Page 51 of Let Sleeping Vampires Lie

Coward after all.

Two bodies lay still near us. Three more scattered among the graves. The other was gone.

“Let him go,” Con rasped. “We have bigger problems.”

Raven.

I dropped to my knees beside her. She was hunched forward, one hand braced in the grass, the other pressed against her side. Blood seeped through her fingers in a steady flow.

“Raven, let me see,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm.

She shook her head once, jaw clenched. “I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding,” I replied.

“So are you,” she countered.

I glanced down. A shallow slice marked my forearm, likely from the first attacker’s wild swing. I hadn’t even felt it in the adrenaline rush. Already, the skin was knitting together, the edges closing.

Raven’s wasn’t.

I gently pulled her hand away from the wound.

The cut was nasty. Deep, running from the curve of her ribs toward her back. It should have started to close, even with her magic weakened. Her hybrid nature gave her some regenerative advantage.

But the edges of the wound were dark. Not just bloody, shadowed, as if something burned inside the flesh, eating at it from within.

It stayed open, crimson welling up stubbornly, refusing to slow.

My stomach clenched. “It’s not healing.”

Raven’s face had gone even paler. She swayed, catching herself on my shoulder. “Give it a minute,” she muttered.

“It’s not going to heal,” Con said, voice clipped.

He crouched on her other side, eyes scanning the wound with a warrior’s detachment and a friend’s fury.

Val and Quinn closed in, weapons still ready, eyes darting around in case there were more. Two of the other clan members dragged one of the enhanced bodies away from the open path.

“Something’s wrong with that cut,” Val said.

“You think?” Quinn snapped, panic sharpening his tone.

“Back up,” Con ordered. “Give her air.”

They obeyed, but only a step.

I pressed my hand above the wound, trying to slow the bleeding. The skin under my palm felt too warm. Her pulse fluttered, fast and uneven.

“Raven,” I said quietly, “can you call on your power?”

She tried.

I felt her reach through the bond, pushing for what used to be an endless well of magic. It sputtered under her grip like a dry pump. Fragments of energy flickered, then vanished, swallowed by something thick and dark.

She sucked in a breath and squeezed her eyes shut. “It’s not… responding.”

“Stop forcing it,” I said quickly. “You’ll make it worse.”