by Laken Cane
“Shane,” I whispered.
Then I fought.
Silverlight and I, we fought.
We fought hard.
But in the end, it was just me and a sword. The rifters had been created to want my blood. To crave it. My blood was their survival. They were vicious in their need.
So I fought, but in the end, they took me down.
Hundreds of them, but really sort of…structured. The first ones who bit me reeled away, cried out, and passed blood to the second wave. They fed from me, and then they fed each other.
Then Rhys—the dragon—gave a battle scream that made me forget the pain of my dying, and he began to paint the land with fire.
He purged the island of rifters with his cleansing flames, and maybe I felt the heat for one second before I fell into bloodless, gaping darkness, and—
Chapter Thirty-Four
The Werebull
I’d let her go.
I’d let her die.
Oh, fuck, I’d let them kill her.
I shifted and ran, intending to swim to the island and stand with her, to make sure she didn’t die alone. I would die with her.
She’d told me to stay alive, but there was no alive without her.
But Himself, the fucking king, had taken her from me. Rhys had carried her to her death. Clayton had slid his bitch of a sword into its sheath, bowed his head, and crawled back into the deep black hole of his broken mind.
Leo had tried to save her, though. He’d jumped into the air and grabbed her, tried to steal her from Himself the way that old bastard had stolen her from me, and Himself had kicked Leo in the head.
The half-giant was still unconscious. He’d wake up, eventually. Maybe.
I’d left Clayton there to watch over him, left the rifters and vampires to their fight, and I ran.
Before I was even out of the city, rifters began passing me. The earth shook as they flew by me, their minds on one thing.
Reaching the woman.
My woman.
I roared. Hear me, Trin. I’m here. I haven’t left you. I haven’t given you up.
She wouldn’t hear me, but she’d feel me.
Amias raced by me, and then, in what seemed like slow motion, he turned to look at me, and I saw Shane’s corpse in his arms.
Then he disappeared.
If anyone could reach her, the vampire master could. He was faster than the rifters. Even carrying a dead man.
I couldn’t grieve for Shane. Not yet. I was too full of terror for Trin. She shouldn’t have to stand on that island alone and wait for rifters to eat her.
You knew from the beginning…
Yeah.
I’d known Trin was meant to save us against some fuzzy future catastrophe. But not like this.
Not like this.
And not now that she was so very fucking loved.
She’d healed something in each of us. She’d completed us. She’d been the one fucking thing we’d all needed, and now she was being taken from us.
The rifters left me in the dust. I was fast, but they were vampires—mutated vampires but vampires nonetheless—and nothing was faster than a vampire.
Except the dragon. The dragon was faster.
Amias’s vampires stayed behind. Dawn was coming, and they’d need to sleep. The sun wouldn’t get to the rifters, though. The sun wouldn’t burn them. The dragon would.
Fucking Rhys.
My horn, the horn Trin had saved, vibrated and throbbed. It honed in on the island like an antenna, long before I reached it. The sounds carried across the water, poured in through my silver horn, and slammed into my brain.
My woman. My love.
I couldn’t save her.
I ran.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The Hunter
The surviving army of vampires Trinity had raised streamed by me as they went to find a place to sleep before dawn. They hadn’t been enough. If they’d been enough, Trinity wouldn’t be on the island, waiting for the rifters to tear her apart.
I grasped Blacklight’s hilt and yanked her from her sheath, shuddering as she hissed and spat her evil and hatred. It coated and burned my flesh like sticky tar, and my rage—suppressed for so long—rose to greet it.
Blacklight struggled to attach, to take over my arm, but I’d bury the malicious bitch before I allowed that to happen. I would master her. She would not master me. Never again.
I killed seven of the vampires before they scattered and raced away.
“Don’t get too close to me, bloodsuckers,” I whispered.
They hadn’t saved her, but they were never meant to save her.
They were only meant to return.
Trinity was destined to bring them back, and she’d done that. Then they’d let her die.
The vampires were always going to use her in one way or another.
Especially Himself, that wily, powerful king of everything, lord of vampires, ruler of supernaturals. Yes, especially Himself.
And especially the master.
He raced by me, picked up Shane, then hesitated as he met my stare.
I shuddered, then stilled, and my mind quieted. There was only white noise and black shadows where I waited, eternally waited.
I could not kill Amias Sato.
He would bring her back.
He would bring her back to me.
She would not be the same. Her world would not be the same.
But he would save her. He would bring her back.
Someday.
And I slid a little deeper into my shadows, into my darkness.
I waited.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The Dragon
I delivered her to death.
I barely felt the pain of it. That pain was distant and curious. There, but muted.
I felt her on my back and recognized that she belonged there. She would always belong there.
I was the beast. The dragon. My brain was not the same. My heart was not the same.
My freedom. There were no words for it. I flew hundreds of miles before I was called back, back to carry my mate to her death. Back to burn the enemy.
I circled above, watching her.
Like the warrior she was, she stood, ready to fight. And like the sacrifice she was, she drew a blade and sliced open her arm.
They came.
The enemy streaked from the water and swarmed the island, noses in the air, sniffing, searching, as her pure blood drove them into a frenzy of desperate madness.
With the strong scent of her blood in the air, they became mindless and eager, seeking only to taste her.
And so she killed them, dozens and dozens of them, before they took her.
As she fought, the part of me that belonged to the man screamed in agony.
From my great height, I saw the end of the rifters. The island seemed to writhe and undulate as the they covered it, crowded upon it, trampled each other in their need to reach that blood, that life-giving, rifter-making blood.
The girl should know they would die, that I would kill them. She should feel their deaths. She deserved to.
So before I felt her last breath leave her body, I flew closer, and I rained fire down upon them, drew a circle of flames around them, and as they threw themselves into the fire, trying to reach the water, I felt every single one of them.
Felt them like joy, like victory, and it was sweet. I needed to burn them. It renewed me, strengthened me, dragged me deeper and deeper into the dragon I had become.
Still, as she died, my heart shattered.
I loved.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The Master
At last.
The one who was everything to me.
The one who would create peace between the vampires, the supernaturals, the humans.
She was made.
Turned.
Mine.
I bled.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The Hunter
I couldn�
�t breathe.
I’d died. Had I fucking died?
Where the fuck was Trinity? I couldn’t leave her.
Then I felt her.
Her arms around me, her lips against mine, her scent covering me, warming me. I tasted blood.
Her blood, Amias’s blood.
Bringing me peace.
Bringing me home.
I awakened.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The Bloodhunter, the pure blood, the woman, the vampire
Oh.
Oh, God.
I lived.
*Watch for the final Silverlight book, coming at the end of 2018*
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About Laken Cane
The coffee-addicted urban fantasy/paranormal and horror writer Laken Cane lives in Southern Ohio with her genius son, two Yorkies named Daphnis and Lexi, and one Golden named Chloe who rules them all.
Laken’s books:
The Rune Alexander series (currently 10 book series, book 11 in progress.)
Rune Alexander box sets/bundles
“Series Firsts” box set
The Waifwater Chronicles (2 books.)
We, the Forsaken (paranormal post-apocalyptic. You can also get this book as a gift for signing up to my mailing list. Click here.)
Harbinger Bend (paranormal romance standalone)
Silverlight series (Ongoing)
You can find me on my Facebook page, Goodreads, Instagram, Bookbub, Amazon author page, and Twitter. For a full list of links, book list, reading order, and blog, visit my WEBSITE.
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Hello awesome reader!
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