Windswept sailor… Perhaps this is how he used to dress when he was aboard his family’s ships.
Whatever he had done, he looked handsome as heck. I found myself breathless beneath his warm brown gaze.
A smile formed on his lips as, wordlessly, he walked up to me and held out a hand. I took it and he pulled me to my feet. I looked at him questioningly. He just continued to hold my gaze as he slid his hands down my waist and rested them on the small of my back. He leaned in, breathing in my scent deeply as he pressed his lips against the most sensitive part of my neck, just beneath my ear. His kiss was slow, tender, intense, his mouth remaining against my skin even as he began leading me into a dance. I felt my cheeks flush red as he finally raised his head, the expression on his face now serious as he stared deep into my eyes. My heart beat against my chest like a drum. I gulped.
“Uh… Hello, Caleb.”
Still, he didn’t respond. He just remained with his gaze fixed on my face, as though he were committing my every detail into his memory. Since there was no music, I tried to imagine in my head what tune we might be dancing to. Whatever tune it was, when it finished, Caleb slowed us to a stop. His hands slid down my arms and stopped at my hands, allowing me to twine my fingers with his.
I cocked my head to one side. What is all this, Caleb?
Finally, he broke the silence.
“You are my life now, Rose,” he said. “Barely a minute goes by when I’m not pinching myself that I’m here with you. But I want to be here with you. I want to be here with you all your life, however long that might be…”
The blood pounded in my ears as Caleb let go of my hands and lowered himself to one knee. He pulled out the most beautiful ring I had ever seen in my life. Coated with silver and studded with a fiery ruby, it dazzled even in the pale moonlight. My breath hitched. My eyelids grew hot as tears began to well behind them.
“Caleb,” I gasped.
“Rose,” he said, his voice husky, his brown eyes never leaving mine. He took my hand and placed a gentle kiss over the back of it. “Will you marry me?”
My heart drowning in joy, I barely knew what I was doing as I grabbed his hands and pulled him to his feet. I hurled myself against him, wrapping my arms around him as tightly as I could and crushing my lips against his, as if trying to meld my body with his.
Clearly, he hadn’t been expecting such a forceful reaction on my part. The sudden weight of my body against him sent him staggering back and we both fell with a splash into the ocean. I feared for a moment that he might’ve dropped the ring, but he hadn’t.
“Should I take that as a yes?” he asked, his voice tinged with laughter.
“Yes,” I choked, even as I swallowed a mouthful of seawater.
A grin splitting his face, he held out the ruby ring and slid it onto my finger. His hands found my hips and, sliding my body against his, he raised my head higher above the waves. I caught his lips in mine and kissed him again and again, the seawater on my face mixing with my tears.
Caleb hauled us both out of the glistening sea. He laid me down gently on the wooden floorboards of the jetty. His hands either side of my shoulders, he crouched down over me and tasted my mouth, his tongue brushing against mine.
Playfulness sparked in his eyes as he drew away and flicked back his soaking wet hair. “Well, Aunty Corrine’s efforts didn’t last long…”
Chapter 37: Aiden
Ever since Claudia had told me that Adelle had broken things off with Eli, I couldn’t stop feeling guilty about it. After all, I was the cause of his pain.
After returning to The Shade, I spent some time with Kailyn, and then I decided I couldn’t put it off any longer. I needed to visit Adelle and, for the first time since I’d known her, have a completely open and straightforward conversation with her.
But I didn’t want to do this without first talking to Kailyn about it. I didn’t want to hide any of this from her any longer.
We were both sitting on the front porch enjoying the view of the island. My arm was wrapped around her while she rested her head on my shoulder.
“Kailyn,” I said softly. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“What is it?” She raised her head and looked at me.
“Everything I’m about to tell you, you must promise to keep to yourself. You mustn’t tell anyone, especially not Eli.”
“You can trust me.”
I breathed in deeply. “It’s about Adelle. She recently broke up with Eli… I suspect because of me.”
Kailyn’s eyes widened.
I placed my hand over hers. “I believe she has affection for me, perhaps has had for some time. When she saw me with you that day on the cliff, I believe it brought her feelings to the surface in a way that she’s finding hard to handle.”
I could tell from her expression what question she had in her mind now: Did I love Adelle?
I saved her the pain of asking. “I… I can’t deny that not so long ago, I was besotted with Adelle. Due to unlucky timing, I never asked her out. I had been intending to, but I was too slow. Eli got to her first.” I leaned forward and kissed Kailyn’s warm cheek. “But then you came along. I choose you over Adelle, Kailyn. And the only reason I’m telling you all this about Adelle is because I didn’t want to hide it from you. I didn’t want you to find out later on somehow and think that I wasn’t being fully honest with you.”
Kailyn nodded, giving me a small smile. “I appreciate that, Aiden… but how do you know that she dumped Eli because of you?”
