“Who are you?” he whispered, barely breathing.
“Rose Novak. My parents are—”
Before I could even finish my sentence, he swore and let go of me with such force that I stumbled onto the sand.
He called out to the other men, “Do it now! We need to leave!”
The men pulled out needles from their pockets all at once, and in a whir of motion, the girls lay limp in their arms. They all ran into the ocean, carrying their victims over their shoulders. I could barely shout out before a black submarine emerged from the waters. They piled in through the hatch.
Caleb glared down at me and, without another word, raced into the water and leapt through the hatch after them.
Seconds later, the submarine was gone.
Chapter 5: Rose
Ben didn’t believe me last night when I told him. He said that I was just drunk out of my mind and hauled me back to the condo, leaving Kristal and Jake to continue partying until dawn.
Only when we switched on the local news the following morning to find out that almost a dozen girls had gone missing from that beach that very night did he start to take notice of what I was saying.
He pulled me into his room and shut the door.
“So you’re telling me that vampires are responsible for this?”
“Yes,” I said irritably, rubbing my head as I tried to relieve my hangover. “I saw a group of vampires steal them away. The guy—Caleb, his name was—would have stolen me away too if I hadn’t told him that I was a Novak.”
Ben heaved a sigh and sat down on the bed next to me, resting his own head in his hands.
“And you are sure that you didn’t recognize any of these vampires from The Shade?”
“No way.” I shook my head, recalling how hot Caleb was. “Trust me, I would have remembered them.”
“Then who the hell are they? And why are they going around stealing people?”
I paused and continued to massage my temples with my fingers.
“Ben, we should call Mom and Dad to tell them about this.”
He stared at me.
“You do realize that if we do that, our two months of freedom will be over before they’ve even begun?”
“Obviously. But what other option do we have?”
“What would Mom and Dad do about this even if they knew?”
Ben had a point. We couldn’t dictate that another coven should live without human blood like everyone did in The Shade. Drinking human blood was just a part of life for most vampires—no different than humans eating animals for their flesh.
I supposed that I would have been more horrified by the thought of all those girls being kidnapped had I not grown up all my life around vampires. Although the vampires of The Shade no longer fed on humans, it was part of their nature to crave human blood and I knew that it was a daily struggle for The Shade’s vampires to exercise restraint and sustain themselves only on animal blood. It was rather macabre to realize how desensitized I was to the situation.
“I suppose there’s not much they could do about it,” I began slowly. “Though I still think that we should tell them when we return. Mom and Dad have never mentioned any other covens still existing today except for our own. They always told us that the other vampires were taken back through the portal into Cruor—and those who weren’t joined us in The Shade. It’s really very odd.”
“Okay, I agree,” Ben said. “We’ll tell them when we get back.”
There was a knock on the door. Ben got up to open it and Kristal walked into the room in her bathrobe.
“How did you both sleep?” she asked.
I rubbed my throbbing head and muttered, “Good.”
“You really scored last night,” she said, sitting down on the bed next to me and squeezing my knee.
“Yeah.” I sighed. “I did.”
Chapter 6: Aiden
As I approached the front door of Yuri and Claudia’s penthouse, my hands trembled. Exhaling deeply, I reached for the front door but paused just before I knocked.
Pressing my head against the door, I shut my eyes tight.
What am I doing?
I’d been feeling crazy ever since I seriously began to entertain Sofia’s suggestion that I turned, but now I felt downright bonkers.
Do I really want to become the creature that killed my father? That ripped my family apart? How will I even look myself in the mirror?
I’d spent enough time around the vampires of The Shade for my prejudices that all these creatures were the same to disappear. But some things that were associated with the pale bloodsuckers—like the horrific images from my past—just couldn’t be undone.
But then my darling Sofia had turned into one. Along with Derek. And they even spoke of turning their children once they were old enough to make an informed decision. And something had stirred within me. A desire to live on past my natural lifetime. I felt blessed to have the family that I had, and somehow, my limited human lifespan didn’t feel enough. Knowing that they would go on to live eternally while I passed away after a few more decades was haunting.
Sofia didn’t stop urging me either.
So here I stood.
So this is the day Aiden, one of the most feared hunters the world has ever known, becomes the very creature he hunted.
Clearing my throat, I knocked on the door.
Footsteps sounded and the short blonde vampire appeared in the doorway.
“Oh, Yuri,” she called. “Look who’s here for your, ahem, services.”
She winked at me and opened the door fully for me to step inside.
Yuri entered the hallway and, rolling his eyes at her, walked up to me and gripped my hand in a firm shake.
“You’ll have to excuse my wife,” Yuri said, eyeing Claudia with mock disdain. “As much as I’ve tried over the years, I still haven’t quite managed to rescue her mind from the gutter.”
Claudia reached up and grabbed Yuri’s ear between her fingers, yanking him down to her level to kiss him full on the mouth.
“Baby,” she whispered as their lips parted. “Stop pretending you’d want me any other way.”
