Hearts At Stake - By Alyxandra Harvey Page 0,8

the woods. One of them shuddered, turned to ash, and drifted into the hedges. The stake tumbled to the ground. Solange’s second-oldest brother, Sebastian, wiped his hands off dispassionately and then turned to help his mother drag the half-conscious vampire she’d thrown into the tree toward the house. Connor was speaking quietly into his cell phone to Bruno.

I pressed my back against the wall as a parade of teeth and feral smiles passed me. When they were all gathered in the parlor, I followed. I went to my favorite purple velvet armchair by the fireplace. Solange stood next to me, her eyes never leaving that of the young man currently being tied up. His shirt was torn, his dark reddish brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. His eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. I wouldn’t have opened them either if all seven Drake brothers were standing around me, glaring. Never mind Helena, who waved them aside with barely a flick of her wrist. She sniffed once, delicately.

“He smells like kith.” She whispered but shook her head. “Kind of.”

Liam frowned, sniffed as well.

“Something’s not right.” His gaze narrowed, sharpened. “Left arm.”

We all looked even though I didn’t know what I was looking at. The tip of a tattoo poked out from under his pushed-up sleeve. It looked like a stylized tribal- style sun but I couldn’t be sure.

“Damn,” Nicholas muttered. “Helios-Ra.”

Everyone looked totally bummed out over such a comic- book name. He stirred. There was a gentle waft of lilies and chocolate, almost right, but not quite. Everyone else was still scenting the air like hunting hounds, nostrils flared.

“What?” I whispered to Solange. “What’s with all the sniffing? It’s creeping me out.”

She didn’t have time to answer because he opened his eyes, suddenly, as if he’d been poked with something sharp. His eyes weren’t pale, not like every other vampire’s I’d ever seen.

They were very black and very hostile.

CHAPTER 3

Solange

“You’re . . . m-mortal,” I finally stammered. I knew Lucy liked to think all vampires had this suave quality, but I so didn’t, and not just because I wasn’t technically a vampire yet. She was the one with the beaded velvet scarves, and I was the one with the pottery clay dried on my pants. Plus, I was totally gaping at him. He was a hunter, and he worked for an organization devoted to wiping us out. The sun tattoo was proof enough of that, underscored by his expression: righteous anger.

Great.

“I don’t get it,” Lucy whispered to me. “Who is he?”

“Not one of us,” I whispered back, my gaze never leaving his. I didn’t know what I was reading there, but it was complicated, whatever it was. I’d heard of the cologne some hunters wore; it mimicked vampire pheromones, to take a potential enemy off guard. We’d believed it completely out in the garden, until he’d had to fight my mother, who would have killed him if my dad hadn’t been so adamant about having someone to question.

Nicholas half stepped in front of us, annoyingly overprotective as always. He didn’t like surprises and unanswered questions and we’d just had our fill of both. I’d been trained just like they had, but none of my brothers could get it in their thick heads that I wasn’t delicate or defenseless.

The Helios-Ra agent was wearing black nose plugs, which just proved he knew more about us than we knew about him. I reached over and yanked them out.

“What are you doing here?” I could tell he was trying to hold his breath. I could’ve told him that strategy never worked for long. He glared at me mutinously.

“Tracking,” he finally answered on a sharp exhale.

“Let me guess,” I said, disgusted. “Because I’m just so beautiful and you don’t know why but you just have to be with me?” I was really starting to hate this whole pheromone thing.

He blinked, nearly smiled. “Not exactly.”

I blinked back. “Oh.” Damn it, he was even more attractive when he didn’t seem particularly affected by my questionable charms. “Well, who are you then?”

“Helios-Ra,” he answered, his tone clipped.

“Yeah, we got that.”

“Your name?” Dad scowled.

“Kieran Black.”

“Since when has Helios-Ra been on our trail? Last time I checked, we had a treaty. We don’t eat humans, so you don’t bother us and we don’t bother you.”

My mom snorted. She hated the treaty. She preferred fighting, being much more skilled with weapons than tact, but my dad was all about practicality and the long view. He’d made the treaty before my oldest brother