Theron Darkmoon had waited two nights to catch his maker's scent, and now a hunter had ruined it. He crouched in the treeline, black coat pooled in the mud. Below him, on the trail, a man in oiled leather knelt and touched the ground. Daylight fell full on the man's face. No vampire could stand in that sun. This one did. Theron had crossed three valleys to find the elder who made him. The old one had turned Theron against his will, forced this cold hunger on him, and then vanished. Theron wanted one thing. He would drain the immortal blood from that elder and end the hunger for good. But he could not stalk his sire while something stalked him. The hunter lifted his head. He was scenting the air the way Theron scented it. A silver crossbow hung across his back. He stood and walked straight toward the treeline, straight toward Theron. Theron did not run. Running left a trail. He needed the hunter to lose him for good, and he needed shelter from the coming dawn. He turned and moved uphill through the brush, quiet, letting the man follow. He found the cave near the ridge. Its mouth gaped wide in the rock, framed by broken boulders. The walls were old and streaked with pale stone. Inside, the dark ran deep. Theron slipped in and pressed his back to the cold wall, just past the reach of the light. The hunter reached the opening minutes later. He paused at the threshold. "You picked a hole with one door," he called. His voice was calm, almost bored. "Come out, or I smoke you out." He stepped inside. Sunlight followed him only a few feet, then died against the stone. In that dark, his eyes were useless. Theron's were not. Theron struck from the side. He drove the man into the wall and tore the crossbow away. The hunter twisted fast and slashed with a short silver blade. It bit Theron's forearm. The burn was sharp and deep. Theron did not let go. He forced the man's head back and sank his teeth into the throat. The blood was hot and human. Theron drank until the struggling stopped. He let the body drop against the boulders. He stood in the cave mouth and wiped his lips. The silver cut still burned in his arm. But the hunter no longer breathed, and no one else knew this trail. Then Theron saw the hunter's forearm. A brand marked the skin, a crest he knew. It was the same mark his sire's servants wore. This man had not been hunting Theron by chance. The elder had sent him. His maker knew he was coming. And now his maker would know the hunter had failed.

The dead hunter's mark still burned in Theron's mind. His maker knew he was coming, and his maker was older by centuries. Theron had felt that gap once, the night the elder turned him. A hand had closed on his throat, and Theron had been unable to move. If he walked into that strength now, the elder would drain him dry and leave nothing. He needed power that was not his own. He needed something to close the gap. Deep in the cave, past the boulders, Theron found a fissure in the stone. Cold air leaked from it. He wedged his fingers in and pulled. The rock split, and the dark behind it swallowed his sight for a moment. Inside lay two things, half buried in dust. A sword rested against the wall, its blade cracked and streaked with rust and green rot. Wrappings bound the broken tip. Beside it sat a gauntlet of old metal, etched deep with worn patterns, its jewels dull under grime. Theron had heard tales of relics that held the strength of the dead who forged them. He had never believed them. Now he had no better plan. He lifted the sword first. The grip fit his hand. The weight steadied him, but it was only steel. It would cut a man. It would not match an elder. He set the blade down and reached for the gauntlet. The metal was ice against his skin. He forced his fingers in. Then it seized him. Pain shot up his arm, sharp as the silver cut. The gauntlet clamped tight and would not come off. Something cold poured into him through the metal, filling his chest, his throat, his teeth. Theron dropped to one knee. He heard his own heart, which had been silent for years, thud once, hard. He waited for the pain to end him. It did not. When it faded, he stood. He flexed the gauntleted hand and drove his fist into the cave wall. Stone cracked and fell. He had never been that strong. The relic had given him something, and it had not let go. But the cold in his chest did not settle. It pulled at him, hungry, the way his own hunger pulled. The gauntlet wanted blood, and it wanted more than the hunter had given. Theron felt it reach for the strength in his own veins, testing, patient. He took up the sword with his free hand. He had his weapon now, and he had power to match his maker at last. He also had a second hunger fused to his arm, one he could not feed and could not remove. Theron looked at the metal locked on his hand. He had come to end one hunger by draining the elder. Now he carried two, and only one of them could wait.

The cold in the gauntlet grew teeth. It pulled harder now, dragging at Theron's own blood, and the cave held nothing left to drink. He had killed the hunter and drained him. No living thing breathed in the stone. If he stayed, the second hunger would eat him from the inside before he ever found his maker. Theron gripped his cracked sword and climbed toward the cave mouth. He needed blood, and soon. At the rugged opening, a man crouched over a fallen deer. He was huge, broad as a door, his beard wild and tangled. A rope belt held his ragged clothes. He worked a knife into the carcass with slow, careful hands. He looked up and did not run. Most men ran from Theron. This one only tipped his head. "You hurt?" the big man said. He set the knife down. "You look near dead." Theron's teeth ached. The gauntlet strained toward the warm pulse in the stranger's thick neck. Here was blood. Here was an easy kill. The relic wanted him to take it. Theron raised the sword an inch. "Name's Grom," the man said. He stood and wiped his hands. "Got more meat than I can carry. You want some? Nobody should starve out here." He lifted the deer as if it weighed nothing and held it out. Blood dripped from the carcass. Not human blood. But blood. Theron stared at it. The gauntlet clawed at him, demanding the man's throat instead. He had a choice. Kill the good-hearted fool and feed both hungers clean. Or try the beast's blood and hope the relic would take it. Theron lowered the sword. He seized the deer, tore into the wound, and drank. The blood ran cold and thin. His own hunger eased a little. Then the gauntlet drank too. He felt it pull the blood down his arm, through the metal, into the cold hollow it had made. The teeth in his chest dulled. Not gone. But quiet. He dropped the carcass and breathed hard. Grom watched him with wide eyes, taking a slow step back at last. "You're one of them night folk," Grom said. His voice stayed steady. "Figured. You still hungry?" "No," Theron said. His arm no longer burned. "The hunger sleeps." He understood it now. The gauntlet did not need a man. It took beast blood too, if he brought it enough. That changed everything. He could feed the relic on the road and save his strength for the elder. He would not arrive drained and mad. He would arrive whole. Grom picked up his knife. "There's more deer in these hills. I hunt them most days." Theron looked at the huge, simple man who had offered meat instead of running. He needed a steady supply of blood now, and here stood someone who could bring it. "Then we walk the same road a while," Theron said.