by Alicia Rades
“No,” I protested. “We’ll get you to a hospital, get the venom out of you.”
Tyson went into a coughing fit, and it felt as if my heart was breaking into a million pieces. I pulled him tighter, like I could wish the venom away with enough love. But even I knew spells didn’t work that way.
Finally, Tyson found his voice. He gazed up at me. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I dragged you into this.”
I shook my head as tears streamed down my cheeks. “It’s not your fault.”
“You warned me.” He sucked in a deep, pained breath as silver flashed across his eyes once more.
My shoulder shook in sobs. “No, Tyson. Stay with me!”
“You have to go, Venn,” he cried.
“I’m not leaving you.” I buried my face into his shoulder.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he insisted in a groggy voice.
“You won’t hurt me,” I told him.
“You know how new vampires are,” he said. “You’ve heard all about the bloodlust. There will be nothing I can do to stop myself.”
“You will.” I only said it to try to convince myself. I wasn’t ready to lose my brother, the true only family I had left.
Tears streamed down Tyson’s face, and he shook his head. “I won’t. You have to leave me. Please.”
The pleading look in his eyes was almost too much to bear. It was like he was asking me to let him suffer and die alone. I couldn’t do that.
“I’m staying right here,” I promised.
Tyson’s brows knitted together in anger. “I will bite you, Venn. So help me, I will.”
This time, I couldn’t convince myself otherwise. Tyson was telling the truth. He’d use his new fangs just to get me to leave, to protect me from himself.
Now who’s the one protecting who?
In that moment, I’d never hated myself more. I was the big brother. I was supposed to protect him… and I’d failed.
“Venn, I’m a goner,” Tyson groaned. “Just let me have one last wish. Go.”
I could hardly believe he was asking such a thing from me, but I also knew what would happen if I stayed. I’d be right where he was, vampire venom pumping through my veins, pain unlike anything imaginable—or so I’d heard.
Against my will, I decided to follow my brother’s wishes. Slowly, I lowered him back onto the pavement and stepped away.
Of all the details I remembered from that night, the one thing I could never recall was what it felt like in that moment. It should’ve been the single thing that stuck out above all else, but it didn’t. I used to wonder if maybe I was just so numb from everything that had happened that I felt nothing when I let my brother go, but I’d come to realize it was the exact opposite.
All the emotions I’d felt tore through me like a black hole, ripping me apart from the inside. There was so much pain and so much sorrow that my mind had blocked it all out. It was just too much for one man to bear.
I remembered crying. I bawled like the ocean itself was trying to push its way out my eyes. But everything else… everything else was darkness.
“Venn,” Tyson whispered before I was out of earshot.
I turned back to him, hopeful that he still wanted me by his side while he made the transformation. “Tyson?”
He sucked in a sharp breath, like the venom was doing something bad to him again. “Don’t come after me. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
I hesitated. “I won’t.”
“Promise?” he asked.
I didn’t know how I could manage to make such a promise. I felt like the worst brother in history, leaving him to suffer alone just because he asked me to. I should’ve stayed. I should’ve comforted him when he needed it the most. But instead, I followed his wishes.
“I promise.”
I barely remembered the walk home, when I knocked on Gramps’s apartment door early in the morning and he answered with a string of curse words, only to find me naked and covered in dirt at his doorstep.
It was the first time Gramps laid a hand on me, after I’d told him what had happened. For whatever reason, I remembered every blow, every shot of pain that radiated across my skin. I drank all that in and seared it into my memory. I supposed that was because I thought I deserved it. When Gramps said it was my fault, I believed him.
10
The morning seemed to darken as we gathered in Genevieve’s kitchen for breakfast and Venn said his goodbyes. Like the rest of the house, the kitchen was bathed in dark tones and soft lighting.
Genevieve, Jenna, and Ronark were already seated around the long mahogany table, while Teagan stood behind the island at the stove cooking eggs. Clarita, Amalia, and Richard hadn’t made it down for breakfast yet. The rest of us—Sondra, Ryland, Fiona, and me—were all crowded around Venn.
“Don’t be gone too long,” Fiona said as she hugged Venn.
Venn hiked his backpack up on his shoulder. “I won’t.”
“Stay safe,” Teagan said, as if in warning.
Ryland took Venn’s hand and gave him a one-armed hug. “You sure we can’t come with you?”
“Guys, I’ll be fine,” Venn insisted. “You have bigger things to worry about in the meantime.”
Sondra wrapped him in a hug. “That doesn’t mean we won’t be worrying about you. Our intuition is crap these days. If something goes wrong—”
“Nothing is going to go wrong,” Venn assured us. “I’m going to find my brother and bring him back. That’s it.”
“Maybe you should wait until you have more information,” I suggested nervously, even though I knew there was nothing I could say to stop him from going.
“It’s not like Tyson’s location is plastered all over the Internet,” Ryland said. “With groups like this—”
He cut off when Venn elbowed him. The meaning was clear. Tyson was hanging out with a dangerous, secretive group of ex-vampires. And Venn was walking straight into their nest. It was all too familiar. If he was anything like me, the more I pushed him to take precautions, the more reckless he’d be.
