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GAIDA

“No!” I shriek as I see Luke slipping away from me. “No!” I reach for him, dropping the sword with a clatter to the floor and lunge for him, but it’s too late. He’s gone. So is Lucius.

“Well,” Felix says after a horrified beat. “That was unexpected.”

I whirl towards him. “You think?” I shove my hands into my hair and try not to panic.

“Let’s just breathe and take stock,” Dante says, coming to me, that wicked stake clutched in his grip like a lifeline.

“I can’t… I can’t…” Breathing is hard, painful. It feels like my soul has been ripped from my body.

“Gaida,” Dante says, shoving the stake in the back of his pants and gripping both my hands. “Breathe. We are still in the middle of a crisis that just escalated. We need you with us, not falling apart.”

I swallow hard, trying to pull myself together, but it’s like trying to catch smoke with my bare hands. Luke is gone—vanished to some parallel dimension with his sire and that terrifying ancient vampire.

“What the hell just happened?” I ask, my voice shaking. “What did I do?”

Felix bends down to examine the sword I dropped, peering at the still-glowing runes along its blade. “You severed his bond with Lucius. And then Constantine took them both… elsewhere.” His hand hovers over the blade, but try as he might, he can’t pick it up. I pull away from Dante, bend down and snatch it up from the floor. It feels wrong out of my hand. Whatever the fuck it is.

“But where? And why?” My throat tightens as panic threatens to overwhelm me. “He looked at me like he wanted to kill me. Right at the end.”

“Feral,” Dante says quietly. “When you broke the bond, he went feral, just like the others.”

A crash from somewhere in the building reminds us that we’re still under attack. I straighten my spine, forcing back tears. There will be time to fall apart later.

“Okay, let’s run it down,” I say. “We have lost the Headmaster and most powerful member of staff. Harlow is a treacherous cunt, and who knows who else is involved on the inside. We have feral vampires running amok, and these creeps who are after me. Not to mention Lucius, who has either taken the opportunity during the chaos to come for me and or Luke, or it was some wild coincidence…”

“What?” Dante says when I trail off.

I stare at him grimly. “Lucius’s arrival here is a direct result of those hooded arseholes breaking the wards. He knew exactly where to find Luke and me. If they hadn’t invaded, none of this would’ve happened! They are dead!” I march to the door, brandishing my sword. “Dead! Do you hear me!”

“Hold your roll there, sweetheart,” Dante says, grabbing my hand as the two Gargoyles, now fully formed again with MistHallow magick, block my path. “You aren’t going out there.”

I round on him. “I’m not staying in here! Luke would want us to defend his home, this place he is so proud of and rightly so.” Tears prick my eyes, but I blink them back.

“You’re right,” Felix says after a tense moment. “But charging out there with no plan is suicide.”

I grip the sword tighter, its runes weirdly pulsing in time with my heartbeat. “Fine. What’s the plan, then?”

Dante’s eyes darken before he closes them and scrunches up his face. “The hooded guys have formed a holding pattern helped along by the Gargoyles. They must be some sort of failsafe if Luke is off the premises,” he mutters, almost to himself. “Some of the professors are rounding up the ferals, the ones they can find anyway.”

“We need to get rid of the creeps. They want me,” I say, my voice steadier than I feel. “So, let’s use that.”

Felix raises an eyebrow. “You’re suggesting we use you as bait?”

“Not exactly.” I examine the sword in my hand, feeling its ancient power humming through my veins. “I’m suggesting I show them exactly why they should be afraid of me. I’ll sever their sire bonds faster than they can tell me their diabolical plans.”

Felix snorts but wisely keeps his mouth shut.

Dante opens his eyes and exchanges a look with Felix that speaks volumes.

“What? You don’t think I can do it?” I challenge.

“It’s not that,” Dante says carefully. “It’s that we don’t know what happens if you tap into whatever power they’re after. What if that’s exactly what they want? I mean, why would they send sired vampires after the one creature who could sever those ties without conscious thought?”

I hadn’t considered that. “Then what do we do?”

A violent explosion rocks the building in response to my question, showering us with plaster from the ceiling. The Gargoyles roar, their stone wings unfurling as they prepare to defend the entrance.

“Too late for planning,” Felix mutters, his hands already glowing with dark magick. “Time to improvise.”

I take a deep breath and grip the sword tighter, its power coursing through me like electricity. “Then we fight our way out. Together.”

Felix nods, his hands crackling with dark energy. “I like that plan.”

“Stick together,” Dante says, pulling out the stake again. “No heroics.”

We nod when another explosion shakes the building, and this time, one of the walls cracks. The Gargoyles shift, positioning themselves to block any entrance through the new weakness.

“On three,” I say, moving toward the door. “One, two?—”

The door bursts open before I can finish, but instead of hooded figures, it’s Professor Burdock, her usually immaculate appearance dishevelled, blood splattered across her white blouse.

“Luke!”

