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Ashlani squealed, and I opened my eyes to find her holding a small flame in her bloodied palm.

Hells.Focus, Huntyr.

I shut my eyes again, focusing on my palm, on the light stinging and the warm blood that dripped from my skin to the floor below. I imagined the goddess herself looking over us, gracing us with her power. I pictured the archangels coaxing the magic from the blood, giving us everything we could ever want.

My fingers began to tingle. I squeezed my eyes harder, focusing on that drip of blood.

Drip.

Drip.

That’s when I felt it. It was so subtle, I almost didn’t notice. But when smoke filled my senses, when darkness filled my veins, I panicked.

I snapped my eyes open, looking around to see if anyone else noticed.

No, the others were too busy focusing on their own blood magic to notice anything about me. Everyone but Wolf, anyway, who stared at me with a raised eyebrow from the back of the room.

That couldn’t be normal. To feel so much darkness, to sense so much power. There was no way that was supposed to happen. My stomach sank. What if I couldn’t summon the blood magic like everyone else? What if some part of me was so fucked up, I could only call to the darkness?

For the next few hours, I tried and failed to summon the blood magic over and over and over again. Each time I started to feel that sultry, looming pull, I snapped out of it, afraid of what I might see on the other side.

My senses warned me against it, screaming at the dangers that lay within. Hells, maybe I was never going to summon blood magic.

Even Ashlani had no problem conjuring her small flame. Did she feel the shadows that called to her from her blood?

Did she give into the darkness as well?

I shook my head, wiping my bloodied palm on my leather pants.

I would try again, just not here. Not with so many witnesses, not with so many people to see if I screwed everything up.

Magic called to me. Later, when I was alone, I would answer with blood.

Blood poured from the sky.

The thick red droplets splattered the pristine kingdom with death and chaos, blinding soldiers and terrifying children.

I had never seen such a mighty place crumble so quickly.

I was in the vampyre kingdom, and though I couldn’t remember ever being there before, it felt so right.

It felt like home… if home were burning to the ground.

Screams rang out in the distance; women and children fought for their lives.

War.

Suddenly, I was in the thick of it.

Vampyres, rabid and primal, rampaged through the kingdom as if nothing could stop them. They were out for fae blood, something they could feed on.

Of course, they wouldn’t find any of that here.

Only the army fighting against us could give them what they craved.

So, they charged.

With every ounce of strength, the vampyres catapulted themselves toward the army that infiltrated the kingdom.