But I knew Venn wasn’t like me, and that was the only thing giving me solace at the moment and keeping me from following after him. He would take precautions. He would think things through. He would take care of himself.
Right?
Venn pulled me close to him. “I’ll be fine, Rae. You do your planning against Matias. I’ll be back with Tyson before it’s all over.”
“You better be,” I said. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He gave me a kiss on the lips, then that was it. I watched at the window as he got into Richard’s SUV and drove down the street. I didn’t look away until he was long gone. Teagan’s voice pulled me out of my daze.
“You hungry?” she asked. She stood at the table with a spatula full of scrambled eggs hovering above my plate.
I shook my head but sat anyway. “I’ll eat later.”
Jenna took my hand under the table and gave it a light squeeze.
“Venn can take care of himself,” Sondra said reassuringly, though she didn’t sound convinced.
“I know,” I replied as I stared down into my full glass of orange juice. I wasn’t sure I could stomach it right now. “It’s just that he came after me when I went to find Jenna alone. I wanted to help him.”
“He’ll be back,” Genevieve said from the head of the table. “In the meantime, we have work to do.”
“What’s the plan?” Ronark asked as he dug into his eggs and sausage.
“I know a few locals I’d like to approach to help us,” Genevieve said. “There’s a man who runs an underground spell shop. He might be willing to supply protection charms and potions.”
Oh, God. I hoped she didn’t mean Devin, my old boss at Bloodstone. I hadn’t heard from him since I quit so I could go after my sister. If I knew him at all, he was already in Chicago cozying up to Matias. Asking for his help wouldn’t be my first choice. His spells never were great to begin with.
“What’s this guy’s name?” I asked, finally taking a sip of orange juice.
“Alexander Morris,” Genevieve replied.
Huh. Never heard of him. Wait…
“Alexander, as in Xander?” I asked.
I’d heard of the guy before, but I’d never met him. Devin had talked about him when I worked at Bloodstone. He always complained the guy was his biggest competitor. He even joked about doing some questionable things to him, though he never followed through with any of it. I always got the impression that Devin was a little intimidated by Xander’s magic. The guy was at least a mid-witch bordering on a high witch.
“I’ve tried to reach him, but he hasn’t been answering his phone. I want Sondra to visit him today to see if he’ll help us.” Genevieve handed Sondra a set of car keys.
“You’re not going?” I asked, a bit surprised.
She shook her head. “Clarita, Amalia, and I will be going through our inventory today and cataloguing any potions that might be useful to us. Besides, Xander and I haven’t exactly gotten along in the past. He likes Sondra.”
“I’m coming, too,” I said immediately. No way was I sitting around here all day without getting in on some of the action.
“Me too,” Fiona chimed in.
“And me,” Ryland insisted, puffing up his chest.
Genevieve frowned. “You might scare him off.”
“Yeah, he’s pretty paranoid,” Sondra said. “I think it should just be us three girls. He won’t be as intimidated by us.”
“But what if—?” Ryland started.
“We can handle ourselves.” Sondra shot him a pointed expression.
Ryland gaped at her. “But without your magic…”
“Babe.” Teagan placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “They’ll be fine. No one else has magic either, remember?”
“Maybe Tea should come with us, too,” Fiona suggested. “She’s been fighting vamps for ages without any magic.”
Teagan poked at her food. “I’m actually not feeling great today.”
“Can I come?” Jenna asked. “I’d really like to get out.”
“Sure,” Sondra said.
While they spoke, I eyed Teagan curiously. She had been acting weird lately—like she didn’t want to fight anymore. Had something happened on Gregor Island that scared her? Something she hadn’t told us about?
“You okay, Tea?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she assured me. “Just a stomach bug. I’ll start on the next pile of books you guys were reading through, see if I can find something.”
“Well, girls,” Sondra said. “Should we get going?”
Jenna, Fiona, and I got to our feet.
“Hold on.” Teagan rose and started for the door. “Before you go, I think you should have some weapons on you. No one has magic anymore, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous. Follow me.”
The four of us exchanged quick glances as we followed Teagan down the hall and to her guest room. Her room was almost identical to mine, but she had a pile of knives spread out on the bed. There must’ve been at least two dozen of them, all in different shapes and sizes.
Fiona gasped and reached for the closest one, running her finger along the blade to test how sharp it was. “Where did you get all these? I thought you lost yours.”
Teagan smirked, looking proud beside her display. “Genevieve has been very generous after I told her I’d lost the ones she’d given me.”
“Wow,” Sondra said, like she couldn’t believe it. “She really has changed, hasn’t she?”
“What did she used to be like?” I asked, reaching for a dagger with a rose-petal design etched into the blade.
“She seems really nice to me.” Jenna grabbed a large pocket knife and flipped it open. The blade was at least an inch wide and as long as my hand. She beamed, then closed it and slid it in her pocket.
“Let’s just say she wasn’t the best mentor to work with,” Sondra admitted. “She was very hard on me.”
Fiona crinkled her nose. “She wasn’t exactly kind when I first met her, either. She wasn’t even willing to mentor me because apparently fox shifters are weak. Like that has anything to do with witch magic.”
