Page 3 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness

I watched from the window as that thirteen-year-old girl ran through the tall grass, a rosy-cheeked Idris trailing her as he waved around a butterfly net.

As I whispered my goodbye to my childhood home, to the secrets beneath the floorboards and the whispers in the walls, a sharp pain sprouted at the side of my head.

I winced as agony set in, and a voice cut through the haze.

“Please, baby,” a voice called, panicked, gruff, and in pain.

A voice that made my heart flutter. A voice that didn’t belong here.

“If you don’t stop, you’re going to kill yourself!You’re going to hurt Idris!”

Slowly, I remembered the events that led me here. Idris’s crumpled body on the forest floor.

The sun grew brighter above the rolling hills of Isolde. I reached for the rays, clawed for them, begged for them.

I want to live. I promise not to waste it.

Please let me live.

I want to live!

2

KYLO

Idris’s eyes closed. My shield trembled, a fissure rippling through the wall of shadow.

A rare tear slid down my cheek. I looked to the angel of death.

“Come back to me, baby. Hold on, Idris. Hold?—”

The fissure ruptured. My shield exploded. My life flashed before my eyes: my childhood in Morha; plotting and scheming with Aisling; her lifeless body, desecrated by the soulless born; finding a chosen family in Blade, Harmony, and Princeton; the euphoria of my higher purpose serving the clan; and my precious Evie and her beautiful, vulnerable heart.

The world, once deafening and dark, became so instantly still and bright in a split second that all I could do was gasp for breath. I clutched my chest with one hand and still held my blood-soaked shirt to Idris’s head with the other.

The angel of death dropped back down to the earth. The shadows evaporated, leaving a scorched, deadened wasteland in their wake. The late afternoon sun peeked out from behind heavy clouds.

Evie loudly sucked in air, and the proof of her miraculous aliveness drew an incomprehensible, strangled sound from mylips. She was on her side; her arm was bent awkwardly beneath her. Her heartbeat was labored and slow before growing far too faint.

My first instinct was to run to her—to scoop her into my arms and assess for injuries—but Idris’s eyes were closed, his body slack as I tried desperately to stop his hemorrhaging.

A heavy mass was lodged in my throat. My vampiric hearing strained to find his heartbeat, desperate to witness another miraculous promise of life.

Evie tried to stand, and I watched helplessly as she fell back down. She held her likely broken arm against her chest as she let out an exhausted, muffled cry.

My mouth opened, and I realized I didn’t know what to say. It was remarkably unusual for me, this state of uncertainty and paralyzing horror. I was used to knowing exactly what to do at all times, especially when it came to my angel.

That rare tear fell from my eye and down to the earth, joining the river of Idris’s blood.

“Slowly, baby,” I managed to say, the words a gruff rasp.

Evie was dragging herself to us, her white dress now coated in black ash and gods-knew-what from the born vampires’ remains.

Idris and I were on the only circular patch of untouched grass in this decimated plot of forest. The only source of green—of life—in sight.

Except the grass was consumed by crimson, and Idris’s heart had stopped.

Still, I held the useless, drenched fabric to his head as my jaw trembled. Evie’s wail shook my bones and crushed my soul.