can manage to speak.
“Raske wanted to wait. To present you like a prize during the Treaty Celebration.”
“Why?”
His feet shift, his rifle falls pointing toward the dirt, no longer invested in the threats that may surround us.
“Because he wants to use you.” My eyes flash to his face, but he doesn’t look at me. “Everyone is looking for the girl that was stolen by the pike, Fallon. The pike that murdered her family and left nothing but a trail of dust in their wake. Raske wants to present you as an engaged human, uniting the races. A shiny prize that illuminates the oppression that the human society is kept from. Your village, that congressman Ayden, can’t accept and announce your return unless they accept your biracial union, as well. This congressman has spread the word, caused a lot of attention for you and Raske wants to capitalize on it.”
“My union?” I ask, my eyes raging as I stare up at him in shock and anger. He nods hesitantly at my simple question. “My union that doesn’t even exist. Raske is using this nonexistent union to free his people. To crawl out of hiding in the hopes that people like me enough to accept a biracial union that isn’t even real.”
All this time, all this time they’ve taken me in and saved me and cared for me and built me up, just to structure me how they like—to use me.
“When you say it like that, it sounds kind of ridiculous,” he smirks at me, defaulting to sarcasm even when he knows it won’t help. He grows serious as he takes in my fallen features. “Everyone has an angle, love, you just have to make sure not to get hurt on their sharp edges.”
The fog fills my sight everywhere I turn, tinged with red and filling my lungs like a vapor, clouding my mind. I follow Declan more closely the farther into the mountain’s valley we climb.
The strange fog lingers around us, dancing with our feet as we wade through it, desperate for the other side.
“It’s Crimson Mist. Back in the fifties, when the humans joined the fae and the warlocks in the war defeating the creatures of the night, the warlocks and witches cursed this land where so many of our people lost their lives. They fought and they died, but won.” Declan glances around, sifting his fingers through the wafting red fog. “The human population was severely decreased, but lucky for you, your kind reproduces at an alarming rate, like an infestation really.” I glare at him but he only smirks at me and continues on. “So the warlocks and witches cursed the Red Hills—Pike’s Peak—deeming that the air will only be clean once all the creatures of the night have been cleansed of this earth.”
I watch the mist swirl around us, Declan’s gray eyes and pale features standing out amongst the thick red atmosphere.
“So they still live?” I ask.
“Of course they do. If you can call being trapped within the very thing that’s killing you living. The Infinity witches cursed them here decades ago.”
I arch an eyebrow at him, confused by his words, but he carries on with the tale.
“It’s said that a few, and by few I mean, three withering, worthless, dying creatures are buried within the Red Hills, the crystal-like material that your sword is made from, is forged directly from the mountain that they’re imprisoned in. Mystics can’t even touch the mountain, it’ll scar their skin just like the sword. The vampire’s abilities are dying out within the darkness.” He turns and continues walking, pulling himself up the red granite and farther into the valley.
I think through his words, a riddle seemingly present within their meaning.
“You’ve met them.”
He stops, kneeling with one boot against the angled incline. His back is rigid, his muscular arms frozen in midair, holding on the rocky edge, ready to pull himself up but he doesn’t.
He jumps down, scattering little rocks to the ground as he lands, staring at me.
“I need you to forget everything that just came out of my mouth,” he says slowly, staring intensely at me as if his life depends on it.
And it does.
If anyone found out that Declan, the pike, had any kind of connection to the vampires, he’d be executed for treason.
“What are their abilities?” I ask, holding his gaze.
“I said forget it,” he repeats.
I raise my chin and square my shoulders. I need this information. More than I’ve ever needed anything in my entire life and