Teagan held up a belt to Fiona, which had multiple sheaths built in for throwing knives. Fiona took it and began securing the belt around her waist.
“Honestly, I think meeting Richard has helped,” Teagan said.
“They haven’t been together long?” Jenna sounded surprised. “I assumed they’d been together forever.”
Sondra shook her head as she secured a sheath onto her hip. “A lot has changed in her life over the past few years. She didn’t have Richard or the house until later. It was all around the time I finished mentoring with her a few years ago. Her business took off, and everything just sort of fell into place for her. That was when she loaned me the money to start my own business, but that only hurt our relationship even more.”
I slipped the dagger into my boot. “It sounds like she finally figured out magic.”
“I think so,” Sondra said. “I’m happy for her. I’m glad she changed.”
Teagan handed Fiona her leather jacket. “Here. This will hide the knives.”
Fiona put it on and grinned. She turned to the mirror above the dresser and spun around to take in her new look. She always looked so sweet in her jeans and flowery tops. Today, her red hair was piled on her head instead of down in waves. In skinny jeans, a deep green tee, and Teagan’s leather jacket, she looked totally badass. It was like she’d aged five years in a matter of days.
“Wow,” I said, coming to stand beside her. “You look awesome.”
She smiled into the mirror nervously. “Do I?”
Teagan patted her on the shoulder and whispered in her ear. “You’re a vampire slayer. Embrace it, girl.”
Fiona grinned. “Can I still call myself that now that there are no vampires?”
Sondra raised her eyebrows. “You’ve killed a vampire before, haven’t you?”
“Yeah,” Fiona admitted. “Tons.”
Jenna wrapped an arm around her and looked at Fiona’s reflection in the mirror. “Then you’re a vampire slayer.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the mirror as I looked at our group of five. We were all dressed in dark colors and tight clothing. We kind of looked like a team of assassins. Maybe Xander would be intimidated by us.
“Should we go see what kind of trouble we can get ourselves into?” I asked. Excitement sizzled in my bones.
“Hopefully not too much,” Teagan said as we all started for the door.
Ryland was already on his way down the hall when he caught sight of Fiona stepping out of the room. He stopped dead in his tracks.
“What?” she feigned.
Ryland looked gobsmacked seeing Fiona dressed in anything but her usual attire. “You look… different.”
Fiona crossed her arms. “You mean I look like Teagan?”
“Well, that is Teagan’s jacket, isn’t it?” He eyed it like he wasn’t quite sure.
Sondra stepped forward and draped an arm around Fiona’s shoulder. “I think she looks great.”
“You sure I can’t come with? Help protect you?” Ryland begged.
“It’s sweet you’re worried about your sister,” Sondra said, “but I think she can handle herself.”
Ryland’s jaw tightened. “She’s only seventeen.”
“And I’ve been fighting alongside you for years,” Fiona shot back. “Why the sudden change of heart?”
Ryland gaped at her. “Because…”
“Because I don’t have my shifter strength?” Fiona’s irritation grew with each passing second. “I don’t need it.”
Ryland looked her up and down. He opened his mouth like he was about to protest, but before he could, she sprang on him. Fiona had a knife out of her belt in under a second. She pressed her forearm against Ryland’s huge chest and shoved him up against the wall. Her arm came down to stab th
e knife into the wall just inches from his face before he could even blink.
Ryland’s eyes went wide, and he held his hands up in surrender.
“Holy shit, Fiona!” Teagan cried proudly.
Jenna clapped and whooped, while Sondra tried to stifle a laugh. My jaw dropped, and my hand slapped over my mouth.
“You go, girl!” Jenna exclaimed.
Fiona smirked at Ryland. “Tell me again how you don’t think I can handle myself.”
He stumbled over his words. “I-I guess I was mistaken.”
“Damn right you were.” Fiona ripped the knife from the wall and turned to us to hide the look of utter disbelief written across her face from Ryland.
I held my hand up and gave her a high-five.
Sondra started down the hall, swaying her hips and snapping her fingers. “And that, cousin, is how a girl gets ‘er done.”
Jenna, Fiona, and I followed, swaying our hips in the same manner.
Jenna laughed. “You tell him, sister.”
Fiona turned toward Ryland, walking backward to keep up with us. “Love you, brother!” she said as she kissed the ends of her fingers and blew the kiss to him while simultaneously flipping him off.
Teagan elbowed Ryland in the ribs. “Oh, don’t look so surprised.”
That was all I saw before we turned the corner and headed outside.
Fiona jumped down the front porch stairs and hopped excitedly on the sidewalk. “Wow! That felt good.”
“It should,” I said. “Your brother’s an asshole.”
Fiona rolled her eyes. “Only sometimes.”
Sondra led us to the garage, where we found a black sedan waiting for us. “I’m proud of you, Fiona, but we’re all going to have to tone it down once we get to Xander’s. He’s not expecting us, so we have to tread carefully.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked as I slid into the passenger seat. Fiona and Jenna took the back.
Sondra started the car. “It means he’s a great witch, but it’s going to take some convincing to get him to join our side.”
11
