Page 34 of Of Faith and Fangs

“The blood rituals,” Silas pressed. “The slaughtered animals.”

“I’ve taken no life,” she insisted. “The farmers’ animals die of the cold, not my hand. I merely... use what would otherwise go to waste.”

My entire body tensed. Not a witch. A vampire—like me.

Silas’s strategy shifted instantly. He lunged forward, not to kill but to provoke. His dagger slashed across her arm, drawing blood—vampire blood, rich and dark and different from human blood in subtle ways only another vampire would notice.

The scent hit me, but it wasn’t the overwhelming temptation of human blood. It called to me in a different way—recognition rather than hunger. I remained rooted in place, hands clenched into fists, body trembling with the effort of restraint.

The woman hissed in pain, her eyes flickering to me in confusion. She’d expected me to attack. Silas had expected me to attack.

“What are you doing?” Silas demanded, turning to me. “Help me subdue her!”

I shook my head, taking a step backward. “She’s not what you claimed. She’s not a witch.”

“She practices blood magic,” Silas insisted, his voice hardening. “The evidence is clear.”

“She’s a vampire,” I breathed. “Like me.”

The woman’s eyes widened further. “You’re with them?” she asked me, disbelief plain in her voice. “You hunt your own kind for them?”

Silas’s expression shifted from expectation to genuine anger. The mask of stern guidance fell away, revealing something harder and colder beneath. “It doesn’t matter what she is,” he snapped. “The Order’s mandate covers all unholy creatures. Now do your duty, Nightwalker.”

But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. The faces of all those I’d killed flashed before me—the healer with her herbs, the fire-worker with her tired eyes, the young woman in the forest, the grandmother trying to save her family. Each one declared witch and executed without trial. Each one feeding my hunger while feeding Silas’s hidden agenda.

“No,” I said, the word falling between us like a blade.

Silas stared at me as if I’d sprouted a second head. “What did you say?”

“I said no.” My voice grew stronger. “I won’t do this anymore.”

For a moment, his face registered pure shock. Then his expression hardened into something terrible. Without warning, he whirled and launched himself at the female vampire with inhuman speed. She was quick, but Silas had decades of experience hunting our kind. He dodged her desperate swipe and drove his shoulder into her midsection, slamming her against the wall hard enough to crack the logs.

Before she could recover, he had the silver dagger at her throat. Not killing her—silver wouldn’t kill a vampire, though it burned like fire—but causing excruciating pain. She screamed, the sound piercing through the cabin’s close confines.

“Stop!” I cried.

Silas gave me a look of pure contempt. “Too squeamish suddenly, Nightwalker? After all the witches whose throats you’ve torn out?”

He dragged the struggling vampire outside into the snow. I followed, horrified, yet unable to look away. With brutal efficiency, he forced her to her knees, then produced a coil of rope from inside his coat. Not ordinary rope—I could smell the holy water it had been soaked in, see the prayers carved into its fibers.

“Blessed rope,” he explained unnecessarily as he bound her wrists behind her back. “Weakens unholy creatures. The Order has many such tools.”

The vampire sobbed as the rope burned her skin, leaving smoking welts wherever it touched. I’d never seen Silas use such implements before. He’d never needed to—he’d had me to do his killing for him.

“Please,” the woman begged, looking at me rather than Silas. “Sister, help me. We’re the same.”

Silas laughed, a harsh sound in the winter stillness. “You’re nothing alike. She serves the Order. You serve only your own hunger.” He tightened the blessed rope, drawing another scream from her throat. “Now, tell us about your brood, your maker. Names. Locations.”

“There is no brood,” she gasped. “I’m alone. I’ve always been alone.”

Silas backhanded her across the face, the silver ring he wore leaving a smoking gash on her cheek. “Lies. The Order knows of at least five blood practitioners operating between here and Boston.”

The woman spat blood at his feet. “I know nothing of others like me. I was turned and abandoned. I’ve survived alone, harming no humans, never feeding to the point of death.”

Silas straightened, his face cold with decision. “You still drink blood—forbidden in Leviticus! The pyre it is!”

I clenched my fists. His condemnation hit hard—he could have said the same to me. Some day, I suspected, he might. If I ceased to be useful.

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