by Alicia Rades
I slapped his hand away. In my other hand, my grip tightened on the rock I’d been holding. “Don’t touch me.”
“Darling,” he snarled, leaning in close. His breath brushed across my face, sending shivers through my cheek. “I own you.”
The next moment passed in the blink of an eye, but I saw it as if it were in slow motion. Valkas’s hands shot out to wrap around me as his fangs elongated and headed toward my neck. He threw my body backward like we were a couple dancing on the clifftop and he was dipping me romantically. But there was nothing romantic about the moment.
As I felt the ground swoop out from under me, I shoved my rock upward—straight into his ribs. It was a last resort, one that I thought might slow him down… but it didn’t.
Valkas’s teeth sank into my neck, sending a needle-sharp pain across my skin. A split second later, that peaceful euphoria set in. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew this was not something to enjoy. This was a sign of the end.
I stared up at the night sky as strong emotions welled to the surface, overpowering that feeling Valkas’s bite gave me. For so many years, anger and frustration were all I knew. But this was different. It was heavier. The weight pulling on my chest was full of regret and sorrow. Somewhere along the way, everything had fallen to pieces, and it pained me to the very core to know that I wouldn’t get a chance to make things right again.
I thought of Venn, withering away to nothing in that cell. I thought of Sondra, how she’d been beaten to unconsciousness because of me. Jenna, how she’d been kidnapped and kept prisoner here all these years. Fiona, Teagan, Ryland, Ronark, Andi… all the other blood slaves on this island.
I’d come here to save them. And I didn’t.
As I thought of them, one thought broke through all the others.
At least they knew I loved them.
The weight in my chest eased at the thought, and a sense of peace washed over me. It wasn’t from Valkas’s bite, either. This peace came from inside of me.
At least if nothing else came of this, my family knew I loved them. Maybe I wouldn’t kill Valkas, and maybe the vampires would live on. They could take this world from us, destroy everything we held dear and rule as they had planned. But they would never take the moments. They would never take the feelings. They would never take us.
It was in that moment that I realized with unwavering certainty that Jenna was right. The Soulless couldn’t break me unless I let them.
At the thought, a power rose within me, a strong tingling of magic I’d never felt before. It was unlike the fire or the lightning I’d conjured in the past. This magic was hundreds of times stronger, like a nuclear bomb about to go off inside my body.
Love, I realized. This was what it was like to love someone with so much passion that you thought your heart might explode.
You should know that there’s always more than one way off an island. That’s what Genevieve had said. I didn’t know why those words came back to me in that moment, but I knew it meant something. Only… what?
Was she talking about the island in a literal sense, or was it a metaphor? And if it was a metaphor, then what did it mean?
A red-hot, searing pain entered my veins as Valkas released his venom. It felt as if someone had placed burning hot coals on my neck, turning my blood to flames. My body went completely rigid, and I longed to scream, but the cry of agony caught in my throat, unable to escape.
And that was when Genevieve’s meaning hit me.
Even when strong bridges crumble, there’s always another path to take.
She meant it as a mental island, the feeling of being stuck, alone, and hopeless. The feeling of no escape.
She was trying to tell me that magic had loopholes, that even though I’d lost the dagger, there were other ways to break the vampire curse. That had to be it.
I struggled through the pain clouding my thoughts, trying to think of what I knew about magic. A curse like this could only be broken by the witch who cast it through an object used in the original spell.
The dagger wasn’t the only thing there when the spell was cast, I suddenly realized. I recalled the vision I’d had of Valkas, how I’d sliced his hand open with the dagger and watched his blood stream into a bowl.
It took everything I had to force words out between clenched teeth. “Quod. Dico. Facies.”
At my command, Valkas went rigid. I could barely sense it over the searing venom pulsing through my body, but I saw his muscles stiffen as I spoke the incantation for the puppeteer spell I’d seen Rogers use.
Drop me, I commanded in my mind.
