Slay Alive

Chapter 7

seven

When I wake up, it’s quiet. A little too quiet. My heart sinks because I already know the truth of where I am without even opening my eyes.

I’m still in fucking Briarwood Hollow.

There’s no way that I’m not. Gio and Donnie make a racket when they’re up and I’ve never been a morning person. No morning in our house is complete without Gio singing and Donnie banging every pot and pan he can while cooking breakfast.

I open my eyes and see I’m right.

I frown up at the ceiling. “I better not be in a coma.”

“Oh, good! You’re awake!” Tamsin greets me cheerfully and I’m proud that I don’t scream like I want to.

Instead, I sit up and throw my covers back. “Where’s Rhia?”

“Who?”

“Rhiannon.”

“We’ll meet her later today and-”

“I want to meet that witch now.” I throw myself out of bed and make for the trunk at the foot of bed. “Is this for me?” I ask, even though I already know the answer. In the game, the trunk serves as my inventory.

“Yeah, that was…well,” Tamsin clears her throat and looks uncomfy, “The recruit who didn’t…”

I nod. “Didn’t come back from patrol.”

“Yeah, she’s not using it anymore. I bet whatever’s left in there will fit well enough until we get you outfitted. Consider it yours.”

I make a face. First the dead bed, now the dead trunk. This coma fucking sucks.

I get dressed in as normal of an outfit as I can put together, which results in black leather pants, a dark green turtleneck and a pair of black boots. Not bad. Not bad at all, getting away with wearing only one leather item. Tamsin ruins my plans when she throws a leather harness at me.

“Suit up. We’re heading to the training yard.”

I don’t tell her that I’ve got zero idea how to put the harness on because I’m a modern woman with pride. “Yup, putting this on is something I totally know how to do.” I quietly wrestle with the harness while I follow Tamsin out of the room and down the stairs. I do okay and get the thing on by the time we hit the bottom floor. Or at least I think I do, until a leather strap comes loose and hangs off my waist. I grab at the leather strap and try to figure out where it’s supposed to go. What the hell is this contraption? How is this wardrobe malfunction possibly meant to help a vampire hunter?

“You met Riley last night and that went as well as could be expected. Try to keep a low profile this early on. Adrian will be there but it’s best not to address him until introductions have been made.”

I give the buckle on the strap around my arm a yank and perk up at hearing Adrain’s name. “I can do that. I can wait to meet him.” It wouldn’t hurt to get the lay of the land and figure out exactly how to talk to Adrian. I don’t need a repeat of Riley, or even worse, Dante.

“You’ll want to be careful today,” Tamsin tells me while we walk. We’ve just left Hunter’s Watch and when Tamsin heads straight across the lane to the training grounds it feels good to know where she’s going. Even if this is a coma, I’ll take any comfort I can get right now.

“What? Why?” I ask.

“You’re a hunter now. That means your abilities are enhanced. It’ll be strange for a while until you get the hang of them,” Tamsin says with a laugh. “I remember when I was first chosen. I put my fist through the wall by accident swatting at a fly. Ripped the sink off the wall, too. My ma was ticked about that one I’ll tell ya.”

“A hunter? You mean, like… wait, is that why I could run last night and I didn’t get tired? I have superpowers now?”

I hope she says yes. Superpowers would be highly beneficial right at this moment. We’re at the training yard now and everything I’m seeing is telling me I need to be superhuman to survive it. The place is bigger than I imagined but that’s the recurring theme, considering Fangs Are Forever as a game doesn’t really communicate the scale versus actually standing in it. The training yard is split into levels. There’s two levels above the ground and I see ropes and high beams stretching across the highest level. Hunters fight and leap from platform to rope as they go. It’s like one of those giant obstacle courses you see on television where the random art teacher surprises everyone and wins because they’re secretly a ninja. The mid-level has what looks like archery and knife throwing stations, which either means the hunters are accurate to a fault or it seriously calls into question just how smart they are as a collective. The ground floor is hard packed earth the color of ocher. There are eight massive training circles painted in white on the left side and on the right here’s practice dummies along with a few runs that look like they’re meant for swordplay, if the hunters sparring in them are anything to go by.

Yeah. Superpowers would seriously kick ass right now.

Tamsin stops walking and finally looks at me. “They really sheltered you in Haven, didn’t they?”

“I was homeschooled?” I try with a weak smile as a hunter falls off the top level and lands on the ground a few feet away from us. Oh my gods. Even with superpowers, I’m going to get the shit kicked out of me today. I can feel it. My number is up.

“I’ll say.” She clucks her tongue and looks at my harness with wide eyes. “You’ve got that on ass backwards, Duskweaver.”

I frown and look down at the leather harness I thought I’d conquered. “We, ah, we don’t use this style back home,” I tell her and it’s not a lie. We don’t use leather harnesses– well, I don’t. Gio and Donnie definitely have from that one weekend I came home early from the holidays. Fuck. Why didn’t I pay more attention to how Gio was strapped in? He would know exactly how to wear this thing.

Tamsin gives me a look but doesn’t say anything about it. Instead, she motions towards my harness. “You’ll want to take that loose strap and hook it over your arm. After you put it on correctly. It’s upside down.”

I flush and start trying to unbuckle straps. “I put it on backwards? For fuck’s sake.” I groan. Dressing myself in the game from the comfort of my bed was different than trying to pull it off in real life where I was at the mercy of my own two hands. I’m tangled in it and Tamsin blessedly takes mercy on me and comes to help me when the last voice I want to hear in the world speaks.

“Why are you wearing your gear backwards?”

I wince when I hear Riley’s voice. Is there no respite for me in this godforsaken land?

“Because not everyone is a dominatrix, boss.” The buckle I yank on is stuck, so my head is down when I feel a presence at my back. I take a step away from Riley but the idiot doesn’t take the hint and he moves with me. I can practically feel him breathing down my neck like a weirdo. I don’t care if he’s the patrol leader. We aren’t on patrol now and this is my fucking coma dream. If I’m going to accept the fact that I’m lying in bed with Gio freaking out because I’m not waking up, then I’m going to do what I want, and that means Riley Moonlight is going to get my foot up his ass.

I take a step away and whirl to face him. “Back off, Moonlight, before I kick that stick up your ass into your brain.” In my head, I keep mouthing off and I tell Riley off six ways to Sunday while managing to get my harness on right in record time but that doesn’t happen, because the man staring back at me is not Riley Moonlight.

He’s a vampire.

I can tell from the dark umbrella he holds over his head and the black lens shades he’s wearing that look like a mix of steam punk and high fashion. Tousled platinum blonde hair so icy it nearly looks white stands in juxtaposition with the vampire’s midnight black attire. From head to toe the man is covered, a veritable black hole in the middle of the sunny training yard. Leather black gloves, black boots, black jeans, and a black tee are paired with a long black leather trench coat that falls past his knees. When he raises a hand to pull down his glasses enough to lock eyes with me, I go still, because I know exactly who I’m looking at. Only one person in Briarwood Hollow has eyes like his—one brown and one blue.

He isn’t just any vampire.

I know him as the vampire annihilator.

Cade Graves.