MY EYES SLIDE FROM THE pictures to the body of the article.
Speculation has run wild following the fires at both Conrath plantations. One witness claims owner Elijah Conrath created an abomination that “had to be destroyed and him with it.” Reports show that John Jackson led an attack on the houses, setting fire to them, before dragging Elijah and three of his house members from their home and hanging them from the tree in town.
What followed was a tragedy for the record books.
A hand grabs me around the face, clamping over my mouth just as the scream tries to rip from my throat. The copy flies out of my hand, and as I try to twist away, I feel my phone fall from my pocket. And a fraction of a breath after, a searing pain explodes in my neck.
My body reacts in ways I can’t explain. My arms fall limp to my sides. My feet stop trying to run. Worst of all is the way my mind goes numb.
Strong arms hold me upright, holding tight to my upper arm and around my stomach.
This.
This.
What is this?
Logic frantically pounds through my brain, attempting to come up with an explanation that makes sense. But there isn’t one.
Someone has bitten me.
Someone is sucking something wet from my neck.
And I can feel it with every passing second—I am going to die.
Beneath a dead tree where four people were hanged. In a bizarre town who fears the night.
I understand the woman’s warning now. And Rath’s insistence.
I should have listened.
Just as everything starts going fuzzy and my eyelids flutter, I hear something.
A shout, a hiss. A wet thud, and a scream.
The attacker lets go of my neck and I collapse to the ground.
My eyes try to search my surroundings for answers. Anything to bring logic back into reality.
There is a body next to mine. It’s a man. Writhing and shifting and twitching in unnatural ways. Gurgled, strangled sounds work their way out of his blood-soaked mouth. There’s something protruding from his back.
But most terrifying are his glowing yellow eyes and the black veins covering his face.
“Where’d you come from?”
My eyes shift up just a bit to see a man kneel next to the body. He’s young, probably only a few years older than me. In the dark, I can’t see any of his features, though. But in his hand is a genuine wooden stake. “Who’s your sire?” he demands.
My attacker gives a wet-sounding gasp. He reaches up a hand, like he’s about to wrap it around the other man’s neck. But his hand shakes and then collapses back onto his chest. His body grows still.
Even though it’s dark, I can see the way the color instantly bleeds out of him and his skin turns an ash gray.
“Damnit,” the man breathes.
My eyes flutter closed. It takes me a long time to open them again.
When I do, the man is hovering just in my vision.
“Stupid tourists,” he says. But his voice sounds hazy, like my ears are full of cotton. “Never know better than to go wandering around after dark in this forsaken town.”
“I’m not…” I try to explain, but all the energy in me is gone.
“I’m real sorry about this, but there’s not a chance you won’t turn,” he says. I’m fairly sure I feel his arms slide under me and I’m being lifted. “So you’re going to have to stick with me until it’s over. Don’t worry, I’ll make it quick and painless.”
“Wh…” my breath leaves my chest. “What?”
“It doesn’t usually help to explain,” he says. Then there is something hard under my back. It looks like he’s putting me in the back of a van of some sort. He leaves and returns a minute later. He lays the other body next to me.
Blackness takes over my vision and my brain fades in and out. But we are moving. Driving. My body screams in pain at every bump we roll over, every jostle that sends me shaking across the hard plastic floor.
Sometime later, maybe ten minutes, maybe an hour—I’m not with it enough to tell, the doors to the van are opened again and I am flooded with unfamiliar scents. Of rotting wood. Stagnant water. Decay and wild earth.
A flashlight blinds my vision and the man is above me.
“Eyes still look normal,” he says, flashing the light in and out of my vision. “Pupils still dilating. Why’s this taking so long?”
“Please,” I say, feeling hot and itchy. “Help me.”
“Sorry, darling,” he says. I realize then that his accent isn’t as overwhelming as many from here. “No one can help you now.”
He grabs the dead man next to me, a wooden stake still sticking out of his back. He slings him over his shoulder.
Using everything I have in me, I roll half onto one side and prop myself up on my elbow.
A swamp. That’s where we are. I can only faintly make out the standing water in the moonlight, the trees rising up out of it. The moss that holds onto everything.
A slight hissing sound makes my skin crawl.
