Author’s note:
As usual, I hated removing this scene. It's such a fun insight into vampire Duncan and rogue Fire Diviner Adara and how they work together to prepare for their attack on the Nightstalker vampire hunters.

But it was not absolutely, 100% needed for the story of Chain of Magic, so it had to go.

At least I get to resurrect my deleted scenes in special bonuses like this!

Happy reading,

Betsy

P.S. As usual, please ignore any grammatical or spelling mistakes or any other perceived decrease in quality, including potential plot holes or discrepancies. My deleted scenes get removed at various places in the editing process, anywhere from the rough draft to days before publication. Similarly, ignore any repetition with scenes from the main book. I often take the most crucial parts of deleted scenes and add them elsewhere in the book, sometimes a straight “copy and paste” and sometimes more like paraphrased or even just getting the feeling that’s in the deleted scene somewhere else in the book.

the vampire, the fire diviner, and the hunter

a bonus scene from Chain of Magic: a young adult urban fantasy

by Betsy Flak

Takes place a few days before Chain of Magic begins

Careless feet slapped the pavement in front of a suburban train stop as Duncan paced to and fro. She’d claimed she could handle it, that she could hunt down their target without anyone finding out. What if she’d failed? Or worse, what if something had happened to her? 

The linchpin of all his plans, he could not afford to lose her. Not after that potential—that mind-boggling, destiny-delivering potential—had stared at him through eyes ablaze all those years ago. If she was lost, he could blame no one else, for he alone had sent her on this task, this dangerous task, a task he should have completed himself.

A growl interrupted his uneasy ruminations.

Duncan whirled on the brute hidden in the hedge. “I told you, be quiet and stick to the shadows,” he hissed. 

Echoes of Duncan’s whisper bounced off the glass sheltering the handful of empty seats. 

Duncan scanned the bare parking lot, his insides clenching against all the ways this could go wrong. When no movement met his eye, his shoulders relaxed, though his mind remained sharp. Fortune had favored them when their quarry selected this final train to this deserted station. Duncan would not risk losing that advantage even if it meant ending the slavering imbecile squatting in the shrubs behind him. 

The train crept toward thirty minutes overdue, but no thing broke the silence. 

Duncan passed another two hundred laps across the station’s minuscule length. At last, a yellow glow pierced the fog. A headlight rounded the corner, illuminating the ground cover slinking toward the track. The train burst out of a tunnel cut through the lower branches of a dense forest. When it slowed to a stop, Duncan inhaled sharply—a habit from his human days that he’d yet to extinguish.

After infinite anxious seconds, the door slid open. Duncan’s breath escaped in a relieved whoosh. Adara pranced down those steps, her neck twisted and tilted upward as she chatted with someone he hoped was their prey. Flaming locks wound around the edge of her raincoat’s hood, something she’d insisted on wearing despite the clear skies. 

The stranger followed a stride behind. Beneath eyes the size of boulders, a narrow nose poked into the darkness. Her pointy chin thrust forward as if seeking to impale creatures like him.

Duncan tilted his head toward the beast in the bushes. “Go. Hide yourself and await my move.” 

Obedient for now, the creature padded away, its footfalls softer than Duncan would have believed possible had he not known what it was—what they both were.

“Honey! Oh, honey!” Adara waved to him as she bustled forward. The outsider trailed in her wake. 

Adara was laying it on thick tonight.

Upon reaching him, Adara wriggled her freckled fingers through his. Her lips brushed his stubbled cheek. “This, my dear, is Miss Constantin, and she is simply the most fascinating creature I have ever met.” 

Duncan’s stomach flipped. That was the code word. This was their target. Tonight they would attempt it yet again. In a few days—practically instantaneous for any eternal being—a weapon nearly as powerful as Adara herself could arise.

“I told you, Adara, please call me Sandy. And you are?” After tucking a rebellious curl behind her ear, Sandy’s hand extended toward him. The light of the half-moon glinted off her bejeweled rings.

As Duncan grasped Sandy’s hand, her hawklike gaze captured his. 

Fear sprinted up Duncan’s spine. 

But no, if this Sandy was a vampire-hunting Nightstalker Warrior, she would have attacked him the second her feet touched the pavement. Nightstalker Diviners could not sense his kind, no matter the magic they wielded against vampires like him.

