Page 9

Her gaze flicks down the line, and I feel the oddest sensation build in my chest. Something dark and powerful that doesn’t dissipate, even after she’s returned her focus to the King.

“And you,” he continues, “shall become Baroness, ascending to the place of royalty if you survive the night, replacing the current Daughter of Darkness.” The two women, who couldn’tbe more opposite in demeanor, share a glance. Regina, all precision and poise in her smooth braids and straight spine, a woman who carved her place into the Barons and at the side of the King. Her ebony skin shimmers beneath the firelight, drinking in its warmth like a shield. Arianette, wide-eyed and fidgeting, skin catching the warm glow along her high cheekbones with a soft, untested sheen–less a royal and more a girl playing with the idea of being one.

“At the strike of midnight, the hunt will begin. Only the marked can participate, but my Shadows will be there to keep the game in motion. They know not to touch, not to interfere, but they are loyal to their leaders and will assist them.”

He bends, lifting Arianette’s chin with his gloved fingertips. “Do you understand, my Daughter of Night?”

She looks up at him, those dark eyes wide, and I wish I knew what was going on in her crazy little head.

When she speaks her voice is low–reverent. “I understand.”

“You may start at the first toll.” I look around, wondering what clock he’s referring to. “A head start, as your Barons will come at the final toll. You start the night an innocent, but you’ll end it as part of the fold, one of us. Claimed by darkness.”

I hear it, the deep chime echoing across the night. The clock tower. Did that crazy fucker actually get the Dukes to wind it up?

He drops his hand and raises both arms into the air. “Let the hunt begin!”

Arianette seems frozen, her feet glued to the ground, her eyes darting to Regina who hisses, “Run!”

That seems to snap her out of it, and she zig-zags past. Before I can even process it, she’s gone, vanished into the dark.

“Whoever captures her first will give her the mark,” the King reminds us as the clock counts to twelve. “And the sooner you catch her, the longer you will have to claim the Baroness. There are no limits, except the one.”

Each and every one of us has already sworn to this one rule, when we accepted the pledge to BRN.

The Baroness is to survive the night a virgin.

3

Arianette

Run.

The word rattles against my skull as I race into the dark.

It’s pitch black, only a pale sliver of moonlight shifting through the canopy of trees overhead. Not enough to avoid the whip-thin branches slicing into my arms and legs. Too dim to expose the uneven ground, the tree roots, and rocks. I take the brunt, the nicks and the cuts, the bruises, to delve deeper, getting far away from the fire.

Away from the men. The masks.

A chill tiptoed up my spine when I stepped into the circle.

The King, grand and bright, commanded the scene, Regina sitting at his side.

Daddy, she’d called him, and he’d stroked her hair, touched her with gentleness.

But we weren’t alone. Like their name, they clung to the edges, stealing the air from my lungs. The Shadows stole the oxygen, with their black, blank faces, and cold, lifeless eyes. It’sno surprise that they’re thieves. Not with the way they steal souls. One innocent at a time.

At least none wear the face of the beast. But three of them wore the face of death, flesh removed, only the bone remaining.

Dangerous. The powerful always are.

But I know my truth. I got away once; I can do it again.

The final chime of the clock reverberates in the distance, the midnight hour. They’ll be coming now. Hunting.

Hide, the Baroness said. Stay hidden as long as I can. The more time they have the more damage they’ll do.

They.Armand, Hunter, and Damon.