No time to brace, I lost my footing and slammed face-first into the gravel, my right ribs and elbow taking the brunt.

“Goddammit.” I instantly curled my legs, reaching for the stars in my boots, but before I could grab them and roll to standing, a large male body flung itself onto me. My lungs expelled a disturbing whump sound, and black spots swam before my eyes, resolving into snapshot images of lanky hands and dishwater brown hair.

Rob. Scrambling to pin me in a standard-issue wrestling hold.

I burst to action, squirming beneath him. “You gonna bite me?” I managed, wriggling into an angle that bought me more air. I coughed, gasped for breath, coughed again. “Oh, right. You can’t.”

He sawed his arm, aimed at my neck. I tensed and tucked my chin down, but he managed to pry past my hunched shoulders, crushing my throat. “Go ahead and joke. Like a prisoner’s last meal.”

I twisted from my side onto my back, and in the half second it took for him to readjust, I snapped my hands up, guarding my neck with my forearms and bucking my hips, trying to fling him off.

He lost his balance and fell forward. He was still on top of me, his chest crushing my face, but with a quick scramble and scoot, I turned my head, clutched him close, and wrapped my legs around him, pinning him to me. Not a great position, but at least it gave me some control of his movements. “You’re lisping, Rob.”

“I don’t need fangs to draw blood.” He relaxed into me, crushing his body to mine as he grabbed for whatever he could get hold of. He grabbed, and I squirmed, and we grappled, him trying to use his weight to immobilize me, while I wiggled like a wind-up toy, bucking my hips, fighting to free my arms.

“What are you going to do?” I said, pausing and panting. “Hug me to death?”

“Nope.” He reached down, his hand clawing for my neck. “Strangle.”

I bit his wrist. As he flinched away, he dug his fingers into my forearms and slammed his elbows onto my biceps, bending my arms and pinning me. Grinding me into the dirt. “You’re going to suffer for what you did.”

“Oh, Robbie, did the other boys make fun of you?” I couldn’t budge, and I couldn’t budge him, either. My arms began to burn, my muscles quivering—he was just too heavy. I could drink all the blood in the world and I’d never be able to fight a big Trainee boy, especially one who’d also been getting doses of the blood. My words were one of the last weapons left to me, and I let them rip. “Just think how special you are. There can’t be many other vampires who have just one fang. It’s actually quite piratical.”

“Shut up.”

“Do you even want to grow it back? You might want to consider—”

“I’ll shut you up.” He let go with one arm and clawed for my neck. I hunched my chin into my chest, but he just snatched at the collar of my coat instead.

“That all you got?” With my free hand, I punched at him, but I couldn’t hold him back for much longer. “It’s not over yet.”

His fingertips grasped the fabric, then began inching lower, twisting and tightening it around my throat until it became hard to breathe. “Isn’t it?”

As I struggled to loosen my collar, his other hand wrenched between my forearms. I tried to block, but I must’ve slipped, because suddenly I felt his thumb on my skin. His palm on my throat. He laughed.

Then he squeezed.

Instantly, I flashed back. Instantly, I was in the ring with Emma, her hands on my throat, choking me just enough to make me black out, our plan to fake my death.

It’d worked.

And then she’d been the one who’d died.

Despair swamped me. My legs thrashed and my feet kicked the dirt, just as they had with Emma. My lips opened, mouth gasping for air that wouldn’t come. Just like that day.

And, like that day, the world went dark.

SOMETHING COLD SLAPPED MY FACE, and I gasped. Deep in my muzzy brain, I rejoiced at the rush of sweet air. Greedily, I sucked it in, but was slapped again.

Cold water. I accidentally inhaled it. Choked and coughed. Panicked.

My eyes shot open.

The sky was dark gray. Late afternoon. I could breathe. But I was…tied.

I shifted, assessing. My arms were numb, bound behind and under me. Something sharp dug into my spine. A rock. I was lying down, tied on top of a rock.

I wrenched my arms, adjusting my hands, nestling them into the small of my back. Rope cut into my wrists with every movement. Two lengths of it were stretched over me—one slashed across my hips and the other across my collarbone. I wriggled, but that only cinched the bonds tighter. “What the hell?”

There was rustling and I craned my neck, peering up over my head. Rob had knocked back the last of his water and was zipping his canteen into his pack.

“Hey,” I shouted. “Hey, moron. Is this how you fight? You tie me up so you can—what?—gnaw me to death?”

