Angelina’s heart slammed against her ribs. Damien was alive.
Olympia’s fist flew toward her face.
When Angelina came to, it took her only a moment to realize she hung suspended from a helicopter. A rope tied around her waist was all that prevented her from tumbling to the ground below. Suddenly, she plummeted some twenty feet, then came to an abrupt halt. Her shocked screams turned to cries of pain as the rope wedged between her ribs. Grasping onto the rope, she craned her neck and gazed up at a black helicopter. Leaning out of the opening, Olympia gleefully waved a huge ax.
“We’ve been waiting for you to wake up. Your new friends are growing very impatient.” She pointed the ax down.
The loud whirring of the helicopter failed to drown out Olympia’s words. Angelina’s heart missed a beat before she dared to glance down. A crowd of snarling creatures leapt at her dangling feet. Her eyes widened at the dagger-like teeth filling their mouths. Her hands flew to her bulging pockets.
The Isle of Fentmore.
Forty years ago, Damien had warned her that she would end up here if she refused to complete the bonding. He’d nearly cried as he explained how and why she’d go mad and how their laws demanded they send any Slasher they discovered to the Isle of Fentmore. Every time her unanswered call to him had her doubting his love, she reminded herself of his vow that he would never return and chance finding her in such a state, would never be the one bound to abandon her on Fentmore.
She dropped another foot, then came to a bone-jarring halt. Her scream rent the air when a mouth closed around her ankle. Teeth ripped through her flesh as her attacker dropped back down to the ground.
Before another could do more damage, she reached into her pocket and tossed a handful of wafers to the crowd. The Slashers dove for them, surprising her with their apparent familiarity with them. The ones directly below her began to amble away, already feeling the calming effects. She took another handful and tossed it farther away.
“Why are they leaving?” Olympia screeched, peering down. “Bring this thing lower. I want to see where they’re going.”
“No way, Olympia. I can’t chance going any lower than this,” the pilot yelled over his shoulder. “If the scent of her vampire blood is strong enough, they’ll come back.”
Olympia slammed the ax against the side of the doorway when more Slashers drifted away. “Something is luring them away from her.”
She leaned out and caught sight of Angelina’s arm as it swung out again and again. The crowd grew less and less dense. Letting out a roar of anger, Olympia cut into her own arm with the ax. “If she’s covered with pure vampire blood, they’ll come back.”
She dropped the ax to the floor, and was reaching out with her good arm to hold onto the door when a gust of wind rocked the helicopter. Olympia screamed, lurching back and forth.
Below, Angelina alternated between tossing out wafers and untying the knot at her waist. The longer she hung here with her ankle dripping blood, the more Slashers she would have to deal with. The rope gave just as she heard a scream from above. She landed in the outstretched arms of a Slasher. From the look on its face, she knew it had devoured some wafers and let out a sigh of relief. She jumped from its arms and took off, scattering wafers to clear a path.
The sound of the helicopter as it left filled her with both dread and relief.
Sebastian knew without opening his eyes that Diana still lay cradled in his arms, could feel her leg draped across his hips, her warm breath fanning his face. His soul mate.
He grinned. His very wild soul mate.
Images of the previous night flashed in his mind. Diana had been insatiable. Groaning from the throbbing ache in his cock, he moved along the path of her breath and brought his lips to hers.
He never expected her to giggle in response and pulled away to ask her what she found so funny.
Giggles from a distance?
His eyes shot open.
Damien, his face no farther than an inch away, winked. “Love you too, son,” he said, then, with a smirk, rubbed his thigh against Sebastian’s erection. “Glad to see me?”
“Shit.” Sebastian leapt out of the bed and spun around. Diana, giggling uncontrollably, lay sprawled across the couch.
“I knew it,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “I’ve been watching you two and waiting to see what would happen when you woke up.”
Damien’s booming laughter filled the room.
“Very funny.” Sebastian grimaced in disgust and swiped his arm across his mouth. His eyes flew open. He ran to a small wastebasket next to the bed and began spitting into it. “God, Damien, I had my tongue in your mouth.”