Suddenly, my body fell from his grasp, and I landed hard in the dirt at his feet. Valkas stood above me with wide eyes filled with fright. He otherwise looked like a statue.
I pointed my hand at him and forced him to stand straight up. Blood dripped out of his open mouth. I could see in his eyes he was struggling to close his lips, but he couldn’t.
I got to my feet. I pressed one hand against the wound on my neck and kept the other pointed at him. Rage burned behind his motionless eyes. I quickly whispered the incantation for healing, then wiped the blood from my neck.
“I remember slitting your palm,” I said. “The dagger was the obvious option, but it never was the only one, was it?”
Valkas’s eyes grew wider the more I talked.
“All I need to break this spell is something used when the spell was created. The dagger isn't the only weapon that can kill you. You, Valkas, were there,” I stated as it became clear to me what I needed to do. “Which means you're a weapon against yourself."
I forced him to pull the sharp rock from his side, then let him take control of his mouth again. His scream echoed over the cliffside like a creature howling at the moon. He brought the rock to his chest under my command. Images of all the terrible things I’d seen the Soulless do flashed through my mind, but I settled on just one…
The day I came here, when Valkas had ripped that man’s heart from his chest. After all the horrible things he’d done, Valkas deserved to know what it felt like to be one of his own victims.
“Stop it, Rachel!” he shouted. “You don’t underst—GAHHH!”
I made him press the rock into his skin. It tore through his flesh and scraped along the bone like a blade cutting through ice. It carved out a deep, long wound surrounded by raw skin running from his collarbone all the way down to his sternum. Nausea hit me at the sight of it, but I forced the bile down my throat to concentrate.
Valkas screamed like I’d never heard anyone scream before. The sound of his voice carried over the empty water like a banshee in the night.
Drop the rock, I commanded in my mind.
He did, still screaming like he couldn’t bear the pain any longer.
By the simple twitch of my finger, Valkas shoved his hand into his open chest cavity. He removed it a moment later and held up a dry, black heart.
His features contorted in a mix between disgust, fury, and terror. “You evil bit—”
The vengeance I felt toward Valkas melted away. This wasn’t about revenge anymore. This was about saving the people I loved.
I curled my hand into a tight fist, forcing him to do the same. Valkas squeezed as hard as he possibly could.
It was ironic. The same hand that gave blood to create him would be the same to destroy him.
“Biiiiitch!” he roared.
The heart turned to ash in his hand.
I released my hold on him as the ashes drifted away in the wind. Valkas gasped and took a step toward me, but his legs began to crumble beneath him. He fell to the ground, and I watched in peaceful satisfaction as the spell broke before my very eyes. Valkas reached a hand out toward me, but his fingers washed away in the wind like sand upon a beach.
He shot me one last pleading look, as if begging me to reverse the spell, to keep him alive. But I could see it in his eyes—he already knew it was over.
“How does it feel?” I asked calmly, throwing his wor
ds back at him. “Knowing this is finally the end?”
He gaped at me as his body crumbled away. It took his arms and legs first, then his body, before finally wiping away the wide-eyed expression on his face. And then he was just… gone.
Valkas’s clothes remained in a pile at my feet.
The pain of the venom rushing through my veins eased as the vampire curse broke. Relief so strong washed through me like a tidal wave hitting shore. Tears sprang to my eyes before I even knew they were coming and streamed down my face. My whole body shivered, and I dropped to my hands and knees, curling up into a ball with my forehead pressed to the grass. Deep breaths passed in and out of my lungs as I tried to regain my physical strength and process what had just happened. I couldn’t believe it.
Never again would I give up, no matter how bad the situation. Tonight proved to me that anything was possible.
Against all odds, I had finally beat Valkas.
23
“Rachel!” The sound of Jenna’s voice carried through the trees and over the cliff.
I didn't know how long I'd been kneeling there, staring down at Valkas's empty shirt, unable to believe he was truly gone. Eight years ago, he’d escaped from this island and the whole world changed. Now things could go back to normal.
