Prologue

“Race you to the bottom!” my older brother Grant yelled the moment we got off the chair lift. Mom and Dad skied up ahead, but beyond the four of us, the rest of the mountain was empty. It was the final run of the trip, on our last day of winter break, and we’d decided to challenge ourselves by skiing down the hardest trail on the mountain—one of the double black diamond chutes in the back bowl.

The chutes were the only way down from where we were—the chairlift that took us up here specified that these trails were for experts only. Which was perfect for us. After all, I’d been skiing since I was four years old. My parents grew up skiing, and they couldn’t wait to get me and Grant on the trails. We could tackle any trail at this ski resort.

“Did I hear something about a race?” Dad called from up ahead.

“Damn right you did!” Grant lifted one of his poles in the air and hooted, ready to go.

“You’re on.” I glided past all of them, the thrill of competition already racing through my veins.

Mom pleaded with us to be careful, and then my skis tipped over the top of the mountain, and I was flying down the trail. I smiled as I took off. I’d always wanted to fly, but obviously that wasn’t possible, and skiing was the closest thing I’d found to that. If I lived near a mountain instead of in South Florida, I might have devoted my extracurricular activities to skiing instead of gymnastics.

I blazed down the mountain like I was performing a choreographed dance, taking each jump with grace and digging my poles into the snow with each turn. This trail was full of moguls and even some rocky patches, but I flew down easily, avoiding each obstacle as it approached. I loved the rush of the wind on my cheeks and the breeze through my hair. If I held my poles in the air, it really did feel like flying. I was lost in the moment—so lost that I didn’t see the patch of rocks ahead until it was too late. I wasn’t prepared for the jump, and instead of landing gracefully, I ploofed to the ground, wiping out so hard that both of my skis popped off of my boots.

“Wipeout!” Grant laughed, holding his poles up in the air and flying past me.

“Are you okay?” Mom asked from nearby.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I rolled over, locating my skis. One was next to me, the other a few feet above.

“Do you need help?” she asked.

“No.” I shook my head, brushing the snow off my legs. “I’ve got this. Go on. I’ll meet you all at the bottom.”

She nodded and continued down the mountain, knowing me well enough to understand that I didn’t need any help—I wanted to get back up on my own.

“See you there!” she said, taking the turns slightly more cautiously than Grant and Dad.

I trudged up the mountain to grab the first ski, popped it back on, and glided on one foot to retrieve the other. I huffed as I prepared to put it back on. What an awful final run of the trip. My family was nearing the bottom of the trail—there was no way I would catch up with them now. Looked like I would be placing last in our little race. Which annoyed me, because last place was so not my style.

But I still had to get down, so I took a deep breath, dug my poles into the snow, and set off.

As I was nearing the bottom, three men emerged from the forest near the end of the chute. None of them wore skis, and they were dressed in jeans, t-shirts, and leather jackets. They must have been freezing.

I stopped, about to call out and ask them if they needed help. Before I could speak, one of them moved in a blur, coming up behind my brother and sinking his teeth into his neck.

I screamed as Grant’s blood gushed from the wound, staining the snow red.

The other two men moved just as fast, one of them pouncing on my mom, the other on my dad. More blood gushed from both of their necks, their bodies limp like rag dolls in their attackers arms.

“No!” I flew down the mountain—faster than I’d ever skied before—holding my poles out in front of me. I reached my brother first and jammed the pole into the back of his attacker with as much force as I could muster.

The pole bounced off the man, not even bothering him in the slightest, and the force of the attack pushed me to the ground. All I could do was look helplessly up as the man dropped my brother into the blood stained snow.

What was going on? Why were they doing this?

Then his gaze shifted to me, and he stared me down. His eyes were hard and cold—and he snarled at me, baring his teeth. They were covered in my brother’s blood.

“Grant,” I whispered my brother’s name, barely able to speak. He was so pale—so still. And there was so much blood. The rivulets streamed from the puddles around him, the glistening redness so bright that it seemed fake against the frosty background.

One of the other men dropped my mom’s body on the ground next to my brother. Seconds later, my dad landed next to them.

My mother’s murderer grabbed the first man’s shoulder—the man who had murdered my brother. “Hold it, Daniel,” he said, stopping him from moving toward me.

I just watched them, speechless. My whole family was gone. These creatures ran faster than I could blink, and they were strong enough to handle bodies like they were weightless.

I had no chance at escape.

They were going to do this to me too, weren’t they? These moments—right here, right now—would be my last.

I’d never given much thought to what happens after people die. Who does, at eighteen years old? I was supposed to have my whole life ahead of me. My family was supposed to have their whole lives ahead of them, too.

Now their lifeless, bloody bodies at the bottom of this mountain would be the last things I would ever see.

I steadied myself, trying to prepare for what was coming. Would dying hurt? Would it be over quickly? Would I disappear completely once I was gone? Would my soul continue on, or would my existence be wiped from the universe forever? It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live. But I’d seen what those men—those creatures—had done to my family. And I knew, staring up at them, that it was over.

Terror filled my body, shaking me to the core. I couldn’t fight them. I couldn’t win. Against them, I was helpless.

And even if I stood a chance, did I really want to continue living while my family was gone?

“We can’t kill them all,” the man continued. “Laila sent us here to get humans to replace the ones that rabid vampire killed in his bloodlust rampage. We need to keep her alive.”

“I suppose she’ll do.” The other man glared down at me, licking his lips and clenching his fists. “It’s hard to tell under all that ski gear, but she looks pretty. She’ll make a good addition to the Vale.”

He took a syringe out of his jacket, ran at me in a blur, and jabbed the needle into my neck.

