The strong sea wind entered the control room as the sub sped faster and faster. I breathed in a scent that chilled me.
Human blood. Warm human blood. It was close. Too close.
I urged the vessel forward, but it was already going at maximum speed.
I pulled myself through the hole in the screen and looked round, trying to trace the source of the blood. Then I caught sight of two submarines above the surface, chasing after us.
No.
“Ben? What’s going on?” River’s voice again.
I didn’t answer her.
If those hunters catch up with us, this is the end of our journey. The end of us.
Navigating the submarine, I had been so focused on the two vessels behind me that I only noticed the one in front when its smooth surface emerged from the waves. It was a much larger submarine than ours and was positioned deliberately to block our path. I swerved to the right to avoid it, but the two submarines behind me were fast closing in. As all three worked together to trap us, it became clear to me that it was only a matter of time.
We had two options. Continue to try to skirt away from them in this vessel, the vessel that was much more outdated and slower than their own, or dive into the water.
My guess was that we would survive longer beneath the water than in such a big, clunky open target. Keeping the submarine speeding on autopilot, I left the control room and raced to River’s bedroom. As I opened the door, she looked at me in panic, a line of sweat on her brow.
“What is happening?” she gasped.
I just grabbed her and pulled her toward the ladder. Climbing up, I opened the hatch and raised my head slowly.
A shower of bullets fired at me the second my head came into view. I ducked just in time to avoid being hit by one square in the jaw. It’s too late. If we were to step out now, we’d be blown to bits within seconds.
I looked down at River. “Hunters. Change of plan,” I breathed through gritted teeth, closing the hatch again and pulling her back down the ladder.
As I moved back toward the control room, the sound of the window smashing filled my ears. I didn’t need to step inside to realize what must’ve just happened. The submarine that had been closing in from the front had caught up. As the scent of human blood grew stronger, and footsteps rang out near the nose of the submarine, I gripped River’s hand and dragged her toward the furthest room away from them. A small bedroom cabin. Locking the door behind me, I looked down at her.
“We’re trapped,” she whispered.
A beeping had started from the other side of the submarine, and now there were footsteps in the control room. A door swung open.
I focused on River, taking in her face, her eyes, her lips. Bending down, I gripped the sides of her head and kissed her. Hard. She responded, even as her hands trembled as they touched my hair.
“Get underneath the bed,” I breathed, as our lips parted.
She lowered to the floor and slid beneath the bed. She was still holding onto my hand, trying to drag me down with her.
“Ben.” She looked at me pleadingly.
I shook my head, and detached myself from her.
“They’re going to kill you the moment they see you,” she whispered.
Maybe. But I was going to try to take a few of them out before they shut me down. I wanted to make this as difficult for them as possible.
I just looked down at her calmly, taking in her beautiful face for what I was sure would be the last time, and then turned to face the door. The beeping grew closer and closer, as did the footsteps, along the corridor toward us. A few moments later, someone gripped our door handle. It rattled as they began shaking it.
I leapt up to the ceiling, stretching myself out against the walls like a spider, so I would have an advantage over them when they first came in, and a greater chance of taking a few out before they got to me.
I waited with bated breath as what sounded like several men began to kick the door. Then metal clicked. And a gunshot rang out. A bullet shot right through the door and shattered the mirror at the opposite end of the room. Then came another gunshot, and another, until a circle of holes had been created around the handle. Now all they had to do was kick the door open. Bracing myself in the next few seconds that River and I would have in this cabin alone, I prepared to pounce.
But the door did not budge.
River looked bewildered as she looked from me to the door from the spot she was hiding in beneath the bed.
No hunters stepped through it. Not even after two minutes of waiting.
Is this some kind of a trap?
What in the world are they waiting for?
Even though I had no idea whether it was safe, I slid back down the walls and cautiously peered through one of the holes in the door.
I could hardly believe my eyes.
Strewn about the floor were the still bodies of half a dozen hunters. Each lay in the same position—on their backs, their eyes blank and wide open, gazing up at the ceiling. And their mouths… blood was trickling from them and pooling beneath their heads.
As I pushed the door open, River slid out from beneath the bed and stood next to me.
“What happened?”
“I have no clue,” I replied.
“They’re dead,” she said.
I approached the nearest man to me and felt his pulse, even as his blood called to me.
“Yes. Dead.”
I moved along the submarine, checking in other cabins for hunters. Then I climbed up the ladder and poked my head through the hatch. The submarines that had been chasing us had come to a standstill, and as my eyes fell to the water surrounding us, I spotted more bodies floating in the water.
I didn’t think that it was possible for me to feel more bewildered, but as I ducked back down into the submarine and entered the control room with River, it was to see that the window was no longer smashed. It was completely repaired, as if it had never been broken to begin with.
Chapter 17: Ben
I drained and stored the blood of the dead hunters lying in the corridor, then threw the corpses into the sea. I had been worried about what I was going to do for human blood for the rest of the journey. I didn’t need to think about that problem again for a while now.
