Page 8 of The Huntress (The Blood of Legends #1)

Chapter Eight

DESPERATION AND INSANITY

C allie needed sunlight—her pasty skin attested to it. A coffee break on her balcony would’ve sufficed. Not out in the wild, one hundred miles from civilization, where human women competed against each other for the ultimate prize—conversion.

She was here for Val, who’d tossed in her chips. She wouldn’t survive in her weakened state, which meant a swift and painful death. Fuck. Callie could kill Syl for this. For inspiring Val to get off her couch for suicide. For sending Callie into the disease-riddled bay and for distracting her from her actual investigation on Carter.

As a suckblood, Valerie would be cancer free. Either way, she died today. Callie had used her police siren to get here, which would cost her a few merits if Captain found out. She didn’t care. This was an emergency. She should’ve sensed something was up when Sylvester had nodded at Val. She should’ve listened to her instincts. Instead, she’d been more upset over the loss of that damn canister.

She sighed as she pushed against the crowd of eager women, searching for her sister. The sweaty, overly perfumed bodies nauseated her. Or was that fear coiling in her stomach like a cobra about to strike? Her heart pounded in her ears, but she ignored it, keeping her focus on the various women around her.

They came in all shapes and sizes, but all with either lust or greed on their faces. The suckbloods bussed them in so no vehicles remained abandoned on the land. And of course, all had signed a waiver. Just as she had. She was here to find her sister to talk her out of this stupid idea but couldn’t go in until she’d signed that silly thing. With panic overruling her innate distrust of everything, she’d signed it unread. So she assumed it was a waiver of liability.

Her badge and gun had no effect on them. In fact, as soon as she flashed them, she lost both. Bastards. More demerits coming her way. Captain would have her ass for this, again. She’d just received her replacement gun. Not to mention, her stranded police vehicle would draw unwanted attention from her fellow officers. Everyone would clear out when this festival ended, with no evidence of anything having happened. No bodies, no blood, no signs whatsoever except for her police vehicle. It would look as if she drove to the middle of nowhere for no reason. Shit. She hadn’t even disabled the tracker.

Her focus returned to her surroundings, to the eager chatter of the participants. As far as she’d overheard, it was an obstacle course. If the suckbloods caught you, they’d drain the blood from your body and leave you to die. The women who made it through to the finish line would suffer the conversion, and only a handful survived that process. This was mortifying. By her calculations, Val had a thirty-three percent chance of survival, even less since mathematics had never been Callie’s strong point. The cancer had drained Val of her energy and personality but not her will to survive.

“Val,” Callie yelled into the crowd, drawing attention from a few women. None deigned to help her. Bitches .

They faced the front where a tall man waited. The head suckblood. She didn’t spare him a glance. Why would she care that he was gorgeous, so well-built, and any other description the women whispered?

“Val!” she called again. She scanned these pitiful women, searching for a redhead.

How many were participating? Two hundred, three? How many would make it through ? The air hung with desperation and aggression. How many would kill each other to reach the finish line? She shuddered and doubled her efforts to find her sister, fearing more than the possible conversion.

There! She spotted short-cropped auburn hair at five-foot-seven—the right height for her sister.

“Val,” she screamed. In slow motion, she faced Callie with at least five rows of women between them.

Val’s green eyes widened in recognition, then angry determination, before she whipped away from her.

“Val!” Callie’s voice cracked. She tried to push through the women between them. They held firm, making her realize she was close to the front line. They refused to give. “If you get out of my effing way, I can grab my sister and get her away from here. Two fewer women to worry about.” She tried to negotiate with the women, but their lack of compassion cemented their features.

“You lie,” a woman snarled.

“I do not,” Callie said, shocked someone would imply she’d do such a thing.

“You’ll die like the rest of them, bitch,” said the stocky woman next to her.

Callie gaped, stunned—not by the insults—but by the sheer stupidity emanating from the women. What was wrong with them?

She blinked at the healed bite marks on their exposed skin, shoulders, necks, arms.

They were feeders.

Her lips curled in distaste. You couldn’t talk to feeders. They only saw the ecstasy they received when they volunteered for suckbloods to feed from them. Rumors said a vampire’s saliva could heal, but repeated feedings from the same spot left their mark.

She shuddered and shuffled to the side, trying to go around. After another few frustrating minutes, the packed bodies made it hopeless too, and she elbowed her way back until she had Val in her sights again.

The hollow blast of a starting pistol silenced the incessant chatter, and the women burst forward. The crowd carried Callie toward the trees, ignoring her screams. She pushed forward, trying to reach Val, who sprinted surprisingly well for a cancer patient. Callie wanted to stop her before they breached the dense forest forming part of the course.

She was little over five feet from her now when the path split, but the women shoved her to the left, away from Val.

“No!” She twisted to go back, but the crowd wouldn’t let her. “Get the fuck out of the way.” Callie’s booming shout shredded her throat, but it didn’t matter when they ignored her.

Val’s disappearing bobbing redhead had panic gripping Callie, tensing her muscles, and driving logic to the far edges of her mind. She wished she had her gun—she’d kill these stupid women where they ran. They were dead anyway once the suckbloods joined the feeding frenzy.

