Victoriana leapt into action, but Rowan simply stepped to the side, bending slightly as she kicked out, connecting with the Vampire's side.

Victoriana tumbled with a m.u.f.fled curse and stood.

Her own need for blood pounded in her ears like a heartbeat. Rowan tasted her violence, breathed it, embraced that part of what she was as she dodged a hand full of venom-tipped nails. At the last minute she allowed the edge of her blade to slice along the inner arm of her opponent.

Victoriana's scream made her smile.

"What are you?" Victoriana demanded.

It was Brigid's otherworldly voice that filled the s.p.a.ce. "A nightmare. Raised in nightmare country. I am your last breath, Vampire. I want you to know this as you die-you brought this on yourself out of your own vanity and ignorance. I will enjoy bleeding you."

Brigid made her faster. Made her stronger. Filled her veins with the magic and power of a G.o.ddess. And it folded around the blood she'd taken from Theo and Clive after her attack.

She was a human wrapped around a bunch of superhuman elements.

Clive watched her move, unable to tear himself away from the menace in her muscles, the way she coiled and uncoiled herself at will and as fast as any Vampire he'd known. He'd seen her fight before, but she was something different now. Stronger, but more Other too.

Her breath misted around her face, but she wasn't even winded.

It wasn't just Hunters and Vampires who'd surrounded the s.p.a.ce, but The First's staff had come out to watch, huddled in coats, eyes on Rowan as she landed yet another strike, slicing her blade across Victoriana's belly.

Victoriana, it seemed, had finally realized just what she was up against and had begun to focus.

"Barbaric. Of course she jumped at the chance. She's as low cla.s.s and bloodthirsty as they are."

Clive didn't need to turn around to identify Roth as the person who made that comment.

"Do be quiet, Roth." Celesse.

"Why? So you can continue to let her run roughshod over Hunter Corp.? Turn us into them?"

"Because she's got the courage to do this. Because this is what it takes to make them listen. You're a fool strangled by your ego if you don't understand the price she pays for this. But you sure as h.e.l.l aren't doing it. I can't. She does. So shut up or I will punch you in the mouth myself." Rex Espy this time.

Clive smiled, feeling violent and a little grim. Victoriana managed to land a few blows, knocking Rowan off her feet. She bled from her mouth, but she didn't seem overly bothered or even hurt as she stood straight and narrowed her gaze at the Vampire she faced.

"Would you like me to wait while you run and get a weapon?" Rowan taunted. Clive got hard just watching.

"I am a weapon, human." Victoriana left the ground and shot herself toward Rowan, who'd adjusted and hit Victoriana in the head with the hilt of her sword as she did.

On the way down, Victoriana managed to sink her teeth into Rowan's shoulder, ripping the shirt she had, grazing her skin. Rowan pushed off, shoving herself back and straightening.

"I'm not human." Rowan stalked over with inhuman speed and kicked Victoriana's legs from under her as she'd managed to stand once more. "I told you, I am the Vessel. I was reared here, at the right hand of The First. I know how to be a Vampire better than you do." She punched Victoriana, whose head lolled back. And then she licked across her knuckles. Like a Vampire would have. A move that told her opponent she was nothing more than a meal.

Perfection.

The First chuckled in the background as Clive's incisors lengthened.

"I'm stronger than you." She hit Victoriana again. "I'm better than you in every way." And again. "You think you can make me a meal? f.u.c.k. You. f.u.c.k you for sinking your teeth into me without my permission. You were a G.o.dsd.a.m.ned fool to issue this challenge. You are weak." She gripped her sword, bringing the hilt to her lips. "And you will die because of it."

"No! I call the challenge off." Collette yelled this from the background. Rowan heard it and knew it was futile. Rowan grabbed Victoriana and helped her to her feet.

She spoke the words. "Die well, Vampire. I hope death brings you the peace you could not find in life."

One sure movement, she angled blade, punching it through Victoriana's chest. The stench of her blood and the burning flesh as the blessed surface of the blade cut through her blotted out the crisp night air.

Rowan leaned in as she brought the blade through Victoriana's heart. She murmured a blessing to ease the Vampire's way to true death as Victoriana's face eased and she was nothing more than dust.

Chapter Seventeen.

