The other three vamps surrounded Renata who had returned to her own form, but she still looked nothing less than mildly amused.
“I can do this all day,” Saiden snarled, yanking another dagger from a sheath at the small of his back.
“I don’t care what you do, Enforcer,” Renata hissed as she threw out a hand to stop Derrick’s incoming charge, clamping her fingers around his throat. “You think any of this has accomplished anything? You think you’re actually winning?” She laughed, then tossed Derrick forward, sending him crashing into Saiden and Tressa with a force that had them all tumbling to the sand again. “I’ve entertained this for a while as a courtesy. Nothing more.”
“A courtesy?” Saiden huffed as he spat sand out of his mouth.
“For her,” Renata said, nodding toward Tressa. “So she couldbelieve in the end that she truly did her best to save her mate. When the final death comes swiftly to a loved one, it eats at you over the years. The feeling that you could have done more.Shouldhave done more. You often think to yourself how things could have gone differently. Perhaps if you fought harder, acted faster, or been smarter, then maybe,maybe,you could have saved them. I respect Tressa enough to grant her the comfort of knowing she did her best to prevent his demise. But make no mistake, all of this”—she gestured to the four of them crumpled in the sand—“this was merely a kindness. And I’m afraid that kindness has now run out.”
She leaned down, plucked a small piece of driftwood from the sand, and cracked it in half, leaving a sharp jagged point. “I’m sorry, Loloma. I imagine your mother would be very disappointed in me, but I have no choice. The only thing I can offer you is your life and that of your friends. This is the final time I will extend to you this opportunity. Leave the botanist behind, and I will not hunt you. For your mother’s sake.”
Ethan rushed over to Tressa’s side as his mate stared blankly up at Renata for a second before giving the rogue a nasty sneer. “I don’t know what trick you’re trying to pull, but it’s not going to work. What the hell could you possibly know about my mom?”
Renata gave her a small smile. “Everything, Loloma. I did spend a century with her after all. Until you came along.”
Chapter forty-three
Tressa
Tressa’s sneer dropped away as realization hit her. “You’re not talking about my human mother,” she said, shaking her head. “You mean the vampire who turned me. That’s how you knew my birth name. She was the only one I ever told.”
Renata dipped her head in acknowledgment. “A secret she shared with her own maker. You should know just how proud she was of you. Every time you left her to go wandering, she would come to me and talk for hours about how incredible you were.”
“Wait,” Derrick interrupted, waving a hand. “Are you trying to say you’re Tressa’s… what? Vampire grandma or some shit? Because that’s a little too soap opera for even my tastes.”
“You watch daytime television?” Saiden asked, scrubbing his face. “Now you’re just embarrassing yourself.”
“Hey, don’t knock it til you’ve tried it,” Derrick shot back.
“I don’t need to try it,” Saiden argued. “I’ve also never shoved a cucumber up my ass, but I know I won’t enjoy it.”
Derrick smirked. “How unfortunate for Cora.”
“You leave my mate out of this.”
“I would, but it sounds like she’s in desperate need of a good—”
“Finish that sentence and I’ll gut you on this beach.”
“SILENCE!”
They all went quiet, and Tressa turned to face Renata who was giving them a look of disappointed annoyance, like they were children fighting on a playground. Which, to be fair, wasn’t far off.
“Loloma,” Renata said, stepping forward and holding out a hand. When Tressa only scowled in response, Renata let it fall back to her side. “As I was saying, your mother made me promise to look after you if anything were to happen to her. And while I had no desire to spend all my time with the fledgling vamp who took her away from me so often, I have occasionally checked in on you from a distance over the past two centuries. You’ve never been far from my mind ever since that mob in Spain took her undead life before I could stop them. So you see, each time I’ve told you that I didn’t want to hurt you, I truly meant it. But I will if I have to. This is bigger than either of us. Bigger even than the promise I made to your mother. Ethan cannot live. The risk is too great.”
Fury blazed through Tressa that Renata dared to play on her emotions. That she thought any sob story would convince her to sacrifice her mate and the love she’d waited an eternity for.
“Corinne wasn’t my mother,” Tressa snapped. “She was just a lonely vampire who found a broken young woman in an alley and offered to make her powerful. She might have guided me, might have been proud of who I became, but she never truly loved me. She was a teacher, not a mother. The only real mother I had was the woman who raised me in Fiji. Her name was Kasanita, and she’s the one whose face kept me going when I nearly starved on that ship crossing the ocean. The one whose voice whispered in the back of my mind to stay strong as those sailors…” A tear formed in the corner of her eye, but she fiercely wiped it away. This bitch didn’t deserve her tears.
“Tressa,” Ethan said softly.
She held up a hand for him to be quiet as she climbed to her feet. “I don’t care if we share some fucked up vampire lineage. You’re not my family, and you never will be. These guys behind me? They’re my family. Theyactuallylove me. If you think I’m going to walk away and leave you to murder my mate, guess again. You’ll just have to kill me first.”
Renata scanned Tressa’s face for a long moment, then sighed. “If that is your wish.” She blurred forward and locked her hand around Tressa’s neck.
“Wait,” Ethan shouted as he scrambled to his feet. He stepped up beside Tressa, and her heart shattered when she saw the resignation in his eyes.
“Don’t,” she choked out through the iron grip slowly crushing her windpipe. She could see exactly what her perfect mate had running through his head. “Please, Ethan. Don’t do this.”