The empty, dead eyes of my parents were the last things I saw before my head hit the snow and everything went dark.

• • •

One Year Later

I held out my arm, watching as the needle sucked the blood from the crease of my elbow and into the clear vial. I sat there for ten minutes, staring blankly ahead as I did my monthly duty as a citizen of the Vale.

Like all humans who lived in the kingdom, I was required to donate blood once a month.

This was my twelfth time donating blood.

Twelve months. One year. That’s how long it had been since my family had been murdered in front of my eyes and I’d been kidnapped to the Vale.

When I’d first been told that I was now a blood slave to vampires, I didn’t believe it. Vampires were supposed to be fiction. They didn’t exist in real life. But I couldn’t deny what I’d seen in front of my eyes. Those pale men, how quickly they’d moved, how they’d ripped their teeth into my parents and brother’s throats and drained them dry, leaving their corpses at the bottom of that ski trail.

Why had I been the one chosen to live, and not them?

It was all because I’d fallen on that slope. If I hadn’t fallen, I would have been first down the mountain. I would have been killed. My mom would have been last, and she would have been the one taken. But my mom wouldn’t have been strong enough to survive in the Vale. So even though I hated that I’d lived while they’d died, it was better that I lived in this hellish prison than any of them. I’d always been strong. Stubborn. Determined.

Those traits kept me going every day. They were the traits that kept me alive.

At first, I’d wanted to escape. I thought that if I could just get out of this cursed village, I could run to the nearest town and get help. I could save all the humans who were trapped in the Vale.

I didn’t get far before a wolf tried to attack me.

I’d used my gymnastics skills to climb high up on a tree, but if Mike hadn’t followed me, fought off the wolf, and dragged me back inside the Vale, I would have been dead meat. The wolves would have eventually gotten to me and feasted upon my body, leaving nothing but bones. Mike had told me everything about the wolves as we’d walked back to the Tavern. He’d grown up in the Vale, so he knew a lot about its history. He’d told me that they weren’t regular wolves—they were shifters. They’d made a pact with the vampires centuries ago, after the vampires had invaded their land and claimed this valley as their own. He’d told me about how the wolves craved human flesh as much as the vampires craved human blood, and how if a human tried to escape—if they crossed the line of the Vale—they became dinner to the wolves. At least the vampires let us live, so they could have a continuous supply of blood to feast upon whenever they wanted. The wolves just killed on the spot.

That was the first and last time I’d tried to escape. And after Mike had saved me, we’d become best friends. He’d offered me my job at the Tavern, where I’d been working—and living—ever since. All of us who worked there lived in the small rooms above the bar, sleeping in the bunks inside.

He and the others had helped me cope with the transition—with realizing I was a slave to the vampires, and that as a mere human amongst supernaturals, there was no way out. They were my family now.

“You’re done,” the nurse said, removing the needle from my arm. She placed a Band-Aid on the bleeding dot, and I flexed my elbow, trying to get some feeling back in the area. “See you next month.”

“Yeah.” I gathered my bag and stood up. “Bye.”

On my way out, I passed Martha—the youngest girl who worked at the Tavern. She slept in the bunk above mine, and along with being the youngest, she was also the smallest.

It took her twice as long to recover from the blood loss as it did for me.

“Good luck,” I told her on the way out. “I’ll see you back at the Tavern.” I winked, and she smiled, since she knew what I was about to do. It was what I always did on blood donation day.

I held my bag tightly to my side and stepped onto the street, taking a deep breath of the cold mountain air. It was dark—us humans were forced to adjust to the vampires’ nocturnal schedule—and I could see my breath in front of me. The witch who’d created the shield to keep the Vale hidden from human eyes also regulated the temperature, but she could only do so much. And since it was December in Canada, it was naturally still cold.

I hurried to the busiest street in town—Main Street, as it was so creatively named. Humans manned stalls, and vampires walked around, purchasing luxuries that only they were afforded. Meat, doughnuts, pizza, cheeses—you name it, the vampires bought it.

The vampires didn’t even need food to survive, but they ate it anyway, because it tasted good.

Us humans, on the other hand, were relegated to porridge, bread, rice, and beans—the bare necessities. The vampires thought of us as nothing but cattle—as blood banks. And blood banks didn’t deserve food for enjoyment. Only for nourishment.

Luckily, Mike had taught me a trick or two since the day he’d saved me from the wolves. After seeing me climb that tree, he’d called me “scrappy” and said it was a skill that would get me far in the Vale.

He’d taught me how to steal. It was ironic, really. Stealing hadn’t been something that had ever crossed my mind in my former life. I used to have it good—successful, loving parents, trips to the Caribbean in the winter, skiing out west in the spring, and an occasional voyage to Europe thrown in during the summers. I’d had a credit card, and when I’d needed something, I would buy it without a second thought.

I hadn’t appreciated how good I’d had it until all of that was snatched away and I was left with nothing.

Now I walked past the various booths, eyeing up the delicious food I wasn’t allowed to have. But more than the food, I was eying up the shopkeepers and the vampires around them. Who seemed most oblivious? Or absorbed in conversation? It didn’t take long to spot a vampire woman flirting with a handsome human shopkeeper. I’d seen enough of vampires as a species to know that if the flirting was going to progress anywhere, it would lead to him becoming one of her personal blood slaves, but he followed her every movement, entranced by her attention.

They were the only two people at the booth. Everyone else was going about their own business, not paying any attention to me—the small, orphaned blood slave with downcast eyes and torn up jeans.

Which gave me the perfect opportunity to snatch the food that us humans were forbidden to purchase.