She jumped off the path and out of the way of the charging women. From this vantage point, the stampeding masses raced down the two paths. She had a bird’s eye view of the suckbloods descending as if from the sky. They helped themselves to the stragglers.

It disgusted and fascinated her as female and male suckbloods drained woman after woman—the abused, slaughtered, or sacrificed bodies lay abandoned afterward. She never saw the act of it happening, and if she had, she’d learned many years ago to cordon off the part of her mind that cared. Corpses were clues and puzzles needing solving, nothing more.

One suckblood paused and tilted his head at her, his black eyes menacing, his interest clear as he drew in a deep breath. He grinned, his pointed blood-coated teeth denting his bloodied lip. With a cry, she took off, not along any path in use but through the middle, making her own path.

“What the hell were you thinking, Callie?” She gasped. “This was your stupidest idea yet.” She grunted, wiping sweat off her temple with a flick of her wrist. “Now you’re food. How can you help Val if you’re dead?”

She vaulted over tree roots and big boulders, not a stranger to exercise as law enforcement. Her job required she ran, dived, rolled, or ducked. On top of a protruding boulder, she stopped to get her bearings. Women screamed as they stampeded on the left and right of her, so she was sure she was in the middle of both paths. She tried to discern a focus point. A white object lay straight ahead. She would aim for that.

She stumbled forward as soon as something behind her crashed through the branches like an unskilled hunter. He toyed with her—his food. It fueled her to run faster, harder, even though he made noises only to spook her.

Argh. How she hated suckbloods.

With branches slapping across her face and bare arms, she sprinted to the white thing . Focusing her breathing, she sucked in great gulps of air as sweat dripped into her eyes, stinging and blurring her vision.

She allowed a small smile to form. They’d chosen the wrong prey. Although, she did wish she’d dressed appropriately. Her sneakers were fine, but should she survive until nightfall without crossing the finish line, her cut-off jeans and T-shirt wouldn’t keep her warm. A sports bra would’ve been helpful. Not to mention any number of her throwing blades or grenades—anything other than just her wits.

She stopped short before breaking past the tree line. One suckblood already hunted her, and she couldn’t afford to attract another hunter. She studied the white structure in the clearing. It was a skylight—round, with a glass roof, approximately knee-high off the ground. There was something underground that required natural light. She frowned, not seeing an entrance. She’d hoped she could escape here since she wasn’t interested in conversion, anyway.

Sighing, she glanced around, accepting that this skylight wasn’t her hoped-for refuge. A faded footpath marred the forest floor—one that looked abandoned. She followed it, praying it led her to safety.

At the sound of someone entering the clearing behind her, she careened along the path to dive behind a large bush. She landed on something hard, jabbing her thigh. She yelped. The force knocked the breath from her, and she instinctively bit down on her lip to stop herself from gasping.

With their excellent sense of smell, the bush wouldn’t hide her from the suckblood. She stank less than the other women, having forgone deodorant or perfume in her rush to find Val. But she’d washed her hair.

She brushed her hand over something metallic and glanced at a handle to a trap door. Before she could second-guess her decision, she lifted the hatch. It opened on well-oiled hinges, startling her, since it had a rusted and ancient texture.

She grabbed onto the visible part of the ladder and climbed into the hole, pulling the hatch with her. The pitch dark didn’t deter her with fear driving her to be bold. She continued down the ladder, feeling for each rung before stepping onto what she hoped was the floor. Using the rock wall behind the ladder, she guided herself around the room, tapping her foot, hoping the floor wouldn’t drop off beneath her. Her vision adjusted to the darkness, and she discerned unfamiliar box-like shapes that were useless to her. They wouldn’t hide her for long, and they weren’t weapons.

The hatch opened, casting a sunlit rectangle on the dirt floor. Throwing caution to the wind, she dived behind one of those shapes, slamming her head against the wall. Dizziness and a piercing pain hit her. She raised her hand to touch the lump forming and winced—her fingers came away wet and sticky.

Great. Now she was bleeding, enticing him like a matador waving his muleta at the bull.

“I sense she went down here,” the deep voice said. “I can smell her coconut shampoo.” An inhalation followed his words. “She’s injured.”

There was a smirk in his voice, as if he’d been the one to draw her blood. The fucking arrogance.

“It’s his place. I don’t know about you, but I’m not willing to anger him,” a woman said, her voice sexy and breathless.

Freakin’ predators.

“I want her. She challenged me.” The urgency in his voice sounded feral, skittering Callie’s heartbeat. So this was what prey endured? She didn’t like it.

“You’re on your own,” the woman said. “I will choose another meal. I doubt you would’ve shared anyway.”

“True.” The man chuckled.

“See you later, Darius.”

The male suckblood descended the ladder, closing the hatch behind him. What law enforcement was taught about suckbloods wasn’t something she would stake her life on. They could see in the dark, but was his swift, confident clamber down the ladder due to a familiarity with the hideaway?

Shit. He might have corralled her toward his lair.

“I can smell you, my pretty,” he whispered, causing her to shiver at the lethal seduction in his voice.

Like an idiot, she’d trapped herself.