Damon let out another moan and lay on the ground. The lion began to stalk over to claim his kill.
The crowd went wild, friends hitting one another in the arm and clawing at the air as though they themselves were in the fight.
One of the handlers positioned along the sidelines poked at Damon, clearly to get him moving. Damon swung without looking, knocking the man into the stands. As the handler struggled to get up, two nearby customers kicked him in the gut and then dropped him over the back railing to the dirt below, out of sight.
Damon paid no heed to the scuffle and moved deeper into the ring, letting the lion slowly circle him.
After a long silence, Damon let out a feral growl and ran toward the lion. The lion roared in response and charged, but this time Damon stepped aside, and when the lion missed him, Damon hooked an arm up under the lion’s neck. With strength no one seemed to expect, Damon threw the lion onto its back. He was about to dive on top and go in for the kill when the lion kicked up and drove a claw right through Damon’s arm.
The lion swatted its paw around, swinging Damon through the air like a fly on a fishing line. At last, the flesh gave way and Damon, with a red arc of blood trailing behind him, shot up through the air, then landed with a thud even I couldn’t hear over the hellish roar of the celebrating crowd.
Damon struggled to his feet, holding the wounded arm in place with the other. He wasn’t healing as quickly as vampires usually do—I wondered if the vervain had dampened that Power.
He needed blood, that much was clear. His survival instincts and the attendant adrenalin were waning. I was about to rush forward into the ring, with the stout man in front of me as an offering to my brother, when a warm hand fell on my arm.
Callie.
“It’s horrible,” she said. Her knuckles had gone white around clumps of her dress. Her lips hung loose and trembled. “I can’t watch this barbarism much longer.”
“Then tell your father to stop it,” I hissed.
The stomping on the wooden stands was picking up in speed and along with the racing heartbeats of the people. The splotches of blood in the sawdust weren’t enough to satisfy them—they needed to see a death.
Now Damon was padding around the mountain lion, as the animal hunched, coiled, in the center of the ring, moving as little as possible while following Damon with its reflective eyes. Suddenly, Damon took off, moving at a blurred speed around the lion so that the animal had to rapidly turn and turn, as though chasing its own tail.
A quiet came over the crowd, and only the heavy panting of Damon and the mountain lion echoed under the canvas of the tent. Damon circled his prey, moving faster than the lion could comprehend.
The crowd gasped as Damon slanted toward the mountain lion, and before the beast could tell which direction he was coming from, Damon dove on the muscle behind the lion’s head. He bit in and held on, letting the lion kick and flip wildly.
Callie clutched my arm. My eyes were riveted on the scene, and my body was primed to run to the cage should I need to intervene.
The mountain lion was slowing. Each time it bucked, more blood appeared in the sawdust in little red rivers. Its left hind leg was looking weak now; wobbling, it started to flop toward the ground. Damon unlatched his fangs and reared back, ready to go for the vein in the cat’s neck.
Just then, the cat flailed its hindquarters and threw Damon free. As Damon tried to recover his feet, the mountain lion moved in and wrapped its jaws around his side.
The crowd gasped again, then began to boo.
Fight, I urged with every fiber of my being, clenching my fists at my sides.
Damon had gone limp and was being flung around like an old slipper in a dog’s mouth. The lion tossed Damon to the ground, then pulled its head back and opened wide. But just as the animal dove forward, Damon rolled away. He drove his shoulder into the confused beast’s side, bowling it over and exposing the short white hairs on its throat.
Damon tore into the vein with his fangs. The mountain lion twitched its way to stillness as a puddle of blood became bigger and bigger until it was a great lake of blood within the fighting ring. At its center was my brother, kneeling over a dead mountain lion.
He stood and stumbled backward a step. He looked up into the crowd with a wide smile on his face, his fangs out and his whole face and front dripping with blood. The crowd cheered and booed in equal measure, and Damon just turned in a small circle, occasionally licking his lips.
Gallagher clapped his fat hands together. The ones who’d made money jumped and hugged one another. The ones who’d lost threw hats to the ground or stared blankly ahead.
I leaped forward, trying to push my way to my brother, but the handlers had already moved in, stakes and vervain-laced nets in hand. Damon was clearly drunk on such a massive feed after not eating for so long and didn’t seem to notice them. Before I could even shout a warning, the men wrapped him in nets and began dragging him out of the arena.
Even at my fastest, I couldn’t get past the crowd that had filled in behind them and now blocked the entire way. All of the revelers, hooting and slobbering, stood between me and the exit, and by the time I pushed and shoved my way out, the wagon was careening out of the fairgrounds.
A whip cracked. Hooves beat the ground. And just like that, Damon was gone.
I ran past the shanties set up around the circus through the deep woods, following the tracks of the wagon until I lost the vehicle’s scent completely at the outskirts of the city proper. A drunk was leaning against a brick building, whistling tunelessly.
In a blind rage, I roughly fell to my knees and grabbed him, biting into his neck and sucking his blood before he even had time to gasp. It tasted bitter, but I kept drinking, gulping it in until I could stand no more.
Sitting back on my heels, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and looked around. Confusion and hatred coursed through my veins. Why couldn’t I save Damon? Why had I just watched as Gallagher goaded the audience into placing even more bets, as the mountain lion pounced onto my brother? And why had Damon allowed himself to be captured and put me in this impossible position?
I wished I’d never insisted on turning him into a vampire in the first place. If he weren’t here and I were alone in the city, everything would be so much easier. Now I was trying to be a good brother, and a good vampire, and yet was failing at everything.
I walked home, clomping up the steps to the house. I slammed the door, causing the hinges to rattle and one of the paintings in the parlor to fall on the floor with a clatter.
Instantly, I saw Buxton glaring at me from the opposite side of the room, his eyes glittering in the darkness. “Is there some sort of problem you’re having with the door?” he asked through clenched teeth.
I tried to brush past him, but he blocked my path.
“Excuse me,” I muttered, pushing him.
“Excuse you,” Buxton said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Coming in as if you own the place. Stinking like humans. While I’m not one to question Miss Lexi, I do think it’s time you show a little respect for her home, brother.”
The word brother awakened something within me. “Watch what you say,” I hissed, baring my teeth.
But Buxton just chuckled. “I’ll watch what I say when you watch how you act.”
“Boys?” Lexi called from upstairs, her lilting voice a contrast to the tense scene. She glided down the stairs, her eyes softening with concern when they rested on me. “Is Damon . . . ?”
“He’s alive,” I muttered. “But I couldn’t get to him.”
Lexi perched on the edge of a rickety rocking chair, her eyes large and sympathetic. “Buxton, can you please get us some goat’s blood?”
Buxton’s eyes narrowed, but he shuffled out of the parlor and into the kitchen. In the living room, I could hear Hugo playing a lively French march on the piano.
“Thanks,” I said, sinking into an overstuffed love seat. I didn’t want goat’s blood. I wanted to gorge myself on gallons and gallons of human blood, drinking until I got sick and passed out in total oblivion.
“Remember, he’s strong,” Lexi said.
“I’m not worried about Buxton,” I said.
“I meant your brother. If he’s anything like you, he’s strong.”
