A Fall of Secrets (A Shade of Vampire #15)(53)

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 uncover 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.