Chapter. 1

"There's a vampire!" I whisper-shout. "The candle!" I whip away from the crack in the barn wall and lunge for the light that's about to give away our position. After walking for the entire day, this old abandoned barn seemed like the perfect place to take shelter for the night. Now that candle is acting as a beacon, shining through the cracks in the wall and drawing in the very creatures we are trying to escape.

A large figure blocks my path to the candle, bouncing me back as I crash into his hard chest. I lose my balance and fall back onto the dirt and straw that covers the barn floor.

"Not so fast, girl," Neil says, blocking the candle. "Is he alone?"

"Are you crazy? That light will be the death of us," I say.

"Is he alone?" he repeats, slower. My heart is beating through my chest. It’s dark outside, and the vampire will spot the light at any second. Does he want us all to die?

"It's just him and his horse. Now put it out, quick."

He glances at the other two men, and his lips curl up into a grin. He gives a small nod. The one unsheathes his sword, and the other picks up his bow.

My face goes pale. "No. It's suicide. We need to stay hidden and wait for him to pass. This shoddy barn looks abandoned. He won't know we're here."

Neil steps around me, and the three men gather by the large barn door. "We will not lie down and let those vile monsters take our country," he says.

"What are you talking about? They've already taken it. We've lost. Escaping to Faria is our only chance now."

Neil tries to get a glimpse of the vampire through a crack in the wall. "Listen, farmhand, if we want your advice on matters of war, we'll ask."

I get back on my feet and dust the hay off my pants. "My name's not farmhand, it's Julia, and you're stonemasons, not soldiers."

The men look at each other and give one last nod. The blond man kicks open the door, and they burst out the barn while shouting their battle cry. I run to the door and slam it closed, then I bolt back to the candle and smother it in the dirt.

A blood chilling scream sends a shiver down my spine. I hurry back to the wall and look through a crack between two wooden planks. Another agonizing wail follows. I can't see them. I jerk my head around the crack, trying to find an angle. In my heart, I want to scream for them to run, to just escape. The vampire may have mercy on injured men running in fear, but my breath sticks in my throat. If I scream, if I draw attention to this barn, then the vampire will come for me.

"No, no, no, please!" a man begs. It's Neil. My stomach flips. Ever since we fled from our village, he’s been the leader of our little group of four. His unwavering confidence that we would all make it to Faria is what kept my fear at bay. This can’t be happening. Neil never panics.

Another wail follows, but it's cut short. I stumble backwards and struggle to keep my footing. He's dead. They're dead. They're all dead.

We were meant to run from the foreign vampire army, not fight them. I fled my village, leaving the only home I’ve ever known, leaving every person I grew up with to escape the violence, and now my traveling companions lie dead on the other side of the barn wall, with their murderer still lurking.

Why did he come for us? Why couldn't he leave us alone? What did Neil and the others even die for? We abandoned everything we had, lost everything we’d built up over our whole lives just to escape these creatures. There are no houses left for them to ransack, no treasures to be stolen or land to be taken. Yet the vampire came all this way just to kill us? We are nobodies.

I hear his footsteps. He's coming. My eyes dart around the barn. Hay, feeding troughs, buckets, blankets, lanterns, candles, everything but weapons, which are now all sprawled out outside. There's nothing left to defend myself. He's going to kill me.

I can't breathe. My lungs can't get enough air. I'm panicking. There’s no one left but me. My thin linen clothes won’t protect my skin from a sharp sword or my bones from a heavy mace. The vampire is going to come in here and murder me with his iron weapon. Neil’s begging did nothing to quell the vampire’s intent to take lives, and it’ll be no different for me. I’ll writhe in agony under the vampire’s weapons for a few minutes before my bleeding body can no longer keep me alive. My brother will be left waiting for me in Faria, wondering where I am, and all that will be left of me is a still unburied corpse in an abandoned barn.

I hold my shaking hand and force myself to think straight, the force of my grip turning my fingers white. The barn’s big, but there's only one door, and it leads straight to the vampire. I didn’t scream or shout, so he doesn't know I'm here. I need to hide.

I grab a blanket and hurry to the darkest corner of the barn. Curling up beside a pile of hay, I cover myself with the coarse material, nestling into the hay to try disguise my body’s shape. I brush stalks and straws over the blanket in an attempt to make it appear undisturbed.

