A quiet came over the crowd, and only the heavy panting of Damon and the mountain lion echoed under the canvas of the tent. Damon circled his prey, moving faster than the lion could comprehend.
The crowd gasped as Damon slanted toward the mountain lion, and before the beast could tell which direction he was coming from, Damon dove on the muscle behind the lion’s head. He bit in and held on, letting the lion kick and flip wildly.
Callie clutched my arm. My eyes were riveted on the scene, and my body was primed to run to the cage should I need to intervene.
The mountain lion was slowing. Each time it bucked, more blood appeared in the sawdust in little red rivers. Its left hind leg was looking weak now; wobbling, it started to flop toward the ground. Damon unlatched his fangs and reared back, ready to go for the vein in the cat’s neck.
Just then, the cat flailed its hindquarters and threw Damon free. As Damon tried to recover his feet, the mountain lion moved in and wrapped its jaws around his side.
The crowd gasped again, then began to boo.
Fight, I urged with every fiber of my being, clenching my fists at my sides.
Damon had gone limp and was being flung around like an old slipper in a dog’s mouth. The lion tossed Damon to the ground, then pulled its head back and opened wide. But just as the animal dove forward, Damon rolled away. He drove his shoulder into the confused beast’s side, bowling it over and exposing the short white hairs on its throat.
Damon tore into the vein with his fangs. The mountain lion twitched its way to stillness as a puddle of blood became bigger and bigger until it was a great lake of blood within the fighting ring. At its center was my brother, kneeling over a dead mountain lion.
He stood and stumbled backward a step. He looked up into the crowd with a wide smile on his face, his fangs out and his whole face and front dripping with blood. The crowd cheered and booed in equal measure, and Damon just turned in a small circle, occasionally licking his lips.
Gallagher clapped his fat hands together. The ones who’d made money jumped and hugged one another. The ones who’d lost threw hats to the ground or stared blankly ahead.
I leaped forward, trying to push my way to my brother, but the handlers had already moved in, stakes and vervain-laced nets in hand. Damon was clearly drunk on such a massive feed after not eating for so long and didn’t seem to notice them. Before I could even shout a warning, the men wrapped him in nets and began dragging him out of the arena.
Even at my fastest, I couldn’t get past the crowd that had filled in behind them and now blocked the entire way. All of the revelers, hooting and slobbering, stood between me and the exit, and by the time I pushed and shoved my way out, the wagon was careening out of the fairgrounds.
A whip cracked. Hooves beat the ground. And just like that, Damon was gone.
I ran past the shanties set up around the circus through the deep woods, following the tracks of the wagon until I lost the vehicle’s scent completely at the outskirts of the city proper. A drunk was leaning against a brick building, whistling tunelessly.
In a blind rage, I roughly fell to my knees and grabbed him, biting into his neck and sucking his blood before he even had time to gasp. It tasted bitter, but I kept drinking, gulping it in until I could stand no more.
Sitting back on my heels, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and looked around. Confusion and hatred coursed through my veins. Why couldn’t I save Damon? Why had I just watched as Gallagher goaded the audience into placing even more bets, as the mountain lion pounced onto my brother? And why had Damon allowed himself to be captured and put me in this impossible position?
I wished I’d never insisted on turning him into a vampire in the first place. If he weren’t here and I were alone in the city, everything would be so much easier. Now I was trying to be a good brother, and a good vampire, and yet was failing at everything.
I walked home, clomping up the steps to the house. I slammed the door, causing the hinges to rattle and one of the paintings in the parlor to fall on the floor with a clatter.
Instantly, I saw Buxton glaring at me from the opposite side of the room, his eyes glittering in the darkness. “Is there some sort of problem you’re having with the door?” he asked through clenched teeth.
I tried to brush past him, but he blocked my path.
“Excuse me,” I muttered, pushing him.
“Excuse you,” Buxton said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Coming in as if you own the place. Stinking like humans. While I’m not one to question Miss Lexi, I do think it’s time you show a little respect for her home, brother.”
The word brother awakened something within me. “Watch what you say,” I hissed, baring my teeth.
But Buxton just chuckled. “I’ll watch what I say when you watch how you act.”
“Boys?” Lexi called from upstairs, her lilting voice a contrast to the tense scene. She glided down the stairs, her eyes softening with concern when they rested on me. “Is Damon . . . ?”
“He’s alive,” I muttered. “But I couldn’t get to him.”
Lexi perched on the edge of a rickety rocking chair, her eyes large and sympathetic. “Buxton, can you please get us some goat’s blood?”
Buxton’s eyes narrowed, but he shuffled out of the parlor and into the kitchen. In the living room, I could hear Hugo playing a lively French march on the piano.
“Thanks,” I said, sinking into an overstuffed love seat. I didn’t want goat’s blood. I wanted to gorge myself on gallons and gallons of human blood, drinking until I got sick and passed out in total oblivion.
“Remember, he’s strong,” Lexi said.
“I’m not worried about Buxton,” I said.
“I meant your brother. If he’s anything like you, he’s strong.”
I looked up at her. She came over and took my chin in her hand.
“That’s what you have to believe. It’s what I believe. The trouble with you is that you want everything done right away. You’re impatient.”
I sighed. The last thing I needed was another lecture about how I had no sense of the way the real vampire world worked.
Besides, I wasn’t impatient. I was desperate.
“You just need to think of another plan. One we can help with.” Lexi glanced over as Buxton entered, carrying a silver tray laden with two mugs.
Buxton paused midstep. “ Faut-il l’aider? ” he asked in French.
“ Nous l’aiderons ,” Lexi replied.
Neither Lexi nor Buxton knew that I’d learned French at my mother’s knee; it was odd to listen to them speakabout whether to help me free Damon. I stared at my hands, which were still covered with crusted blood from my hunt earlier in the evening.
Buxton banged the tray against the polished cherrywood table. “You will not put us in danger,” he growled, his fangs inches away from my neck. He shoved me with all his might against the wall, and the back of my head cracked against the fireplace’s marble mantle.
My Power took over, and I pushed his shoulders hard. But Buxton was older and stronger than I was, and he kept me pinned to the wall, his hands firmly against my chest. I could feel blood beginning to seep from my skull, where I’d hit my head.
“You selfish, ungrateful monster,” Buxton whispered, hatred dripping from his voice. “I’ve seen vampires like you before. You think the world is yours for the taking. You don’t care about others. You don’t care who you kill. You give us a bad name.”
I twisted and writhed, trying to escape his grip, when suddenly I felt the pressure release from my chest, followed by an enormous crash as Buxton fell to the floor.
“Buxton,” Lexi lectured, staring at the prone body lying at her feet. “How many more centuries will it be before you learn how to treat a guest? And, Stefan, won’t you agree with me that human blood simply doesn’t agree with you? That behavior wasn’t necessary.” Lexi shook her head like an annoyed schoolmarm. “Now, I’ll drink my blood in peace. Be nice, boys,” she said as she glided out of the room, the mug of blood in her hands.
How could she walk away so casually, knowing that my brother was out there imprisoned and tortured? I had come to depend on Lexi for many things, and support in finding and saving Damon was my only priority now.
As if reading my mind, she paused at the archway to her quarters, glancing from one of us to the other. “If and when I say we help Damon, we will. Is that clear to both of you?”
“Yes, Miss Lexi,” Buxton murmured as he slowly eased onto his knees then stood up.