“You stay with me. You’re not dying today, do you hear me? Stay. With. Me,” I commanded. Begged. He had been my best friend from when we were schoolboys, He was like my brother. No, hewasmy brother. I would not lose him.
“You monster!” a voice roared, and suddenly I was hoisted off the ground by the collar of my shirt at speeds I couldn’t comprehend.
It was the man who had devoured our driver. He wedged me against a tree, and agony radiated through my core. “Let’s see how you like it,” he hissed, tears of rage streaking his face. A sharp branch impaled me, anchoring me to the tree. I screamed from the pain.
The man left me pinned to the tree and knelt beside Alice, cradling her lifeless body, his grief palpable. He had loved her, that much was clear.
Suddenly, a shadowy figure appeared behind him.
“Maybe you should take this as a lesson, Jones, to do what you’re told,” he said to the weeping vampire.
“Bastian… They killed her! They killed her!” Jones cried.
Warm blood soaked my front as blinding pain nearly distracted me from the conversation unfolding between them.
“Well, whose fault is that?” this Bastian guy retorted. “Besides, it makes my job easier.”
My pants of pain and the man's sobs were the only sounds for a moment. A silent communication passed between the two men.
“I knew Victor would send you to take care of his dirty work. Do it. They already took her from me. I have nothing left, so go ahead, do it. Do it. DO IT—” His screams were cut off when his head was ripped from his shoulders. I would have gagged at the traumatizing sight had I not started choking on my own blood.
The man named Bastian held Jones’s head, the exposed spine still dangling.
“It’s a shame, really. You two were doing so well,” he sighed.
The blond man casually discarded the severed head. Alice and the headless body slumped together. Then Bastian turned his attention to Thorne’s still form lying on the ground.
“No!” I tried to shout, my voice feeble and raw. Realizing my feet were nearly touching the ground, I summoned strength from deep within. Planting my palms against the tree, I cried out as I pushed off the branch that had impaled me, collapsing in agony on the cool earth. “No!” I screamed again, tears and pain blurring my vision.
The man, Bastian, tilted his head with that predatory grace I had noticed in the others.
“Thorne,” I whispered as I crawled to him, his eyes struggling to stay open. “Thorne…” I pleaded. The words that followed weren’t logical. “You have to help him! Please, don’t let him die!” My voice cracked with desperation. I could feel my strength waning.
It was pointless addressing a creature likely here to end our lives regardless of what I said or did. But I’d tried anyways.
Rolling onto my back beside Thorne, shivers wracked my body, I clutched my bleeding side. I was slipping away, and I likely wouldn't last much longer… At least we’d face the end together.
The man moved closer. If I had the strength, I would protest his closeness, or plead more for Thorne. But as I lay beside my best friend, my consciousness ebbed.
The burn was like a wild inferno trapped beneath my skin, a fiery agony that writhed and twisted through my every vein. It was relentless, merciless in its torture, as if my blood had been replaced by molten lava—until suddenly, it wasn’t. The pain ceased so abruptly that the silence in my body was deafening.
I jerked upright, gasping for breath I didn’t realize I’d been desperate for. My heart hammered against my ribcage. My head swiveled around, taking in the room I found myself in. The sun peeked out slightly from the edges of the black drapes.
Then my gaze landed on him—the man from the woods, Bastian. He was perched at the end of the bed where I lay, leaning nonchalantly against one of the bed banisters with the ease of a predator.
“Ah, you’re awake,” he said, his voice calm. His presence was both unsettling and oddly comforting.
My hand instinctively flew to my side, probing for the wound that had surely been there. But as my fingers ran over smooth skin, a surge of disbelief washed over me. I lifted my shirt, half expecting to expose a raw, gruesome scar. Yet there was nothing.
“Alive…” The word stumbled out of my mouth like a child taking its first steps.
My body thrummed with an unfamiliar energy. It was as if I’d been hollowed out and filled again with something potent and restless. A gnawing void inside me—an emptiness clawing at my stomach, spreading through my veins with a visceral urgency.
Hunger. Not the kind that could be satisfied by any meal, but one that seemed to demand something richer—darker.
“Thorne,” I said, voice rasping, the name emerging like a lifeline as I shot my gaze back to Bastian.
“Safe,” Bastian said, the word dropping into the silence like a stone into still water. “He’ll be in here shortly. He woke up a few hours ago.”
