A Violet Fire (Vampires in Avignon #1) - Kelsey Quick Page 0,3

beside me, shaking the fresh blood off of his clawed hands.

“And you.” He turns to face me, eyeing me like a bug. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Later, I would learn this vampire’s name. One of the most feared names in all of Cain. Lord Anton Zein.

✽✽✽

Overwhelming pain pulses from the top of my head to the ends of my shoulders as I wake. Unrefined screams bounce off the pitch-black walls and pierce my ears, sending waves through my skull. I manage to roll my eyes upward, desperately trying to focus on my surroundings. Long, crisscrossing bars from top to bottom are ahead of me, surrounded by walls of bloody stone. I’m in a cell—a dungeon. Lightning strikes of pain surge through my head as the screams start up again, forcing me to throw my back against the damp and sticky bricks. Flower-burning lanterns of blue and green Triltree flicker, dancing along the shadowy corridors and flashing across my closed eyelids. Everything is singeing pain, a grating ache.

Where am I? What is-

Hold on. I’ve been here before. I recognize these howls. The Selection dungeons. A multitude of cells where they confine out-of-line supply students, and also where they keep their reserve pit of fallen beasts locked up in case they ever need an army of blood-thirsty super humans. I shudder thinking about them. We call the once-humans, or the humans who have been victimized by a vampire’s bite, the fallen.

Vampires are their own species, reproducing normally, and scientifically unable to completely change the genealogy of another creature despite all of that old age folklore. However, they do have some sort of natural bacteria within the venom of their bite that causes a type of deranged transformation in humans. One that leads to a rabid, insatiable need for bloodshed, as well as strengthened senses and abilities. Their debilitating howls of hunger wrack my skull.

My heart seizes within me as I suddenly remember. The throbbing across my abdomen where the rope was wrapped, the enduring headache, and the shackles binding my arms and legs indicate that I did not successfully flee Cain.

I’ve been caught.

Everything I worked months for to get me to the other side of those walls was in vain. Vomit laces the back of my throat as I’m forced to acknowledge that everything is over. No more chances. My head drops in between my legs like an added weight.

That side of the wall was beautiful—the lush greenery that was undoubtedly the exact same on the inside, was somehow brighter; full of life. My mouth twists as I latch desperately onto the memory of being on top of Nightingale’s walls, feeling stronger than I ever felt before, watching a sunrise interrupted by only horizon. It was the first time I saw the sun peeking over the earth, and not the walls, since being admitted to Nightingale’s School of Infantry Supply—since the day they stripped me of my name, “Wavorly Sterling” and made me into “Z29734”—since the moment that my life no longer belonged to me, but to the sovereign vampire who saved me that night ten years ago, Lord Anton Zein.

The pounding of footsteps appear and grow closer from the passage outside of my cell.

Great. Here it comes.

I keep my head down, hoping they will pass me and bother someone else. Too much to ask. The steps stop outside of the cell and I offer a glare to my visitor. A haughty and conceited Messima Mettingskew stands in the barred doorway. She’s my Supply Culture and Etiquette professor, a real Class A type of crazy who exists only to rot out my eyes and ears.

“Oh, hello.” I barely manage while faking a smile. “How’s your day going?”

She smiles back contemptuously, but says nothing. That’s a first, she’s nearly always rambling on about something back at the school, as if anything they teach has any real significance. All the classes at Nightingale are a waste of time, and even the professors will admit it. One of the courses forced us to stand for an hour without making a sound, without shifting our feet, without moving our eyes. The lesson? To be as little of a nuisance as possible. Another forced us to recite Cain’s Pledge for the entire period, and yet another taught us how to speak in rhythms and frequencies most befitting to our owners’ sensitive ears. All of the mundanity lends to the real purpose of Nightingale: holding onto us until we are grown enough to not die after losing