nightfall || minsung

Chapter 23

A twig crunching between bare toes, eyes shifting in their sockets. The nomads emerged from the trees, straightening out of defensive crouches. They were all pale — an unfortunate side effect of being both Caucasian and vampires. Their clothes were worn, covered with dirt and muck.

The first had a friendly face and bright white teeth. How much can we get out of them, other than an obligatory game of ball and directions...?

The second was still in a wary stance, with ticking burgundy eyes. So many of them but none very intimidating. Unlikely we could win against them as a team, but I could take my pick one-on-one — especially that little guy.

The third had platinum blonde hair down to her back and hated us already. Hell is with this goddamn valley girl bullshit? A low snarl.

Chan, Changbin and Haseong stepped forward, keeping a good distance from the nomads. Changbin put his gift to use preemptively.

"We thought we heard a game," the first one said — Laurent. His thoughts were self-serving, unfriendly, opposite of his genial smile, but not malicious. I shifted my focus elsewhere.

The second was James. He was weighing us, gauging our abilities and skills. He didn't seem like a threat anywhere but inside his own head.

The third was Victoria. Her thoughts were violent, uncaring, but not exclusively toward us. She wanted to dismember and burn the rest of her own coven just as much as ours.

"I'm Chan," Chan said. "This is my family — Changbin and Haseong, Hyunjin and Jisung, Seungmin and Minho, Jeongin and Felix."

"Do you have room for a few more players?" Laurent asked.

"Sorry, we were just finishing up. We would love to play another time. How long are you planning to stay in the area?"

How convenient. "We're headed up north, actually, but we were curious to see who else was in the neighbourhood. We haven't run into any company for a while."

"This region is usually empty — save for us and the occasional visitors, such as yourselves."

"What's your hunting range?"

"The Olympics here — up and down the Coast Ranges on occasion." Chan didn't mention our vegetarianism, trying to keep the conversation as short as possible. "We keep a permanent residence nearby. There's another settlement like ours up near Denali."

Laurent's brows knitted together. "Permanent? How do you manage that?" I should have guessed they were civvies.

"Why don't you come back to our home with us?" Chan said. Get Minho out, Jisung — somewhere safe. Hyunjin will go with you. Tell Felix to look after Charlie, just in case. "We can talk comfortably. It's a pretty long story."

We're really gonna sit on one of their posh couches and listen to their entire goddamn life story? Victoria let out a quiet growl, a sound of dissent. Laurent ignored her.

"That sounds very intriguing," he said. "We've been on the hunt all the way from Ontario, and we haven't had a chance to clean up in a while."

"We'll show you the way if you'd like to run with us. Hyunjin, Minho, go with Jisung and Felix to the truck. Shall we?"

A light breeze blew in from behind us. It happened too quickly for me, for Felix. James, the one with twitching eyes, leapt toward us, past me and tore his teeth through Minho's throat.

Instinct took over from there.

I ripped James back by his hair, heaved him into the forest. Haseong and Changbin rushed the other two — they were back on their haunches, about to attack, just now catching the smell of blood.