I didn't even know what that looked like anymore. It felt like magic had been part of the world my whole life.
Magic. We still had magic. Of course things wouldn't go back to the way they were. Witches and shifters were still out in the open. But maybe now that the vampire curse was broken, magic wouldn't be so feared. We could embrace it, give it a different face than the horror vampires had put to it. We could use it for good.
“Rachel!” Jenna's voice came again, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“Rae!” Fiona's voice quickly followed.
“Up here!” I called.
“Rachel, oh my God.” Jenna rushed out of the trees and fell to her knees beside me. She lightly reached out to touch the tender bruises on my face, but she pulled away at the last second. “What happened?”
“I… I killed him,” I said, glancing between Fiona and Jenna. They were banged up and bruised themselves, but I didn’t notice any major injuries. “I killed Valkas.” I wasn't sure I truly believed it until I said the words out loud. “What about you? Did Ronark and Andi make it?”
Jenna dropped her gaze. “We fought off the vampires in the hall, but when we tried following you, we lost you in the chateau. We thought Rogers had led you to the ballroom. Only… when we got there, you weren't there.”
“A fight broke out,” Fiona said. “Before we knew it, all the blood slaves had joined us—shifters, human, all of them.”
“Are Ronark and Andi okay?” I repeated.
Jenna took a long breath. “Andi didn't make it. A vampire got ahold of her—”
“I don't want to know how it happened,” I interrupted.
Jenna nodded in understanding. “Ronark is fine. He's leading everyone in rounding up the Soulless.”
I instantly became more alert. I lifted my gaze and looked down the hill toward the chateau. Windows were smashed, and bodies were strewn here and there. From what I could see through the windows, people walked slowly. Everything seemed so quiet and somber compared to when I'd seen the place in an uproar earlier.
“You mean, the vampires aren't dead?” I asked. When I killed Valkas, all the vampires should've died with him. The magic keeping them alive should’ve disappeared. “I thought I broke the vampire curse.”
Fiona shot a glance at Jenna, like she didn't know how to tell me what came next. She placed a gentle hand on my shoulder and said, “You did. They just didn't die.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, bewildered. “What happened?”
“It happened all of a sudden,” Jenna explained. “We were losing people left and right, then suddenly… we just weren't. It was like the vampires lost their strength. We started winning, and they began surrendering.”
“We all kind of realized what was happening at the same time,” Fiona said. “The silver faded from their eyes, and…”
“You mean they're human again?” It didn't seem possible.
Jenna nodded. “Yes. It doesn't excuse their crimes, but—”
Before Jenna could finish, a shot of adrenaline jolted through my chest. I sprang to my feet so fast I nearly lost my balance. I clutched on to Jenna’s and Fiona's shoulders to steady myself. “Oh my God! Do you know what this means?” I didn't wait for their response before answering my own question. “Venn!”
I sprinted down the trail and back toward the chateau. Fiona and Jenna were close at my heels. Inside, we navigated through an endless labyrinth of hallways until we found the door leading to the dungeons. I ran down them so fast that I almost lost my footing and slid all the way down. I caught myself on the railing and didn’t stop running until we reached the cells.
I skidded to a halt to take in the scene. Teagan and Ryland were long gone, and Sondra’s shackles hung empty. The wire used to pick the locks lay on the ground beside them. Venn stood with his hands on the bars of his cell, looking like it took all his strength to stay upright. His soft brown eyes met mine, and relief flooded through me. Venn looked down at himself in confusion. It was like he couldn’t process what was going on.
“Venn!” I rushed over to him, grabbed the wire, and began fiddling with the lock on his cell. My fingers shook so badly that I couldn’t get it in the hole.
“What happened?” Venn asked, sounding a bit disoriented.
Jenna grabbed the wire from me and began working on the lock so I could focus on Venn.
