Chapter 3: The Extraction
750 Words
The diner was a ruin of shattered glass and smelling of ozone and ancient dust. Kaelen stood amidst the charcoal remains of the Ferali—vampires didn’t bleed when they died; they turned to ash that coated his boots like grey snow.
He turned to Clara. She was still holding her dented thermos like a club, her knuckles white. Her chest heaved, and Kaelen had to suppress the urge to shift right there—his wolf was howling, demanding he scent her, mark her, and carry her to the deepest cave in the mountains.
“You’re bleeding,” he said, his voice dropping an octave.
Clara looked down at her arm. A shard of glass had grazed her forearm. It was a shallow cut, but to Kaelen, the scent of her blood was like a siren song. It was sweet, heavy with life, and dangerously enticing.
“I’m fine,” she breathed, though her legs finally gave way.
Kaleen was across the room before she could hit the linoleum. His hands, large enough to crush her skull, caught her waist with startling gentleness. The contact sent a jolt of static electricity through them both. Clara gasped, her hands landing on his chest. Beneath the tactical fabric, his heart beat with the force of a piston.
“Who are you?” she whispered. “Those things… they weren’t human.”
“Neither am I,” Kaelen replied. He didn’t look at her eyes; he looked at the door. More were coming. He could hear the fluttering of leathern wings in the distance—the Vrykolakas, the high-blood vampires. “Silas! Secure the perimeter. We’re taking the girl to the Citadel.”
“Wait, what?” Clara pushed against his chest. “I have a car. I have a job. I have a cat named Barnaby who needs to be fed!”
“Your car is a scrap heap,” Kaelen said, glancing at the vehicle currently crushed under a dead vampire. “Your job is irrelevant if you’re dead. And as for the cat…” He looked at Silas. “Send a Beta to fetch the feline. Intact.”
“Sire, we don’t have time for pets,” Silas grumbled, reloading a silver-weighted sidearm.
“Fetch. The. Cat,” Kaelen growled. The command was laced with Alpha Authority, a psychic weight that made Silas bow his head instantly.
Kaelen didn’t wait for Clara’s consent. He scooped her up in a bridal carry.
“Put me down! This is k********g!” Clara yelled, kicking her legs.
“It’s protective custody,” Kaelen corrected, stepping over a decapitated vampire. “The Hegemony has your scent now, Clara. To them, you are the ultimate prize. The mate of the Alpha King is the key to his throat. If I leave you here, you won’t last an hour.”
A woman stepped forward from the crowd. She was beautiful in a way that felt like a blade—sharp features, platinum hair pulled into a tight braid, and eyes the color of ice. This was Selene, the Pack’s Lead Enforcer and the woman everyone assumed would one day be Kaelen’s Queen.
“Sire,” Selene said, her voice a silk-wrapped purr. She didn’t look at Kaelen; she stared at Clara with a look of pure, unadulterated disgust. “The scouts reported a skirmish. But they didn’t mention you were bringing… livestock back to the mountain.”
He marched toward a matte-black SUV idling at the curb. As he tucked her into the reinforced back seat, he leaned in, his face inches from hers. The golden hue in his eyes pulsed.
“I have spent three centuries looking for you,” he murmured, his breath warm against her cheek. “I am not losing you to a blood-sucker on the first night.”
He slammed the door and locked it from the outside.
As the SUV speed toward the Black Ridge mountains, Clara watched the diner disappear in the rearview mirror. She didn’t see the woman standing on the roof of the pharmacy across the street.
The woman wore robes of deep violet, her eyes milky white. She held a small vial of Clara’s blood, collected from a shard of glass on the pavement.
“The King has found his he Chapter art,” the witch whispered into the wind. “Now, we show him how easily a heart can be broken.”
She vanished into a cloud of ravens, headed toward the Vampire Hegemony’s spire.
- Writer
