I was lost for words for almost a minute as I stared at the Hawks, wondering whether this was some kind of joke. But it wasn’t. It obviously wasn’t.
The brothers’ faces—and the Hawks’ beside them—contorted like someone had just thrust torches up their backsides.
So these five… Hawks think their people will bow to the commands of a vampire. Their species’ arch-nemesis.
Now I found myself wondering whether the reason they’d given for why I alone had been scooped up by their “spies” was just a cock-and-bull story. A load of crap. I couldn’t help but suspect that the Hawks had personally been spying on the area for a while, and saw their chance to pounce on me after the gas hit and I was vulnerable, when I would perhaps be more open to negotiation. It wouldn’t have taken long for them to zoom down and get me. There’s always a hidden story with these creatures.
I shifted on my feet, glancing once more toward the jungle—the direction where the IBSI was set up. My brother Lucas had left for The Shade to return with an army, but given the emptiness of the skies—and, frankly, the lack of noise—they clearly hadn’t arrived yet. Or perhaps they had, but the smoke had prevented them from making any headway. Maybe it had even knocked a number of them unconscious, like it had done to the rest of us.
I refocused my attention on Killian. “So,” I began, “you are telling me with a straight face that your people will bow to my command.”
Killian nodded. “As I told you,” he said, “we have heard of your exploits in other lands. We know what you are capable of. And you… you know far more about this new breed of hunters than we do.”
Indeed, in theory, the Hawks should know practically nothing about them. The IBSI was an entirely different organization to the one Aiden had been a part of all those years ago. The one these conniving Hawks had secretly been pulling the strings to.
Drawing in a breath, I let them hang in suspense for about another minute. Finally, I replied, “All right. Since you have laid bare your incompetence and begged me, I will lead your people… But I have my conditions.”
“What are they?” Killian asked tentatively.
I eyed him sternly. “First, before we do anything about the hunters, all five of you will fly with me over Aviary and help me find my missing family. Second, you must swear you and your people’s full allegiance to me in battle. There will come a time in the very near future when I will call upon your help on Earth to assist in providing protection to humans from misbehaving supernaturals.” Even as I spoke the words, I could hardly believe they’d uphold their word on this second condition. But even if they didn’t, at least they would help find my family and rid their realm of the hunters. That was better than nothing. Besides, they should realize by now that it wasn’t a good idea to tick off The Shadow League…
The five Hawks glanced at one another. It took less than a minute for Tidor and Killion to agree on their species’ behalf.
“After we have searched for your family, we will require you to visit our residence to address our people,” Killion said. “They will not stir, otherwise.”
I nodded. “Naturally.”
We didn’t dally after that. Killian bowed for me to climb onto his back, and the five Hawks took off with me into the air. As we began soaring over the sprawling jungle landscape, the wind whipping through my hair, a part of me couldn’t help but look forward to that meeting. To the role I was about to step up to.
I supposed it would become just another thing to add to my resume. Husband. Father. Grandfather. Vampire. Ex-human and fire-wielder. Ruler of The Shade. TSL Founder. And now… Derek, King of Hawks?
That suited me just fine…
Grace
On returning to The Shade, Safi and I headed straight to the hospital where we assumed the rest of my family would be recovering from the fumes. The assumption was correct. We found them all resting in beds, most of them asleep, including my mother. Apparently, that smoke had drained them of energy, affected their brains in a way that just made them want to sleep. But Corrine informed me that they had already come to for a bit, and she was confident that they would all make a full recovery now that they were breathing clean air. Neither she nor any of the other witches and jinn were sure exactly what was in that smoke to make it toxic to even supernaturals.
Unable to greet my mother, I found myself wandering to the hospital room I had been staying in before we left. It was empty, I supposed still reserved for me.
I sat down on the mattress, my eyes wandering to the mirror fixed on the opposite wall. It was the first time I had looked at myself in hours and… God… I looked so much worse, it was frightening.
I tore my eyes away from the mirror, not wanting to keep track of the train wreck my body was quickly becoming. I found myself wondering just how slowly—or rather, rapidly—my transformation would keep creeping along. I could only be thankful for my fae blood. If I had been fully human, there would have been nothing stopping me from transforming right away. I would already be like Maura by now.
Would I keep getting sicker gradually, hour by hour, or would there come a breaking point when things would suddenly speed up, with very little warning of the final stage?
I lay back on the bed, my eyes glassy as I gazed up at the ceiling. I let my vision cloud over.
Lawrence. I tried to block out thoughts about everything other than Lawrence. I tried to transport myself back to his room in Aviary, to the moment our lips had touched. To his hands on my waist. To the light scent of aftershave on his skin. I suspected that memory would become my sanctuary in the hours and days to follow… assuming I had days.
Someone rapped at the door. I glanced in its direction to see Orlando entering the room. He wore hospital pajamas. I wondered how long ago he’d woken up.
“Hey,” he murmured.
He seated himself on the mattress next to me.
“You recovered already?” I asked, unable to muster neither the energy nor the will to sit up.
“I wouldn’t say fully,” he replied. “But as you can see, I’m walking. I woke up and heard from the jinn that you had returned… What happened with you? Did you find that guy?”
