“Are not,” I insisted right back. “You guys have to get out of here.”

“We’re trying,” Duncan grunted.

“I mean right now. Without me.”

“Forget it.”

“We have you surrounded,” a voice announced over some kind of scratchy amplifier. Quinn blinked, midpunch.

“Cops?”

“Worse,” the vampire currently ducking hissed. “Helios-Ra.”

“Damn it all to hell, they’re not even being subtle about it.”

“We only want the girl, not the bounty,” the amplified voice shouted out. “We’re willing to let the rest of you go.”

“Bite me,” Quinn suggested.

“And me,” his new friend agreed.

The sun was hovering on the edge of the horizon. I could see it in my brothers’

faces. A fine sweat beaded Logan’s forehead, and vampire body temperature was generally much lower than human temperature. To see one sweat was rare. Very rare. His face looked drawn too, nearly gray with fatigue. Duncan’s hand shook as he shoved himself to his feet.

We could probably fight our way through the others. After all, they’d have to seek cover soon, just as we would. But even if we did get through them with minor damage, we still had to get through the Helios-Ra, who could lie out in the bright sunlight and just wait for my brothers to sicken and die. My choices were narrowing drastically. I knew what I had to do. I also knew that each and every one of my pig-headed brothers was faster than me. I couldn’t hope to outrun them.

But I could take them by surprise.

I let them mutter among themselves, let Logan pull me to my feet. The other vampires scattered, like earwigs under a shifted stone. The leaves barely trembled at their passing. Quinn and Marcus closed in and Connor moved toward us through the undergrowth. An arrow whistled between the trees and hit him in the shoulder. He jerked back, clutching at his bloody arm.

“I’m all right,” he told us, jaw clenched in pain.

“A warning shot,” an agent called out. “Next time we hit the heart.” My brothers were scowling at each other, dragging Connor to safety.

Now or never.

If I thought about it too long I might wimp out.

Now.

I eased away from Duncan, who was half– turned away to prop up Connor. Only Logan blocked me and he wasn’t expecting me to knee him in the kidney and then leapfrog over him as he doubled over.

So that was exactly what I did.

A rain of Helios-Ra arrows flew over me, biting the ground behind me like the ramparts of a castle fort. They protected me from my brothers, who had to halt their forward charge, if only for a moment.

“Your word,” I yelled, running even though my legs felt like lead and my lungs burned. “Your word my brothers go free.”

“Take her.”

They swarmed around me like beetles. I jerked away, all instinct and thrumming adrenaline. They were faceless, eye goggles obscuring their features, and black vests, black pants, black boots.

The sun crested the horizon, dripping softly between the leaves.

“Run, you idiots!” I hollered at my brothers as my arms were seized. I knew they didn’t really have any other option. The sun was now bleeding through the trees.

They wouldn’t even be able to make it home. They’d have to use one of the caves or the secret safe houses, and by house, I really meant hole in the ground.

“Got her.”

“This is her?” one of the agents said as they began to march me through the forest. A few of his companions were hobbling, one was being carried. “She’s just a kid.”

I knew what he saw: a fifteen- year-old girl in a muddy slip dress and scratches all over her arms from running through the woods. His companion shrugged.

“Bounty’s the same. And anyway, come her birthday she’ll be a monster like the rest of them.”

“The Drakes are all right,” someone else muttered. “They’re on the Raktapa Council, at least. Now, would you stop your damn gossip and hurry the hell up?” I was so tired I could barely see straight. I shuffled my feet, hardly having the energy to lift them off the ground.

“What’s the matter with you?” he snapped. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m tired.”

“Fresh out of coffee, princess, so move your ass.” The morning continued to unfurl around us in pink misty dampness, as if we sat in the center of a rose after a rain. The leaves shivered above us, so green they nearly glowed. Birds sang cheerfully, oblivious to my predicament. Pine needles crunched under our passage.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked, biting back a yawn.

They didn’t answer as they formed a tight circle around me, one I knew I had no hope of breaking through, especially since I felt about as strong as a wet noodle. I squinted at the sunlight, eyes tearing. I hoped my brothers were safe. They’d be nearly defenseless. Each of them was still new enough to the bloodchange that they slept hard, too hard to defend themselves quickly if there was an attack.

We continued to march along until I began to recognize where we were. The mountains were on our right and a small lake glistened in a lower valley. The tunnel ran right underneath us, no one the wiser. I was so close to an escape and it might as well have been on the other side of the planet for all the good it did me. Even if I could get to one of the doorways, which was doubtful, I couldn’t afford to give away the secret location to the Helios-Ra. I was thinking so hard I didn’t see the shadow leap down from a tall gray aspen, scowling fiercely. He wore unrelieved black like the others and was armed to the teeth. His dark eyes pinned me.