Resolute

by Alicia Rades

  “When did you get boobs?” she teased.

  I swatted at her. “Shut up. I’ve always had them. Where’d all these clothes come from, anyway?”

  She shrugged, glancing to the dresser at the foot of her bed. “I don’t know. The vampires supply them. They’re all enchanted to shift with us, too.”

  “That’s weird,” I said. “It’s almost like they care.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so naïve, Rachel. Would you let your pet run around in rags all the time?”

  I frowned at the word pet. It was sick that that was all she was to them.

  “How does it work?” My tone shifted, becoming soft, and I sank down onto the bottom bunk beside her. “With the vamps, I mean. Do they… share you?”

  “No,” Jenna replied with a shake of her head. She dropped her gaze and picked at her fingernails. “Each of the Soulless has one or two blood slaves specific to them. The higher up in the rankings they are, the more they get. Of course, Valkas gets his choice of any of us, but he cycles through his favorites.”

  “And you…?” I started hesitantly.

  “I used to be one of his favorites,” she answered with a frown. “But he gets bored easily. I’ve been with Silas for about a year. He’s gentler than Valkas, but…”

  “But what?” I pressed.

  She sighed. “But it’s unpleasant.”

  “Yeah. No one’s exactly begging for vampires to go around biting them.”

  “Oh, believe me,” Jenna said, “some people do.”

  An uncomfortable silence hung in the air. I quickly changed the subject. “So, that day I came here, when Valkas ripped that guy’s heart out, where were you? I thought I’d find you up at the chateau, but…”

  “No, I was actually down on the beach. I was lucky enough not to witness that.”

  “The beach?” I suddenly remembered seeing a couple sitting down there while I was flying over the island. Jenna’s hair was shorter, and she’d put on some muscle since the last time I saw her, so I hadn’t recognized her from above. “Who was that guy you were with?”

  She shot me a confused expression, as if to ask how I knew. Then she stood and started for the door. “Come on, Rach. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  I followed behind her in bare feet along one of the trails. Laughter broke through the trees, and I heard the sound of water splashing in the distance. It wasn’t long before the forest opened and I saw a group of people gathered where the trail ended. Jenna and I stepped out onto a wide, rocky surface that rose about fifteen feet out of the water. Moss and grass covered the ground, and a tall tree hung over the edge of the rock, where a guy in swim trunks was swinging from a rope. He let go and flailed his arms as he plummeted toward the water. People around him cheered and clapped.

  “Hey, Jenna!” A guy holding a beer approached us. He had six-pack abs, long blond hair tied into a bun at the base of his neck, and a small amount of facial hair on his chin. He looked like a hippie, but a sexy hippie.

  “Hey, Ronark,” Jenna greeted, gesturing to me. “This is my sister, Rachel.”

  “A pleasure,” he said, extending his hand out to me.

  “Call me Rae,” I said, shaking his hand. “So, Ronark? That’s an interesting name.”

  “It’s a surname,” he said. “Elijah just doesn’t sound as cool, you know?”

  “I think Elijah is a good name,” I told him.

  Ronark laughed. “You wanna take your chances on the rope, Rae?”

  I glanced over to the girl doing a backflip off of it. It actually looked kind of fun.

  I shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

  “You have to play the game, though,” he insisted.

  “Okay, I’m intrigued. What’s the game?”

  “It’s a variation of Truth or Dare,” Jenna explained. “If you step up to the rope, you have to do whatever challenge the person behind you gives you, or you don’t get to go again. We go until there’s only one person left.”

  I smirked. “Challenge accepted.”

  I stepped up to the line behind a girl with dark skin and shoulder-length black hair. Ronark took the spot behind me, with Jenna behind him. The dark-haired girl glanced back at me after grabbing the rope.

  “You have to give her a dare,” Ronark explained.

  “Um, okay…” I thought about it for a moment. “No using your legs?”

  She smirked. “Easy.”

  She held high up on the rope, took a running start, and jumped off the end of the rock. She went soaring through the air and pencil-dived feet-first into the water.

