Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
“That’s it, Syrsee. Take it. Swallow, please.” And I silently say that word again, Please, Syrsee. Please. Do not make me the one who kills you.
Which is a selfish plea, but it’s an honest one too.
Do not make me the one who kills you.
She coughs again, sputtering. But she’s not swallowing. She’s not taking it in.
Think, Ryet! You’re a vampire now. A real fucking vampire. Which means you have all sorts of powers at your disposal. Use them!
But I don’t know what they are. Paul never explained anything. I have no idea what I am, let alone what I can do.
Which… isn’t entirely true. I do know how to do one thing.
Dreamwalk.
I sit down in the dirt, Syrsee cradled in my arms, and close my eyes. Concentrating. Beckoning the purple mist.
Immediately, I’m inside it, still holding Syrsee’s limp body in my arms, but there are no bite marks and her neck isn’t practically torn in half. She looks like she’s sleeping.
I take a breath, hold it, and slowly let it out. “Wake up now, Syrsee. It’s time to feed.” I say this in my Ryet voice, not the demon one I was using back in reality.
Her eyes flutter, but don’t open. That’s OK, though. I don’t need her awake. She doesn’t even need to bite me because I’m dripping blood into her mouth on the other side of the purple. I just need her to swallow.
Which she does. Once, twice. But that’s it.
I pull out of the dreamwalk and look down at the woman in my arms again. She’s gurgling now, but I can see that the wound in her neck is beginning to heal. Just along the ragged edges, but the blood is clotting.
She’ll be OK.
I stand up, holding her close to my chest, and carry her like I would a baby towards the lodge.
She’ll be OK.
I’m heading towards the pool because it’s the most inviting place I can see at the moment. A place fit for a woman healing from the attack of a vampire.
Everything is lit up around here, but I don’t see any of the halfbreeds. Not a single one, which is weird. Because there are lots of them and they keep strange hours. I keep searching as I walk up to the pool, but the place is truly empty and the silence gives me chills.
What the fuck happened here?
I want to know, but it’ll have to wait. I need to heal Syrsee first. I walk straight into the pool. It’s heated, so it’s warm, but as I enter, the water gets exponentially hotter and I recall a memory of Paul in his demon form making the pool water boil when he swam. Well, mostly he floated on his back, staring up at the sky with his arms spread open wide, like he was daring God to fuck with him.
But I don’t float. I take a seat on the steps that face the house, half in and half out of the water. And then I open up my wrist again and start the process of fixing what I did to her.
How many times will I need to do this in the future?
How many times will I hurt her so badly, I will need to summon Dark magic to heal her?
How much more of her will I take?
Too much. That’s the only answer. Too much.
A noise from the direction of the lodge startles me and I look up to find a shadow backlit by the lights inside the house. A man.
He says nothing and neither do I. We just stare at each other for what feels like a pretty long time, but is probably only about thirty seconds.
Then he clears his throat. “Ryet? Are you… Ryet?”
It’s not a voice I recognize. And he smells weird. Even from here, I can smell him and it’s… wrong. “Who the fuck are you?” Back out here, in reality, my voice is not something I recognize. This guy, whoever he is, doesn’t recognize it either. Not as Ryet’s, because he doesn’t know me. He doesn’t recognize it as… human.
“I… well… I’m…” And then another guy appears. Backlit as well. Then another. They flank the guy in the center. One by one, more men appear until there is a semicircular line at the end of the pool in front of the lodge, all staring at me.
This is when I understand who and what I’m looking at.
Paul’s scions.
9 - Paul
This is where the magic lives
Kael is an exceptionally fast driver, which I appreciate because we make the drive down into White River in record time.
“This is it,” I say, pointing to a sign announcing White River as we flash by.
Kael slows down the truck, kind of squinting his eyes as he looks around. “Here?”
“That’s right. White River is one of my towns.”
“What the hell do you do out here?” He sneers these words out. But the sneer seems to be his default setting, so it has little impact.