She skids to a halt when she sees me and the guys flaunting weapons that definitely do not belong in our hands. She gives us all a suspicious stare. “What are you doing in here?”

“Hiding,” Felix remarks. “Professor Blackthorn isn’t here.”

“Where is he?” she asks, standing down lightly after Felix’s explanation.

I hesitate, not sure how much to tell her or if I can even trust her. For all we know, she could be in league with Harlow. “He wasn’t here when we arrived.”

So far, that is true. Luke wasn’t here, he was fighting hooded creeps in the dining hall.

“Hmm,” Burdock says, eyes narrowed. “Where could he be?”

“He was in the dining hall last time I saw him,” Dante pipes up, following my lead.

She fixes her glare on him. “Well, he isn’t there now.”

Dante shrugs, trying to look innocent. Too bad he can’t pull off that look. “I suppose we should split up then and try to find him.”

Burdock rolls her eyes at him. “Don’t be ridiculous. You are students. You did the right thing coming here for safety. You stay here, I will go and find him.”

“Okay,” I say.

She gives the sword the stink-eye before she winds between the Gargoyles, still standing guard at the entrance.

I stare at them.

They stare back.

“Can you hear me?” I ask.

“We are not deaf,” the one on the right says.

“Will you answer questions?”

Nothing but a stony expression. Now I see where that term came from. These fuckers.

“I’m going to ask anyway. Do you have any idea what we should do?”

If a Gargoyle could look taken aback, that is exactly what the right one looks like at the moment. “You are asking our advice?”

I make a ‘well, yeah’ gesture.

The left Gargoyle shifts slightly, stone grinding against stone. “We protect. We do not advise.”

“Please,” I try again. “Luke is gone, and we don’t know if we can trust anyone. You’ve been here since the founding of MistHallow, haven’t you?”

“Since the first stone was laid,” the right one confirms grudgingly.

“Then you must know something about what’s happening. About the Blood Rights. About me.”

The Gargoyles exchange a look, their stone eyes somehow conveying volumes.

“The Blood Queen rises when the old order falls,” the left one finally says, voice like gravel. “You hold the Sword of Mashtar. It has chosen you.”

“What does that mean?” I press. “What am I supposed to do with it?” This is the first time I’ve heard Blood Queen. Blood Sovereign has been thrown about, but Queen. That is female-specific. Me. The only female-born vampire in the new generation… somehow, that seems significant.

No shit, Sherlock.

I slow blink and turn to face Dante. He frowns and stares back at me.

“Did you just get cute with me in my own head?” I growl.

“Uhm, maybe…”

“The sword severs bonds,” the right Gargoyle interrupts. “It unmakes what was made. In the hands of the Blood Queen, it can remake.”

Dante moves closer to me. “Remake what, exactly?”

“The hierarchy. The order. The nature of vampire kind.”

I stare down at the sword, glowing steadily in my hand. “That’s what they want. They want me to remake vampire society.”

“Or destroy it altogether,” Felix adds grimly.

“Guys,” Dante says, moving even closer and pushing me between him and Felix. “They corralled us here.”

“Did they?” Felix asks. “We came here of our own free will.”

“Did we?” Dante counters, his tone careful, dark. “Or were we funnelled here the second they realised we left the dining hall?”

Felix frowns. He was leading the way.

“What made you come this way?” I ask.

“It seemed the logical choice,” he replies. “But only after I realised that the way to the outside was blocked. I originally thought we should head to the underground chambers.”

“So, funnelled,” I murmur.

“And now we’re here,” Dante says, his eyes never leaving the Gargoyles. “With the sword. In Luke’s office.”

“It was in a locked cabinet,” Felix argues. “They couldn’t have known we’d find it.”

“Luke’s cabinet,” I say. “In Luke’s office, which is warded six ways to Sunday. Nothing here is a coincidence.”

The Gargoyles shift again, their stony eyes tracking something we can’t see. “They come,” the left one warns.

A cold feeling settles in my stomach. “Who? The hooded arseholes?”

“The Equilibrium Council.”

The temperature in the room drops several degrees. The windows frost over, and my breath comes out in visible puffs. The sword in my hand shines brighter, almost humming with anticipation.

“I’m getting really sick of these dramatic entrances,” Felix mutters, his hands glowing with defensive spells.

“They aren’t getting me or this sword,” I growl and face off, ready to cause as much mayhem as possible.

Before they can enter the office, time seems to stand still for one second before Luke is thrown forcibly through the air out of nowhere, to fly across the office, hitting the weapons cabinet with a thud that makes my bones ache.

“Luke!” I cry, stepping towards him.

Dante grabs my hand to stop me as Luke gets to his feet, fully composed, albeit with a wildness in his eyes that wasn’t there before. His gaze sweeps over us, and then he turns to the door, unleashing almighty hell with a power blast that knocks the three of us back through the windows, glass shattering around us as we hit the ground hard.