I reached out to take his hands. “I did it, Venn. I killed Valkas.”
He looked beyond relieved. “How did I survive? The transformation must’ve not finished.”
I shook my head, choking back the tears. “No, it only killed Valkas. Everyone else survived, but the spell is broken now.”
The lock clicked free on Venn’s cell. I yanked the door open and fell into his arms.
“I thought I’d lost you,” I whispered.
His lips met mine, and I knew without a doubt. It was Venn—my Venn. Valkas had failed to take him from me.
My chest came alive, sending a rush of happiness through my veins like a strong ocean current whipping me off my feet and pulling me out to sea. I’d never felt such an emotion hit me so fast and so strong before. He cupped the sides of my face and tilted my head back. His tongue slipped inside my mouth, sending that ocean current to take me faster.
He drew away and spoke through shallow breaths. “I thought so, too. I’m glad everyone’s okay.”
I relaxed into him for a mere moment, until I remembered Sondra was still hurt. Now that Rogers was dead, she’d be waking any moment—if she wasn’t awake already.
“Sondra,” I said quickly.
Fiona gave me a wide-eyed look, like she just realized something. “Your magic’s working. You can heal her!”
“Then let’s go,” Jenna insisted.
Venn took my hand, and the four of us hurried out of the chateau and to the boathouse. When we arrived, we found Teagan and Ryland preparing an expensive-looking boat for the journey home. It looked even fancier than the one Richard had brought me there on. The boathouse itself was just as nice as the chateau, with three stalls for different sized boats. It looked like a fancy garage, only with docks for flooring and open water where the boats sat. Several piles of clothes covered in ashes lined the dock, presumably where Ryland and Teagan had killed the boathouse guards.
“Nothing’s going to happen to them,” Teagan was saying to Ryland. “They’ll be fine—oh my God!” She caught sight of us and jumped off the boat onto the dock. “You’re okay!”
Teagan stopped in her tracks when she noticed Venn with us. Slowly, she backed away. “What’s going on?”
“Rae did it!” Fiona exclaimed. “She killed Valkas and broke the curse.”
Teagan’s eyebrows came togeth
er. “Vampires are… human again?”
“Apparently,” Fiona answered, shooting a smile in Venn’s direction.
“What happens to their souls?” Teagan asked. “I mean, are the Soulless still… soulless?”
“We’re not sure yet,” Jenna said. “Venn could be different since the transformation wasn’t finished. All we know is the others are still alive.”
Ryland poked his head out of the cabin. “If they’re still a threat, then we have to go.”
“I don’t think they are,” Jenna admitted. “The blood slaves outnumber them, and they surrendered as soon as the spell broke.”
“Let’s heal Sondra,” I suggested. “Then we can figure out how we’re getting everyone off this island.”
“This way.” Ryland gestured to me to follow him.
We stepped inside the cabin to see Sondra lying across one of the bench seats. Her chest rose and fell slowly, but she otherwise didn’t move. She looked so frail.
I knelt beside her and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. Everyone went quiet while I took several long, deep breaths, trying to channel my power.
But the familiar tingle never came. That couldn’t be, considering Rogers was dead and his spell had been broken. Had the fall not killed him? Was he still blocking my magic?
No, that didn’t seem right. This seemed stronger… like my entire connection to Synchrony had been severed.
That’s when it hit me.
Matias hadn’t been misinformed about what would happen to the vampires when I broke the curse. He hadn’t just taken a wild guess when he told me all vampires would perish with Valkas. He told me exactly what I wanted to hear—exactly what he knew would drive me toward this very ending.
“What’s wrong?” Venn asked.
I looked up at my family in horror. “This was Matias’s plan all along. There never was a successor. He wanted me to kill Valkas to release his own soul, so that he could access his witch magic again and use the Artifact. You guys…”
I could hardly breathe as the cold, dark reality of what had just happened hit me. “I played right into Matias’s hands. And now he’s taken all our magic.”