As the world bucked and swirled around me, the thing holding me captive shoved me into the alley. “Good show, Seraphin, letting this baby sorcerer spy on you.”

Both of the silver-haired men turned our way, neither saying a word as they took in the sight of us. Sour bile spilled onto my tongue. My hand rose to cover my mouth, but my captor held it back.

“I do not—” I swallowed until I was certain I kept everything in place. If only my head would stop throbbing! “I do not wish to alarm anyone, but I think this thing is a vampire.”

The vampire laughed, a black shadow in the corner of my eye.

The stranger, Seraphin, stepped forward, his silver hair emblazoned as it hit the light. “What have you done to him, Fortun?”

“Just a love tap.” The vampire snuffled my hair. “He’s rather nice looking, don’t you think? I think I’ll keep him for the night.”

Although I had meant to shriek and faint at the proposition, the words escaping my mouth were, “Not as nice looking as him.” I pointed at Seraphin, or Valere, or either one, being of the exact same appearance.

Fortun laughed again, seeming to understand my difficulty.

I glanced between them. Silver hair, silver hair. White skin, white skin. Blue eyes? Impossible to see in the dark. Their eyes shone the same in the moonlight. Wait… wait… I turned in the vampire’s grasp to Seraphin. “You’re a vampire!”

“You made him feeble-minded,” Seraphin said. Or Valere?

“It’s not much of a difference, actually,” Valere said. Or was it the other way around?

I wanted nothing more than to lie down and cradle my befuddled head in my hands. The two of them made me dizzy.

But my captor refused to release me. “And yet, he still caught both of you, talking however you please. Who knows what tales he would have carried back to school with him.”

“He didn’t hear anything of worth,” Valere said. “If he even understood half of what we said.”

The vampire snarled, spit spritzing my cheek. “He still heard too much! Our queen has been quite clear on her desires, and those desires don’t include snub-nose little brats telling tales about you keeping company with vampires!”

“He didn’t know until you showed up, Fortun,” Valere said.

“Well, he does now.” Fortun tightened his grip on my hair. “We’ll celebrate your impending graduation with this nummy here. If you can keep your nose clean for three more months.”

Valere couldn’t even lower his nose to think about our project. I thought to inform the vampire of this, but the acid made a sudden reappearance. I choked it back.

“At least something good will come of this,” Fortun said. “He’s pretty enough to make a good toy for tonight.”

I coughed, then choked again. The vampire… the vampire planned to do unseemly things to me all night long. He would — he would — I was the nummy!

Vespasian would be deeply ashamed.

Le Chasseur — send down your heavenly shield! Even I must be worth protecting, right?

Le Chasseur refused to protect me, but apparently Seraphin the vampire would. He asked, “What do you suppose the sorcerers will do when one of their students goes missing? One of their students who was most notably in Valere’s company when he went missing?”

The vampire sniffed. “They’ll only know if Valere squeals.”

“We were seen together,” Valere said. “Not even ten minutes ago, by an apprentice hunter.”

“A hunter?” Fortun growled, his grip tightening. “And you foolishly—”

“You can’t kill the boy,” Seraphin said. “They’ll find out about us anyway.”

“Then why make it easy? They can discover our presence with his corpse.”

“I can make him keep our secret,” Valere said. “I have before.”

What? He had? What secret? About vampires? I knew nothing about vampires of any kind, unless he’d meant the shower room, but that had all been my secret…

“Better to silence him forever,” Fortun said.

Seraphin looked between Fortun and Valere. Valere looked away. Wasn’t he going to continue to argue for my life?

I sobbed. “P-please. I-I won’t tell, I swear.”

“You heard him,” Seraphin said.

The vampire remained unmoved. “Not nearly good enough.”

Seraphin disappeared. I would have thought I had imagined him in the first place if not for Valere’s sigh. Then the vampire behind me was yanked back, and I along with it, as Seraphin sought to tear Fortun away. I wished they wouldn’t. My head hurt.

“You will pay for that!” Fortun released me, turning his attention fully upon Seraphin.

I dropped to my knees and then fell onto my side. My face felt exceedingly wet. Was that blood or was it tears? My feet refused to scramble, my arms refused to push me up.

Valere had slunk to the wall, looking past the pair of fighting vampires, and then graced me with one last look. But instead of sprinting past, he dropped to my side.

“Rise,” he ordered.

I tried, but my body trembled. Valere slipped an arm around me and heaved me up the rest of the way. On my feet, I shrank away from him. Was it Valere, or was it Seraphin the vampire? He’d pulled me up far too easily.

Valere made an impatient sound and pulled me snug against his body, arm around my waist. He started to step forward, away from the fighting pair, but I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

Behind us, vampires fought tooth and nail, and Valere knew them, and yet I felt safe at Valere’s side. As if Valere would take care of me.

I shook my head, and that was a bad idea, but I caught a glimpse of Fortun, breaking away from Seraphin and darting toward Valere.

I shoved my weight against Valere. Valere pulled me along with him. The vampire changed course directly into us.

I covered Valere as we tumbled to the ground. The vampire fell on top of me.

Fangs pierced my neck.

I screamed and screamed and screamed.

His fangs ripped through my skin, followed by the sound of bricks crumbling under a tremendous force made faint by my screams. The world swam around me, far away, but the pain was right there with me. Inescapable. Like the vampire.

