I forced myself to keep running. A pine branch scraped across my cheek. The sun was like a boulder on my back. I might as well have been Sisyphus, condemned to roll a huge rock uphill every day in Tartarus as punishment for his sins. Logan had gone through a Greek myth phase, and he’d read me a new one every night the summer I was ten.
Screw Sisyphus.
I wasn’t going to just lie down and die. My family and friends had fought too hard so I could survive. Aunt Hyacinth still wore the scars on her face.
Dawn wouldn’t have me, not today.
I tripped over a root, any natural grace fleeing under the laborious heaviness of my limbs, but I wouldn’t let it stop me. I wasn’t quite fast enough to catch my balance or my footing. I fell.
Right into Constantine’s arms.
He twisted so he was dipping me, as if we were dancing in some fancy ballroom. He should have been wearing an embroidered frock coat and a velvet hair ribbon, not a plain leather coat. My hair dragged the ground. I knew the moment he saw the blood staining my shirt and dried on my chin. His fangs lengthened, his eyes gleamed violet, like amethyst beads. He bent forward, dragging the tip of his nose along my exposed throat, tickling. I should have been frightened or disgusted. Instead I just dangled there, comforted. He licked my collarbone.
“Mmm, fresh,” he murmured, his British accent thicker than usual.
He was licking Kieran’s blood off me.
I used his hand on my lower back to stabilize myself, and pushed my feet up into the air, vaulting into a backflip. I landed in the bushes a few feet away, berries scattering around me, hands clenched.
Constantine just raised his eyebrow at me, unflappable as always. I’d never seen him wear any expression except dry amusement. “Whose blood are you wearing that you won’t share, beloved?”
“My—never mind,” I said.
“It’s fresh.” He licked a drop off his left fang. I swallowed hard. He shook his head. “You’re entirely too hard on yourself. This isn’t some movie where you have to suffer and gnash your teeth to prove your goodness. You are who you are. It’s to be celebrated.”
“I drank from an unwilling … friend.” Could I call Kieran my boyfriend after tonight? Did I have that right? Didn’t he deserve a girlfriend who wouldn’t attack him? Someone like him, full of honor and ready to die to do the right thing. Someone Helios-Ra. Not a vampire like me.
And I was feeling feral. I was the only Drake I knew of who was having this much trouble with the bloodchange. It had only been a couple of months, but by now I should only be dangerous right at dusk or if I was left to starve. I shouldn’t be dangerous to kiss.
I tried very hard not to think about the Hel-Blar, who attacked anything that moved, even one another. I might have more fangs than other vampires, even more than the Hounds who were ostracized for their double set, but I still had fewer than the Hel-Blar. And I wasn’t blue like they were, and I didn’t smell like mushrooms and stagnant water. Anyway, weren’t we still finding that there were undiscovered vampire races, since Lucy’s cousin Christabel was turned?
Constantine’s mouth quirked. “I can’t tell if you’re about to cry or let out a battle yell, love.”
“Neither,” I said quietly, forcing myself out of the bushes. “I’m just going to walk.” Which at the moment was a battle in itself.
“I could carry you,” he suggested.
I shook my head grimly. I’d been carried once before, had lain unconscious in Montmartre’s arms when he’d thought to trade my family’s safety for me. I wasn’t going to be that Solange anymore. I didn’t want to be rescued. I’d get to safety myself or die trying.
“I’ll walk,” I said again.
“You’re ruining my very romantic gesture, Solange,” he said. Despite the circumstances, I couldn’t help but love the way he said my name. His voice was like smoke, dangerous as a forest fire and comforting as a beach bonfire all at the same time.
I was feeling tingly over a vampire not an hour after trying to drain my boyfriend and being Tasered by my best friend. Clearly, I was going to hell. I limped along, gritting my back teeth. Don’t be such a martyr.
I frowned, glancing around. “Did you hear that?”
Constantine raised his eyebrows. “No, what?”
I shook my head. I must be more tired than I thought. “Nothing.”
“We’re still rather far from camp,” he said. “I assume that’s where you’re going?”
I nodded. He walked easily beside me, unfazed by the sun. I didn’t know how old he was or how long he’d been a vampire, but it was long enough that he could fight the approach of the dawn. I was still so newly turned I dropped before everyone, even Nicholas, who had only just turned the year before. It made me vulnerable. And it made me stupid to have been out so close to sunrise. My mother was going to kill me.
Constantine pulled a glass vial out of the inside pocket of his coat and handed it to me. I didn’t take it right away. It dangled from his fingers, and in the dark it looked more black than red. “This will give you strength.”
“I don’t want it,” I lied. My fingers were literally trembling with the need to snatch the vial away from him. I bit down hard on my lower lip to distract myself.