A Dawn of Strength (A Shade of Vampire #14)(13)

We reached the clearing in front of the Port. I led him toward it and stopped just before the jetty.

“You remember what happened here?” I asked quietly.

His jaw tensed. “How could I forget?”

I walked along the wooden floorboards and stopped right at the end of the jetty. My stomach clenched just at the remembrance of that night he’d left me, the night I was so sure I would never see him again. “The last words you spoke to me here, that night… You said you didn’t belong in my world.”

He cleared his throat as he stood next to me. Reaching for my hands, he held them gently and gazed into my eyes. “I’m still not sure that I belong in your world, princess.”

“Then whose world do you belong in?”

He furrowed his brows, then averted his gaze to the ocean. Letting go of my hands, he lowered himself to the floor and sat down, his feet grazing the waves. I sat next to him, studying the conflicted expression on his face.

“I suppose,” he said finally, “since the night I turned into a vampire all those decades ago, I haven’t been used to the feeling of belonging. Every place I stayed was just somewhere I could survive.”

I swallowed hard. The distant look in his eyes was tearing me up.

“I hope we can change that, Caleb,” I managed. “I really do.”

He wrapped an arm around me and pulled me onto his lap. Facing forward, my back against his chest, I felt him let out a quiet sigh against my neck. We fell into silence as we both gazed out at the dark waves.

After half an hour had passed, I was about to suggest we get up when Caleb pointed toward the ocean. Easing me off him, he stood up and stared into the distance.

“What?” I asked.

“A submarine is coming our way.”

Excitement and apprehension coursed through me at once.

Ben! Could he have decided to return?

Standing as close to the edge of the jetty as I could without falling off, I strained to see what Caleb was looking at. Only once the vessel came within twenty feet of us did I finally spot its shadow beneath the water.

I held my breath as the black submarine surfaced and, a few minutes later, the hatch opened. A dark-haired head emerged, and I was about to scream out my brother’s name, but as the head raised fully, I gasped.

“Uncle?”

Chapter 7: Micah

I remained hiding among the rocks at the base of the castle long after my wolf form had disappeared. Without my thick coat, I was shivering in the snow, but I just couldn’t bring myself to return to the boat. Not after hearing Rhys mention leaving for The Shade.

After his conversation with the female died down, I kept my attention sharp, hoping that he might start up another conversation and I’d be able to glean more information. But hours passed and, although there were other conversations, none of them were of interest.

I huddled into a crack between two boulders in an attempt to at least escape the biting wind. It worked, but the icy damp continued to seep into my bones. It was torture, waiting for endless hours in the snow. Once I’d lost all feeling in my limbs, I suspected that if I wanted to survive, I’d have to return to the boat to warm up, at least for the time being. But then night fell outside the island’s boundary and I turned into a wolf again, immune from the cold.

Yet another night was spent straining to hear anything that could give me a clue as to Rhys’ plans. But again, I failed. When I did hear Rhys speak, it was usually related to his injury. It wasn’t until I’d turned back into my human form again and, in the early-morning hours, was close to being forced to return to the boat that I finally heard what I’d been waiting for.

“Arielle,” he murmured. “Gather together the vampires. I’m ready.”

“Should I give them any explanation, or would you like to do that yourself?” a female voice asked.

There was a pause before Rhys answered, “You can just tell them that the time has come for us to take over The Shade. I’ll give them more information if and when required.”

There was the sound of a door clicking open and another female voice spoke—Julisse’s. “The rest of our witches have just arrived through the gate. They’re waiting in the apartment below.”

“Good,” Rhys said. “Isolde, take one last look at my palms before we leave, will you?”

“Yes,” another voice replied. “The balm is all off. Your powers should now be as they were before.”

“So, if all goes according to plan, we should be ready to start the final ritual in three days. Once I’ve dealt with Mona and we’ve secured the island, Julisse and Arielle will head up choosing those with the choicest blood. We’ll perform the blood rites for three nights in a row.”

“The third night, I’ll bring Lilith to the island,” Isolde said.

“And by the fourth day,” Rhys continued, his voice almost trembling with anticipation, “Lilith will be gone.”

“Should we not have someone stationed in The Sanctuary to make sure Lilith didn’t sacrifice her life for nothing?” Julisse asked.

Isolde scoffed. “Trust me, Julisse, even in the human realm, we’ll all know if it has been successful.”

“Our dear friends in The Sanctuary won’t know what hit them,” Rhys said quietly. “The wave of rage will sweep through their every home and street, until every witch not aligned with the Ancient’s cause is either punished or resurrected to the true path of our kind.” Rhys paused, letting out a dry chuckle. “It’s easy to argue about what the Ancients might or might not have wanted. It’s easy to squabble over the texts the Ancients left for us. Quite another thing entirely to be standing in front of one and still trying to deny their instructions.”