A Violet Fire (Vampires in Avignon #1) - Kelsey Quick Page 0,110

supply rooms as if they’d find me munching down on morning oats in the dining sector. Still, a few follow our lead, to our dismay.

“Quickly,” Castrel gasps for breath as he full on sprints, latching onto my arm and practically dragging me. I focus all of my energy into running for a moment, matching his impressive speed for only a short period. We make it to the middle of the first stretch of windows, in between the left tower and the huge emblem of Cain, when the two vampires finally pass us. And they do so with suspicion. One in particular stops and turns, and Castrel halts in his tracks. My breath hitches at the realization. We’ve most likely been sweating off all the scent-cleansing dust. I clench my eyes shut for a moment, trying to suppress my desire to run and jump out of a window.

“Oy, a bit short and slow for vampires, eh?” the suspicious soldier mutters to his companion, his voice muffled by the mask.

After a few more attempts at scenting us, he saunters over. “Who are you?”

But Castrel is already flying to the right side of the hall—to the windows—and pulling out a small rod from his leathers. The rod is silver and short with small blades jutting out from each end of its steel body. He whirls, smashing and rendering a window to colorful bits with his weapon, and letting the natural moonlight flood the hall.

“You-!” the vampire shouts before sprinting toward us, the other follows. It takes less than a heartbeat for them to get nose to nose with me. Unimaginable speed. Before I can even act out my surprise, Castrel’s arm covers me and pushes me toward the window as he takes my place.

“Go!” he demands of me as his foot-long staff suddenly extends to four. “Get on top!”

A soldier moves the sole of his foot hardly a centimeter while cocking his spear to the side, signaling Castrel to swing the staff right as they head their attack. The weapon nearly connects with their armored flesh, but instead meets tireless air as the targets evade. To offset his lack of speed, Castrel maneuvers in styles that can be both defensive and offensive, cutting time. Essence Anticipation is what his father used to call it. A way for humans to square up against vampires.

“It’s diamond-edged.” Castrel warns the soldiers, holding his spear out and shedding hope onto the situation.

Diamonds and vampire keratin are the only substances that can cut a vampire’s skin…

Butterflies soar through my stomach. We have a chance.

Castrel’s eyes find me.

“Wavorly,” he pleads.

The urgency in his voice breaks me out of my stupor. I nod and turn around, setting my sights on the huge gaping hole in the window. I guess I wasn’t wrong when I considered jumping out of it beforehand.

“Whatever you do, don’t spill any blood,” he warns as he takes a few side steps to obstruct the path between the vampires and myself. “And don’t fall!”

I swallow my emotions. “You’re coming too,” unconvincingly, I say.

“...I’ll be right behind you.”

“You’re not going anywhere!” one of the soldiers shouts. “Neither of you!”

The clanking of footsteps and armor ricochet throughout the narrow passageway, eventually melded by the shrilling sound of colliding weapons. Despite my worry, I do everything in my power to ignore the spectacle behind me. Right now, concentrating on my given objective is the most necessary. I remove the mask and of course I have to look down. I am suspended over the loading docks, about twenty stories up. So, a bad scenario would be falling to my death upon the loading dock bricks. A worse scenario would be missing the dock completely and falling dozens of stories to get spearheaded by a protruding castle spike.

My tongue and teeth fondle my lips apprehensively. The task at hand is too much. How can I scale a wall of windows? A silver lining presents itself in the form of a small landing provided by a horizontal support beam on the outside. There are several beams that connect the windows, actually. Each about five feet apart, spread evenly across the rounded glass hall.

I can do this.

My fingers hurriedly, though carefully, jot past the sharp edges of the splintered glass and curl to find the rim of an upper beam. I turn my body so that I face inward, preparing to bring my legs out onto the side. Castrel’s figure catches my eye and I watch for a moment as he skillfully pushes back