The beast had Carlie.

The scream was stuck in my throat, and it took my brain a moment—too goddamn long—to process what had happened. Cold slicked down my back even in the fire’s enormous heat, and I stared into the woods.

The beast had Carlie, I thought again, even as the monster insulted my fighting, my impotence. But I didn’t need the guilt. She’d been trying to save me when she’d been taken.

And hell if I was going to give her up.

* * *

* * *

I ran like I was chasing hell itself, instead of the opposite. The beast’s trail was, at least, easy to follow. It cut a swath through the trees, left a trail of dark blood and broken magic that was impossible to ignore.

I pushed harder, ran faster. My lacerations were screaming, my head still spinning from the knock I’d taken. But pain meant nothing. Not compared to her life.

I had to get Carlie back. There was no other option.

I could hear the beast ahead of me, breath stuttering and footfalls growing slower. It was wounded, too, and carrying a human. A small human, but still.

That I couldn’t hear her screaming, didn’t hear a cry for help, planted fear deep in my belly. Was some of the spilled blood hers? Had the beast’s teeth pierced something vital? Would I be too late?

“No,” I said, and forced myself to move faster, until the trees and leaves were blurs around me and I could barely feel the trail beneath my feet.

Ahead of me, shadows shifted and moved in the narrow beam of moonlight that managed to penetrate the trees. I saw the beast’s form, dark and hulking, and knew what I needed to do.

I had to stop it. Had to get Carlie free of it, and given the gap between us, I’d have to use my dagger.

I couldn’t miss.

They were sixty feet ahead of me, and I pushed again, narrowed the gap to fifty, to forty, to thirty, until my heart felt like a piston in my chest, my lungs burning nearly as badly as the scratches on my back.

Thirty feet.

I couldn’t wait any longer. I held the dagger by the tip, pulled back, and let it fly. It streamed through the trees like an arrow, straight and true. I heard the punch of contact, the grunt of sensation, and the sound of something heavy hitting the ground.

“Bingo,” I said, and ran toward it.

I reached the small clearing made by its fallen body.

But the beast was gone, along with my dagger.

Carlie lay across a granite bolder, her face and hands and arms smeared with blood. Her small body broken, her skin gray, and dark blood seeping from a rip across her abdomen. Her mouth was open, eyes staring.

“No,” I cried out. “No, no, no,” and sprinted forward, felt her carotid.

There was a pulse, but that was generous. It was faint and irregular, and with every pump of her heart, more blood stained the ground around her.

She was bleeding out.

I swore again, pulled off my jacket, pressed it to her abdomen to try to stanch the bleeding, even though I knew it was futile and wasn’t going to help. Not when the beast had torn at her flesh like it wanted to shred her to pieces.

I couldn’t call out. If I did, the beast might come back. I could lift her, carry her, but where? I was in the middle of the woods; the resort and the farmhouse were somewhere on opposite sides of me. Even if I could find a place to take her, she wouldn’t survive the trip.

“Fuck,” I said, and pressed harder, and blood seeped warm and wet through my fingers. There was so much.

My fangs descended, not in lust, but in reaction to the sheer volume of blood. Not even my monster was interested in her, in this death and waste and misery.

“Come on, Carlie,” I said. “Hold it together. Be strong for Georgia, for Connor.” But she wasn’t going to hold it together. If I didn’t do something, there wasn’t going to be a happy ending here.

I looked up, around, had to risk a scream. “Connor!”

I listened, hoping to hear the sound of paws on the ground, of rescue. But there was nothing but the beat of my heart in my ears, of the plink of blood onto stone. Of life into stone.

There was another way. I knew it only in possibilities, in the stages that had been explained to me by my parents, my professors . . . because I was the only vampire who’d never experienced them.

The time that elapsed between her heartbeats grew longer, the beats softer, no longer a pulsing of muscle, but a sigh. A releasing. There was no more time to wait. Not for rescue. No one was coming to save her now. Which meant I had to, whether she wanted it or not.

“I’m sorry,” I told her, pushing back the hair from her face.

And sank my fangs into her neck.

Her blood was a sweet song, and I was torn between thirst, desire, and guilt. But the latter couldn’t matter; I had to do this, and I had to hope it worked.

The concept was simple: Bite, spreading the agent that prevented coagulation and triggered the mutation. Drain the human blood and replace it with my own blood, which would feed the mutation. And then wait for the physical transformation to be complete—three days of pain and terror as human biology transformed to vampire.

