Page 110

“Put. Me. Down!” I commanded, my words coming out deep and booming, like the song of a cello.

The vampire’s eyes widened, the impish glee leaving his face as his features smoothed to a completely blank expression. Suddenly, his fingers snapped apart, releasing my hair, and I fell to the ground on my ass.

My butt stung with the impact, and my scalp still screamed with the pain his pull had inflicted, but I ignored both and scrambled backward, staring up at my attacker all the while. I stopped when my head smacked into a tree, and I used the sturdy trunk behind me to pull myself up along its length.

The vampire didn’t move, didn’t react to my movements at all. It was like he was under some sort of spell. Was his programming malfunctioning? Had I said some magic words to stop the sim?

I chanced glances to my left and right, finding the forest was still solidly surrounding me. The sim wasn’t over, I wasn’t free yet. Then what happened to make him let me go and stand there like that? Had I discovered some trick to making him release me, to freezing him?

I wasn’t going to waste time standing here to find out. If this was some glitch, he could snap out of it any minute and grab me right back up again.

I snatched the arrow that stuck into the ground a few feet away from me and bolted in the direction opposite to the statuesque vampire, running as fast and hard as I could through the woods.

My mind raced as I whizzed through the trees and around bushes. If this was like a video game, that meant there had to be a way to beat it. Did that mean I had to kill the vampire? Like actually kill him?

How the fuck was I going to do that? I had only been training in combat skills for a week, and what techniques I had learnedwould be no match against a vampire. Even if I could transform at will, my mermaid tail wouldn’t help me here. And even if I did have any sort of control over my water powers, I couldn’t see a way to use that against him.

Dammit, why couldn’t I be a phoenix and accidentally start fires like Ashlyn? She’d have burned up that asshole in a heartbeat.

So, if I couldn’t use my shifter abilities or brute strength—which, let’s face it, I didn’t have—then I’d have to defeat this vampire another way. Maybe I could come up with some sort of trap and sneak up on him.

My lungs strained with exhaustion, and I was forced to hunker down beside a bush to swallow hungry gulps of air. I looked down at my right hand to see that I was still gripping the arrow. It wasn’t the typical fiberglass kind I’d seen before. Its shaft was made of a rigid dark metal, and its head was copper.

I remembered from some lecture in Shifter History—or was it Shifter Biology?—that vampires were weakened by copper. I could use this arrow to stab him, and it might actually hurt him.

But how the hell was I going to get close enough to do it? He’d see it coming, with those damned heightened senses.

“So, we’re playing hide and seek, are we?” His ethereal voice echoed through the woods, and I couldn’t tell which direction it was coming from, only that he was a fair distance away.

Should I run? Surely he’d hear my heavy footsteps crunching through the damned brush and snatch me up in an instant.

“I can hear your pretty heart calling to me,” he crooned, his voice sounding closer.

I could try to hide, but for how long? I could climb up a tree or something and just hope he wouldn’t find me, but I couldn’tdo that all night. The only way to end this stupid simulation was to beat it, and I couldn’t do that by avoiding my attacker.

I glanced back down at the arrow in my hand, and an insane idea seized me. Before I could let apprehension stop me, I reached for the sharp tip with my left hand and sliced my palm.

The piercing pain was instant, and I stifled a hiss as blood began to seep from the open wound. I pressed my throbbing hand to the ground and smeared my blood into the crumbling leaves.

When I was sure I’d spilled enough blood, I darted toward the left, running as fast as I could to the nearest tree, where I once again streaked a crimson stain on the trunk. The rough bark prodded at my cut, spreading my flesh further apart, and I had to hold my breath to keep the groan of pain locked inside. Blood poured faster, and I told myself it was worth it.

As fast as I could, I smudged my blood on trees and rocks in what I hoped was a circle, though at this point, I couldn’t really tell anymore. But it didn’t matter.

Finally satisfied, I crouched up against a tree facing outside my makeshift circle and used the arrow’s tip to tear a strip of fabric from the bottom hem of my shirt. I wrapped the thin shred around my right palm and tied it with the aid of my teeth, hoping it would be enough to mask my actual scent.

“Did you hurt yourself, love?” the vampire’s voice called, and it sounded like he was only a few feet behind me now.

I covered my mouth and nose with my good hand to muffle my heavy breathing as I heard his footsteps crunching in the brush, praying the smell of my blood littering the space would override the sound of my pounding pulse.

There was a sudden movement in the area behind the tree, and the vampire shouted, “Gotcha!” as he shook the first bush I’d hidden behind.

Though he hadn’t actually found me, fear shot through me so potently I could hardly feel anything else.

His laughter rang out, bouncing off the canopy around us. “Clever little mouse, aren’t you.”

I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing, willing myself to calm so my pulse would slow. I needed to be able to think rationally, and I couldn’t do that with the amount of cortisol currently flooding my system.

“You may have left a chaotic trail of breadcrumbs to throw me off, but it won’t last for long,” he called out. “I will find you. Eventually. And you’ll be all the sweeter when I do.”