Was the wizard paying attention, or was he engaged in some battle, along with his father…or his brothers…along with Kagen?
No, she decided, stunned at how cloudy, dense, and murky the water was becoming. Bits of debris—floating, swirling, expanding—were everywhere around her, and she was this close to panicking.
“You lying bastard,” Xavier had snarled. “There’s another vampire inside this well!”
What the heck was he talking about?
Other than Arielle—
Her thoughts made a sharp right turn.
She didn’t know anything about being half Lycan, being born to a species of inbred vampire-hunters, but she knew what it felt like to have an overpowering instinct, a knowing so deep in her gut that she couldn’t deny it. And her biological sire had been right—the entire well reeked with the essence of vampire. Not Keitaro at the top of the well. Not Arielle, trussed and helpless in the water, but overwhelming, overpowering…vampire!
Someone must have tugged on Arielle’s rope, because she was only half strapped inside the harness when she shot upward like a rocket, and it had looked like Keitaro had dived into the well. Where is he now? Zayda thought, swimming even deeper.
Her throat constricted in an effort not to reach for air, and she had to redouble her efforts.
Nachari had made her practice. Earlier. Back at Keitaro’s homestead. He had laid her in a clawfoot bathtub, beneath the water, to show her what it felt like to let her breathing go, to just relax her throat and give the function over to the Master Wizard. It was strange not to draw breath, but it wasn’t painful like she’d imagined. More like…it felt a bit like sleeping, being unconscious, not thinking or trying, just expecting the air to always be there. Most of all, he’d wanted her to understand that she could not take in any water.
That as long as she didn’t panic, her lungs would keep functioning without her assistance.
A sharp tug!
A piercing pain.
As fingers, or knives—no, claws!—scraped her ankle, and blood began to pool in the already filthy water. Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods! Xavier was at the bottom of the well, right behind her.
She kicked backward for all she was worth; she couldn’t let Xavier catch her.
He scrambled for her feet again, and she spun around, rotating in the water so she could kick upward and stomp at his face.
His pale amber irises were wild, bloodshot, and bulging—the lycan was seized with panic.
He needed to breathe, just like her, and there was a frenzied desperation in every inhuman contortion of his features. His entire massive body was trembling. Oh gods, he was ready to flash through the portal, and he was desperate to take Zayda with him.
“No!” she shouted, or at least she tried. Her mouth filled up with water, and she strained to push it out. But Xavier was coming at her like a battering ram now, grasping for any part of her body he could sink his claws into. She gasped, and more water flowed into her lungs—it felt like fire, piercing needles, a chemical assault on her chest. Terror-stricken and desperate for breath, she kicked with both feet in unison, snapping Xavier’s head back and spinning around in a panic. She spiraled downward, even farther—swimming, choking, gulping more water—desperate to reach the bottom of the well.
The entire earth was quaking, rocking, trembling…
Where were Marquis and Nathaniel?
The pain in her chest was unbearable. The sensation of being trapped, being smothered—being harmed—was beyond any torture she’d ever known as she lost her fight against air-versus-water and succumbed to the agony in her lungs.
She couldn’t kick, and she couldn’t swim, not another desperate stroke.
She just wanted the suffering to end.
Please, God…
Someone…anyone…have mercy.
The water churned in violent waves all above her, and she knew something brutal was happening, but her mind was too far gone. She glanced absently over her shoulder, but she couldn’t make sense of the turbulent images. Just the same, the water turned crimson with blood, and that’s when three things happened at once: Marquis Silivasi shot up through the murky pit of the well, Nathaniel Silivasi right behind him; Keitaro’s chiseled, handsome features came into view, and he was clutching Xavier’s decapitated head like a bowling ball in his fist; and Zayda’s lungs folded inward, collapsing, and the entire well went black.
Time passed slowly.
Peacefully.
Maybe not at all.
As Zayda watched the scene unfold from a safe, painless distance.
Marquis grasped her body by both shoulders and shot up toward the mouth of the well; Keitaro released Xavier’s head, leaving it to sink in the water, and followed on Marquis’ heels.
Nathaniel took up the rear.
He collected the sinking head and Xavier’s floating torso, and began to kick more leisurely toward the surface.
Silly Silivasis; didn’t they understand?
Zayda no longer inhabited that body.
She had no further use of it, and she didn’t want it back.
She drifted backward, her arms spread out to each side, and breathed the deepest, cleanest, purest breath she had ever taken. The weight of a thousand lifetimes lifted from her shoulders, and the dark, murky water in the well turned bright, luminescent, and whiter than fresh snowfall.
She could stay in this place forever.
Voices echoed in the faraway distance…
“Lay her down!” Keitaro’s commanding brogue.
“Step back! I need to get the water out.” Kagen Silivasi.
“What the hell happened at the bottom of that well?” Marquis’ unmistakable bark.
“I couldn’t keep moving the oxygen—not after she swallowed so much water.” Poor Master Wizard—he was really very kind.
“Be gentle,” Arielle Nightsong-Silivasi…
Zayda tuned it all out.