River and I were still lost for words as we took a seat back in the control room and I started up the submarine again. I stared through the perfectly smooth glass.
I had no idea what had just happened, but when River’s and my tattoos started prickling as we dipped beneath the surface of the waves and continued our journey underwater, I couldn’t help but link the incident to the last bizarre experience we’d had—blood raining from the sky.
River drew the same conclusion.
“Something is following us,” she said, brushing her fingers gingerly over her tattoo.
But what? Neither of us knew how to even begin to speculate. It was all so bizarre. If it were really Jeramiah’s witches following us, why would they even bother? If they wanted us to return to The Oasis, they could magic us there by force. Why follow us around and play these mind games with us?
A slapping noise came from the back of the submarine.
I groaned internally.
“We still have those merpeople back there,” I muttered.
“What are we going to do with them?” River asked anxiously.
“Let’s go and take a look at them.”
Once we had gotten well away from the area where the hunters had been, I put the vessel back on autopilot and the two of us headed to the back of the submarine.
I opened the door of the cabin where we’d left the mermaid and merman. They were curled up together in a corner in the same fetal position.
I walked over to the male and nudged his slimy shoulder. He didn’t even look up at me, though he was clearly still alive.
“We can’t risk throwing them back in the water again. For some weird reason, they’ve decided they want to be inside our subm
arine. If we let them go, they might try to break through the glass again.”
“Then what?” River said, frowning. “We just keep them locked in here?”
“Yes. For now,” I muttered, leading her back out of the room and closing the door. “It’s their own stupid fault they climbed in here. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for them.”
They seemed docile, and they might even die on their own anyway. Those slimy creatures were really the last thing on my mind right now.
We spent some more time in the control cabin while I plotted our course for the rest of the journey, and then we headed to one of the cabins—whose door was broken thanks to the hunters—and sat down on the bed. She leaned back against a pillow, pulling a blanket up around her, while I leaned against the wall.
“Mermaids,” she muttered, still looking traumatized. “I feel like I’m ruined.”
I shot her a glance. “Ruined?”
“I wanted to be Ariel when I grew up… now that movie will never be the same again.”
I smirked. “You still watch that cartoon?”
She poked me in the shoulder. “Don’t judge.”
She heaved a sigh and we fell into silence. She moved closer to me on the bed. I slid my arms around her as she nestled against my chest.
When she spoke again, it was in a deeper voice. “I honestly thought that we were going to die in this room.”
I kissed the top of her head. “So did I.”
Chapter 18: Rose
After Caleb agreed to turn me, I promised not to speak of the subject again for the rest of our trip. And I kept my promise.
Our honeymoon turned out to be everything I could have imagined it to be. Having so much uninterrupted time with Caleb was bliss. Just the two of us, adrift in the middle of the ocean. We ended up spending longer at sea than we’d planned before reaching the first island, just because we were so wrapped up in each other’s company.
When we finally began stopping at islands, I realized that Caleb hadn’t been joking when he’d said that he would take me to remote parts. We hardly spotted a single human. By day, we stayed on the boat, and at night, we roamed the islands. I had also brought a number of small instruments with us from my father’s music room. We bathed in hot springs, went on long walks and explored the gorgeous landscapes. Often I would spark up a bonfire and we would sit around it, playing and making up our own melodies. Our nights often ended up with making love on the beach before returning to the boat before the sun rose. Even though Caleb tired me out and we were out all night, I found that I just couldn’t sleep much. I just wanted to be with him. And of course, he barely slept anyway.
Once we hit New Zealand, things got more upbeat. Despite agreeing to stay away from humans, we did spend many nights in clubs on the beach, and during the day continued sailing around different parts of the magnificent country.
I took a charmed phone with us, and remembered to call my mother once a week as I had promised to assure her that we were still fine. But time flew by, and before I knew it, we’d been gone several weeks.
Since we had finished touring all the places that Caleb had planned out, he suggested that we start making our way back. We stocked up on food supplies for me with the money we had brought with us, and there was still plenty of blood in the boat’s storage room.
And then we took off into open ocean, making our way back toward The Shade.
We traveled slowly. We wanted to make the most of our time away, but I suspected that Caleb was also going slower because he was beginning to feel more and more nervous about the end of the journey, when he’d promised to turn me.
We spent a few more days on the ocean, enjoying the last of our long honeymoon. But finally, we began to near home.
It was close to midnight one night when Caleb felt that we had neared close enough to The Shade. He moored the boat and then looked at me. I couldn’t miss the worry in his eyes as I stood with him in the control room.
Taking my hand, he led me out onto the deck. He looked toward the distance, scanning the shoreline. I couldn’t see so far into the darkness.
“Do you think those hunter ships are still surrounding The Shade?” I asked.