  The rope came swinging back to me, and I grabbed it out of the air. “What’s my challenge, Ronark?”

  He eyed me up and down, thinking. Then he threw back a gulp of beer and said, “No splash.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I complained.

  “Hey,” he said, spreading his arms wide. “No one said the challenges had to be fair.”

  “Fine. I’ve got this.”

  At least twenty pairs of eyes were watching me. Holding firmly on to the rope, I kicked off the rock. As I reached the peak of my swing, I pulled my legs upward and aimed my head toward the water. Mid-jump, I shifted into a raven. Cool water rushed over my beak, then my feathers. I spread my wings out under water, and for a moment, it felt like I was flying again. I quickly shifted back to human form and kicked my feet. My head broke the surface of the water, and I took a deep breath.

  All around me came a chorus of oohs and ahs.

  “Did that count?” someone in the water asked.

  “It totally counted,” someone else replied.

  “Is that allowed?” another person responded.

  I looked up to Ronark on the rock, beaming at him. It sounded like I’d completed the challenge.

  He sighed, but there was a smile on his face. “I’ll give it to her.”

  A few girls in the water cheered for me.

  “What’s my challenge, Jenna?” Ronark asked.

  She crossed her arms and smirked. “You know.”

  He dropped his shoulders. “Seriously? Again?”

  “If you didn’t want to do it, why’d you stand in front of me in line?” she challenged.

  Ronark rolled his eyes and handed her his beer. “Fine. Hold my beer.”

  “Famous last words,” she teased.

  Ronark sighed and reached for the waistband of his swim trunks. Before I could look away, his trunks had fallen to his ankles and his package was out there in the open for everyone to see. He was seriously blessed in that department. People all around us whistled and hollered.

  “Ronark the Magnificent, everyone!” Jenna announced, gesturing to him like he was a trophy prize.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said sarcastically, flipping her off. Then he sprinted to the edge of the rock, jumped to grab the rope, and flipped into the water. He broke the surface a second later, while people continued to cheer. After pushing wet hair out of his eyes, he held up two middle fingers to everyone. “You all can go screw yourselves!”

  “With that image in my mind?” the guy closest to him joked. “No way!”

  Ronark started swimming toward him, and the guy quickly made a beeline for the edge of the rock, where there was a slope leading back up to the top.

  “Ew!” he cried. “Keep your dick away from me, man.”

  Ronark climbed out of the water and started chasing after him. His bare butt was on full display. I couldn’t help but laugh. Even in the midst of everything that these people had gone through, they found a way to make the most of a bad situation.

  Jenna took a swig of Ronark’s beer, then jumped for the rope and did a flip into the water. Once she broke the surface, she made her way over to where I was treading water.

  “Having fun?” she asked.

  “It’s the most fun I’ve had all week,” I replied, stating the obvious. The last time I’d gone swimming was at Genevieve’s lake house. The thought instantly made me think of Venn, and my hear
t sank. I missed him so much. I wished he was here right now—or rather, that I was with him.

  “You okay?” Jenna asked.

  I nodded to reassure her. “Yeah, I just miss my boyfriend.”

  “Aww,” she said genuinely, like it was sweet. “Come on. We have work to do.”

  “Work?” I asked.

  “I didn’t drag you out here just to catch a glimpse of Ronark’s manhood.”

  “Oh, but it was a fun show,” I joked.

  “I know.” She smiled mischievously before leading me back to dry land.

  Ronark returned from out of the trees, snatched up his swim trunks, and slipped them on. A guy in the water groaned in jest.

  “Show’s over, Brad,” Ronark snapped playfully.

  A few girls laughed and splashed Brad. He quickly retaliated.

  Ronark grabbed his beer from off the rock and downed the rest of it, then made his way over to Jenna and me. “You drank my beer,” he accused her.

  She shrugged. “You put it in my hand.”

  “I should’ve known better,” he admitted. “I’m going to grab another one.”

