Page 4 of Vampire's Hearth

“Do we even know what I’m looking for?” I asked, looking into Auntie’s eyes as she stood beside me.

She shook her head. “It could be anything. A weapon. An amulet. Maybe something that looks like it belongs in the cave, like a rock or a jewel. Use your pendulum if you need to.” Her eyes widened. “You do have your pendulum?”

I rolled my eyes, pointing at the chain around my neck. “Yes, Aunt Amara. I brought everything I could possibly need.”

Her forehead wrinkled as her eyes misted. “Don’t forget there are more dangerous things than bears in those woods.”

I pulled my aunt into a hug. “I won’t forget. I’ll be back in a few days, and we’ll be one step closer to this being over.”

“I love you, and be safe.” Her hand pressed into my shoulder blades, tighter than I remembered her holding me in a long time, as though she were afraid to let me go for fear I wouldn’t return.

“I will.” I smiled at her again and picked up my backpack. “Only a few days.”

I shivered in the early morning air, my fingers and toes tingling, my thoughts returning to the present. I put my shoes on and unzipped the protective cover over my head. Soft sunlight streamed through the green leaves that stretched above me.Birdsong surrounded me, bringing a smile to my face. It was like they could tell I was there. The woody aroma of the forest hit my lungs as I hopped from my hammock. Maybe I didn’t need a night in a four-star hotel.

I glanced at the undisturbed stones set in a circle around my campsite. At least those had kept anyone from finding me overnight. I suspected every vampire faction and lycan pack noticed the coven searching for something. I just wish I knew what it was.

I reached the stream that edged the campsite. I bent down, cupped my hands, and splashed the cold water on my face. A shiver ran through me as the cold stung my skin. From there, I walked to the fire I had arranged last night on the opposite side of the circle. Several embers glowed faintly. It crackled as I poked it with a stick and placed a few tiny twigs on the coals. I didn’t need much heat this morning, but some would be nice.

As the smoke circled from the mounting flames, I went to the center of the circle and nodded to each of the quarters: my backpack, my connection to home, in the north; my hammock hanging in the air to the east; the fire to the south; and the stream to the west. I would leave the rocks in their places in my absence.

I had no idea how many of the five hundred miles of caverns were walkable. If I ran into a spot where I needed more equipment than my own two feet, that could present a challenge. So could separating myself from a tour. If I failed, it would be a very short excursion.

Repacking my bag, I returned to the fire every few moments for heat. I condensed my hammock and sleeping bag as much as possible and shoved them into the bag in case I needed to spend the night in the cave. I rehearsed my plan for getting away from the tour group. Maybe I could just sneak in past the agents?

“Rory, that won’t work,” I muttered.

“Aurora, calm yourself,” said my mother’s voice as my heart raced.

She was right. I needed the tour to acclimate me to the cave system itself. I had Aunt Amara’s map, but it didn’t mean I knew where I was going. And if I messed up finding the artifact this time, there may not be another chance. I ran over my plan in my head again.

I would join the last tour of the evening, taking my camping gear with me. I had signed up for a ghost tour, knowing it was my best chance of a story that would have a sliver of truth in it. When I heard a story that sounded like a lead, I planned to fake an illness to stay behind. Then all I had to do was hide until I could search for the object.

I stamped out the fire before glancing around again. Only my stone circle and the fire’s remains showed I had been there. I hoped I wouldn’t be back.

Cormac

Why was it that in the evolution of culture over the past nine hundred years, humans still couldn’t find a better place than a pub for a clandestine meeting? I placed my beer on the dark-stained wooden bar. I didn’t want the beer but had to do something to fill the time. Ever since Declan found his mate, he was late for every meeting. Maybe I didn’t want to know why he was late. I smirked because perhaps I already knew.

A myriad of conversations swirled in the overstuffed room around me. Families. Couples. Singles who were hoping to become couples. A gentleman behind me—I use the word gentleman loosely—was muttering more than sweet nothings into his partner’s ear. Her nervous laughter punctuated the conversation, and I could smell her arousal, but the erraticpounding of her heartbeat betrayed how unsure she was about the list of activities. I’d never understand why some men wanted to make their women suffer.

It was a trait I equated with the wolves. I never understood their penchant for hierarchy, dominance, and blind loyalty. It felt like politics to the extreme and a world I did not want any part of. Their packs were an intricate part of who they all were, even being able to communicate in each other’s minds.

In my family, we were just that—family. Not some mindless pack drawn together, but a family held together through a genuine bond of love. My mother was indisputably the matriarch, and my father, our provider, devoted his life to her in every sense. The hierarchy was not formal, not fought for, just ingrained, as with humans—a connection to our humanity. And as the eldest, the unwavering protector who ensured the unity of my brothers, my family was the reason I sat here.

For the most part, we vampires wanted to be left alone and do our own thing in smaller factions—found families that watched out for each other but also left the individual members to indulge in their own vices. Even though the cruel and sadistic reputations of some of my kind preceded them, they existed as a side effect of the bloodlust and not their actual nature. For my brother Aiden, being the walking embodiment of evil was simply what he had become.

And what Aiden had become was a problem. Hence this meeting.

Even those smaller vampire factions were different from my family.My family.Each of us had our own faction—our own set of friends—but we were family first; they came second. My parents were a mated vampire and human; my three brothers and I were their offspring in a world where few dhampirs, half-human, half-vampire children, survive beyond their first breath. It made us different, powerful, and kept us out of the usualimmortal politics because no one knew what to make of us. But the vampires—the whole supernatural community—knew Aiden was causing a problem by disrupting the way the factions work, and they wanted it to end. If I didn’t handle it, they would. Permanently.

The stool next to me rattled. “Cormac O’Cillian, fancy meeting you here,” said Declan, sliding into the seat that matched the bar. Declan—my brother Aiden’s right-hand man. My informant. He took quite a risk to be here. I glanced at him, taking in his countenance with a slight smile, an internal comfort spreading through me as I sat next to someone in my family.

Declan Moore, our one adopted family member, with all the emotional burdens and obligations of being a blood-born O’Cillian. Unlike our factions, which were bound by convenient alliances and the need to stay alive—those bonds were broken without a care or consequence when the desire struck. When he and Aiden became inseparable during the American Civil War, we decided as a family to turn Declan. Mother called a meeting, and we were each given assignments to ease his transition in our clan and our way of life. We all surrounded him as he took his last human breath and cheered for him when he sipped the human blood my mother provided in a crystal goblet.

“Fancy indeed,” I nearly growled, not even looking at him. I picked up my drink and raised my eyebrows. “I’ve been waiting far longer than you should have kept me.”

“You’re right. I was… busy.” His lopsided smile that I caught from the corner of my eye told me everything I didn’t want to know about the activities that had kept him. The fading red of his sclera and return of his hazel irises through the current ash color indicated it had involved him feeding.

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