The Missing Piece

The Missing Piece
The lock clicked open, and Viv's heart jumped into her neck. The hallway behind her was dark and empty, but she couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. She pushed open the door to Damien's office and slipped inside.

"I need answers," she whispered to herself. After seeing her apparently dead father at the vampire gathering, Viv couldn't sleep. Couldn't eat. Couldn't think about anything else.

The office was big but simple. A big desk. Tall racks. A machine that was locked. Viv tried the desk drawers first—locked too. She pulled a clip from her pocket and bent it like her grandmother had taught her long ago.

"Come on," she whispered, working the pin in the lock. She needed to know what Damien was hiding about her mother's death. About her father being living. About all of it.

The door popped open, and Viv almost cried out in relief. Inside were folders—dozens of them, each with a name. She flipped through them quickly until she saw one that made her freeze.

THORNE, ELEANOR & MARCEL.

Her parents' names.

With shaking hands, Viv pulled out the folder and opened it. Inside were pictures, reports, and a strange diagram of what looked like a family tree. At the top was a single word: HUNTERS.

"What is this?" Viv whispered, reading the first page. Words jumped out at her.

Subject Eleanor Thorne holds pure hunter blood, passed down through fifteen generations...

Genetic markers show highest potency seen in 200 years...

Pregnancy confirmed. Child will likely receive full hunter abilities...

Viv flipped to the next page and found a picture of her mother—young, beautiful, and very pregnant—standing in a lab. Next to her was Damien. They were smiling at each other.

"They knew each other?" Viv felt like the floor was tilting under her. She read on, finding notes about "blood tests" and "compatibility." Another page showed a diagram of blood cells with strange blue marks.

Hunter blood includes natural vampire toxins but also healing properties. The Blackthorn bloodline is particularly responsive to Thorne hunter blood, confirming the Twinned Souls prophecy...

Something fell from the file—a small photo. Viv picked it up and gasped. It showed a baby—her, she realized—being held by her mother. Damien stood beside them, looking down at the baby with an attitude that looked almost like... love?

"What are you doing, Vivienne?"

Viv jumped, dropping the file. Papers spread across the floor as she spun around. Damien stood in the doorway, his face blank.

"You knew my mother," Viv said, her voice shaking. "You knew me as a baby. You've been lying this whole time!"

Damien closed the door quietly. "I never lied. I just didn't tell you everything."

"That's the same thing!" Viv shouted, picking up the baby picture. "What is this? Why were you with my mother? And what's this hunter blood thing?"

Damien sighed and walked to the window. For a long moment, he said nothing. When he finally turned back, his eyes were sad.

"Your mother was helping me," he said. "Voluntarily. She was a scientist studying genetic blood disorders. She discovered the hunter gene in her own blood, and when she learned about vampires, she came to me."

"Why would she do that?" Viv asked.

"Because the hunter blood is both poison and cure to vampires," Damien explained. "It can kill us, or it can heal us. Your mother wanted to find a way for humans and vampires to coexist. She believed her research could help end the need for vampires to feed on humans."

Viv's head was spinning. "But my dad said you killed her."

"Marcel believes that because he doesn't know the truth," Damien said. He walked to the desk and unlocked another drawer. "I was trying to protect her—to protect both of you." He pulled out another file and gave it to Viv. "This is what I was going to show you tonight anyway."

Viv opened the new file and saw pictures of the missing people she'd been investigating—the reason she'd first crossed paths with Damien. But these shots showed something horrifying: the people in some kind of lab, hooked up to machines that drained their blood.

"These aren't just missing people," Damien said. "They're being harvested by Lord Erebus. He's looking for humans with traces of hunter blood. He's been doing it for years, but he's getting desperate now."

"Why?" Viv asked, though a cold feeling in her stomach told her she already knew.

"Because he's looking for you, Vivienne," Damien said. "The child of the purest hunter bloodline in centuries. Your blood could give him the power to walk in daylight and control all vampires. Your father knows this too—that's why he faked his death and yours, changing your last name and hiding you with your grandmother."

Viv sat down hard in Damien's chair, her legs suddenly too weak to hold her. "So both you and my father have been fighting over me like I'm some kind of... weapon?"

"Not me," Damien said quietly. "I swore to your mother I would protect you, not use you. That's why I let you go after the council meeting. I wanted you to choose your own path."

"But the blood bond—our marriage—"

"Was necessary to keep you safe from Erebus and the council," Damien said. "But I never intended to force you to stay."

Viv looked at the spread papers on the floor, trying to make sense of it all. "If my blood is so special, why didn't I know? Why don't I have special powers or something?"

Damien paused. "You do, Vivienne. Your visions. Your quick healing. Your immunity to vampire compulsion. Those aren't coincidences."

A terrible thought struck Viv. "Did you arrange for me to investigate those disappearances? Did you set all this up?"

"No," Damien said strongly. "That was Erebus. He's been leaving breadcrumbs, trying to draw you out. I only realized who you were when you broke into my home and I smelled your blood."

Viv remembered that night—how Damien had seemed shocked when he caught her, how he'd let her live when any other vampire would have killed her.

"So what happens now?" she asked.

Damien held out his hand. "Now I show you the rest. The missing piece that explains everything—why your father thinks I killed your mother, why Erebus wants you, and why our blood bond is unlike any other."

Viv stared at his raised hand. Every sense told her to run, to find her father and demand the truth from him. But something deeper—the same something that had helped her survive the Blood Dance—pulled her toward Damien.

She reached for his hand, but before their fingers could touch, the window burst inward in a shower of glass. Viv screamed as something hot and painful hit her neck.

"Vivienne!" Damien yelled, lunging toward her.

Viv tried to reply, but her tongue felt too big for her mouth. Her view blurred as she slumped forward. The last thing she saw before darkness took her was a person in red armor climbing through the broken window.

"Got her," the figure said in a familiar voice. "Get the blood sample to Erebus. Tell him we found the hunter child."

As awareness slipped away, Viv realized with horror that the voice belonged to her father.