That guy. A small smile couldn’t help but creep to my lips. “Yeah,” I murmured, half in a dream. “I found that guy.”
Orlando frowned. “So, what happened?”
“He agreed to help us,” I replied. “He said that he will do everything he can to uncover the antidote and relay it to us.”
“Well, that’s good news,” Orlando said, blowing out a breath. “But how long will it take?” His eyes moved nervously over me. “You’re really not looking good, Grace.”
“Yeah. I know. We’ve no idea how long it will take.”
“I asked the witch already whether they’d made any progress in figuring out what’s so special about those trees,” Orlando said, looking down at his lap. “But they haven’t had any luck so far. Apparently that warlock—Ibrahim—has a couple of Bloodless locked up in the place you call the Sanctuary.”
I grimaced. If Lawrence is too late, at least I’ll have comrades…
Orlando fell quiet for a while, which I was grateful for. I felt too emotionally drained and exhausted to hold a conversation with him right now. I couldn’t even bring myself to feel awkward around him anymore. I was past all that.
“I guess I’ll leave you to rest,” he said finally, rising to his feet.
I didn’t respond. I just looked at him, blankly.
He half twisted to the door, as if to move to it, but then conflict played across his face. Something was holding him back.
He cleared his throat, facing me fully again. “I… I said it before but I’ll say it again. I’m sorry for kissing you earlier. It was really crappy timing and we should probably just pretend that it never happened.” He paused, his chest constricting. “But… I do like you, Grace. Even though we haven’t known each other long.”
He gazed steadily at me.
I wasn’t sure w
hat he wanted me to say. That I liked him too? That I had fallen for him in the days we’d spent together?
The memory of Lawrence still seared fresh in my mind. I could practically still taste his lips on mine.
And yet I still wasn’t sure how to respond to Orlando. Would I tell him, that I liked him too, but I already had a boyfriend? A lover? It felt like I had no such thing when I wasn’t sure if I even had a life right now. I was clinging to the edge of a cliff, slipping closer and closer to a freefall with every minute that passed.
I felt in limbo. Like there was no point in even telling Orlando—or anyone—that I’d become infatuated with Lawrence, when it could all be so temporary. Over before it even began.
Instead I just gulped and nodded, acknowledging Orlando’s compliment.
He nodded back stiffly, and then averted his eyes. He turned and left me alone in the room.
I sank back into my former dreamlike state, losing all sense of time and place. I was only vaguely aware of the witches and jinn wandering in and out every so often to check in on me. And I thought it was Safi who ended up taking a permanent seat in the corner of my room with a book. I remained lost in semi-consciousness.
Until I was roused by a nightmare.
The worst nightmare I’d experienced since leaving Chicago.
The tremors returned, as strong and forceful as ever. I began coughing again, spilling more blood.
But then something else happened.
Something terrifyingly new.
A tingling sensation erupted all over my skull and at the tips of my fingers and toes. The tingling turned into prickling, then stabbing, like somebody piercing me with needles.
Someone gripped my shoulders—Safi, I guessed—before a cry escaped my throat as the stabbing intensified. Have I reached the final stage already? How many minutes or seconds do I have left of my life as me, Grace Novak? Will I leave before ever saying goodbye to my parents? To my family?
Would I have any thoughts at all, on the other side? Would I even be aware of my actions? Would it be like dying?
The stabbing persisted along with the tremors for what felt like an eternity, but might have only been ten or twenty minutes. Then the shaking subsided. So did the stabbing.
Gasping in relief, I heaved myself into a sitting position. Safi and Corrine stood before me. I was expecting them to look as relieved as I felt, but found them staring at me with horror in their eyes. My gaze shooting to the mirror, I realized why.
Clumps of my hair had fallen out, leaving bare patches of pale scalp. My brown locks lay scattered all around my pillow. And my fingernails and toenails where the pain had been, although still attached, appeared… dislodged somehow. Loosened.
I trust you, Lawrence, and I think… I even love you. But short of you turning into Superman, it’s going to be too late.
My time is drawing to a close.
Victoria
I sat at the end of the jetty, gazing out at the ocean glistening beneath the moonlight. I’d spent the last few hours with my parents in the hospital, though they had been awake for only ten or twenty minutes before slipping back into exhaustion. My parents were vampires. I wasn’t used to seeing them look so tired, so weary. It was disturbing. But Corrine said that it was simply the aftereffect of the toxic fumes they’d inhaled, and they would be back to normal soon. That I just needed to let them sleep it off. So I’d left them, along with the rest of my family, and ambled back out of the hospital.
My parents’ abrupt return had temporarily pried my mind away from Bastien and the Mortclaws. But now, as I sat here in the quiet with nothing but my own thoughts for company, my anxiety returned full force.
I thought back to Mona’s and my trip to the black witches’ old island residence in the supernatural dimension. That green vial of liquid she had shown me.
The source of the Mortclaws’ powers.
The witch had brought the elixir back with us to The Shade, and she was keeping it safely stowed away in her spell room, out of my reach. She wouldn’t even consider letting me near it again until I had talked to my parents about it.
