A Shade of Vampire 32: A Day of Glory
Bella Forrest
Contents
Also by Bella Forrest
Copyright
The “New Generation” Names List
1. Bastien
2. Mona
3. Yuraya
4. Grace
5. River
6. Grace
7. Victoria
8. Mona
9. Victoria
10. Bastien
11. Victoria
12. Bastien
13. Derek
14. Ben
15. Bastien
16. Victoria
17. Bastien
18. Ben
19. Ben
20. Ben
21. Ben
22. Atticus
23. Ben
24. Ben
25. Atticus
26. Lawrence
27. Grace
28. Ben
29. Atticus
30. Ben
31. Lawrence
32. Lawrence
33. Lawrence
34. Derek
35. Lawrence
36. Ben
37. Lawrence
38. Derek
39. Lawrence
40. Derek
41. Grace
42. Sofia
Read more by Bella Forrest!
Also by Bella Forrest
THE GENDER GAME
The Gender Game
A SHADE OF VAMPIRE SERIES
Series 1: Derek & Sofia’s story
A Shade of Vampire (Book 1)
A Shade of Blood (Book 2)
A Castle of Sand (Book 3)
A Shadow of Light (Book 4)
A Blaze of Sun (Book 5)
A Gate of Night (Book 6)
A Break of Day (Book 7)
Series 2: Rose & Caleb’s story
A Shade of Novak (Book 8)
A Bond of Blood (Book 9)
A Spell of Time (Book 10)
A Chase of Prey (Book 11)
A Shade of Doubt (Book 12)
A Turn of Tides (Book 13)
A Dawn of Strength (Book 14)
A Fall of Secrets (Book 15)
An End of Night (Book 16)
Series 3: Ben & River’s story
A Wind of Change (Book 17)
A Trail of Echoes (Book 18)
A Soldier of Shadows (Book 19)
A Hero of Realms (Book 20)
A Vial of Life (Book 21)
A Fork of Paths (Book 22)
A Flight of Souls (Book 23)
A Bridge of Stars (Book 24)
Series 4: A Clan of Novaks
A Clan of Novaks (Book 25)
A World of New (Book 26)
A Web of Lies (Book 27)
A Touch of Truth (Book 28)
An Hour of Need (Book 29)
A Game of Risk (Book 30)
A Twist of Fates (Book 31)
A SHADE OF DRAGON TRILOGY
A Shade of Dragon 1
A Shade of Dragon 2
A Shade of Dragon 3
A SHADE OF KIEV TRILOGY
A Shade of Kiev 1
A Shade of Kiev 2
A Shade of Kiev 3
BEAUTIFUL MONSTER DUOLOGY
Beautiful Monster 1
Beautiful Monster 2
For an updated list of Bella’s books, please visit her website: www.bellaforrest.net
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Copyright © 2016 by Bella Forrest
Cover design inspired by Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations LLC
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The “New Generation” Names List
Arwen: (daughter of Corrine and Ibrahim - witch)
Benedict:(son of Rose and Caleb - human)
Brock: (son of Kiev and Mona – half warlock)
Grace: (daughter of Ben and River – half fae and half human)
Hazel: (daughter of Rose and Caleb – human)
Heath: (son of Jeriad and Sylvia – half dragon and half human)
Ruby: (daughter of Claudia and Yuri – human)
Victoria: (daughter of Vivienne and Xavier – human)
Bastien
I woke up to the feel of Victoria’s bare body pressed against mine—her scent tantalizing my senses, her gentle breathing. As consciousness trickled through me, I remembered what had happened. I had made Victoria mine.
Imagining waking up like this with Victoria every day filled me with joy I’d never thought I would have a taste of.
I glanced down at her beautiful sleeping face, her lips slightly parted. I claimed those lips, drawing her awake alongside me.
Her eyes blinked open. It took her a few seconds to focus… and then she was sharing my smile.
I was in such a daze, lost in my new mate, that it was only when she asked the time that reality came slamming back.
Oh, my.
Untwining from Victoria, I slid out of bed and hurried to the window. Judging by the position of the sun in the sky, hours had passed since we had first locked ourselves in here.
Yuraya.
My heart stopped beating as I remembered my cousin. Grabbing Victoria, I quickly pulled some clothes over her while wrapping a garment around my waist. Then I hurried with her to Yuraya’s cabin at the bottom of the boat. The last time I had entered it, she was still unconscious, I had been in such a hurry to complete my bonding with Victoria that I could not remember whether I had left the door ajar or closed. Now, it was closed.
Having no idea how much time had passed, I had to hope that Cecil had remained alert to continue feeding her the weed.
But as I stepped inside, it was clear he hadn’t.
The spot where Yuraya had been resting was empty. There was no trace of her anywhere in the room.
“Oh, no,” Victoria gasped, her grip around my arm tightening.
Where is she?