An unearthly howl filled the air as Collette launched herself into the s.p.a.ce and toward Rowan's back, knocking her down before she could fully straighten after delivering the death blow to Victoriana.

"You will hold, Vampire!" Theo's voice boomed through the s.p.a.ce with so much power it held everyone in place.

He was down from the dais before Clive finished blinking his eyes.

Like a slow-motion, animated drawing, he stepped closer and yanked Collette back by her hair.

Rowan went to her knee and twisted out of the way, pushing to stand a few feet away. Her back had been flayed open by Collette's nails and teeth; Clive knew she had to be in pain, but she stood tall.

Theo held Collette off the ground by her hair, getting very close to her, his face just half an inch from hers. She ceased struggling, and no one dared move to interfere in any way.

"You violated the rules."

"Ovilius, I beg your mercy," Enyo spoke with the proper amount of reverence, and she did not step into the challenge s.p.a.ce. "She is upset at the loss of her loved one. She is young and pa.s.sionate. Do you not remember what that feels like?"

Theo did not tear his gaze from Collette, who had quieted to nothing more than an occasional high-pitched whimper. Clive had no idea what it would have felt like to be caught in that thrall, but he knew enough to not want to dwell.

"She violated the sanct.i.ty of my hospitality. Her actions have not only shamed her, but me. She broke the rules in my Keep. Of her people. A Vampire has nothing if he does not have honor. Nothing."

The power echoed from that word, and Collette began to vibrate.

"The punishment for that is to be nothing."

Clive had turned his attention to Rowan, who stood tall, her blade still in her hand. Though she was still covered in Victoriana's death blood and her own smattering of wounds, she hadn't made a single move since she'd pushed up from one knee. Rowan simply watched The First with serious eyes that told no one anything.

No one but those who knew her intimately, as Clive did. He knew without a doubt that Rowan had been face-to-face with The First like that. Knew she had felt whatever Collette was at that moment.

His respect for Rowan Summerwaite rose as he understood her strength on a whole new level. She'd withstood this powerful being and his idea of discipline from infancy.

And yet she'd survived it. More than survived. She'd taken it and used it, let it shape her and make her stronger. She stood there, tall, blood drying on her mouth and on her back. Every once in a while a fine tremor worked through her left hand and she fisted it tighter and then relaxed it.

In his time at the Nation and over the course of his exposure to The First, Clive had seen him discipline Vampires. Had seen all manner of corrections from a b.l.o.o.d.y lip to imprisonment of some sort. He'd even seen several executions and a few beatings. But this was different.

Everyone standing around that square watching knew it too.

"You came to my Keep and you brought chaos with you." Theo continued to look at Collette, but he also spoke to Enyo. "Do you think me someone you can destroy so easily? Do you have so little understanding of my power that you bring your petty magics and attempt to game this meeting for your own gains?"

"Ovilius, no. We do nothing more than seek to affect the outcome openly. With our words."

He spoke then in their old language, and a shiver slid down Clive's spine.

"Do you swear such on your life, Enyo?"

"What says the Hunter? Has she taken offense?"

Rowan did not so much as glance in Enyo's direction. Theo was in charge there, and anyone who thought otherwise was signing their own death warrant. Her back hurt like a b.i.t.c.h, and if she wasn't full of a G.o.ddess's power, that poison Collette had used on her would have killed her by now.

"This is not helping your cause!" Enyo called out, though Rowan wasn't sure whom she was speaking to.

Brigid burned through her so hard and fast she couldn't help but gasp. Her back burned, the pain nearly unbearable, and then it ebbed. She turned, looking through Rowan's eyes and spoke to Enyo, again in ancient Greek.

"You are a petty dabbler. Your pathetic tossed bones and sacrifices are not enough to fell my Vessel. You are an amateur. You were then and you are now."

"Who are you?" Enyo took a step closer but did not cross into the challenge s.p.a.ce.

Brigid's laugh was deep and laced with anger, menace and disgust. It flowed through Rowan and outward like a physical thing. The heat of that possession brought steam from her skin as it met the cold night air.

"You know who I am. I am whole and full. You are a piece, a broken, jagged child. A shadow of your former self. I still rule the battlefield."

"Brigid..." The name was a breath of sound. "You did not tell me what this Hunter is, Tages. You have broken your own rules."