On some deep, detached level, Zayda knew they would continue to work to revive her, but on a much more spectral plane, she also knew it would be of no use. She wasn’t going back—no way, no how, not ever—not to that broken body, that violated corpse, that life that had always been one of torment.
She turned her full face to the welcoming light and began to swim gracefully toward it.
And that’s when two elegant, fluid hands pressed against her shoulders.
“No.” An enchanting, feminine voice like an angel. “Go back.”
Zayda started and shook her head. She did not want to go back—she wanted to go forward! She wanted to swim into that golden halo…or…or was that a golden fall of luxuriant blonde hair?
No.
No!
NO!
“Shh, be at ease,” the angel said. And then she reached out with that gentle, slender hand and slid it inside Zayda’s chest, right over the cavity of her long-ago damaged, broken heart. When the angel drew it back, she held a mass in her fist—a dark, inky, blood-red mass, filled with briars and thistles and jagged thorns. She blew on the mass and it floated away, disappearing into the depths of the well.
And then the beautiful light—the elegant angel—began to fade into the distance.
“Come back!” Zayda called. “Please, don’t leave me.” She wanted to stay in that unnatural peace, with that unearthly beautiful angel, with that sublime…serenity…forever.
Serenity…serenity…serenity.
She wanted to keep that serenity…
But no, not serenity. The word floated just outside of her reach—and then it drifted down and settled like a soft golden feather on her consciousness.
No.
Not serenity…
Serena.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Keitaro Silivasi was absolutely frantic.
He had followed Xavier’s instructions to the letter, and still the general had betrayed him: “You lying bastard; there’s another vampire inside this well!”
That was total, unconscionable bullshit!
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Kagen had flashed into view at the top of the well and tugged on Arielle’s rope like the secrets to the universe were on the other end of the line and he had three seconds to retrieve them or perish.
Keitaro hadn’t waited around to receive the daughter of his heart, not when the female he had sworn to protect was being pursued by her wicked biological father—not when Zayda might drown…
He had dived into the well and started swimming.
Down…down…down.
Scenting, smelling, feeling everything.
And then he had seen her, swimming and struggling: kicking at Xavier, trying to keep her feet and her ankles free from the lycan’s clutches, and gulping too much water.
The well was like a murky blender: mud, filthy debris, and algae churning everywhere.
Keitaro’s rage had virtually exploded.
Channeling all the supernatural strength he possessed into his right hand and his bicep, Keitaro dove forward, slammed his fist into Xavier’s back, and shattered the lycanthrope’s vertebrae. He dug his claws into Xavier’s shoulders and wrenched the bastard backward, sinking his fangs deep into the general’s neck. And then he tore, back and forth, like a rabid animal—biting, snarling, twisting his head, spitting out mouthfuls of flesh—until all that was left was the stem of Xavier’s cervical spine.
Keitaro wrapped both fists around the discs and snapped them!
Then he tore the monster’s head from his shoulders, clutched it in his hand, and began to swim toward Zayda…
Dear gods, no!
She wasn’t breathing.
Her body was floating—weightless and lifeless—in the blood-drenched water.
“Can you hear me? Zayda!” It was Kagen’s voice, and she blinked her eyes open, two or three times.
She sputtered, she coughed, and she spit out several gulps of water. Then her eyes latched onto the male who was kneeling beside the healer, his brows furrowed with concern as he clutched Zayda’s hand: Keitaro could not have looked more handsome—or more protective—in the pale, glistening moonlight. “I can hear you,” she croaked to Kagen, and a collective gasp of relief filled the air.
Focusing her full attention on the hero who had rescued her from her life in The Fortress, the one who had taken her home for no other reason than to nurse her back to health and give her a chance to live as a whole—and free—living being, she squeezed Keitaro’s hand and felt her heart swell with gratitude.
Gratitude…and something far more precious.
Peace.
There were no longer any broken chambers, no longer any split, separate compartments for Zayda to wander in and out of. Her mind no longer felt fractured, but more than that, she finally understood: Keitaro Silivasi was not a brutal, self-absorbed male who could have—or ever would have—used her body. He had not taken her home to one day seek his own selfish pleasure at Zayda’s expense. And he would never have given in to her broken, desperate advances because his heart was filled with something so pure. So real. So untainted…
This man had known serenity for most of his life.
This man had been loved by Serena.
And the couple’s unselfish, celestial love still lived on beyond the grave.
All at once, Zayda understood exactly what Serena Silivasi wanted: Cherish him. Love him. Be his friend. Offer laughter and companionship…and hope. Let time heal—as time always does—and just walk through the world beside him, as long as he will allow…
Zayda could do that.
Zayda would do that.
Sometimes broken souls came together for no other reason than to heal one another, and if more was meant, it would gently unfold. Zayda would revere the gift she’d been given because Keitaro was one in a million.
“I’m here,” she said softly, this time to Keitaro. Then one by one she met the seeking gazes of Keitaro’s beloved sons. “Thank you,” she choked out to all, yet no one specific.
It was the best she could do under the circumstances.
