Rachel charged across the room. Her blonde hair was like fire in the dark, her lips peeled back from sharp fangs.

Leon screamed and threw himself backwards; the chair rocked, tilted, and crashed to the floor.

I didn't even have time to get up – it all happened too fast. Rachel sailed past me, throwing an elbow into my mouth on the way. I hit the floor and tasted blood.

"No," I shouted, scrambling to my feet.

Rachel loomed over Leon, her black coat hanging from her like tattered wings. She looked like some terrifying fallen angel; no wonder Leon was screaming.

And then Luke was there.

He flashed past me, seized Rachel by the back of the neck and threw her. Rachel flew across the room and crashed into the far wall. She was on her feet in an instant, but Luke was already standing between her and Leon. His eyes were molten steel, his fangs gleaming like dagger-points in his mouth.

Love surged inside me for this beautiful boy who'd risk himself to save a man who hated him, simply because he knew I'd had second thoughts about killing said man.

Picking herself up, Rachel laughed. "Oh, how sweet. The vampire wants to protect his hunter."

"She's not a hunter," Luke growled.

She waved a hand, dismissing his words. "I know all about your silly little relationship, but enough is enough. You've had your fun with this" – she shot me a disgusted look – "toy, but it's time to stop playing around and let the natural order take place." She sounded like she was speaking to a child, and not a bright one at that. "Humans are food, prey."

Anger blazed white-hot inside me. After everything, all the times I'd tried and failed, I had finally been getting through to Leon. I had finally started to open his eyes to what vampires really were, and now Rachel was reinforcing all his old fears and prejudices.

And the way she spoke about my relationship with Luke? It made me want to stab her eyes out. What Luke and I had was real. Each of us was half of the other's heart and soul, incomplete unless we were together, and Rachel mocked us like we were stupid children wasting our time on a passing fling.

"I'm not going anywhere," Luke said.

The smile vanished from Rachel's face. "You want to defend your little pet, is that it? Don't be ridiculous, Luke. You and I are vampires, the top of the food chain. She is human, a mewling, snivelling, dirty little grub that exists only for our food and our pleasure." The smile reappeared, but it was a savage slash of expression. "I do hope you at least got the pleasure out of her."

My face flamed.

"I don't think you understand, Rachel," Luke said, and his voice was low and deadly. "If you touch a single hair on Kiara's head, I will rip you apart."

She looked at him in genuine astonishment and, inappropriate though it was, I fought back a laugh. She really had thought that Luke would just stand aside and let her kill me.

Rachel's astonishment didn't last long. A snarl was all the warning Luke had and then she was upon him, a blur of fists and feet and savagely snapping fangs. The force of her attack threw him back, but only for a second. Luke might not be the brutal, bloodthirsty killer she was, but he was fast and he was strong. Whether he was fast and strong enough to match Rachel remained to be seen.

I scrambled over to Leon. His eyes were squeezed shut, tears sliding down the sides of his face. I struggled with his knots, but Clara had done a good enough job on them that it took me longer than I liked to get them undone. When I finally picked them apart, Leon's arms and legs flopped uselessly to the side, stiff and numb after being tied up for so long.

"Leon, get up," I said.

He squinted up at me. "She'll kill us."

"Luke's handling her," I said, hoping that was true.

Leon struggled to sit up but fear, pain, and exhaustion had taken its toll, and he sank back onto the floor with a pathetic cry. I gnashed my teeth with frustration.

Rachel slammed Luke against a wall, and the impact seemed to rock the very foundations of the asylum. She snarled at him, brandishing her claw-like fingers. The sharp points touched his throat and Luke froze. He swallowed and Rachel's nails pierced his skin, small trickles of blood running down his neck.

I was halfway through pulling Leon to his feet, but at the sight of Luke's blood, I froze and Leon flopped back down, banging his head on the floor. Terror turned my blood to ice. Rachel believed in the superiority of vampires – she wouldn't kill one of her own. Would she?