Feeling more afraid for Victoria than ever, I hurried up the staircase, keeping her behind me. Reaching the sunny deck, I glanced around cautiously.
Noticing nothing immediately suspicious, I tentatively called out, “Cecil?”
No answer.
Oh, fates, don’t let that woman have gotten to Cecil. No, no, no.
As we hurried to Cecil’s control cabin, I was expecting to see his body a mangled mess… but it wasn’t.
He was lying on the bench, taking a nap. Or rather, a deep sleep. He was snoring loudly.
I stared at him, then gripped his shoulders and shook him awake.
“Cecil!” I said, rousing the old man. “Yuraya! She’s gone!”
“Wh-What?” He rubbed his eyes.
“How long have you been sleeping?” I asked him.
“I-I don’t know,” he said slowly, his brows knotting. “I was so tired. Once we had gotten a fair distance away from The Dunes I felt unbearably sleepy. I had not slept properly in a long time.”
This was the absolute worst time that he could’ve picked to sleep, but I could hardly lay any blame on him. I should not have fallen asleep. But our bonding had been more exhausting than I had thought it might be. It had tired me out, body, mind and soul. Both Victoria and I couldn’t help but fall into slumber, losing consciousness before we had even realized it.
“So what now?” Victoria whispered.
Still holding her hand, I raced to the other end of the deck and glanced down at
the balcony, just in case Yuraya might’ve been hiding there for some reason. She wasn’t.
Then we headed back down to the lower decks and searched every cabin thoroughly, fearing she might be playing a game of hide-and-seek.
She wasn’t.
She was nowhere on the boat.
She had just… vanished.
The most surprising thing about all of this was that Victoria was still alive. Or that I was, for that matter. Surely, after waking from her stupor, Yuraya would have searched the ship. She must’ve seen Victoria and me lying naked in each other’s arms. I could only imagine what that would have done to her.
She should have been seething. Ready to rip us both to shreds.
But she hadn’t. She had gone.
“What could’ve happened?” Victoria asked, gazing at me wide-eyed.
I exhaled a breath. “I don’t know,” I replied.
Though something told me we had definitely not seen the last of her…
Mona
There were a lot of worse places Brock and I could have been stuck waiting in the supernatural dimension. The Woodlands was beautiful, and it was a land that was fairly familiar to me, due to my prior involvement with the black witches. It wasn’t difficult for Brock and me to locate fresh water and food to keep us going.
I also enjoyed the opportunity to have some quality time with my son. We were usually both so busy and often running in different directions, that time together was hard to come by. If only Kiev was here—then we could have called it a family outing. I guessed that he would be wrapped up in whatever the League’s latest misadventures were.
Not that my husband was a picnic kind of guy. His old age had made him a typical man in that sense. When he wanted to relax, he liked the convenient, familiar surroundings of home.
As Brock and I sat perched on a branch, eating a snack of fleshy pink fruits, our pleasant conversation was interrupted by a chorus of shrieking. Shrieking that chilled me to the bone. That sort of shrieking wasn’t something you heard from someone unless they were in severe pain, maybe even dying.
Dropping the fruit, Brock and I left the branch and hurtled in the direction of the noise. We soon realized that it was coming from Blackhall Mountain.
Arriving above the entrance, we found ourselves gazing down at a nightmarish scene. Giant black wolves were attacking a group of much smaller ones, who appeared to be trying to defend their lair.
Then I realized that they were not just attacking the Blackhalls… They were eating them.
“It’s the Mortclaws,” Brock said, his breath hitching. “Now do you believe that they are still cannibals?”
My voice caught in my throat. I had been reluctant to interfere with the Mortclaws until now because, first, their preference of wife for their son was a family affair, and second, I’d had no proof that they were still cannibals. But now that I saw this… abomination… I couldn’t simply stand still and watch.
“Hey!” I roared down. The first thing I wanted to do was grab their attention, distract them from biting into those poor wolves.
But it didn’t work. Only a few of them glanced up briefly before immediately stooping back down to their meals.
All right. If this is how you want to play things…
Mustering my power to my fingertips, I hovered down and began to freeze the Mortclaws one by one—attempting to catch them when their jaws were not closed around a victim. Brock assisted me, and once we had stunned every one of them—which included freezing their eyeballs—I looked to my son.
“You can help me now,” I told him. “Let’s line them all up at the edge of the woods.”
Brock was quick to assist. Soon, every one of the Mortclaws lay in frozen positions by the trees. Though their limbs were stiff and immobile, I had let them retain use of their mouths and voices. They exploited their ability to speak to the maximum as they hurled insults and threats at me.
These folks really did not take kindly to interruptions at dinnertime.
Brock and I hurried to assist the injured Blackhalls, healing as many as we could. But some, sadly, didn’t make it. They passed away before we could assist them.
Poor Bastien. This was going to break his heart.
Assuming Victoria ever found him.
