going off in all sorts of directions. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. She had never felt this strong. Was it true that Presten had given her this strength? Better yet, was it true that they fed off each other’s strength? It was all an enigma to her; she needed time to get used to it.
“Wait,” Isabel said, suddenly freezing in her place. “Where’s Oz?”
All four of them stopped suddenly, like a flock of sheep that had been transfixed by some force of nature. “I’ll go,” Isabel said, her eyes locked on Presten’s. “The rest of you keeping going… we can’t all risk going back there again.”
Presten hesitated. “I think it would be better if you and I stuck together,” he said. Isabel thought about it for a second before realizing he was right. “Okay, but the rest, head for the other mansion… Presten and I will meet you there.”
“We’ll take Gavin with us,” Aden said, nodding. “Take care.”
“Alright, let’s go back,” Isabel said, her eyes following the rise of the flowery hill. It was pitch black, to the point that Isabel felt like the darkness would swallow her alive. But she soldiered on, smiling at Presten every now and then to give him strength. With him, she felt invisible, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t conquer the dark alone. Oz was right, she really was powerful, and when Presten was with her, she felt even more so, like she could take over the world. They ran up the hill, as if pushed by some supernatural force. “Wait,” Isabel said, stopping dead in her tracks. “I smell something.”
In the distance Presten could hear footsteps pushing through the crunchy leaves. He froze in his place as well, trying to listen for any unusual noises. “What is it?” he asked, his head tilted sideways.
“It’s Oz,” Isabel said, a smile settling over her face when she noticed his wings in the dark. He was limping in their direction; his body looking as though it would collapse at any second. “Oz!” Isabel said again, hurrying to him. She had never been so relieved to see someone in her life. “I’m— I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice trembling. “Tell me, are you okay?” An immense amount of guilt washed over her. How could she have left Oz in there to die?
“No time for apologies,” Oz said, his voice firm. “We all need to get out of here… what happened to Gavin?”
“They’re taking him to the other mansion,” Presten said knowingly. “It’s the best that we could do right now; he needs to remain under our control.”
“There are still people in there,” Oz said, pointing to the flaming ball of fire on the very top of the hill. “We need to get them out.” Suddenly, Isabel heard footsteps again, but this time, there were many of them and they sounded like they were charging towards them. Her first instinct was to run the other way, but she remained pinned to her place; something told her she shouldn’t be running away.
“Isabel! Isabel!” the voices yelled from a distance. As the lurking figures came closer, Presten looked like he was ready for battle, but when he realized that they were succubi, he breathed a sigh of relief.
“They made it,” Isabel said, rather to herself. She found herself drifting closer to the sea of people and they welcomed her in their arms. She took a closer look: they were all covered up in dust and ash, and some of them had cuts and bruises all over their bodies. There must’ve been at least twenty of them, and Isabel could recognize them all as the people she had grown close to during her days at the mansion. “You made it!” Isabel screamed, leading the way back down the steep hill. The others followed her and in the background, she could hear some murmuring about an impending victory.
“They’re gone,” a voice said from behind her. “They’re all gone.”
“We burned them.”
“Stuck a wooden stake to their hearts.”
Isabel smiled to herself as she and Presten led the way downhill. The vampires were diminishing, but the battle was still far from over. They still had to head down to the other mansion, gather their allies, and work towards building a proper army. “I would say we’ve done a pretty good job, all of us,” Isabel said, flashing Presten a smirk.
“Succubi are strong, Isabel, there’s a reason why you and I didn’t have to go around rescuing each and every one of them from the fire,” Presten said knowingly. Isabel knew he was right. She wondered who was still in there and if any of the succubi hadn’t make it out alive. Her heart skipped a beat at the very idea of losing one of them, but she knew she had to soldier on if she wanted to make it to the mansion on time. It was almost dawn; they needed to hurry.
***
“Move away,” Isabel said, her eyes fixated on the guard’s. For a moment, it felt like time had stopped. Isabel had an entire army of succubi backing her; the guards didn’t really have that much of a choice. The air was tense and Isabel wondered if she needed a little bit more than an army to get through the gates to the mansion. “Alright, then, I’m going to say this one more time. Let me through.” She looked so deeply into the vampire’s eyes that he wouldn’t dare deny her. This was the first time Isabel had experienced full control over a vampire; the feeling was exhilarating. Without saying anything, the black winged guard opened up for them, and like an army of soldiers, they marched, pouring into the castle from all corners.
“Guards, what is this?” one of the vampires said, as he flew down the stairs. He froze when he saw Isabel standing in front of him. At that moment, he knew what she had come for. He knew who she was. “Step back,” he said, shaking his fist at her. “Step back! Guards!”
But they didn’t do anything. They were all transfixed, as if Isabel and Presten’s very presence was enough to keep them sedated. “Don’t move,” Isabel said, averting her gaze to the vampire standing at the bottom of the stairs. He froze in his place, as if trapped behind some sort of electromagnetic field. Every part of him was still except his eyes. Isabel and Presten remained focused on him but when more vampires appeared behind him, Isabel’s energy weakened and she found that she was unable to control all of them at once.
What was that? Isabel thought to herself. She felt the ground beneath her shake and when she turned to look at Presten, his eyes were fixated on a trapdoor hidden away under a rug at the far end of the room. The door shook, and then, without warning, it burst open, body after body lifting itself up and crawling into the room. Isabel felt her heart rise in her chest. The rebels. One by one, they climbed out, joining Isabel and Presten until they formed an army so large that all the vampires in the mansion combined couldn’t stop them. Together, they charged towards the vampires, pushing them aside and scurrying up the stairs. The sight was horrific. Isabel drove her shoulder into one dark winged vampire after another, wrestling them to the ground until they lay there, motionless. Nothing could stop them now; the vampires were severely outnumbered.
“Lock them up in the cells!” a voice yelled. “Give them a taste of their own medicine!”
Isabel watched on as all hell broke loose. The succubi were dragging the vampires down the trapdoor, throwing them into the cells and locking them inside. There were so many of them that they had to really cram them inside. Presten threw Gavin into one of the cells, too, but this one was secluded. He didn’t want Gavin mingling with anybody else. He was especially dangerous. The mansion was shaking underneath their feet; everyone was throwing punches at each other. Presten was battling with five vampires at once and Isabel was fighting off some shapeshifters that seemed to have sprung up on her out of nowhere. At one point, it became difficult to tell who was on whose side, but Isabel stayed focused on the wings. The battle continued on for what felt like an eternity, until the vampires were all locked up in cells, crammed in with no breathing space.
Isabel was left breathless. She scanned the dungeon with her eyes, trying to take in the scrunched-up faces of those locked inside. She spotted Gavin in solitary confinement and she flashed him a smirk when he stared at her hungrily.
“You’re not going to get away with this,” he mouthed to her. It sent chills down her spine.
***