I tried to think logically through the fear that was rising in a great surge inside me. I couldn't sneak up on Rachel – she'd hear me coming a mile away – and, if I was wrong and she was willing to kill a fellow vampire, she'd cut Luke's throat before I could stop her. I honestly didn't know if a vampire could survive having their throat slashed. I'd seen Luke badly injured twice before, and both times he'd healed thanks to drinking my blood. But he couldn't swallow if his throat was cut. And even if my blood could heal him, Rachel would never let that happen. She'd cut my own throat before I reached him.

Panic formed a knot in my throat. Think, Kiara, think.

A knife blurred through the air and plunged into the back of Rachel's shoulder. She screamed and dropped Luke.

Clara stood in the doorway behind us, her eyes gleaming with fierce light. I half-expected her to make some quip about why didn't Rachel pick on someone on her own size, but Clara just charged at her, brandishing a second knife that appeared from somewhere on her body. Rachel sidestepped, but pain from her wounded shoulder must have slowed her; she dodged the knife and Clara promptly hit her with a savage uppercut that almost lifted the female vampire off her feet. She reeled away, wiping blood from her lip. Clara closed in again but this time Rachel was ready for her. She grabbed the fist that Clara had aimed at her face, twisted her arm and flipped her onto her back. Dust rose up in clouds where Clara hit the floor. She rolled away, but it was an awkward move.

Rachel started towards her, but this time I was there. I threw myself on the vampire's back, and wrapped my hands around the knife still sticking out of her shoulder, savagely twisting it. I'd hoped to pull it out so I could stab her in the chest, but the blade had sunk in all the way to the hilt, and I couldn't get the momentum I needed to pull it free.

I clung to Rachel's back as she bucked and stamped like a wild animal, trying to throw me off. I should've been a cowgirl, I grimly thought. That delusion ended the second Rachel slammed herself – and me – against a wall. The breath was punched out of my body. My hands lost their grip, and I slid down her back and crumpled to the floor.

Rachel drew back her foot for a vicious kick, and two shapes hit her at the same time. One was Luke, his arm going around her neck to wrench her away from me. The other, to my amazement, was Leon, throwing barely-effectual punches at Rachel's chest and stomach.

I scrambled to my feet, wincing at the pain in my back.

Knife in hand, Clara prowled the outskirts of the fight, looking for an opening but there wasn't one. Luke and Rachel fought with vampire swiftness, Leon darting in and out where he could. He couldn't fight like Clara could, but she couldn't intervene without hurting him. Her eyes were dark with frustration.

Rachel threw Luke off and he rolled across the floor. Her leg snapped up, her heel crashing against the side of Leon's head. His eyes slid up in his skull, and he hit the floor without a sound. Clara seized her opportunity. She ran forward, aiming the knife at Rachel's back, but Rachel whirled and caught her wrist, squeezing until Clara gasped with pain. But she didn't drop the knife.

I took my own opportunity. Ducking under the cage of Rachel and Clara's arms, I hammered both fists into the bitch vampire's stomach. From a crouched position, I couldn't put as much force as I wanted into the punch, but it was enough to make her rock back.

Clara head-butted her and a dark spatter of blood flew from Rachel's nose. Grim satisfaction flooded through me. It was fun and games for her to threaten me, but she hadn't reckoned on my friends.

Rachel reeled back, away from Clara. I feinted to the left and, when she fell for it, I delivered a solid kick to the vampire's right leg. Her knee twisted and she almost lost her balance. If she'd been human, I'd probably have broken bone. Rachel staggered, trying to put distance between us. That smug grin was gone from her face now and in its place was a vicious mask of hate. I'd hoped to see fear, but apparently that was asking too much.

"Kiara, together," Clara said, and for a split-second I didn't understand what she meant.

Then I took stock of our surroundings and clarity sunk in. Rachel had stumbled away from us, stumbled until she was standing directly in front of one of Greylark's empty windows. She didn't even realise it was behind her.

Clara and I moved in sync, both of us spinning on our heels to plant a kick squarely in Rachel's chest. Her eyes opened wide as she fell back, not against a wall like she'd expected, but against unresisting air. A howl of fury ripped from her lips, and then she was gone.