  “When you’re done, we need to talk,” Jenna said.

  “Ooh,” a guy sang as he passed by. “Someone’s in the doghouse.”

  “Shut up!” Ronark snapped back. “It’s not like that. You want one, Rae?”

  “Nah, I’m good,” I replied.

  “Jenna?” Ronark asked on his way to the cooler.

  She shrugged. “Might as well.”

  Ronark returned and handed Jenna a beer. She cocked her head, and we followed her into the woods. We walked until we were far enough away from the swimming hole that we could hardly hear the hoots and hollers anymore. Jenna sat on a fallen log and took a sip of beer. I sat beside her, while Ronark leaned against a tree.

  “What’s up?” he asked casually.

  Jenna got straight to the point. “We need your help.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “I’m intrigued. Go on.”

  “Out of everyone on this island, you’ve been here the longest. You know Valkas best. If we wanted to…” Jenna exchanged a quick glance with me. I didn’t like where this was going. “If we wanted to steal something valuable from him, you’d know where to find it.”

  Ronark smirked and nodded. “You girls are entering dangerous territory.”

  “He’s right, Jenna,” I said. “I don’t know about this.”

  She kept her eyes on Ronark, ignoring my statement. “If it works, we all go free.”

  His face lit up, but it quickly reverted to normal. “Nobody goes free on this island, sweet cheeks. There’s only one way off, and it ain’t pretty.”

  “Unless you happened to have access to the one thing that could kill Valkas,” she replied.

  Ronark pressed his lips together, looking skeptical. “And what might that be?”

  I could tell he didn’t believe her. As far as anyone else knew, Valkas couldn’t be killed. Jenna glanced to me. Even though I could tell she trusted Ronark, she was deliberately vague.

  “That’s for us to know and you to find out,” she said.

  Ronark laughed and tipped his bottle to his lips.

  “It’s true,” Jenna snapped.

  He went completely still and slowly lowered the bottle. “You can really kill him?”

  She nodded. “He has a dagger that can be used to stop him. Do you know what he would’ve done with it? Hidden it? Destroyed it?”

  “Destroyed it, maybe…” Ronark said in thought. He began pacing back and forth in front of us. “But how do you destroy a dagger? You could break it, but the shards could still kill you. Or melt it down, but where would he find the means on this island? Besides, if it’s infused with magic, it might not be able to be destroyed. He might send it off the island, but… no, I think I know exactly what he’d do with it.”

  He stopped pacing and turned to look at us, a bright expression on his face.

  “Well…?” Jenna pressed.

  “It’s not going to be easy to get,” Ronark said. “Nearly impossible, even.”

  It was like he could read my mind.

  “Just tell us,” Jenna insisted.

  He sighed. “He’s got it on him.”

  “Of course,” I muttered.

  It sounded so much like him. Keep your friends close but your enemies closer kind of thing. Valkas wouldn’t trust that weapon anywhere else but where he could keep a constant eye on it.

  I turned to Jenna. “Look, this party was fun, but that’s it. At some point, I have to accept that I’m a blood slave now and I’m never going to see my friends again. This plan is never going to work.”

  “You don’t know that,” she countered. “The least we can do is try.”

  “Our odds are next to none,” I pointed out.

  “I thought the same thing about seeing you again, Rachel. I never thought I would.” Jenna’s eyes pleaded with me.

  “Yeah, but this…” I shook my head.

  “What’s the worst that could happen?” she argued.

  She had a point. I could die trying, but what did that matter? Valkas had to be planning worse for me anyway. Might as well go out with a bang.

  “I… I guess it’s worth a shot,” I admitted. “As long as you realize it probably won’t work.”

  “Don’t say that,” Jenna insisted sternly. “If Ronark’s right, all you have to do is get him alone.”

  I pressed my lips together in thought. “I guess that’s pretty easy if he decides to feed on me again.”

  Ronark scoffed. “Not unless you want to get yourself killed. Where do you think he’s keeping it? On his belt? In his boot? On a sheath strapped to his thigh? You only get one guess, sweet cheeks—”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “And if you don’t guess correctly, it’s game over,” he concluded.

