Hunted (Belle Morte Book 3)

Chapter One

Roux

Standing at the entryway to the Belle Morte dining room, Roux Hayes squeezed her best friend's hand. "It'll be okay," she said.

Renie managed a nod. She was always pale now, thanks to having become a vampire a few days ago, but it seemed to Roux that she was even paler than normal today, as if any hint of colour left in her face had simply drained away.

But that was hardly surprising considering that she might finally be about to find out what her future held.

Only a handful of days had passed since Belle Morte had been taken back from the clutches of Etienne and Jemima, the two vampires who had been so determined to expand their own positions of power that they had nearly destroyed the whole system that allowed vampires to peacefully coexist with humans.

Lamia, Midnight, and Nocte Filii had been reclaimed without a fight, and the remaining traitors weeded out and imprisoned, though there were far fewer of them left than expected. Jemima really had overstretched herself, and her forces had been spread far thinner than maybe even she had realised.

The aftermath of her coup with Etienne wasn't pretty. Vampires and humans alike were dead, including the innocent donors who'd been caught in the crossfire as two vampire factions went to war against each other.

Now, none of the survivors knew where they stood with the human world, or what their future was going to be. This was tough for all of them, but Roux thought it was probably toughest on Renie. The other vampires knew what it was like to live in the shadows. They'd existed for hundreds and hundreds of years before revealing themselves to the world, and they could go back to that way of life if they had to. It wouldn't be fun for any of them, but they had coped with it before and they could cope with it again.

But Renie had only been a vampire for a few days. For eighteen years she had lived as a human, in the human world. Adjusting to a life inside a vampire mansion would be hard enough, but the prospect of losing all that? Roux couldn't begin to imagine how that would feel.

Her hand-squeeze didn't seem to have helped, so she placed both hands on her friend's shoulders and turned Renie to face her.

"Listen to me," she said. "Whatever happens today, whatever Ysanne tells us, we'll get through it."

Renie smiled at her, but it was wan. Her future was literally on the line here, and it was a terrifying prospect.

"You know you don't have to be here," she said.

Roux wasn't a vampire. She wasn't sure she was even a donor anymore, because no one knew if the donor system was still in effect. She and Jason certainly weren't feeding the vampires – they were surviving on bags of donated blood.

The other donors who'd survived the attacks on Belle Morte had been returned to their families, and none of the donors in the Houses of Midnight, Lamia, Nocte Filii, or Fiaigh had been harmed, though they'd all been sent home, too. They couldn't be expected to stay in the Houses after everything that had happened.

Roux's contract as a blood donor to Belle Morte was effectively null and void and there was nothing keeping her here.

Except her friends.

Renie and Jason had become the best friends she'd ever had, and she wasn't leaving either of them. Jason felt the same way. Neither of them knew what lay ahead for anyone, but they both knew that they couldn't leave – not yet. They were still a part of Belle Morte.

For the last few days the pair of them had been doing all they could to keep Renie's spirits up, and to distract her from the noise outside – the muted shouts and cries from the group of anti-vampire protestors who'd set up camp outside the mansion's walls.