The door swings open, and I freeze. My hand zips back under the blanket, and I lie dead still.

Heavy boots take slow steps on the opposite side of the room. He’s among our clothes, food and supplies. Though I can’t see anything under the dark blanket, I resist the urge to shut my eyes. I need to be ready to dash if he rips away the blanket.

While I might be dreading this moment, I know that the vampire will leave. My brother, Jacob, is waiting for me in Faria. He’ll wrap me up in a hug, and we’ll never be separated again. I’ll cherish him even more than before. Despite all the hardship we’ve lived through, we still have each other. It’ll be no different after this, this moment where I’m hiding from a murderous vampire on the hunt will be nothing more than a bad memory, a day I can forget.

The hay pricks at my bare arms and the small of my back, right where my shirt fails to meet my pants. I resist the urge to pull it down. Any movement will lead him to find me, and if I want to survive, he can’t know that I’m here.

The vampire’s footsteps stop. It's dead quiet, like he vanished into thin air. Did I move? Has he stopped to stare at the blanket?

A metal clank on the far side of the barn breaks the silence. I breathe again, but a shiver runs through my bones. He’s got the lantern. He strikes the lighter stones together. The room lights up with a warm glow, and my blood runs cold.

The footsteps start again, but louder, followed by the creaking metal lantern in his hand. He's getting closer, and he has a light. Bright rays poke through the blanket’s weaving, moving with him. I can hear my own breathing, and I pray he can’t. My body is screaming to make a run for it, but I know that my best chance is to stay still, to act like I don’t exist.

The footsteps stop, and the awful silence returns. He's close. He's very close. This blanket is the only thing between us. My whole body is trembling. When he’s walking, his heavy steps beat fear into me, reminding me that a huge foreign warrior is only feet away, but his silence is even worse. I don’t know what he’s doing. He could be staring at me right now, amused at my pathetic attempt to hide.

The silence is eating away at me. What will it matter if he leaves the human hiding in the straw? I haven’t wronged him or spat on his family name. I’m not a soldier. Ignoring my little life won’t hinder their plan to conquer this country.

Just leave. Just leave. Just leave.

A hard boot strikes my leg, and a small cry escapes my lips. He rips the blanket away. The lantern’s light exposes my trembling form, coming at me from every direction like a flock of vultures. I scramble away from the vampire standing over me, my hands slipping and sliding over the dirt and straw as I struggle to sit up. My stomach twists, bringing a wave of nausea.

There's a blood-stained sword just inches from my face. I continue to back away in a frantic panic. The bloody blade follows me, coming closer and closer. It creeps up on me like a predator with its own mind. My back hits the wall, and the blade presses against my chest. The tip pokes through my shirt and into my skin, drawing blood and making me wince. I can’t breathe without deepening the cut.

The blade is short and curved, halfway between a sickle and a sword. I've never seen anything like it. It's not the weapon of a soldier, but a demon. My eyes follow the blade up to the figure holding it. He's pale, like a corpse, but his blood red eyes tell me he's very much alive. He looks to be in his late twenties, a decade older than me. Coal black hair covers his head, and he wears a long coat and a high-collared black cape marked with tinges of red – possibly blood.

I slowly open my hands, holding them up for him to see. I'm unarmed. I’m not a soldier. I’m a farmer. Don’t kill me.

A smirk flashes in the corner of his lips. He’s amused? My hands are shaking, and my heart feels like it’s about to break out of my chest. This is the most terrible, terrifying moment of my life, and he finds it funny?

He retracts his sword and slides it back into the sheath on his belt. I can breathe again.

My eyes jump to the wide-open barn door – my gateway to safety. The vampire’s a few feet away from me. This is my chance. I jump to my feet and lunge for the door.

The vampire’s fist slams into my head, and my world goes spinning.

The next thing I know, my face is against the dirt and my ears are ringing. The ground moves beneath me. He's pulling me by my feet. I curl my arms around my head as a shield from the dirt.

The lightheadedness morphs into a searing headache. He's going to kill me. I’ve only just turned eighteen, and my life is going to end right as it began. My hands ball up into tight fists. This isn’t fair. Why do I have to die when I’ve barely had a chance to live? I did everything I could to escape death at a vampire’s hand, yet it’s coming for me anyway. Was I supposed to grab a stick and join Neil in his hopeless charge? Was I supposed to trek through the wilderness alone to reach Faria when I’ve never been further than a day’s walk from our village?