“Adelle visited me some days ago, here in this cabin. She expressed that she held deeper affection for me than him.“
“Oh.”
“Do you mind if I go and visit her? I feel I need to close things off with her. Adelle needs to understand that I have moved on and not hold out hope. I’m hoping to persuade her to forget me and get back with Eli.”
“Of course, Aiden. You don’t need my permission to go and see her.”
“Thank you.” I drew her closer and kissed her lips before standing up and walking down the steps.
I wound around the mountain cabins in our area until I had reached Adelle’s doorstep. Despite myself, I felt butterflies in my stomach at the thought of her standing there.
Get a grip, man.
I climbed the stairs and rapped against the door. Then I took a step back and held my breath. Footsteps sounded behind the door. There was a click and it swung open. Adelle stood before me, wearing a nightdress, her long auburn hair braided and hanging down one shoulder. I could tell that she had been crying; her eyes appeared glassy, her eyelids red.
She looked shocked to see me.
“Aiden?”
“I’m sorry if this isn’t a good time. But we need to talk.”
“O-okay.” She stepped back and allowed me entrance. “Take a seat.”
I sat down on the sofa while she sank into an armchair opposite me.
My heartbeat quickened even as I looked into her blue eyes. “Adelle, I’m going to tell you now what I’ve never told you before… what I held back during all those years we spent together as friends. I loved you. Deeply.”
Her cheeks flushed red, her eyelids fluttering. She looked down at her feet.
“Had you not started going out with Eli,” I continued. “I likely would’ve asked you out. You may remember, soon after you started dating Eli, I was avoiding you. You wondered how I even knew that the two of you had gotten together because you said you hadn’t told anyone yet. I’d said that Yuri had told me. That was a lie. I walked in on the two of you embracing in the lakehouse.”
Her lips parted.
“And do you know why I was there that day? Because I had intended to finally express my feelings to you.”
I breathed out. A wave of relief rushed through me. It felt almost therapeutic to be finally letting this all out. I’d bottled it up for so long.
A silence fell between us.
“I-I didn’t know that you loved me, Aide
n,” she said quietly. “You never gave me reason to believe it. From your behavior, I thought you were deliberately keeping me at a distance. Keeping me as your friend. I remember one time—perhaps that was the first time you had intended to ask me out—you had come to meet me outside the school, and you had wanted to take a walk with me down by the lake. Do you remember that?”
I nodded. Of course I did. That was the first attempt I’d made. But Ben had called from “Scotland” and thrown me off.
“I really thought you might have said something then,” she continued. “But the fact that you didn’t convinced me even further that I was imagining things. Since you had given me no reason to believe that you saw me as anything other than a friend, I was afraid to voice what I felt for you, because I didn’t want to ruin what we had. But now, it just seems that you were afraid… as I was.”
I ran a hand down my face. So she did have deeper feelings for me even then.
“It’s unfortunate, Adelle.” I said. “But I didn’t come here to just discuss the past. I came here because I need you to understand that… I’m with Kailyn. I have moved on. You should too.”
She bit her lower lip, nodding slowly.
“Eli is heartbroken,” I said. “You two seemed great together. Why don’t you return to him?”
Adelle blew out a breath. “I told him that I needed some time apart. I didn’t tell him that I had stopped loving him. I do still love him. It just didn’t seem fair to him to stay with him even while I was having these feelings for you. It felt like I was deceiving him, even cheating on him somehow. It was dishonest. Before I can move back in with him, I need to sort myself out.”
I nodded. “That makes sense, I suppose. But I do hope that you will return to him.”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a tissue, wiping a tear that had spilled down her cheek. Then she gave me a watery smile.
“Well, I’m glad you came by. It was good to talk. I-I can’t pretend that I don’t still hold feelings for you, but somehow it feels like a weight off my chest that we are no longer hiding things.”
“I agree.” I stood up. “And I hope after all this, we’ll be able to resume our friendship even if it never becomes anything more than that.”
She nodded, standing up too. I headed for the door and opened it. I stepped down onto the porch, looking up at her once more. We held each other’s gaze for a few moments. Then she stepped down, touched my forearm and planted a chaste kiss on my cheek.
My heart hammered against my chest, whatever blood I possessed rushing to my cheeks.
Adelle’s cheeks also grew rosy. “I hope you didn’t mind. I’ve just wanted to do that for the longest time.”
My voice caught in my throat. I backed away down the stairs. “Goodbye, Adelle.”
“Goodbye, Aiden.”
Chapter 38: Derek
Now that the rest of our council members and my daughter had returned from yet another wild escapade, I called another meeting in the Great Dome.
Sofia, Corrine and I recounted in detail our visit to the police to those who hadn’t yet heard about it. This led the discussion toward speculating on the repercussions of humans and supernaturals clashing on such a wide scale for the first time. I had already mulled over the situation so much in my mind, I found myself tuning out and losing myself in my own thoughts.