Theo spoke at Rowan's back. "You are as much of a fool as she just branded you. Everyone knows what Rowan is. She told you she was a Vessel multiple times. It is well known. You simply didn't pay attention. Which is your error, not mine."

"Still more pretty than smart, I see," Brigid taunted, but remained where she was. "A pretty face still gets one far in the world. But it's not everything, and your inability to listen and use your brain and follow directions is how you ended up in this mess. And several thousand years later you still can't craft a spell to save your life. And it won't."

"You watch your tongue, human."

"Does no one listen at all? No wonder she gets so frustrated." Rowan turned to face Theo. Brigid didn't cede any room, keeping control.

"You are nothing," Theo said in the barest of sounds. Collette whimpered, and then he dropped her lifeless body to the ground. Collette's body shimmered a moment and then wisped away into ash.

Brigid was impressed, and Rowan was thankful she was far enough removed not to freak that he'd just killed someone with a few words.

Theo moved to her and examined her closely. "I smell poison. Begone, G.o.ddess, I wish to speak to my daughter."

"We discussed this before, Vampire. I go where she goes. As for the poison, the one you killed had it on her nails. It would have killed a human quite quickly."

He moved around Rowan, examining her back. "One of your number used poison. This speaks quite ill of your honor, Enyo."

"The Hunter still lives. I had no idea Collette was going to use it until she leapt into the challenge area. I cannot be held accountable for such things."

It was Rowan who turned, Brigid's gaze burning from her, Brigid's words coming from her mouth. "If not you, who then? Hmm? Casta, do tell us who should be held responsible?" Okay then, so Casta was Enyo's original name. This Vessel business would be so much easier if Rowan and Brigid could just have a conversation so Brigid to get her up to speed on just exactly what this beef was based on.

"Who are you? I demand you tell me right this instant." Enyo's eyes were wide with rage.

"You knew my Vessel as Moibeal."

Enyo recoiled as she shook her head. "I saw her die. You are not Moibeal."

Rowan knew Moibeal was one of the very first Vessels to carry Brigid. Rowan riffled back through her memory trying to remember how it was she had died.

"I am not Moibeal. Moibeal was part of me. She still is. I haven't forgotten her and I won't allow you to either."

"Is that a threat?"

Brigid's laugh cut through the air. "As my Vessel would say, it's a promise."

The silence between them tautened until Rowan's muscles cramped. Finally Brigid let go and slid back, allowing Rowan to take over again.

She had an amendment to pa.s.s and that was what she would do. She had to kill someone to get to this point, and she wasn't going to get caught up in a new challenge or battle. Not before that vote.

Rowan brushed her hands down the front of her pants. "Are we done here? I'm hungry, and we have a meeting to run after dinner."

Theo waved a hand. "Rowan is the winner of the Challenge. Dinner will be served in twenty minutes. Go on."

Clive moved in her direction, but Theo sighed sharply. "Scion, you may have her when I'm finished. Be sure that useless, mewling fool from Hunter Corp. isn't sowing any dissension."

Clive paused and Rowan shook her head slightly. Theo was in no mood to be thwarted right then. He had something he wanted to address between himself and Rowan and that was that. Clive had to back off because Theo got what he wanted.

There'd be some hot, biting and scratching type f.u.c.king later on that night once all this other stuff was taken care of, and she let Clive see it in her eyes.

He bowed. "As you wish, Ovilius."

Satisfied his Scion was obeying, Theo turned his attention to Rowan again. "We need a little chat. First, let me deal with this." Theo took her hand and placed it on his arm. "Nadir, be sure this mess is cleaned up. If Enyo or any of the Blood Front Vampires even looks sideways at my rules, you will take them into custody."

"Ovilius, what of Marcilius?"

"Place him in my dungeon. Chain him, hands and feet. No blood. No food. He may have a bucket with rainwater. He is to have no visitors and nothing sent to him from outside. I'll deal with him when I've decided what fantastically painful punishment befits his insolence."

They strolled through the lanes created by his perfectly trimmed hedges. "Are you all right? Really?"

"I am. I'll be sore tomorrow. My shoulder was dislocated, but it popped back into place when I fell. My back...well, Brigid burned the poison from my system."

"You will bear scars, I'm sorry to say."

They could go with the ones he'd given her.