There were truly no words to express the depths of her newfound awareness…her gratitude…or her love.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Natalia Giovanni struggled to prop herself up on the three fluffy pillows beneath her head so she could have a better view out the panoramic, wall-length windows in Santos’ master bedroom. She wanted to see the lake more clearly, to draw strength from its peaceful blue-gray waters. She dug her heels into the mattress and shoved, trying to scoot her heavy body—and enormous belly—backward, but she barely budged an inch.
Santos smiled wanly. “Can I help?”
The sentinel had been at her side for the last forty-seven hours, ever since the conception had taken hold, seeing to Natalia’s comfort, blocking any pain, doing all he could think of to ease her mind and make her more comfortable. He had patiently walked her through what was to come: the details of the birth, how vampires were born, what to expect when the dark twin emerged, and what was required of the sentinel with regard to the sacrifice. The fact that he planned to do that part alone.
They had talked about their lives up until this point: Natalia growing up in the Giovanni compound and Santos growing up in Dark Moon Vale; Natalia being educated in private schools, with private tutors; and Santos attending the Romanian University to become a Master Warrior. They had talked about Natalia’s required duty to Luca’s operation, however seedy, and Santos’ sworn duty to Napolean Mondragon, his agonizing induction into the house of Jadon—his initiation into the elite guard of sentinels—when he had knelt before the king and fought to remain conscious as the monarch carved the letters HOJ into the warrior’s heart with a burning stylus.
Natalia had shared some of her fondest memories—although, admittedly, there were few—of the stable man who had taught her how to ride horses when she was just a girl; her best friend Mandy in second grade, the friend who never saw her as Luca’s daughter or cared that she lived in such a strange, corrupt place; and of course, her personal maid, Sylvia, who was far more of a friend than an employee: a wise counselor and a loyal companion.
Santos had promised to do all he could to reunite Natalia with Sylvia, make sure the short, petite spitfire remained in his destiny’s life…make sure Sylvia’s family and her loved ones were extremely well cared for. He had understood what the maid’s loyalty and kindness had meant to Natalia, and he had been grateful that someone had been there to at least fill in one of the glaring gaps in Natalia’s upbringing.
He had also reciprocated by sharing some stories and memories of his own: He had some pretty tall tales about growing up with Ramsey and Saxson, the trouble they had gotten into as children, the antics the twins had played. While some of the tales were hilarious, others were terrifying and grueling. It was a wonder that any of them had survived to adulthood, yet it was crystal clear that Santos had something Natalia had never known: a true, unbreakable, ever-present sense of family and community. The bonds were unbreakable, and the roots ran deeper than those of an ancient tree, planted beside a river.
He had also described his immediate circle of colleagues, his closest friends: Julien Lacusta, the tracker; Saber Alexiares, a male born to the house of Jadon but stolen by the house of Jaegar, who had finally returned to his rightful place; and of course, the venerable king.
Last, but not least, the two had shared something perhaps more intimate than their blossoming physical relationship: They had shared the memories—and the loss—of their mothers. Natalia had recalled her Tanzanian mother’s exquisite, gentle beauty and her rich, vibrant culture, the fact that she had been a loving, reliable harbor in a truly stormy life. And Santos had described Ruth Jensen-Olaru as charming, witty, and tough as nails, something that hadn’t surprised Natalia one bit. The fact that Magdalene Laiseri had fallen in love with a handsome billionaire from Italy and later followed him to the United States, only to lose her life in such a violent manner—some sort of drug deal or arms deal gone wrong—had not been lost on the compassionate sentinel. His mo
ther had also fallen in love with a handsome stranger, a vampire, albeit ordained by an ancient curse, and her life had been cut short at the hands of vampire-hunters, not by bullets, but by a wooden stake.
The two would always have their grief in common.
They would always share the loss of both parents, albeit by different means.
And to that end, Santos had made Natalia another important promise: When she was ready…if she was ever ready…they would have a private memorial service for Luca Giovanni.
For her father…
Somehow Santos just understood: The male may have been a monster, but she had loved him as a little girl. She would still need closure and a means to process such a far-reaching, soul-shattering loss. She would need to grieve both the father he was…and the father he had never been.
“Angel?” Santos’ silky, loving—and yes, weary—voice sliced through the silence, pulling her back from her reverie. “Can I help?”
She huffed, considering the now lumpy pillows behind her, and tried to weigh whether it was worth it: moving her massive belly, exerting any more energy or strength. It had to be getting close to 2:00 PM. “What time is it?” she whispered, still undecided if she really wanted to move at all.
Santos chuckled softly. “One fifty-five, my love. Here, let me do it for you.” He rose from his perch in the wing-backed chair, slipped one palm beneath her lower back, and raised her effortlessly off the haphazard pillows. “I think these have shifted a dozen times.” He fluffed each one with his free hand, repositioned all three, then tugged her backward, ever so gently, and lowered her onto the new configuration. “Better?” he asked.
She glanced out the window, gazed at the lake, and sighed. Yeah, that was a whole lot better. “Thank you.”
He nodded, then took her hand in his and sank back into the chair. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he asked, “So, are we decided then—we agree on the name?”