The Hunter's Prey (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 5) by Katherine Sparrow Page A

mighty Romanoff brothers. The scoundrel vampires of Russia.”
    In truth, they were some lesser relatives of the czar who had become vampires when the Czarist regime fell. These brothers had gone on killing sprees across Russia, murdering peasants in the shadow of Stalin's even greater persecution. I knew not which parts of their bloody history was fact and which legend, but if even a tiny fraction of what I had heard about them was true, then they did not deserve to walk away from this fallow faerie glen.
    One of them grumbled. “Mother Russia. Back then a vampire could do what he wanted. Take what is his birth-right without being bothered. Humans these days always have cameras on them. They always try to catch us on film. As soon as they do? There are a dozen hunters after us. Humans hunting us.” He shook his head in disgust.
    “Everything has gotten harder,” another said.
    “Damn this modern age, so hard on you monsters,” I said.
    “And that’s not even the worst of it,” said another. “With the drugs kids are doing these days, and the pain pills and anti-depressants people are on, we have to be careful all the time about what kind of blood we drink.”
    “Oh dear,” I said.
    “Quiet,” hissed the tallest one. Their eldest and leader, I guessed. “Focus, brothers. She may seem lovely and willing to listen. She may have a distracting pulse in her jugular, but we are on a hunt. The hunt. And we are the first to the prey. Our time to win has finally come.”
    Around me, the vampires hissed and showed off their pointy teeth.
    “So easy to find,” one of them said.
    “Did you put the tracker on me?” I asked, placing a hand over my heart.
    The brothers looked confused.
    “We are fast. We followed,” one answered.
    Which meant whatever monster was tracking me with the thing would be along soon.
    “It is strange to see that you are hunting for that hedge witch Agnes Stonehouse. How far the Romanoffs have fallen, to serve a peasant. How sad.”
    Hisses surrounded me.
    “If you knew the rivers of blood we have made.”
    “Thick blood. Chunky blood. We have drank so deeply.”
    “Don’t listen to her. Prey need not speak. The mother need not talk. We can take her tongue, surely.”
    Interesting. “I’m no one’s mother,” I said. “And Agnes ordered you to take me to her unharmed.”
    Brows furrowed. They hissed some more.
    “The hunted is always a mother,” one said.
    “Whose mother?” I asked.
    “We don’t know. We don’t care. They get strangled, sucked, eaten, mangled. Doesn’t matter whose mother.”
    “But you're strange. You’re a witch. And she wants you living.”
    “Time to go. We take her and fly back,” one brother said.
    “Hungry though. And she’s old,” replied another.
    Suddenly, they all stood a couple of feet closer and the circle around me tightened. I had seen none of them move. Old vampires were freakishly fast.
    “She wants me brought in alive,” I reminded them. “A pity that. I would make a lovely meal, with my old and magical blood.” I licked my lips. “Like the finest wine.”
    They licked their lips.
    Just as human men, vampires grew stupid when their desires heightened.
    I smiled at all of them and raised my hand.
    Ball bearings, a bobby pin, a piece of knotted rope, and a diamond with spiked edges: the spells sat in the palm of my hands like promises. “You have found me first, that is true,” I said. “But you must obey your master. You will take me to another and not take one sip of my hot, ancient, and half-noble blood.”
    They all licked their bee-stung lips and were suddenly closer still.
    “Just a sip, perhaps,” said one. His eyes reddened. His teeth poked out of his mouth and made him lisp.
    “Just a taste. We’re good at stopping.”
    “Sometimes.”
    They pulsed closer, and I could reach out and touch any one of them now. Instead, I spun and threw my spells. Exploding balls. A living flame. An itching spell. Three ear-piercing