Unless it didn’t.

Only Master vampires—those tested and recognized as Master vampires by the AAM—were officially considered strong enough to ensure the transformation would be successful—and wouldn’t simply kill the human. They were also the only vampires considered experienced and resourceful enough to manage the emotional and psychic connection that linked the Master and the vampire he or she created.

I was twenty-three and could barely manage my own life, much less anyone else’s. But that couldn’t be helped, any more than the risk could be avoided.

The beast had taken Carlie’s life. Here, in the forest alone, this was her only real chance to live again.

She barely moved as I drank, neither conscious nor strong enough to fight me. And I thought it was better that way. She’d seen, experienced enough horror for the night. There was no point in adding to the burden she’d already carry.

It took only minutes for me to drink, my body hungry and depleted from the fight. She was a limp doll cradled in my arms, skin translucent, cheeks hollow, dark half-moon shadows beneath her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. Full of blood and power and oblivious to pain, I snicked fangs into my own wrist so the blood welled in two dark streams. I held my bloodied wrist to her, let droplets fall upon her lips, and waited.

But she was still as a stone, an alabaster rendering of the woman I’d met at Georgia’s. The woman who’d attacked a beast with a stick to save me from harm.

“Come on, Carlie,” I said, and maneuvered more droplets onto her lips, the contrast between bright blood and pale lips so obvious, so terrifying.

For another minute more, there was nothing. No movement, no sound, no attempt to take the blood I’d offered her. Despair covered me like a blanket. The possibility that I had not saved her, but hastened her death.

And then her lips parted, and the blood licked away. Hope rose, and I offered my wrist again.

Her eyes flashed open, stared up at me. She dug fingers, bloodied nails, into my arm, wrenched it against her mouth, and then began to drink. The sensation was strange—not bad, not good—but strange. My own power, life force, being taken, used, to complete the transformation. And literally sucked away.

“Ow,” I said as her teeth began to sharpen and dig into my skin, but I was glad of the pain. It was penance, and little enough cost for the havoc I’d be wreaking on her life.

Magic rose, cold but bracing, as it began the first stages of its work—mending what was broken. With my free hand, I pushed away the jacket I’d used to put pressure on her wound, watched as the jagged edges knitted together until the skin was whole again. Still sickly gray, but whole.

She would never see the sun again, but she’d heal quickly. Assuming she survived the rest of it.

There were footsteps, movement through the trees, and I wrapped my free arm protectively around her, gaze darting from tree to tree to find the threat.

Connor stepped into the clearing, in muddy jeans and shoes, a shirt rolled and snaked into his waistband. He must have picked up his clothes while searching for us. His torso was bloodied, punctures and lacerations tracking across his arms, his belly.

Relief crossed his face first—gratitude that I was alive. And then he looked closer, saw Carlie, my arm, her lips around my wrist.

His mouth opened, but he didn’t speak, just stared at us until, I guessed, he could comprehend what he was seeing. It would have been a shock, I knew. A horror, probably, to see the girl he considered a little sister bloodied in my arms.

And to watch her drink.

But we were on a schedule, and there was no time to waste. So I had to add insult to injury and hope we’d find our way out the other side. Because while I understood the process, I wasn’t a Master, and Carlie deserved more than my inexperience.

Fortunately, I now knew a vampire, a Master, a physician. I needed his help and hoped he’d be willing to give it.

“I need Ronan,” I told Connor. And hoped he could see the apology in my eyes.

* * *

* * *

  We waited until she stopped drinking, which took only another minute. She detached from my arm and fell back, limp; Connor scooped her into his arms and began to move through the woods.

That he wouldn’t let me carry her, despite the fact that I was fed and healing and he was still injured, was an arrow through my heart. Like he didn’t trust me not to do her further harm.

He didn’t speak, and the silence between us seemed to stretch and strengthen.

She’d survive, I told myself. That was what mattered—that the destruction the clan was wreaking wouldn’t claim another victim. And if Connor and I—the bond that had grown between us—didn’t survive, I’d have to live with that. But that didn’t stop the stutter of my heart or the pain that pierced it.

* * *

* * *

Connor didn’t need the trail to find his way back to the resort, and we made it back in ten minutes. There were shifters everywhere. Nervous, waiting, staring at the column of smoke, or attending to the injured shifters who’d limped their way back from the battlefield.