Damien’s grin vanished and then he too began to spit over the side of the bed.
Diana squealed in pain as another fit of laughter took hold.
Glancing up, a hint of glee lingering in his eyes, Damien smirked. “I wouldn’t laugh, Lady Godiva.”
Sebastian’s head swung around as Diana screamed. Her legs, spread wide and revealing way, way too much to Damien, quickly clamped shut. Her breasts, no longer jiggling from her laughter, disappeared behind her hands. She vanished beneath the cushions of the couch. Sebastian’s eyes flashed with jealousy as he turned and looked at Damien’s cock. Relief poured over him like a fine, cooling rain. Damien’s cock remained unaffected. “Diana, why the hell are you hanging around here naked?”
Peeking out from under the cushions, she scowled. “I would have put on clothes if you two had bothered to bring my backpack down with us.”
The two men smirked.
She smirked right back. “Oh, but I’ll never tell who’s bigger!”
Sebastian and Damien both glanced down at themselves and then at each other.
“Well, I would be if—” Damien began.
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that, old man.” Sebastian straightened his back and proudly jutted out his hips.
“Boy, Sebastian, you must have really enjoyed that kiss.” Diana winked at Damien.
Sebastian ignored her and glared at Damien. “Where the hell are your clothes?”
“Ah, I had a little accident and had to wash them.” He grinned and looked away from Sebastian’s troubled gaze. “It was nothing, Sebastian. I tripped outside.”
“Actually, I prefer being naked,” Diana said, still covered by the cushions. She smiled back at Damien.
But Damien no longer smiled.
Damien stared at a spot behind Diana, yet when she turned to look, she saw only the bookshelves. “Damien?”
Sebastian grabbed Damien’s arm. “Damien, what’s wrong? What do you see?”
“Diana, quick, get on the bed,” Damien ordered, virtually dragging Sebastian into the middle of the mattress.
Diana sprang to life, no longer concerned about her lack of clothing. The urgency in Damien’s voice reminded her of the foreboding she’d had earlier about her grandmother. As the bed began to rise, she turned to him and dared to ask, “It’s Nana, isn’t it. You feel it too?”
“She’s in trouble. She’s calling me.” He closed his eyes. “She’s terrified.”
“Where is she, Damien? Can you see where she is,” Sebastian asked, wrapping his arms around a now terrified Diana.
“I can’t tell. But— Ah.” He clutched his stomach. “Oh, God, the pain.”
Diana buried her face into the crook of Sebastian’s neck. “Tell me it’s not her pain he’s feeling, Sebastian. Tell me it’s not Nana.”
But Sebastian only tightened his grasp on her shivering body.
Within moments after the bed reemerged in the dark interior of the cottage, the three were dressed and bolting into the night. Sebastian swept Diana into his arms and once again followed Damien’s lead.
When they finally reached Angelina’s house, Damien fell to his knees in the middle of the lawn and let out a gut-wrenching roar.
Diana, realizing they were too late, screamed and tore at Sebastian’s iron hold on her. “Let me go! Let me go
to her!” she sobbed. “She needs me!”
“She’s not here, Diana.” Sebastian turned so she could see Damien. “Look at him. If she were here, dead or alive, he’d already be at her side.”
“She’d be better off dead,” Damien muttered, his shoulders hunched in defeat. “This is my fault. Even though I knew from the beginning that she would never leave her son, I still pursued her. I thought if we bonded, if she felt the hunger, she’d have no choice. When that failed, I blocked her out all these years and told myself I did it to keep her safe. But I was a coward. I was too afraid to see or hear any sign of her pain, to face what I’d done to her. And now it’s too late.”
Diana knelt beside Damien. “Too late? Damien, where is she?”
The anguish in the eyes that rose to meet hers sent terror into her heart.
“The Isle of Fentmore,” Damien said, his voice hushed as if just saying it would propel them to the dreaded place.
“Well, at least she’s well enough to send you her location.” Sebastian patted Diana’s shoulder. “We’ll just go and get her out of there.”
