A Trail of Echoes (A Shade of Vampire #18)(44)

She transported the three of us quickly to The Shade, and as we arrived back on the jetty, she removed the invisibility spell. I gripped the hunter by the neck and forced him to the ground.

Although the conscience that Sofia had instilled in me was disapproving of what I was about to do, in that moment, it was the old Derek Novak that took over. The Derek Novak that was numb to loss of life. The Derek Novak that struck fear in every hunter’s heart.

Chapter 31: Ben

In between the pangs of unbearable hunger ripping at me, the revelation echoed in my mind over and over again:

I can’t turn back into a human. I am stuck as a vampire.

I grimaced at the bitter irony of it all. I’d wanted so badly for the cure to work so that I would stop craving humans. Now that I had taken the cure, I just found myself landed with ten times the desire to kill.

I could hardly look at River. I didn’t want to see the disappointment in her face. We had both been hoping so hard that this would work, that I would no longer need to rely on smothering her twenty-four hours a day. I hated to chain her to me like this, and I hated to be a burden.

Meeting her eyes was painful. I felt ashamed of what I was.

Although she’d stood by me, she knew what happened when she left my side. She had witnessed me slay three innocent humans back in the Egyptian guesthouse. She knew that I would do the same again the moment I got the chance.

A hushed silence filled the room after my father stepped out. I had no idea where he was going to get human blood from. I didn’t want to think about it. I just needed the blood. And I needed it now.

Even River’s presence was beginning to lose its effect on my craving. Each moment that passed, the smell of humans on the island was stronger in my nostrils. More tantalizing. More delicious.

When my father finally returned, he was accompanied by Xavier. My father held a steel bucket in one hand, containing blood that I could sense was warm even without touching it. I leapt from the bed and practically grabbed it from him. I drank directly from the bucket, hardly stopping to draw a breath as I swallowed gulp after gulp. I tried not to waste a drop, but I was shaking from thirst. Some ended up streaming down the sides of my mouth and onto my chest.

It felt like I was pouring water over a fire. By the time I finished, I felt calmer.

Sitting back on the bed, I looked over at Xavier. He gave me a weak smile, even as his eyes were filled with concern.

I wished I could’ve seen my aunt too, but I was glad they hadn’t entered with her. She was a pregnant human. If I had done anything to harm her, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.

The room fell silent again, all of us apparently lost for words. But all of us, I was sure, were wondering the same thing:

Where do we go from here?

Chapter 32: River

I was still recovering from the shock of Ben’s failed turning. He and everyone else had seemed so confident that it would work, and after seeing the amount of immune blood, which was supposed to be the key to making the cure work, I’d also been certain that he would step out as a human.

The plans we had made were crushed into dust. Now I didn’t even know if I dared to leave the island, leaving him stranded with his cravings. I supposed I could leave him my blood, but I had already seen that did not always work.

I was sure we were all relieved when Ibrahim finally broke the silence.

“Obviously we have a lot to reconsider… In the meantime, why don’t Corrine and I look at those tattoos you’ve got?”

I rolled up my sleeve, baring my skin for Ibrahim to look at, while Corrine examined Ben’s arm.

At first I’d been scared to see Corrine so close to Ben. I’d thought that he might crave her blood too, but even I could sense that their blood was different to a human’s. It was more bitter, and I could understand why it was not appealing to a vampire. At least not the way a human’s was.

Now that we had been stumped in our plan, I was grateful for the change of subject before we returned to the inevitable. We needed something to break the tension.

Ibrahim and Corrine looked at Ben’s and my brands. Their expressions were almost identical—deep-set frowns as they looked closely at the etchings. And then something flickered in the witch’s eyes all of a sudden. Alarm. She seemed to have realized something that even the warlock hadn’t yet.

He eyed her, raising a brow. “What? What do you see?”

She didn’t reply as she left Ben and moved toward me, reaching for my arm and staring at the tattoo. As she examined my brand, the same alarmed look was in her eyes.

My breathing quickened as the blood drained from her face.

“What?” several of us asked at once.

Corrine just bit her lip. And when she finally did raise her face to make eye contact, there was an unmistakable look of terror in her eyes.

She uttered only two words:

“Oh, dear.”

Chapter 33: Ben

The witch’s look of fright and her refusal to give us even the slightest of explanations was eating away at my nerves. No matter how much we all pressed her, she refused to give us an answer.

“Not until I’m certain,” she said, her hands trembling slightly.

“And when will you be certain?” I asked, no longer able to hide the frustration in my voice.

She didn’t reply to my question as she walked toward the door. She just said, “Both of you stay in this room until I return.”