  Jenna glanced between the two of us nervously. Her plan was already starting to crumble. “So, what do we do?”

  Ronark turned and gazed off into the forest, taking another sip of beer. “Wait for the end?”

  “Oh, don’t even with me!” Jenna shot to her feet and stomped over to Ronark. She grabbed him by the shoulder and forced him to turn around and look at her. “You have not given up.”

  “What makes you say that?” he challenged. “I’ve been here eight years, snatched during my first shift before anyone even knew what shifters were! I never got to finish college. I don’t even know what the outside world is like now, except what I’ve heard from the rest of you. What’s there to go back to?”

  “Come on, Ronark,” Jenna pleaded. “I know you don’t truly feel that way.”

  “Oh, yeah? And how come you think you know me so well?”

  Jenna stared him in the eyes and softened her tone. “Because we wouldn’t be having this conversation if you thought that. You’re always telling me there’s more than this.”

  “Those are just hopes and dreams,” he said.

  “Exactly,” Jenna replied. “You’re the one who told me I get to choose how I react. This is it. This is my decision.”

  Ronark’s shoulders fell. “When’d you become the smart one, Collins?”

  She smiled. “The day I met you, Eli.”

  “Oh, come on,” he complained. “You know I hate it when you call me that.”

  “Okay, okay.” She held her hand up in surrender. “I’ll drop the pet name for good, but you have to help us.”

  Ronark pressed his lips together. “You two really think you can do this?”

  “No.” Jenna looked to me. “I know we can.”

  Her confidence in me was astounding.

  Slowly, a grin spread across Ronark’s face. “Now that’s the kind of attitude I’m talking about. But you’re going to need at least four or five shifters to take him on.”

  “Why?” I asked. I couldn’t believe we were actually going to go through with this.

  Ronark shrugged. “Conservative estimate. He’s strong. A g
ood shifter or two might be able to take him on, but you need more than just a distraction. You need to immobilize him.”

  “So we gather a team and sneak in during the day while everyone’s asleep?” I guessed.

  “No, no.” Ronark quickly shot my idea down. “Too risky. There are guards stationed in every hallway.”

  I furrowed my brow. “Not the last time I was in there.”

  “When was that?” Ronark cocked an eyebrow.

  “Um… the day of the incident, the one where that guy died.”

  Ronark scoffed. “You got lucky. Valkas corralled his guards to deal with that security issue. On any given day, you’d run into at least four guards before you hit Valkas’s room.”

  “So we create a distraction,” Jenna offered.

  “No. I think I might know something that could work better.” Ronark sat on the log beside me, and Jenna joined him on his other side. We both leaned in close while he whispered, “Valkas’s Awakening Ball is coming up in just under a week.”

  “Awakening Ball?” I asked.

  “It’s a celebration he holds every year to honor himself,” Ronark explained. “Dumb, really, but the Soulless eat it right up. It’s the anniversary of the day he escaped the island.”

  “How’s that going to help us get close to him?” Jenna asked.

  “Each year, he puts on this grand march ceremony where blood slaves carry him into the ballroom on one of those big carriage-like things with the poles. You know what I’m talking about, right?”

  Jenna nodded. “It’s called a litter.”

  “Right. I just so happen to know the vampire who coordinates the whole thing.” By the way he said it, it sounded like he was her blood slave. “I can make sure we’re on that list to carry him in.”

  Jenna smiled mischievously. “And we strike before he ever makes his grand entrance.”

  “Bingo,” Ronark confirmed.

  “Are you sure that’s going to work, though?” I questioned. “That he’ll actually be alone?”

  “Darling, I’ve been watching these things go down for years. Valkas is so vain he wants everyone to witness his grand entrance. I assure you we can get him alone beforehand.”

  “What about me?” I asked. “Valkas knows I’m a threat. He’s not going to let me alone with him without his witch bodyguard present to play puppet on me.”