My hand found the serrated edges of my skin, pulled back in lines to reveal the muscle and blood beneath. A prayer, I needed a prayer to Le Chasseur, but only whiteness filled my mind.

“Daniel?” A hand – Valere’s hand –– pressed against my neck, another shook my shoulders. “Daniel.”

Was Valere… was Valere showing concern for me? Was that actual emotion in his voice?

I moaned, and tried to scramble to my feet. We needed to run, run, run, run. My legs weren’t moving. Valere grabbed me by my shoulders and dragged me along.

Where the courtyard met the alley, I heard the sounds of fists against flesh, blows landing faster than I’d ever seen or heard. Marcus would be so envious.

Valere, on the other hand, was irritated. “Seraphin, you couldn’t have thrown him to the other side?”

“My apologies,” Seraphin replied, his voice thick with sarcasm. Bones snapped, but it was the other vampire who screamed.

More bricks crumbled as the other vampire managed to thrust Seraphin into a wall. They were still between Valere and I, and the only exit.

A cloth pressed against the side of my neck, sending a flare of pain in otherwise numbed flesh. No, Valere pressed it. Valere… My head lay in Valere’s lap. When had that happened? My eyes fluttered, too heavy to stay open.

Valere dug his fingers against the wound. My mouth opened in a silent scream. “Don’t you dare fall asleep. We have to leave.”

“I — I can’t—” I swallowed against a wave of nausea. I really was going to die. Or worse. “Just go. Just go. Just go.”

“Be silent.”

I continued to whisper, “Go, go.”

Silver-plated steel sang at the entrance to the alley. “Halt, vampires! In the name of Le Chasseur!”

I blinked my eyes open. The apprentice! Thierry must have heard the disturbance, for shattering bricks lacked subterfuge, and he had come to save us.

The two vampires broke from their fight. Fortun, still no more than ghostly shadows, turned to the courtyard entrance. “A shoppe keep? Le Chasseur won’t protect you.”

“He doesn’t need to.” Thierry raised his sword in front as he dropped into a fighting stance. The house’s hearth light gleamed in his violet locks.

“A Larian hunter?” Fortun laughed so hard, he folded over double. “Come with me, boy, and I’ll show you Larian pleasures.”

“Please, you are not that old,” Thierry said. “And you’re young enough you should well know, violet hair or not, I am Fallion. I am a hunter in Le Chasseur’s name. And I will slaughter you.”

“Try, little Larian shoppe keep.” Fortun leapt at the apprentice.

The apprentice dodged and took a lunge aimed at the vampire’s exposed back.

With no one to engage him, Seraphin fell back to Valere and I, glancing up the brick walls. “I cannot carry both of you.”

“If that apprentice succeeds, you will need it more than us,” Valere said.

“I hadn’t heard there were hunters in town.”

I’d only just heard there were vampires. I could only pray to Le Chasseur that there were more hunters.

“I could take you,” Seraphin said.

Valere shook his head. “Go. We’ll be less suspicious.”

“If Fortun wins…”

“Then the queen will be happier for the ruse,” Valere said. “Go. Save yourself.”

“Valere…”

“There are always consequences. Now go.”

Fortun pushed the apprentice closer and closer to a body-sized gouge taken out of the brick wall. The vampire licked its lips, laughing as the apprentice’s sword fell short of its target every time.

When Thierry took his final step back and hit the wall, he made a fatal mistake — startled, he dropped his sword point and looked over his shoulder.

With one last toothy snarl, Fortun leapt at Thierry, ready to maul him. Seraphin grabbed Valere’s shoulder, ready to pull him away.

But Thierry slid around him and then behind. Fortun hit the wall, his head bouncing off, sweet retribution for what he had done to me. The apprentice delivered the fatal blow with Le Chasseur’s power before Fortun recovered, removing its head from its shoulder. Its body slumped against the wall, its blood sizzling as if on a burner.

“W-what…” I gaped.

Valere soothed my taut brow. “Cain’s Revenge, they call it.”

Thierry raced toward us, but Seraphin had already disappeared, just as quickly as when the vampire had attacked Fortun. Or perhaps he hid in one of the black spots darting in my vision.

But Thierry did not charge. He sheathed his sword. “Are you all right?”

“Of course not.” Valere clenched his jaw.

The apprentice knelt beside me, turning Valere’s fingers away to look under the makeshift tourniquet.

“I’m going to be a vampire,” I said. “I don’t want to be a vampire!”

Thierry started, “You’re not—”

“That’s what all the stories say, that you have to want to be a vampire. But I most definitely don’t want to be a vampire. Absolutely, positively not. No. I — I — I didn’t want — I —”

Valere clamped a hand over my mouth, stopping my babbling to my own relief. “That’s not how it works.”

I was going to be a vampire.

Vespasian would kill me.

“Did you drink the blood of the vampire?” Thierry asked.

How disgusting. I shook my head, immediately regretting it as the throbbing pain returned. Being dead would be nice at the moment. My head attempted to split open of its own volition.

“Then you won’t turn.”

I wouldn’t? Oh, thank Le Chasseur.

Valere pressed the cloth against my neck again. The hunter apprentice swept around us, searching for more vampires, or setting a perimeter, or something he told us but that failed to penetrate my fog. I relaxed into Valere’s strong arms.

Valere’s lap was rather comfy. My eyelids slid lower.

Valere was safe — we were safe.

I fainted properly.