Damien shook his head. “Not Angelina. Olympia’s sending out word to all of the elders that she found a Slasher and brought her to Fentmore.”
Diana glanced over her shoulder at Sebastian. “Olympia?”
He turned his back on her. “My mother.”
“Your mother brought my grandmother to that island? Why?”
Damien’s head shot up. “Tomas?”
“Who’s Tomas,” Diana asked, her stomach suddenly queasy.
Damien looked up at Sebastian, his face stricken. “He’s got Tomas.”
Staring up at the sky, Sebastian closed his eyes. Blood dripped from his clenched fists.
“Sebastian?” Diana’s voice quivered. Somehow, she knew exactly who had this Tomas.
When Sebastian turned to her, his eyes were filled with rage, his voice menacing. “This is your father’s fault. He stopped Damien and Angelina’s bonding ritual. He killed my stepbrother. And now he has my cousin.”
Diana backed away. For the first time, she truly feared Sebastian. Moonlight glinted off fangs, longer than she’d ever seen. “Your stepbrother…”
The memory of her father standing in the kitchen, ranting like a madman that he’d finally killed the vampire he’d spent years hunting collided with the one of Luna sobbing for her murdered father. Diana glanced at Damien and gasped at his resemblance to Marek. Why hadn’t she noticed it earlier?
Daring to meet Sebastian’s gaze, she asked, “Marek was your stepbrother?”
Suddenly she was on her back. Sebastian’s weight crushed her into the dew covered grass. “You knew,” he asked, his eyes filled with blood. His nails pierced the tender flesh on her shoulders. “You knew all this time that your father killed Marek?”
“Sebastian, you’re hurting me,” she cried.
“But I searched your mind. I found nothing!”
“She’s like her grandmother, Sebastian. Her mind is stronger than most. And just as you hid the thing that shamed you most about Olympia, she hid what she could not face about her father.” Damien looked up. “Get off her.”
Diana’s heart shattered when Sebastian continued to pin her to the ground, his eyes still filled with hatred.
He brought his face close to hers and stared intently into her eyes. “Marek died screaming in agony. All these years, you knew what your father did, didn’t you? You knew and did nothing. Now, because of you, he has my cousin.”
“What could I do, Sebastian? He’s my father,” she sobbed, the pain of his nails grazing against the bones in her shoulders nothing to that of her heart breaking. “He’s my father!”
Damien leapt on Sebastian’s back. “It’s not her fault, Sebastian.”
“If I’d done what I was supposed to, Tomas wouldn’t be in that pen.” He brought his face down to hers and snarled. “Mother was right all along about you. You tricked me. This was all part of your father’s plan. You blinded me, tricked me into believing you were my soul mate so he could take Tomas.”
“No, Sebastian, you can’t believe that.” His face blurred in a crimson haze. Blinking away the tears searing her eyes, she lowered her voice. “I love you, Sebastian. I gave up my humanity for you. We’ve bonded.”
His pupils seemed to dilate when a drop of his blood landed on her quivering lower lip and her tongue immediately darted out to capture it.
“Not quite, Diana. Not quite.” With a roar, he flung Damien from his back.
Diana felt his weight lift. Saw nothing but a blur of gray mist shoot up into the sky. Pushing herself up on her elbows, she searched the yard for Sebastian. He’d vanished.
Clutching his arm in pain, Damien sat slumped against the steps of her grandmother’s house. She jumped up and spun around. “Where is he? Damien, where’s Sebastian?”
“Gone.”
“B-but what about our bonding? If we don’t complete it…” She ran and knelt before Damien. “Damien, if he doesn’t return, what will become of me? How will I survive without him?”
“You’ll go mad, my dear.”
Diana turned around to see who had spoken. A petite, dark-haired beauty stood in the driveway, her eyes twinkling with glee.
Damien sprang to his feet and shoved Diana behind him. “What have you done with Angelina?”
“Let me see,” Olympia said, glancing up and tapping her index finger against her fangs. “Angelina? Oh yes. Well, you know she was quite mad—nearly drained me—so I had no choice but to bring her to Fentmore. Poor thing. They surrounded her the minute I dropped her into their midst. And now I have another Slasher to deliver.”