Once the Blackhalls were safely back inside their lair to recover from the trauma—their fallen taken in with them, presumably to hold some kind of funeral ceremony—Brock and I returned our attention to the monsters.
My son glanced at me, raising his brows. “So… what do we do with them now?” he asked.
I blew out. That is a good question…
Yuraya
My chest was on fire as I hurtled back to The Woodlands. Bastien. He had betrayed me. He had betrayed me in my most vulnerable state, just after I had expressed my love to him. Just after he had told me that he wanted me, too. I felt mortally wounded. My soul felt shattered. I didn’t know how I would ever recover from this… but revenge was a good way to start.
It had been such a great temptation to tear at that hussy’s throat the second I saw her naked form entwined in my betrothed’s arms. I hated that I sensed a connection with the human girl, a pull deep inside me, toward her, as though she were a Mortclaw herself. But my mind was too turbulent to pay it much attention. She could have been my sister, and I’d still want to slit her throat.
I had detected an energy around the couple, almost an aura, that made me believe they had already bonded, even though I had not been there to witness it. Bonded. That meant that Bastien was tarnished. That he could never truly be mine.
Somehow or other, I had managed to hold myself back from murdering her then. This was a job best shared with Bastien’s mother. I would fetch Sendira, and the two of us could mutilate her together. The experience would be far more satisfying for the both of us.
What was that man thinking, going against his mother’s wishes?
Did Sendira not already warn him that if he ever saw that human again, the girl would incur the wrath of the entire Mortclaw tribe?
He must’ve lost his mind to see her again. Well, he would pay dearly for this transgression… if it was the last thing I did.
On reaching The Woodlands, I used my senses to locate my tribe. My brain had been telling me to head immediately for our home—our mountain lair—but my senses led me in a different direction. I soon realized that I was heading toward the Blackhalls’ lair.
But arriving over the clearing in front of their mountain entrance, I stopped short.
My family. All of them. Paralyzed and lined up in a row. Before them stood a blonde woman and a young man. Witches.
I backed away, my heart pounding. I couldn’t be seen or they might trap me too.
I hurried around the mountain, out of sight, and touched down on a rock to contemplate what my next move should be.
My family was in need—including my mother and father. But what could I do to help, all alone? I was no match for them, when they had managed to overpower my entire tribe. Maybe, with Bastien’s help, I’d stand a better chance.
I wasn’t sure what else to do other than lift back in the air and hurtle in the opposite direction, once again toward the ocean.
It seems I will have to take this into my own hands after all…
Grace
When I woke up after the long rest Corrine insisted I take, I was still aching all over. My nose, especially. It had been mangled by the transformation and I suspected that I would have to wear a bandage over it for a while to come. Corrine said she could attempt to use her magic on it, but it was best to let it heal by itself.
I sat up, rubbing my eyes before inspecting the rest of my body. Corrine had wrapped up the tips of my fingers and toes with bandages, so that I didn’t have to get freaked out every time I looked down and saw my nails missing. She had assured me that they would grow back fine, they just needed time. The same went for my missing hair. Though I was holding out hope that the jinn might be able to make that grow
back more quickly.
But whatever the case, the state of my body could hardly get me down right now. I was just so relieved to finally be back. Ever since I’d been bitten by the Bloodless, I’d spent each minute either living in fear that I would turn, or experiencing the terror of being trapped as a Bloodless. Even now, I found my mind returning to that fearful state because it was so engrained in my consciousness.
I breathed in deeply. I’m fine now. I’m safe. And so is Lawrence.
I was brimming with excitement to see him again. We had been apart for so long it would feel like rediscovering one another.
I slid my legs off the bed and stood up—at least, I tried to stand up. I felt too weak, in spite of the bowl of broth Corrine had forced me to eat before I fell asleep.
Then I noticed that somebody had thoughtfully left a wheelchair at the end of my bed. Corrine probably left it in case I woke up and needed to use the bathroom by myself.
I lowered myself into the wheelchair and rolled myself to the bathroom. I stopped in front of the sink. Gripping hold of its edge, I pulled myself upward, keeping myself propped against it while I brushed my teeth and washed my face. At least my teeth had become normal again—for the most part. They seemed to be slightly sharper at the tips than I remembered them being, unless that was my imagination.
I sank back down into the chair, wheeled myself through the bedroom, and then into the hallway outside.
The sight of my father and Lawrence talking on a bench brought a smile to my face. They soon noticed me as I rolled toward them, their expressions mirroring mine.
“How are you feeling?” my father asked.
“Weak,” I said, realizing how husky my voice was. “And achy. But I’m okay. I’ll pull through.”
He bent down to hug me and kiss my cheek.
“Where is Mom?” I asked him.
“She’ll, uh, be here soon.”
My eyes turned to Lawrence.
My father took the hint and said, “I’ll give you two some time alone.”
He resumed his seat on the bench, even as Lawrence moved around me and began to push my wheelchair into my room.
A Shade of Vampire 32 Page 1