Vincent howled at the night. Nothing and no one answered.

  He couldn't believe this was happening. Those sons of bitches. If the professor had acted like one, if she hadn't left them to their fate, this wouldn't have happened. And neither would it have if they hadn't stood up to those thugs.

  He wondered if they should have just walked on by, but he knew that was an unfair thought. They had done what had to be done: their duty.

  The bitch of a professor hadn't.

  However, he didn't care if it had been her own decision or the academy's. In any case, she would pay. But once he found Ayame safe and sound, once everything was back in its right place, then he could direct his rage elsewhere.

  Vincent only stopped howling when he heard the door opening behind him. His heart leaped into his throat. For a moment, he thought it was one of those thugs, still nearby to get rid of the witnesses. He spun around, swinging his sword with killing intent.

  But it wasn't a thug. It was just Tara, staggering, falling to her knees on the wet ground.

  Vincent bent down to help her up.

  "I'm fine," she muttered. "I'm fine."

  "You don't look it."

  Tara lifted her sweat-covered face to fix him with a gaze sharper than any of her arrows.

  "It's not that easy to kill an archer with poisons. It'll pass. That's not what's important anyway. Let's go get her."

  "Where to?" he asked. "Where?"

  "I don't know, but I'll figure it out as we go. This isn't a forest, but I can track her. Track them all."

  "Alright. I'm behind you."

  "Or… or not. Can you walk?"

  Tara nodded. She took a step forward, shrugging his hands off her shoulders and back. A rather unsteady step, but she took it.

  "I'm telling you, that's not what matters right now."

  Vincent nodded. It was true. And more importantly, Tara agreed. Therefore, it wasn't wrong to give Ayame the utmost importance. He had no reason to feel guilty. He hadn't before, either; it was obvious that some poison was less dangerous than ending up in the hands of thugs, murderers, traffickers, slavers. Obvious. But he had felt guilty all the same.

  Not anymore. The guilt vanished completely as they plunged into the night.

  Vincent bit his lower lip. God, he had to find her before some degenerate son of a bitch laid a hand on her. There were many fates worse than death.

  He couldn't see exactly how Tara was tracking them, so he had no choice but to trust her. Luckily, he did. He did, because they were a team.

  "Footprints," Tara said, crouching to touch the ground, feeling something more than what was visible to the naked eye. "And scents," she added. "They're not that far."

  "Scents..." Vincent repeated, running as fast as Tara, wishing he could run even faster.

  Wishing he didn't need anyone to guide him, just to be pointed in the right direction to unleash his rage. He knew now. He knew he wouldn't hesitate, that he never would have hesitated.

  "Vampires smell different to me," Tara noted, as if she didn't want to.

  Vincent burned with the desire to hear the explanation, to understand a part of Ayame he couldn't perceive. But it wasn't the time, it wasn't the priority, and anyway, he knew the explanation would be useless to him. How could he understand what made her scent different if he didn't know what was normal?

  "Vincent, don't worry. We'll find her. And she might not even need us. She might recover and kill them herself, all on her own, because she's strong and can be one stubborn bitch."

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "Okay... okay," he murmured, simply repeating it.

  He wanted to believe it. He wanted it with an intensity that hurt.

  They dropped her.

  Ayame rolled across the floor, her legs still too shaky to support her own weight. The still-searing pain stole her breath. But worst of all was the humiliation, the feeling that she was nothing more than an animal caught in a trap. She felt like vomiting, but it had little to do with the smell of burning that filled the air, the smell of her own skin still trying to heal. It was that humiliation and, of course, the bloodlust telling her it was okay, that she could turn a blind eye to this because, after all, it wasn't her fault. After all, she needed it now more than ever in her life. She needed it.

  Ayame suddenly understood that she had been very sheltered, that she had never been thirsty, not really.

  Then a kick to her side sent her rolling further across the floor, gasping. She hadn't recovered from the holy water, and of course, they didn't want to give her time to even breathe. These thugs, whatever they were, were not stupid.

  Footsteps surrounded her. A huge guy sat on a barrel in front of her, watching her as she writhed weakly on the floor in pain. And when she said huge, she meant huge. He wore no armor, just normal clothes, nothing that exaggerated his build, so to speak, and yet he still looked like a giant.