Yuri’s cheeks flushed. He pulled away from her and stood up straight, clearing his throat.
“I’ll leave you two to it,” she said, winking and floating out of the room.
“Well,” Yuri said, raising his eyes to me and grinning sheepishly. “Follow me through here.”
I followed him into their spare bedroom, which he had stripped of all furniture, curtains and carpets. Anything that could be stained with blood or ruined in case I was overcome by a violent fit, as was often the case with newly turned vampires.
“You sure you want me to be the one to do this?” he asked, eyeing me dubiously.
Yuri had come to be my best friend on that island—the level of friendship I’d struck up with the young vampire had surprised even me. Somehow, I felt more comfortable with him turning me than my own daughter. I didn’t know what state I would wake up in, and exposing my daughter to that side of me before I got control of myself made me very uncomfortable. I trusted Yuri and developed a level of comfort of him over the years that I felt I could discuss things with him—man to man—that I felt embarrassed discussing with others. He just seemed to be the logical choice, the first person to spring to mind, when I thought about who should turn me.
I nodded and lay down on the wooden table in the center of the room.
“Let’s just get this over with,” I said, grimacing.
“All right. Man, this ain’t gonna be pretty.”
Splashing cold water over my face, I looked up at myself in my bathroom mirror. Even after eleven years of being a bloodsucker, my reflection still shocked me sometimes.
Those first few years had been harrowing. That all-consuming greed to feed on human blood. To hunt, to harm, to devour. I hadn’t allowed myself to even go near the part of the island where my grandchildren lived for the first month after turning. The whole experience had
made me more sympathetic toward vampires than I could have ever been before.
Somehow, it had also given me renewed emotional strength.
The day I’d pushed my wife into the pit knowing she’d be burnt alive, I’d thought my ability to feel for anyone else ever again had burned alongside her.
Then along came Adelle. The shy, soft-spoken witch who through her devotion to teaching the children of The Shade soon became appointed headmistress.
The striking red-haired beauty had called to me like a siren the moment I’d laid eyes on her. But I’d still felt too numb inside to do anything about it.
But then, when I’d turned… something had shifted inside me. Perhaps it was a renewal of confidence. Confidence to open up again in ways that I hadn’t thought I was capable of while still a human. I supposed that confidence was a natural consequence of knowing you’d live forever.
My daughter had encouraged me ever since I’d first turned. “You’ve got forever now, Dad. You need to find someone to live it with other than just me and the kids.”
I’d come to realize that I’d been through enough heartbreak and pain in my mortal life already for much more to make a difference, especially since I now had an eternity to recover from it.
I took a shower and got dressed. Although I dressed casually, inwardly, my stomach was in knots as I prepared myself for what I was about to do. Today was a big day. The day that I was going to ask a girl out on a date. The day I would hopefully escape the dreaded friend zone, as Sofia would have referred to it.
I hadn’t told Sofia yet that I was pursuing Adelle. Sofia would find out if and when we became lovers. I smiled as I imagined the smile on Sofia’s face if it actually happened.
Leaving my penthouse, I headed toward the Vale and stopped once I reached the town square, in clear view of the entrance to the school where I was due to meet Adelle.
I had to catch myself from exhaling too audibly as she stepped out onto the steps. Her long wavy hair hung loose down her shoulders, and she wore a pretty floral summer dress that stopped just above her knees.
“Aiden! There you are.”
“Hi, Adelle.”
She walked up to me and greeted me with a peck on the cheek.
“Shall we?” I held out my arm for her to grasp and led her away from the clearing and into the forest.
“Well, I’m intrigued, to say the least, about what you might want with me on this fine summer’s evening.”
“I thought it’d be nice to take a walk after school for a change, rather than always chatting in the classrooms.”
We walked through the forest making small talk. I stopped once we reached the old boathouse on the border of the lake. I led her inside and to the edge of the wall, where the windows were open, affording us full view of the beauty of the lake. The scent of fragrant lotuses drifted up toward us.
“Even in the darkness, it’s so beautiful here in the summer,” she remarked. “I always look forward to this time of year.”
“Don’t you miss your real home? The Sanctuary? I’ve heard that the witches’ realm is ten times more beautiful than this.”
She leaned her arms over the banister and stared down at the water, gathering her thick hair so it fell down one shoulder.
“Everything is superficially beautiful there,” she said. “Me? I like raw beauty. Everything feels real, genuine, on this island. And the people. Oh, the people here. They have heart. Something that’s rare to find back where I come from.”
“And it’s all worth it even with a shortened lifespan?”
“That’s a myth, in my opinion. I’ve seen no evidence of witches aging faster on Earth than they do back in The Sanctuary. We can stay youthful for hundreds, sometimes even thousands of years… depending on how we look after ourselves, of course.”
I stared at her lovely face and wondered how old she really was, but dared not ask.
“Do you ever regret your decision to turn into a vampire?” she asked, looking up at me seriously.
