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I dismounted and helped Elena down. Her magics quieted as she watched the children run and play.

She put a hand over her heart. “I thought vampires couldn’t have children.”

“They can. When vampires are young, their hearts still beat, and they are alive. Only when natural-born vampires freeze into immortality do their hearts stop. After that, the only way to make another is, well, the way I was made. But vampires can only be born here, in the Underworld. They wouldn’t last long on earth or Olympus. The sun would see to it.”

A child approached slowly, the curiosity in her innocent gaze clearly warring with her fear of strangers. Elena knelt down and accepted a tiny doll from her. The girl’s brown hair fell in braids around her face, cherubic in youth. She could be no more than four years old.

“Are you a fairy?” she asked, staring at Elena’s golden hair in open wonder.

Elena laughed, a sweet sound that had the other vampires stopping to watch her. “No, but I’ve seen fairies. They are beautiful and have wings that move faster than you can see. And they flitter about, putting fairy dust everywhere and making everything sparkle. But fairy dust makes me sneeze.”

“Really?” The child’s brown eyes were as big as saucers.

“Really.” Elena smiled.

“You’re so pretty,” the girl said.

“You are too.”

The girl blushed.

“I like the braids in your hair,” Elena said. “Maybe you could teach me how to do mine?”

“What’s your name?”

“Elena. What’s yours?”

“Keilana.”

“What a beautiful name.”

“Thank you.” The child smiled shyly.

Elena looked up at me, the pure joy on her face giving me heart to continue on this journey. If I could get a woman as precious as her to look at me like that, maybe I wasn’t the coward I feared myself to be.

Chapter Fifteen

Elena

The vampire encampment consisted of a main road with several communal buildings. Great trees shielded them all from prying eyes, with dozens of small houses nestled among the roots. The branches above dispersed the small wisps of smoke rising from the cottages.

Captain Lewin showed Paris and me to one of the squat buildings situated on what seemed to be the central town square. The doors bore the same swirling pattern as the vampires’ armor and the mark on the gates. I trailed my fingers across it as we entered.

“What is it?” I asked Paris.

“The symbol of the line of Priam.”

I glanced at him. “I thought there were no more vampires who were loyal to the line?”

“That makes two of us.”

I couldn’t see the entirety of the encampment but wagered there were likely no more than a few hundred vampires, with only a fraction of those as warriors. If the group from the watchtower were any indicator, the soldiers were fierce and battle-hardened. We could use their aid to take the Bloodkeep.

Captain Lewin led us through the rough-hewn building. His face was handsome, but deep scars marked his cheeks and forehead. He looked like a man of thirty or so, with thick brown hair and deep brown eyes. He had battled long enough and hard enough to make a dent in his immortal good looks. This was no easy life for any of the vampires in the village, least of all the soldiers.

The captain showed us to a modest room. A large chair made from twisting branches sat at the back, something akin to a rough throne. Several other, smaller chairs were scattered about in front of it. He motioned for us to take the two chairs nearest the throne before he exited to an antechamber at the back. Candles lit the room with warmth, and the roof was left open in places, showing the canopy far above them. Paris’s chair creaked as he settled on it, his large frame testing the vampires’ workmanship.

I sat next to him and shifted in my seat to look behind us, watching our flank. I wasn’t too worried, though, as the vampires seemed genuine and welcoming, especially when I’d seen the children. I couldn’t imagine any children flitting around the Bloodkeep under Desmerada’s bloodthirsty gaze.

“Do you think they’ll help us?” I whispered.

“I don’t know.” Paris squeezed my forearm before affecting a cool air, hiding his feelings under an inscrutable mask.

I kept my palms out on my lap, ready for trouble. I hoped the symbol, the one that had ensnared Paris as we’d watched the battle at the tower, was not leading us astray. The vampires at this settlement clearly lived outside the reach of Desmerada, but I didn’t know if they would turn on Paris. After all, he was a prize long sought by the self-appointed queen of vampires and had a sizeable bounty on his head.

Captain Lewin returned from the antechamber with a radiant woman on his arm. A simple tiara rested atop her dark hair bound in braids similarly to the girl from earlier. Her hazel eyes were warm and welcoming, and her ebony skin shone in the low light. She smiled at us as she took the few steps into the room. She looked at the throne and then back to Paris, before choosing a smaller chair closer to us.