He approached, his face peering over me like a great moon dawning in my line of sight. “I’m not going to fight you. They’re going to fight you.”

My heart burst into a gallop. Frantically, I scanned the perimeter. “They who?”

“You’ll see.” He hitched his backpack onto his shoulders with a cocky little laugh. “Not me, though. I’m leaving. But don’t worry…. I doubt you’ll be alone for long.”

“Wait.” I tried to scoot down. Ignoring the rock cutting into my hands, I kicked lamely at him. “Are you serious? You tied me to a rock?” I kicked and flailed, but he only dodged out of the way. “Is this some kind of Greek mythology thing? What kind of poetic crap did Master Al order you to do, anyway?”

Alcántara wanted us to attack one another in moving and poetic ways, and I wouldn’t have put it past him to insist Rob reenact a great moment from literature.

“No way, dude. This is all me. Wait”—he stopped and stepped close—“just one last thing.” He eased into a squat, running his hands down my legs as he went.

“Get the hell off.” Ignoring the rope, I kicked like a maniac now, but he was too close for me to do any damage.

Crap. I hadn’t thought he’d try to get physical. I shuddered at the creepy feel of his fingers running along my calves. But then I felt him fumbling at my boots…and, double crap…he was reaching for my stars.

“Get off,” I screamed, bucking and jerking wildly now. Warmth bloomed along my wrists and knuckles as the rock scored my skin.

I rammed my heels into his stomach, but he’d tied me up too well. He was able to dodge me, making my attempts laughable. And laugh he did.

Laughing, he stole a star from my boot. Standing, he tilted the star, studying it in the deepening twilight.

Even though I hadn’t budged, I was panting, glaring. It was the star Carden had given me.

Pain and regret stabbed me. I missed my vampire with such fresh longing. Like thinking a wound healed, only to remove the bandage and tear the scab away with it, I was left feeling as raw, my heart as battered as on the day I first realized he was gone.

“Isn’t this pretty?” Rob tested a point of the star with his thumb. “It’s etched. Like feathers.”

The wings of a bird, you asshole. But I’d never tell Rob that. Carden was the only one who knew the significance. I was his dove with wings of fire. Was.

I hitched my hips and pistoned my feet toward his groin, but he hopped back, laughing harder. I tried again, and as I did, the rope across my chest shot up an inch, slipping close—too close—to my neck. I froze.

“Careful, little D.” He smiled and tapped my star on the rock. With a little toss, he adjusted it in his fingertips.

My eyes went wide. “What are you doing?”

He opened my coat.

“Don’t touch me,” I shrieked.

Rob slashed a giant hole in the belly of my pretty new catsuit.

“Stop!” The rope near my neck forgotten, I thrashed like a wild animal. “What are you doing?”

He placed a cool hand on my stomach. “Easy now. You might hurt yourself.” Slowly, he brought the star down. Traced it around my navel. “Alcántara will enjoy this bit of poetry, don’t you think? Slashed by one of your own stars.”

I grew still and stared, proud of the smile I managed to muster. “But will it be moving enough for him to forget you’re a fangless freak?”

He slashed then, quick and deep, a diagonal slice across the soft flesh of my belly. “Do you know where we are right now?” he asked as he used the hem of my coat to wipe my blood from the blade.

I gritted my teeth, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing my pain. “Yeah, Rob. I’m with the asshole who’s going to die when I get out of here.”

“Wrong answer.” He struck then, a sucker punch in my gut, tearing the wound deeper, dizzying me, releasing a fresh wave of blood, drizzling down the sides of my torso. “You’re in Draug country,” he said. “They’ll scent your blood and come running. Which means I’m going to leave you now. Dark will come soon. They’ll be hungry.”

“They feed on fear,” I said, as much to convince myself as him.

He shrugged. “That’s cool. You go ahead and try not to freak out when they swarm you.” And then he simply turned and left.

“Coward,” I shouted after him. “Fangless freak can’t fight a girl.”

But my taunts were met with silence. I tried to tug my hands free, but it was hopeless. My movements only cut the rope deeper into my wrists.

I lay there for a minute, heart pounding.

Blood had pooled in my belly button. In the crease of my waist. It was oozing down my sides. I was dripping with it. If it didn’t call the Draug, it’d be sure to call something.

“Shit,” I said, looking left and right. Nothing. No one. I was stuck. “Shit.”

The blood cooled instantly. The evening was getting colder. The sun had already dipped below the hills. It was twilight. Soon full dark.