I gazed down into her light blue eyes.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I don’t. Not a bit. The first few years were rough, yes. But now, it’s all been worth it.”
“Well, I for one am glad that you turned,” she said softly. “It would have been sad to lose you.”
We stared at each other for a few moments before I finally gathered enough courage to stop procrastinating.
“Adelle, listen,” I said, taking her hands in mine. “I wanted to ask you something—”
Ring. Ring. Ring.
The phone in my pocket began vibrating.
Oh, bloody hell.
Since Derek and Sofia had left the island with Eli and Ibrahim, I’d been entrusted with the phone in case the twins called.
“I-I’m so sorry,” I said. “Just a moment.”
Adelle withdrew her hands from mine. I turned away from her and flipped open the phone. “Hello?”
“Hey, this is Ben.”
“Hi, Ben.”
“Where’s Mom and Dad?”
“They’re not around. They’ve… gone out for the day.”
“Oh, okay. Well, I’m just calling to let you know that Scotland is actually awesome.”
“Oh. That’s good.”
“It’s so much better than it looked in the brochure.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Seriously, great job booking this place.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“And we’re doing just fine. No need to worry about us at all. We’ve already made friends.”
“Well, that’s great to hear, Ben.”
“So tell Mom and Dad when they get back that we’re having fun and they don’t need to worry about us. We’ll call again in a few days.”
“Will do.”
“Cool. Bye, Grandpa!”
I flipped the phone shut as Ben hung up.
Grandpa. I winced at the word. As much as I adored being a grandfather to such beautiful children, this was the one moment in my life when I didn’t want to be reminded of the fact.
I glanced over at Adelle, slipping the phone back into my pocket.
“It was just Ben,” I said, as though she hadn’t been in earshot of the entire conversation.
She blushed and smiled. “You’re so good with them.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, averting my eyes to the floor and kicking around a twig. “I suppose I am.”
“So, um. What was it that you wanted to say to me?”
“Oh… I just wanted to thank you for doing such a good job with my, uh, grandchildren.”
Keep digging, Gramps. Keep digging.
“Oh,” she said. She looked surprised—perhaps even disappointed—by my response. “You’re more than welcome. They’ve always been an absolute pleasure to teach.”
Now sit back and enjoy the view of that perfect moment blowing right out of the window, asshole…
Chapter 7: Rose
Ben and I made excuses to avoid the beach when it was dark from then on. We spent many daylight hours there, soaking up the sun and swimming in the sea. But when we went out late at night, we made sure that we went to clubs and restaurants further inland.
Unfortunately, I didn’t meet another boy like Caleb.
But after several nights of practice—and Kristal giving me some extra sessions during the day around the condo—I was beginning to feel a bit less of a klutz. Kristal had been surprised that I seemed so disorientated listening to modern music and asked me if I really had never gone to a party before. I explained to her that I’d just always been bad at dancing.
I also went shopping with Kristal to buy some new clothes and a pair of high heels. Despite Kristal pressuring me, I still didn’t cave into buying miniskirts or minidresses. I did make a compromise, however: the dresses that I came home were all shorter than my long summer gowns—they stopped just above the knee, and I felt confident wearing them.
One evening, there was a big boxing match on the TV, followed immediately b
y soccer, that Jake didn’t want to miss, so Ben decided to stay in with him.
Kristal was excited about the idea of a girls’ night out. “We’ll go out for dinner together,” she said, pulling me into her room and sitting me down in front of her dressing table. “Let me do your hair and makeup.”
I’d gotten used to the fact that she always liked to dress me up before going out. It was for my own benefit, since she always made me look better than I could. I wasn’t used to wearing makeup. I’d never had much occasion to around The Shade.
Kristal began tugging at my long dark hair with a brush, taming it into a slick ponytail. Then she took out her makeup box and set about giving me what she called a “smoky eye” look.
Smoky or not, I had to admit when I looked in the mirror that it suited me. And once I’d changed into one of my new dresses, fastened Griffin’s necklace around my neck and pulled on a pair of heels, I felt thoroughly sexy. I even caught Jake eyeing me as we made our way out through the front door.
Just as we were about to enter the elevator, Kristal stopped abruptly.
“Oh, damn it. Wait here. I forgot something.”
She ran back to the apartment and returned a minute later carrying a small black handbag.
“This is Chloe’s,” Kristal explained. “She left it with me when we were all out the other night and I forgot to return it to her.”
We exited the building and, to my discomfort, she turned right—toward the beach. She picked up her mobile phone and dialed a number.
“Chloe? Hi, you’re at Jacob’s right now? Okay, don’t go anywhere because I’m coming with your bag.”
Hurrying alongside her, I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. We reached the beach and stopped once we reached Jacob’s Restaurant. Chloe, a short brunette, sat next to her boyfriend, John. Kristal walked over and handed her the bag. They were sitting at a table outside in the open air, with a clear view onto the beach.
We were about to leave when Chloe said, “Hey, why don’t you join us? There’s plenty of room and we haven’t even started eating yet.”