The dirt and gravel scuff my shirt as he hauls my limp body outside. The moment he releases me, I scram to push myself up on all fours.

A heavy boot stomps on my back, slamming my body back into the ground and knocking the air out of my lungs. A warm burning pain crawls through my diaphragm. His boot remains on the center of my back, the pressure forcing me to take quick shallow breaths. I can’t get away. I can’t even crawl.

There’s a moment of relief from the pressure as his boot disappears, but the knee that replaces it is even worse. I open my mouth to scream from the pain, but nothing comes out. I can't breathe. My arms flail about as I scramble to get away, but he yanks them up high behind my back, twisting them so it hurts to move. I shut my eyes and grit my teeth, giving up on any attempt to struggle away from him in a desperate hope to minimize the pain.

He ties a rope around one wrist, then the immense pressure disappears. I gasp for air. He pulls me up by the back of my shirt and forces my aching body against a tree.

Before I can react, he yanks on the rope, pulling my wrist behind my back and against the bark. He forces my arms backwards around the trunk and ties my wrists together, making me stand with my back flush against the tree.

I'm trapped. He takes a step back, looking pleased with his work. It all happened so fast that I didn’t even have a chance to gather my bearings. They really are superhuman.

I stare at him with wide eyes, the hair on the back of my neck standing straight. He dwarfs me. The top of my tiny frame barely reaches his shoulders. My muscles are twitching in fear – my body’s instinctual response to being at the mercy of a predator – but the tight bindings hold my arms still.

I avert my eyes, hoping to ignore his intimidating stature. What difference does it make if I block out the world now? He’s engineered the situation so that I have no chance of getting away from him. Despite my body’s desperate attempts to protect myself, there is absolutely nothing I can do. What good is a racing heart when my muscles can’t move an inch? I shut my eyes and try to recall my fantasy about reuniting with Jacob at Faria. If this horrid reality is my end, I want my mind to be as far away from it as possible.

The vampire’s rough hand grabs my chin and forces my head up. My disheveled blonde hair covers my eyes, but he brushes it aside. On instinct, my arms tug against the ropes to try protect my face, but it’s fruitless. My eyes stay shut and my body trembles. I can't defend myself. I’ve never in all my life had someone grip my chin as if it was a handle. Having such a strong grip so close to my eyes is so foreign and intrusive that it anchors me to the moment, preventing my mind from going anywhere else. Every muscle in my face goes tense, expecting to be struck at any second.

To my relief, he releases my chin. I turn my head to the side and twist away from him. He places both hands under my arms, grips my sides and presses his thumbs into my chest. I wince and whimper under the pressure.

He moves his hands down a few inches, then presses both thumbs into my breasts. It hurts. I wish I was somewhere else, anywhere else, not at the mercy of this monster. I wish the ground would open up and swallow me, take me away from this terrible moment.

He releases his clamping hands, only to press in again just a few inches lower. He repeats the motion around my stomach, compressing my abdomen to half the size it's supposed to be. My body strains, and I groan. He'll crush me if he squeezes any harder, and I'm helpless to stop him. It’s sore and intrusive. Please let this be the worst of it.

He moves his hands down my legs, pressing into my flesh every few inches, then he runs his finger between my shoes and ankles. The whole ordeal is over in a matter of minutes, but it felt like hours.

He unsheathes his blade, and I suddenly wish that he'd go back to poking me. He’s going to cut me while I can't move? To torture me? I start to panic again. "No, no, no." I yank on the restraints, and the rope bites into my skin. I pull and pull and try to shuffle away from him.

He presses the blade against my neck, and I freeze.

“Fearful,” he says.

I catch a glimpse of his freakishly long canines. The edge of the blade digs into my skin, just enough not to draw blood. He’s precision puts me even more on edge. I stay still and silent, terrified that the slightest movement will lead the blade to gash me.

He turns away. I follow his trail with my eyes, and the sight ahead makes me sick. Neil and his two companions lie still in pools of blood.

He steps over their corpses, making his way to his black horse laying on the ground. It's dead too. He ruffles around in the saddle bag and pulls out a metal flask and a glass vial filled with a murky liquid.

He hacks at Neil’s lifeless body with his blade, and I cringe at the sound of bones cracking.