Not missing a beat, Adara covered for his hesitation. “Duncan…McMannister, my husband.” Adara then chronicled all the tourist attractions she’d allegedly completed in the city while they strolled toward a plaza of long-closed restaurants, shops, and convenient alleyways. 

“Anyway… Say, Sandy, I remember you said you were walking home. I’m certain my hubby here wouldn’t mind giving you a ride.”

Duncan smothered his grimace. It was too soon.

“Oh no, it’s all right, Adara. I live just down the road. It was a pleasure meeting you though.” Sandy turned to follow a sidewalk heading away from the parking lot, then waved a hand over her shoulder. Ahead, an apartment complex rose out of the fog. By Duncan’s estimate, it was at least a quarter mile behind the plaza, giving them plenty of time.

As Sandy Constantin drifted away, Duncan and Adara checked their surroundings. They were alone. The few people who exited with Adara and Sandy had long driven away. Out of the corner of his eye, Duncan watched the creature shadow their every step, clinging to the gloom.

“Are you certain, Miss Constantin?” 

It didn’t matter if she was. Her fate had been determined the moment she departed that train. 

“Yes, I’m cer—”

Duncan hurled himself at her. His arms wrapped around her frail human body. He tossed her like a ragdoll into the nearest alley. Bones cracked when she landed. 

Duncan leapt onto her prone form. Flashing canines enlarged with the thrill of the hunt, he awaited the usual shriek of terror, the one that sent his heart racing, his blood pounding, his mouth salivating. 

A whimper greeted his eager ears. 

Stamping out his disappointment, Duncan tightened his grip on Sandy’s wrists and pressed them into the damp asphalt of the alleyway. His knees pinned her squirming thighs to the ground. 

Sandy twisted and turned. She tried to avoid his teeth. 

It was no use. Duncan ripped into her throat. Hot and juicy, her life force flooded his mouth, a wine more potent than any he’d tasted while human. 

For an instant, Duncan indulged. Then, he yielded her to the mindless monster beside him. 

While that beast drained her, Duncan counted the moments between Sandy’s slowing heartbeats. A breath before it would be too late, he tore the brute off and launched it in Adara’s direction. With two swallows, Duncan finished the deal. 

Sandy Constantin, known Diviner, died at his hand.

Energy flowed through him, delicious and warm and enticing and thrilling. His fingertips tingled with it. His nerves sparked with it. His mind spun with it.

That energy—the energy of a human dying—sustained Duncan and every other vampire. Yes, they needed blood too, but they needed to kill more.

All that blood and death came with a cost. Every time he fed, he lost more of his humanity, more of his ability to plot, to predict, even to think.

Tonight required that sacrifice, though. He needed to be the one to kill Sandy Constantin. If she turned—if she became a vampire—she might feel some bit of loyalty to him above all others. It happened in varying degrees, that loyalty to one’s sire—and indeed might not happen at all—but Duncan would take every advantage he could get.

Duncan shouldered Sandy’s body, now precious to him. He would race to the car, but heat rippled off Adara in waves. She was not finished yet.

Against the brick wall, the beast hunched. It licked the blood off its fingers and watched Adara.

“May I?” Adara’s eyes of copper rose, but the question was mere formality. Adara would have the creature with or without his permission, not that Duncan cared about it now that it had served its purpose.

“Of course, but wait until we’re in the car.”

A grin more terrifying than his own spread over Adara’s freckled face. Her teeth reflected the moonlight as she swung a discarded bag of trash toward her victim. 

The beast pressed itself into the brick wall, probably debating between fight or flight, unaware that neither held any hope against Adara. No doubt this turn of events—predator becoming prey—bewildered it. Few of Duncan’s kind knew of the Nightstalkers and their vampire-annihilating magic. Fewer still lived to speak of it. Nevertheless, some instinct alerted it to the peculiar danger of Adara. 

Duncan bounded away without a backward glance. Over his shoulder, Sandy’s body bounced with his every stride. Upon reaching the car, he settled her corpse on the backseat with a moth-eaten blanket hiding it from view. He sank into the driver’s seat.

An animal’s screams filled the night air.