“Got a nice meal for you tonight, Bernie,” the man says. He walks right up to the water’s edge and a second later I hear a great splash and a hissing snap. “A nice double-double.”
The hissing and snapping grows in intensity, accompanied by a sickening tearing sound.
Flesh.
Snap. Bone.
“Hey now, share, Carl,” the man says, and I can almost imagine the sarcastic smile that had to accompany it. “There’s plenty for everyone.”
Second by second, I feel like my strength is returning and my limbs regain their usefulness. Very slowly, I push myself up onto my forearms, nearly sitting up.
Footsteps crunch over the earth, returning to the van.
“Hey, hey!” he yells, jogging over to me. “Slow it down there. I knew it wouldn’t take much longer.”
Again, I am blinded by his flashlight. He holds my chin to keep me still as I try to turn my face away.
“What the hell?” he breathes. Over and over, he flashes the light in and out of my eyes.
“Stop,” I say, pushing his flashlight away. “My head is already pounding. That is not helping.”
“You’re getting your strength back,” he says, once again flashing the light in my eyes. “You lost way too much blood, though. There’s no way you shouldn’t be changing. But your eyes, they’re still dilating.”
“What are you talking about?” I hiss angrily, once again shoving the light away from my face. “And what the hell just happened?”
The man stands straight, his hands on his hips. “Aw shit,” he groans. “You’re a Born.”
“I don’t know what that means,” I moan. My head is pounding. I push myself up into a sitting position and swing my legs out of the van to dangle to the ground. “But I’d really like to leave now. And find a cop to talk to.”
“Not going to do you a bit of good in this town,” he says. “Where are you from, and why are you in Silent Bend?”
My fingers rise up to my neck. I fully expect to find shredded skin, the shape of a set of teeth. But the skin is perfectly smooth. Just a slick mess of blood. “I just moved here last week.”
“No you didn’t,” he scoffs and shakes his head. “There are no houses for sale in this town and there are no open rentals.”
“Who are you, the real estate police?” I snap back in annoyance. “And I inherited the Conrath Estate for your information, you asshole.”
“Excuse me?” he says with complete disbelief. “No, I don’t think so. There is no way Henry is dead, and there’s not a chance in hell he had any kids.”
“Yet here I am!” I yell at him. I work my way onto wobbly legs and take a step toward him. “I’ve got a will back at the Estate and everything to prove it. I’d invite you over to take a look, but I don’t let murderers into my new home!”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “It can’t be true.” He steps around me and closes the back door of the black utility van. “Get in. We’ll go clear this up with Rath right now.”
“Great. And when you get confirmation, I’ll be contacting the police to have your ass arrested for intending to kill me!”
“If what you say is true, you’ll understand why I intended to in about twenty minutes,” he hisses as he opens the passenger door for me.
“Why would I get in the car with you?” I shout, throwing my hands up in the air. “We were just discussing your intention to kill me!”
“Circumstances have changed,” he hisses through clenched teeth. “I promise I won’t kill you. So unless you’d like to bunk with the gators for the night, will you please get in the damn car?”
I stare him down, unable to make out any features other than the heat in his eyes. But there isn’t murder in them, so, holding his gaze the entire time, I climb in and he closes the door behind me.
There are a million questions frantically racing through my brain as he gets back in the van, starts the engine, and rolls through the swamp. But I can’t make sense of a single thought.
I’ve been attacked. This man killed my attacker. And this man had planned on killing me until something I did changed his mind.
The entire ride back to the Estate is in confused and disbelieving silence.
The second the gates to the Estate come into view, they open. The gravel crunches under our tires and the headlights illuminate the beauty that is the plantation mansion.
Standing out on the porch, hands crossed in front of him, calm and composed, is Rath.
“Is it true?” the man says as we step out of the van and slam the doors shut. “I mean, it can’t be, right? Henry’s dead and this is his kid?”
“Please, why don’t we go inside?” Rath says, calm and composed as ever. But he does give me a narrow, disapproving look.
I doubt the man even heard Rath’s request. His eyes are wild and confused and full of adrenaline. He walks into the house first. I meet Rath’s eyes and for some reason feel as if I’ve let him down as I walk past him and into the house.