“We’re not close enough to them now to see. But if I had to take a guess, I would say that they are still there.”
Gathering me closer to him, he leaned down and closed his mouth around mine, caressing my lips slowly and tenderly. He kissed me as though I was the most precious thing in the world.
Raising his head again, he looked deep into my eyes.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” His voice sounded hoarse.
I swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“Because the last thing I want is for you to regret this decision,” he said. “You know that it will mean losing your fire powers, right? They will become dormant, like your father’s do when he is a vampire.”
I raised my hand to his face, my thumbs brushing either side of his lips as I kissed him harder.
“I want you to turn me, Caleb.”
I had grown attached to my fire powers and I was sad at the thought of losing them, but this was what I wanted. Still, the pain and danger of the experience had been built up so much, I couldn’t help but feel nervous. But I made sure to not show it in my expression. I didn’t want Caleb to see even the slightest bit of hesitation in me, because this was difficult enough for him as it was.
He nodded slowly. “All right.”
Taking my hand, he led me down to our bedroom.
“Is this really the best place to turn me?” I asked. “Won’t we get the bed all… messy?”
“Yes, it’s going to be messy,” Caleb said grimly. He had a dark expression as he looked around the room. “But I would rather have you in a contained space than out in the open. I don’t know what kind of state you’re going to wake up in. The last thing I want is for you to go diving into the ocean.”
My spine tingled as he sat me down on the bed.
“Wait here,” he said.
I did as he requested. He returned a minute later carrying a large blue tarpaulin. I lifted myself from the bed as he spread it out over the mattress, covering the silk linen.
Then he nodded toward the center of the bed. I positioned myself there and looked up at him, my heart fluttering.
He removed his shirt and dropped it to the floor. Then he climbed onto the bed and crawled toward me. He positioned himself over me until his legs straddled my hips. He unbuttoned my shirt and removed it completely, discarding it on the floor next to his own. Then he removed my jeans. Now I wore only my underwear.
His breath hitched as he positioned himself over me, his eyes falling to my neck.
He placed his hands either side of my head, his fingers tangling in my hair. He lowered his head to mine and caught my lips in his. I could feel how tense he was, and I could feel him trembling slightly. I reached up my hands and cupped his face, hoping to reassure him. When his lips broke away from mine, I whispered:
“I trust you, Caleb.”
Chapter 19: Caleb
My hands shook slightly as they rested in my wife’s hair.
I closed my eyes, relishing the feel of her warm hands against my face. I didn’t know when I would feel her heat again.
Rose’s sweet scent engulfed me as I dipped down lower. So close to her, normally by now I would be in full-blown battle mode to restrain myself. But this night would be different. For the first time since I had met her, I would taste her blood. I swallowed hard as she stared up at me, her eyes so wide and trusting.
“Just try to keep as still as possible,” I said, my mouth dry.
She nodded, and then, after dipping down to taste her lips once more, I moved toward her neck and pressed my mouth against her soft skin. I bared my fangs, feeling her tender flesh beneath them. My mouth salivated. I could practically taste her blood already. I pressed down harder. Rose gasped, her fingers digging into my back as I broke skin.
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A hot rush of blood flowed into my mouth, setting my tastebuds alight. Her taste overwhelmed my senses. It was more exquisite than I had imagined. As the blood glided down my throat, my gut clenched. My instinct was to lose myself in her and take draught after draught until I had sucked her dry.
I couldn’t stop myself from swallowing three mouthfuls, but after that, I managed to regain control of myself. Forcing myself to focus, I released my venom.
Rose moaned and squirmed.
Lowering a hand to her right thigh, I repositioned her beneath me as I finished infecting her. And then I withdrew, my mouth dripping with her blood as I raised my head above her. I stared down at my beautiful wife. Her eyes were shut tight, her forehead now covered with a sheen of sweat. Her head rolled from side to side as her convulsions grew stronger and stronger.
And then came the vomiting of blood.
I never would get used to witnessing a turning. The horror of my own was still fresh in my mind, even though it had taken place many decades ago. I would never forget the pain. The fear…
I might not be able to do anything about the pain for Rose, but at least I could help to alleviate her fear.
Moving to the side of the bed, I placed a palm over her forehead and stroked it. I reached for her hand and clasped it tight.
“You’re doing fine, Rose,” I said calmly. “I’m here with you, and I’m not leaving.”
I wasn’t sure whether my words registered with her, or whether the pain was all-consuming. But I hoped that the steady sound of my voice would help reassure her.
The waiting that followed was torturous. As promised, I didn’t once leave her side. I lost all track of time as I remained in that bedroom with her. My only relief came from seeing that she did not seem to be vomiting more blood than was usual. I had not been there to witness Ben’s turning personally, but I had heard from his parents that he had been expelling huge amounts of blood.
When Rose finally began to show signs of consciousness, and she stopped coughing up blood, I wiped her down with a wet towel and placed it over her forehead.