Chapter One
I ran hard. The slick path wound before me like an abandoned snakeskin, speckled in brown and gray, studded with rocks. I leapt a trickling stream, the smell of the fresh water and damp turf catching in my nostrils.
It was early afternoon in the Scottish Highlands, an overcast August day filled with misting rain. A few thin streaks of light broke through the haze of clouds weaving through the peaks that surrounded me. I sucked in a breath of cool air and pushed my bangs, wet from rain and sweat, from my forehead. Beneath my pale blue athletic jacket, sweat pooled as my body fought to keep up with the punishing pace I had set for today’s solitary run. After hiding in caves and living off scraps for over two weeks while on the run from the Occult Bureau, I was out of shape.
At a sharp bend in the path that jutted out into an outcropping, I paused for a moment to tighten my laces and look out over the landscape. It was a patchwork quilt of gray granite and the hardy green of tough grasses, slightly taller green-brown splashes of heather, and dabs of yellow gorse. The mountains thrust their way up from the landscape—bold, jagged sentinels of ancient stone. Why would Bryce ever leave such a beautiful place?
I restarted my run, continuing up into the steep foothills of one of the mountains not far from Glencoe. Getting to see such beauty every day made me even more grateful that I was finally getting back into a proper training regimen.
It was my first time in Scotland. Just over three weeks ago, I’d stood on a rooftop at the Chicago HQ of the Occult Bureau, an organization sworn to protect the public from supernatural threats, staring down at the man I had once called uncle. Alan Sloane, director of the Chicago HQ, had been hunting me, my team of human dissenters, and the group of vampires we’d saved from extermination at his hand. In the process of taking down Director Sloane and his equally genocidal fellow board members, my team and I had revealed the existence of vampires to the world and were now receiving asylum in Scotland while various agencies in the US investigated the Occult Bureau and discussed how to proceed.
I currently lived with the rest of the rebels in a secret ex-military facility nestled in the mountainous Highlands. Our accommodations had been arranged by our current handler Major Morag Bryce, older sister of my former Bureau captain Nicholas Bryce. We were now on a mission to figure out our next move forward. Some of our group had been here longer than I had. I’d been delayed by the congressional meetings I needed to attend for the Bureau investigation.
I pumped my arms harder, pushing for the burn in my muscles. My limbs felt loose and powerful. I bounded up the path like a surefooted young deer, wishing the future might be as easy as running along a hiking trail.
My runs were an excellent time to think, and that’s what I needed to do. Thinking meant planning. While my feet struck the damp trail, I turned Dorian’s plan for saving the vampire species over in my mind. We had to consider the international political uproar and whatever secrets the Bureau still kept from us about their connection to the Immortal Plane. The heavy media attention only added to our concerns. I had stopped listening to the morning news, realizing the reporters were cycling around the same issues over and over. Vampire this, vampire that. Most of it was misinformation or scaremongering.
I increased my speed for a moment to make it up a switchback in the trail, enjoying the burn in my lungs. The harsh but impressive landscape passed me in a blur—a pleasant reward for my efforts. I liked the solitude of this ancient land.
I slowed my pace as the slick path became even steeper, skirting around a hole I had a habit of tripping on if I didn’t look out for it. The first day I’d done this route, I’d returned with bloodied elbows and a scratch on my face from a gorse bush, much to the amusement of various humans and vampires. The path eventually led to a summit of the small mountain I’d claimed for my exercise the past few days. I jumped over the patch of sodden peat that soaked my shoes yesterday. My favorite part of the ascent was the determined tree growing directly out of a large boulder on the mountainside. I felt a connection to that tree. I don’t give up, either.
A mile in, I stopped for a break. Panting for breath, I shook my head free of water droplets, and a feeling of victory surged through me. I grinned at the downslope of the mountain. From my vantage point, I could see our humble accommodations. Major Bryce had explained that the modest stone buildings and surrounding area had once been a croft, one of the many tiny farms that littered the Highlands. The military had bought the land in the eighties, planning to use the farm as a base for soldiers to do survival training in the wilderness.
The army barracks were newer, featuring low buildings that looked industrial and square amid the less deliberate lines and shapes of nature. The military had painted the concrete structures black in the past, but time had rusted patches of the roof, and the paint was being worn away by the extreme weather.
Its current iteration looked thrown together… because it had been. The Scottish military had quickly renovated it for my team of merry dissenters and our vampire allies. On the roof of the original stone cottage sat an impressive collection of satellite dishes and signal boosters. Several more were affixed to the top of a gray-and-blue portable trailer. Together, they formed our command base, communications hub, and formal meeting room. A few other trailers were spaced around the site, and several green Land Rovers covered in mud sat parked near the gate. Yes, we had a gate.
A fifteen-foot chain link fence topped with coils of barbed razor wire stretched around the perimeter, except for one entrance gate that always had two guards. Major Morag had assured us it wasn’t meant to keep the vampires in, but to keep anyone hostile out. Our location had not been made public knowledge, but hikers roamed the landscape, and if the news had shown me anything, it was that some people weren’t happy in the slightest at the idea of vampires. Although these vampires lived far from civilization and the temptation of dark humans, more extreme groups of humans had gone on the offensive in mobs of “vampire hunters.”
Sitting on a lichen-covered rock, I pulled my brown hair, now falling nearly to the middle of my back, into a fresh ponytail. I rubbed my hands together for warmth and considered how foreboding the compound looked. Blissfully, it also felt temporary, and despite the gloom, I got to be near Dorian every day, which was a definite bonus.
Dorian and I spent a lot of time together. We went on walks and talked strategies. Yesterday, a sudden downpour forced us underneath a canopy of trees during our march around the perimeter. I huddled next to him, suffering only mild heartburn as he held his cloak above us like a makeshift tent. I could still smell his natural scent of cedar and feel the warmth of him next to me. I smiled to myself.
When we came back, Morag spotted us, dripping all over the clean floor in the barrack entrance.
“If you want alone time, you can do it in a dry room as long as you don’t pass out,” she said with a raised eyebrow, but I’d learned not to take offense to her blunt way of talking. She did a lot for us.
Morag had caused quite a stir when she publicly announced an offer of asylum for vampires and defectors in Scotland without really checking it with anyone first. She had pushed the decision through by sheer force of personality. Since the nation had obtained its independence nearly a decade ago, its English neighbors didn’t have much of a say in the matter. Scottish officials made Morag director over the entire vampire situation, seemingly as a punishment for stirring up trouble, but she’d taken it in stride with her usual level of delightful, no-nonsense determination.