When the door burst open and Mona stormed inside, I sat bolt upright.
Kiev shot to his feet and enveloped her in an embrace. She drew away from him quickly. Her hair was disheveled, her face sweaty, as her eyes traveled around the room, falling upon each of us.
“Do any of you know a vampire called Magnus?” she asked, panting.
“Magnus? What? What happened?” several of us asked at once.
She gripped the edge of the table and sat down. “Just answer my question.”
There was a silence as each of us stared at her disbelievingly, then began racking our brains.
“Magnus who?” Vivienne asked.
“I don’t have a surname,” the witch replied. “But I do know that he must be a vampire old enough to have been alive during Lilith’s youth.”
“I knew a Magnus,” Kiev said suddenly. “He visited the Blood Keep briefly during my stay there, a long, long time ago.”
Mona gripped Kiev’s forearm, shaking it. “And?”
Kiev’s eyes narrowed as he called on his memory. “He was also a child of the Elders, like me. He would certainly have been old enough to have been around in Lilith’s younger years…”
“But if Mona doesn’t have a surname, how do we know this is the same person?” Sofia asked, her brows furrowed.
“Describe the Magnus you knew, Kiev,” Mona urged.
“He was, uh, tall. Short, darkish hair—at least at that time. I can’t remember his eye color clearly now… blue, perhaps.”
Mona nodded. “I do believe that’s him.”
“But what is all this about?” I asked, no longer able to contain my impatience.
She stood up and began pacing up and down. “I accessed Lilith’s memories.”
Kiev’s jaw dropped. “Huh?”
“When she made me a Channeler, a bond formed between us. As she probed my memories, I also had access to hers. I took a powerful memory potion to force me to recall them.” Mona stopped pacing and looked directly at Sofia and me. “We must find Magnus.”
“Find him? Why? What if he’s no longer alive?” We all began asking questions at once again.
Determination blazed in Mona’s eyes as she answered, “Magnus must still be alive if Lilith is alive.”
“Baby,” Kiev said. “Slow down. You need to explain what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Lilith was in love with a vampire named Magnus,” she said. “She used that love of an immortal to bind her to this world.”
“Lilith’s immortal?” Sofia gasped.
“No,” Mona replied. “She’s not immortal. Binding herself to an immortal’s love has allowed her to extend her lifespan far, far past its natural length, but it will wear off.”
“When?” Zinnia asked.
Mona scoffed. “I have no idea. But we can’t afford to wait around for it to happen naturally.”
Kiev looked at Mona in disbelief. “That creature, you’re telling us that she’s capable of… love?”
I was surprised to see a flicker of melancholy cross Mona’s face. “Indeed, she is,” she said, her voice softening. “The love she still holds for Magnus is what’s keeping her alive. It’s the only living thing about her—the cause of whatever breath she has left in her decrepit body. Her heart… it’s still beating with that love, even after all this time.”
Everyone was speechless for a moment as we let the witch’s words sink in.
“So what exactly are you saying?” Xavier asked. “We’d have to kill Magnus?”
Mona shook her head. “We don’t need to kill Magnus.”
“Then what?”
“We need to break Lilith’s heart.”
Chapter 39: Rhys
I stared at the giant mound of rubble where our castle had once stood. I knew who must have done this. But there was no time for anger now. I looked around at my comrades, then at the latest batch of young humans we had gathered.
We wouldn’t have much use for that castle soon anyway.
In a matter of days, our ritual would be complete and if Lilith held up her side of things, we would be abandoning both our islands here in the human realm. The Sanctuary would be our new base and, once settled there, we would create gates directly into the human realm to collect blood whenever we needed it.
I supposed that whatever witches had been in the castle when the dragons attacked would have escaped—likely back to our base in the supernatural realm.
I locked eyes with my aunt. We both nodded, understanding each other.
“Julisse,” I said, now turning to my sister. “Take these humans through the gate. If it’s too burdensome to uncov
er the one here beneath the rubble, just use the one in Stellan’s old island. As for the rest of us, we’ll head right back to human shores. We still have more blood to harvest.”
My commands were obeyed. Julisse turned her back on me and prepared to start herding the adolescents while the rest of us vanished.
When we reappeared again, we were standing a dozen feet away from a tall brown building. Above the door was a sign that read Woods Home Orphanage.
As we approached the building, I visualized in my mind—as I had done a hundred times already—the ritual being successful. I pictured the thousands of Ancient spirits surfacing from their graves. Of course, they would not remain with us forever—it was impossible to truly bring a person back from the dead. But even as spirits they would possess enough power to breathe life back into our kind and reinstate our dominance.
And this time, even if it meant sacrificing every human and other being lesser than us, we would make sure it stayed that way.
* * *
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