  Maybe I just feel very small right now, she thought.

  "Who are you?" Ayame asked with all the courage she could muster.

  "The boss of this little operation."

  Ayame took a deep breath. The Red Scars... that's right.

  "Do you think you're going to get away with this? I know what you're thinking. Attacking a Runehaven student, trying to kill two others... your little gang will disappear sooner or later because of this, and we both know it won't be long."

  "First of all," the giant replied, unfazed, "we're not going to kill your companions. They'd already be dead if I wanted them to be. No, murdering a couple of schoolkids is bad for business."

  "Then what am I doing here?"

  "I can offer the highest bidder slaves older and prettier than you. But vampires... that's a rare delicacy. Besides, schoolgirls are always in demand."

  Ayame coughed hard several times, spitting blood into her fist.

  "You can't kill a couple of schoolkids, but you think you can do that to me? Even if you succeeded, it wouldn't go unpunished."

  The giant rolled his gray, soulless eyes.

  "Cut the crap, okay? I wasn't born yesterday. You're a vampire," he said, as if it were that simple.

  And unfortunately for her, it was.

  "But don't worry. Neither I nor my men will lay a hand on the merchandise. I've given explicit orders."

  "Oh, wow..." her voice was small, but full of sarcasm. "How chivalrous. Oh, wow, how kind of you."

  The guy actually had the nerve to nod.

  "I am. Because there are many among my men who want to know if vampiresses are different from human women."

  Ayame couldn't help but look away. Her hand was trembling, and not just from the pain. Of course they wanted to know. They hated her entire species, but that didn't stop them from turning it into a fetish. Fucking bastards.

  "Whatever your name is," Ayame murmured, her voice almost inaudible, "you're going to die today."

  "Oh, yeah? We've still got some holy water left."

  "I'm not talking about me." Ayame met his gaze again. "My knight is going to tear you to pieces. You and your whole fucking gang."

  She remembered that moment under the shade of the trees, the warmth and softness of his body, and a whispered promise: Us against the world.

  "You so sure about that?" that damn bastard said, tilting his head as if to analyze her. "Okay. Fine. I'm not one to underestimate anyone, not even schoolkids. Otherwise, my head would've been chopped off a long time ago. Now, you're going to tell me what your knight is capable of. What blood runs through his veins."

  Ayame suddenly understood, and she burst out laughing.

  "What's so funny?"

  Very simple. This third-rate thug thought she was talking about a Vampire Knight, or a knight with a lowercase 'k,' not a capital 'K'—a protector, probably assigned by her family. Ridiculous.

  "My knight is the boy on my team, you idiot."

  "Wow, really? So much faith in a brat you've known for... what, not even three months? Fucking hell. But okay, fine. That doesn't change my question. Are you going to tell me what he can do?"

  Ayame spat.

  "There's nothing you can do to me to make me betray him. And anything you do to me, the slightest scratch, will only make your death slower and more painful."

  "Only if I lose. And I think I can make you talk. In fact, make you sing like a canary."

  "Go on, test me, you insignificant piece of shit."

  The anger in her voice was somewhat softened by the fact that she could barely raise it in her condition.

  "My name is Jonah, by the way," the bastard said. "So it's clear. So you remember."

  And then, he reached for his belt, unbuckling it.

  She had lived a rather sheltered life, locked away in a very, very small world, like a fairytale princess. She knew more about the outside world from books than from experience. That's why she didn't realize what was really happening—that he hadn't just threatened her with something as ridiculous as a whipping with his belt.

  She didn't understand until he pulled down his pants.

  "There," Tara said. "I don't think she's there, but she was. And the sons of bitches swarming the place can give us a clue."

  Vincent nodded. He didn't need to hear any more.

  Tara coughed hard, her whole body shaking. Vincent glanced at her, but he didn't ask stupid questions like, "Are you okay?" They both knew she wasn't, and they knew it didn't matter right now.

  "Wait for me to get on the roof, okay?" she said. "I'll cover you from there."

  Vincent didn't want to wait even a second. He felt like he had no time to lose. But he nodded again, obediently. The truth was, they were a team, and he couldn't do this alone.

  From the shadows of the alley, he watched her climb the building, as fast as she physically could.