I shuddered as I thought about Mona’s “insane” idea. Before revealing it to me, she had asked me how much I truly wanted to be with Bastien.
And I found myself asking that question again now.
I knew that I loved him. And I knew that my love was deep. But what Mona had proposed would involve a whole new level of faith. Faith in Bastien. Faith in his and my relationship which, in spite of how true it felt, was still so very new. Both of us were still inexperienced.
Mona’s idea was insane. Downright insane. It would involve me ingesting a drop of that green elixir—the product of a black ritual—in order to invoke a connection with the Mortclaws. A connection they could not deny, in spite of my being a human. She said it would form a bond that would make them feel instinctively drawn to me, as if I were of their own kind. This, according to Mona’s knowledge of werewolf psychology, would make me more of a match for Bastien than Rona could ever be.
She said that I would also develop a kind of psychic connection with them, apparently one of the lesser-known powers of the Mortclaws. She suspected that I would be able to sense their location, as if attached to them by some long invisible string.
A single drop should not have any major effect on changing my constitution, who I was. Mona claimed that I would still look like myself, and I would not start shooting lasers from my eyes or sprout hair…
But even in spite of this, Mona continued to repeat a dozen times over that it was an extremely risky idea. Extremely risky.
Even if everything worked according to plan, and I consumed just enough to convince them I was a worthy match for Bastien, I would still have the problem for the rest of my life of Brucella and the Northstones becoming my mortal enemies. Bastien had told me himself that a she-wolf like Brucella would never stop hunting me down, no matter what. In addition, once my decision was made and I’d consumed the liquid, there would be no going back. I would willingly become a member of the Mortclaw tribe, connecting myself to them, as they would be connected to me. They would gain an uncanny sense of my location, and I would never be truly free of them if things took a turn for the worst… Unless the vial was smashed. But I couldn’t do that. Not without risking Bastien’s safety—and maybe even, to a smaller extent, my own, if the magical liquid had ingrained itself even partially into my system. I didn’t understand how such things worked. I was going blindly by Mona’s words.
Proceeding with Mona’s idea would be an utter leap of faith in the witch, but most of all, in Bastien and myself.
Hence, I realized that her question was the only one I needed to ask myself right now. The only thing I needed to consider… How much did I really want to be with that werewolf? How much did I really believe in our love? How much was I willing to give up for it?
After my parents had recovered, before even speaking a word to them about it, I had to answer these questions for myself. Gaining approval from my parents would be a whole other matter entirely. I couldn’t even bring myself to think of the effort it would take just yet. And, although I was an adult, I didn’t want to go through with this without it. It was far too big of a step.
I drew my legs up, pulling my knees against my chest, and leaned my chin against my kneecaps. I closed my eyes, letting the night breeze take me for a while, stilling my mind and listening to the peace that pervaded our island.
I tried to dig deep, deep inside me, as I mulled the question over and over.
How far am I willing to fall for love?
I wrapped my arms nervously around myself as a chill wind caught my hair.
Whatever my answer, I had to come up with it soon.
Epilogue: Bastien
I felt like an animal being led to slaughter as I returned to The Woodlands with the Mortclaws. My new family. My gut clenched at the word. Sendira and Vertus calling themselves my mother and father made me feel almost nauseated.
We arrived in a mountainous region of The Woodlands that I had rarely frequented, and that I hadn’t even known was habitable. The pack led me through a hidden entrance behind a cluster of boulders—the entrance to an ancient tunnel. We entered and wound our way along it, moving deeper and deeper into the mountain. My mother claimed this was the mountain I had been born in. My old home.
On reaching the end of the tunnel, we arrived outside a rotting oaken door which led to a network of chambers and caves. We had no torches to cast light upon our path. We moved through the gloom by our night vision. My mother, grasping my hands, led me into a circular chamber that she explained was our old room. Coated with blankets of dust, it looked like it hadn’t been entered for many, many years. A large bed took up most of the space, and at the end of it was a wooden cot, whose blankets lay upturned.
My mother led me to it and clasped the edges of the cot, her chest heaving. She turned to me with glistening eyes. “Bastien,” she said in a soft voice, “here was the last time I saw you. Before you were taken from us… You were such a perfect, beautiful cub. Your clear eyes, shiny black fur… I still remember nursing you like it was yesterday.” Her voice choking up, she approached me and wrapped her arms around me, planting a kiss on my cheek.
I sensed her warmth and affection for me, and I wished that I could return it… but I felt cold inside. Empty. As much as I could not deny our innate connection, my soul was backing away.
How can I love someone who insists on holding me in chains? Who refuses to accept my love for someone other than the one she has ordained? Who refuses to open her mind to the possibility that my happiness is more important than her long-held traditions?
But I had gotten past trying to argue with her. I might as well argue with a rock.
When I didn’t respond to her embrace, she pulled away. Melancholy infused her expression. “We will find each other again, Bastien,” she said. “We will overcome the rift caused by all our years apart. You will understand me, your father and your family. And you will come to love Yuraya, deeply and truly. I promise.”