"We have to finish her off," Clara said, charging from the room before I could blink.

"Luke," I cried, spinning around.

He was already on his feet, hoisting an unconscious Leon over his shoulder. "I'm okay," he said. A patch of blood matted his hair to his forehead and he held one arm awkwardly, but his injuries weren't life-threatening. "Go help Clara."

I ran from the room, down the stairs, and out of the asylum, Luke following at a slower pace behind. Silver moonlight lit up the night-time world outside, and it wasn't hard to find Clara standing under the window Rachel had fallen from. Her blonde head was bent, staring down at the flattened patch of grass where Rachel would have landed.

But now no longer was.

Dismay rippled through me. She'd got away. When we'd kicked her through that window, I'd really thought we had her.

"Damn it," Clara snapped, clenching her fists.

"What's wrong?" said Luke, coming up behind us. Leon still dangled over his shoulder, limp arms swaying.

I stood to one side so Luke could see Rachel's absence. His jaw tightened. "I didn't think the fall would kill her."

Logically I should have known it wouldn't. Weeks ago, Luke and I had jumped from one of those windows in a desperate attempt to escape Caleb, so it was foolish to expect a fall of the same height to kill Rachel.

"We have to go after her," Clara said.

Luke shook his head. "Bad idea."

She turned on him, her eyes flashing. "She's injured and that means she's weak. We can hunt her down and end this thing tonight."

"Weakened but not weak," Luke countered.

He was right. Rachel was the strongest vampire I'd ever seen. She'd taken on four of us and still walked away. I'd never met another vampire that could do that. Just because she was injured, didn't mean she was an easy target.

"And we're not in best shape ourselves," Luke added.

I hadn't been aware of the pain until he said that, but the moment the words left his mouth, my fighting adrenaline cooled off and pain bloomed across my shoulder-blades and down my back. Clara had to be feeling it too – she'd hit the floor hard when Rachel flipped her. Or maybe she was just better at handling pain than the rest of us. That wouldn't surprise me. In the past, there were times when I'd thought Clara must be carved from ice or stone and, even now that we were starting to see past the warrior to the real person inside, that analogy wasn't completely incorrect.

There was another factor that none of us had mentioned – Leon. We couldn't go after Rachel if we were lugging Leon along with us, and I didn't want to leave him. We'd come here tonight to kill him, but that was before I'd finally penetrated the prejudice in his mind. It was before he'd attacked Rachel to stop her getting to me. If I'd finally broken through his armour, I couldn't throw all that away by just leaving him here.

Clara glared back at us, her hand clenched around the hilt of her knife. "You two do what you want. I'm going after her."

"Clara, no," I cried, but she was already running. She was fast when she wanted to be, and within moments she was lost to the shadowy woods.

I started to go after her, but Luke put a hand on my shoulder. "Let her go," he said.

"We can't just abandon her," I cried.

"Kiara, we're all injured, and rushing off into the dark woods after the strongest vampire any of us have ever faced is just crazy." His words were blunt but his voice was not unkind."We're not abandoning Clara, but she feels the need to pursue the hunt whereas we think it's better to cut our losses for the night."

I hated that he was right. I hated that Clara had gone off alone and I hadn't been able to stop her.

Luke's voice softened. "Clara's tough, you know that. And Rachel might have survived that fall, but she won't be picking any more fights tonight. Even vampires have their limits."

Even injured, I feared that Rachel was a match for Clara. I couldn't bear the thought of anything happening to the woman that I was starting to think of as a friend. But Clara was smart, I had to remember that. She was angry now because we'd collectively been roughed up and our quarry had escaped, but she'd calm down soon enough. She wasn't crazy like Caleb; she wouldn't run herself into the ground trying to find Rachel.

"What are we going to do with him?" Luke asked, shifting Leon's weight on his shoulder.

I stared at Leon's upside down face. He could have fled the asylum as soon as I untied him, but instead he'd risked his life to help me and he'd got himself injured in the process. I couldn't leave him here, but there was no way I was taking him back to the clan's house, not with Riley there.

But maybe there was another option. "I've got an idea," I said.