Damien leapt at her, his teeth bared, his fangs dagger sharp. “I’ll kill you!”
Olympia vanished and reappeared behind Diana. “Ah, ah, ah.”
Feeling the sharp edge of Olympia’s nail prick the skin over her jugular, Diana held up her palm. “No, Damien.”
He froze. Diana forced herself to smile. “It’s all right, Damien. Sebastian will find me.”
“Sebastian?” Olympia let out a bark of laughter. “He’s the one who called me to come and bring you to Fentmore.”
Recalling the look in Sebastian’s eyes before he’d vanished and his condemning last words, Diana could not find any reason not to believe Olympia. Her throat closed. A sharp, piercing pain ripped into her heart.
“Now, how should I handle this one, Damien?” Olympia turned Diana to face her.
No longer afraid, Diana met her gaze. If anything, she welcomed death either at Olympia’s hands or the Slashers on Fentmore. An eternity of darkness loomed before her. An eternity without Sebastian.
Olympia tsked. “Oh, dear. It seems my beloved son has finally obeyed his mother and drove the poor child over the edge.”
“Leave her alone, Olympia. You can’t hurt her any more than Sebastian has.” Damien shook his head. “You’ll only be giving her what she wants if you kill her.”
Hooking Diana’s chin with her finger, Olympia snickered. “My, my, such empty eyes. What, no tears for my son?”
“Olympia, please, leave the girl alone.” Damien inched closer.
“No, Damien. She’s mine. My reward for all the years I’ve wasted loving you while you loved that whore. My reward for hearing you call her name out in your sleep.” She hoisted Diana over her shoulder. “One step and I kill her right now. One step.”
“Where are you taking her?”
“Can’t you see? She’s mad.”
Diana wished she were mad. Her grandmother gone. Her father probably dying at the hands of Sebastian or some other vampire. She could have dealt with anything if Sebastian had stayed by her side. Anything. Closing her eyes as Olympia took to the sky, Diana hoped the trip to Fentmore would be a swift one. Hoped the Slashers would end the nightmare that was now her life.
* * * * *
For two hours, Angelina walked amongst the crumbling two-story buildings lining the streets of the small t
own. No lights shone from their broken windows. No lights shone anywhere. But the moon was full and her enhanced senses revealed the condition of her new home.
The streets were strewn with trash and covered with dried pools of blood. The smell of decay and urine assaulted her, forcing her to stop again and again to retch. Every now and then she’d reach a dead end marked by a towering wall and was blessed with an occasional whiff of fresh air that flowed over it.
She grew more and more convinced that if she could just find a way to the other side of that wall, she’d be free.
Every time she’d begin to feel safe, more Slashers would arrive. Some would pass her, fresh blood dripping down their chins. Others would pounce on the wafers she’d toss as soon as they bared their teeth. And some were too busy feeding on each other to pay her much mind.
Her ankle continued to leave a trail of blood in her wake and surprisingly only a few Slashers stalked her. She hadn’t been with Damien for forty years and could only conclude that the scent of her blood overpowered his. Too many grabbed each other in her presence for her to think otherwise.
How the Slashers survived was beyond her. She’d passed a small group rummaging through a basket of fruit and surmised that for some reason the vampires fed them regularly. The bodies lying about, their throats ripped open, revealed that the fruit did not fully appease their craving for vampire blood. The splintered ends of bones protruding from the gashes explained why the normal teeth of the Slashers were now jagged and razor sharp.
The opening to another alley caught her eye. She could detect no motion within it and decided it would be a safe place to bring Diana when she arrived. The vision she’d had weeks ago of Diana in a helicopter with a dangerous force no longer baffled her.
When she heard the helicopter return, her heart broke. Diana would be terrified. She ran through the streets toward the sound. Slashers ran in front, behind and beside her, led by the scent of the fresh vampire blood running through Diana’s veins. Angelina’s hands already held the wafers she planned on using to lure them away before her granddaughter ever touched the ground. For what seemed like the hundredth time, she called for Damien.
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