We end up in the library, only one lamp lit to illuminate the room dimly.
“Rath, how does no one know about this?” the man demands, turning back to face him.
“Because that’s exactly the way Henry wanted it,” Rath says as he stands behind a wing-backed chair, his hands resting on it.
“Can anyone please tell me what is going on?” I demand, trying to keep the frantic tone out of my voice and totally failing. I am covered in my own blood, after all.
“And she doesn’t know a damn thing?” the man says with a breathy laugh and a hand extended out in my direction.
“Lord Conrath wanted to keep it from her for as long as possible, even though he knew it wouldn’t take long,” Rath says, his tone still even. “And he wished to keep his death a secret, as well.”
“Yeah, because the second word got out and anyone saw her, everyone would know the truth.”
“Lord Conrath? Wh…what? What is happening here?!” I practically scream, and both of their eyes finally turn to me.
“Your father was a damn vampire, that’s what,” the mystery man yells back at me. “And you’re going to be one as well someday.”
It takes about eleven seconds for the word to register in my brain and to process what it means.
It takes about four more seconds for the laugh to break from my chest. It builds and builds until I must look completely hysterical.
“Miss Ryan,” Rath says, loud enough to be heard over my meltdown. “Mr. Ward is telling the truth.”
“Come on, Rath,” I continue laughing. “You don’t seem the type to pull pranks, but you got me. It was awful and I think you two might be completely insane, but you got me good.”
“This isn’t a joke,” the man with at least a last name now says. There’s actual offense in his voice. And I now finally register him. I was right, he’s probably only a few years older than me. Wild, slightly too long brown hair on his head. Dark eyes under dark, heavy brows. Thin, serious lips. Intense five o’clock shadow. “Do you not remember how that blood got all over you? That thing was trying to suck you dry before I staked it. Remember how I said I was going to kill you, too? That’s because that bite should have turned you.”
My laughter dies away as my hand once again rises to my neck. I finally look down at myself. My clothes are drenched in my blood. Dirt is sticking to me all over. I’m a wreck. I remember the numbness that took me over within seconds of the pain.
“We’re telling the truth,” Rath says. His voice is kind and quiet. “Your father was a vampire and immortal Born. He spent a night with a human woman, and you were conceived.”
Vampires. Being Born. Stakes.
I want to call bullshit. But what just happened to me had happened.
And these two guys are staring at me without even a hint of uncertainty in their eyes.
“Why didn’t you say anything when I got here?” I accuse Rath. My eyes burn as I look at him.
“Because that was your father’s wish.” He turns from me to a desk against one wall. He takes a key from his pocket and opens a drawer. From it, he pulls a letter. The back of it is sealed with a wax stamp. “He asked me to give this to you when the time was right.”
My hands shake as I take it. The envelope that bears my name—Alivia Ryan—on the front is immediately smeared with my blood and dirt. There’s more weight to it than just a few pieces of paper. There’s something hard inside.
“Rath, you know what this means, right?” Mr. Ward says quietly. “There’s no way the House won’t hear about the attack tonight. They’re going to find out and quickly. They’ll want to take her in.”
“I know.” I look up and see Rath staring straight at me. “We don’t have much time.”
“Look, I can help,” Mr. Ward says, and his voice sounds desperate. “Let me talk to her. Because if the House gets to her first, they’ll manipulate her and she’ll have no real choice of her own.”
“You’re right,” Rath says. He takes a few steps across the room and places his hands on my shoulders. “But first, you need to clean up and get some rest. You look like shit, my dear.”
And his unexpected word drags my eyes up to his.
Rath is cold and quiet and distant. But I see it in his eyes. He doesn’t really know me at all, but he cares about me. And I feel the emotion being reciprocated in me.
“Ian, you’re welcome to stay in any of the rooms on the main level until morning,” Rath says over his shoulder as he leads me from the room and toward the stairs.
“Are you serious?” Ian Ward yells from behind us. “You’re going to cut off the momentum, just like that?”
“Just like that,” Rath says as we step onto the second floor.
I don’t know what to expect from the rest of the night, probably a long study of the ceiling in my room, but I’m curious as hell and scared to death to see what morning brings.