Page 43 of Awakened Light

“It goes on so much farther than your eyes can see. It’s endless.”

“I can’t believe such a thing exists.”

Thorne sat down and kicked off his shoes, so I lowered myself beside him, pulling my knees up to my chest. We sat silently, listening to the crash of the waves against the rocks down below and watching the ripples of moonlight flickering across the surface of the water.

“We used to come here as kids.” He plucked at the blades of grass.

It was almost impossible for me to picture such a powerful man as a small child. I imagined him with his big blue eyes filled with mirth, a mop of shaggy brown hair, and a smile that never left his face.

“We’d dare each other to jump, but of course none of us did because as a human, the drop would have been fatal.”

“It’s a long way down.” I peered over the edge again.

“When we turned immortal, one of the first things we did was launch ourselves off this cliff. It was incredible to free fall into the water below.”

“I can’t imagine how that would feel. Like flying, I suppose.”

“It did feel kind of like flying. It was much more fun the second time, though. The first time, we knew we were immortal, but it was new. So we weren’t sure how immortal yet. There was still a moment of terror on the way down that we’d all just jumped to our deaths. But when we all popped up in the water unscathed, you’d never seen bigger smiles on anyone’s faces. We raced back to the top and leaped off again and again.”

“So, you’ve all been together since the beginning?”

“Yes. They’ve been my family for over six hundred years. Well, they aren’t my family by blood, but we’re closer than most families who are.”

“And you were the first vampires?”

He nodded and picked up a stone, then tossed it over the edge. “Yeah. We were the first.”

“So, what happened?” I picked up a stone and did the same, watching for a few seconds before I saw it plunk into the churning water below. “I’ve always heard that you were granted the gift to protect my people, and you betrayed us and refused that protection, then found a way to keep your immortality. That’s why you’ve been cursed to stay out of the sun. Now that I’ve met our family, I’m having a hard time imagining you betraying us. Why did you?”

He exhaled a long sigh and tossed another rock off the edge. “We didn’t betray you. Things didn’t exactly turn out as planned. Your leader at the time, the one who offered immortality, speed, strength, and all the perks of being an immortal in exchange for our protection of your tribe, didn’t tell us that only some of us would survive the transformation. More than half of our clan died, including my own father as well as Aiden, Annella, and Lothaire’s mother, father, and brother... who were also like family to me.”

“Oh, Thorne. I had no idea.” I spun to look at him and saw the sadness flooding his eyes. “That must have been awful.”

“It was a nightmare.” He blew out a puff of air. “Only some of us awoke, and when we realized half our clan was dead, including our Chieftain’s beloved wife, you can imagine the fury we felt toward your tribe.”

I didn’t answer, instead, looking back out over the ocean. How could I? There were no words I could use to justify that tragedy. My people had destroyed his clan... something I’d never known. No wonder they refused to help us after. In fact, if it had happened to us, I’d have slaughtered every last person responsible.

“Honestly, there’d been talk of eradicating all of your tribe with our powers as punishment for the deceit. But cooler heads prevailed, and instead of killing your tribe, we’d refused our protection. Even though we felt this was a kindness, your leader at the time considered it a betrayal and argued he’d never promised some of us wouldn’t die.”

“This is not at all how I heard the story,” I admitted. “It seems they left some of it out... like that half of your clan died. I’m so sorry, Thorne. I can’t imagine what you all went through.”

“We all lost people we loved. But we moved on, we had to, and even though your leader tried to remove the gift, we found a way around that by consuming human blood. It allows us to utilize their life force of sorts. So, he cursed us with the sun instead. Your people fled, and we never knew where you went. In fact, we thought all this time the Picts eventually went extinct.”

“We’ve been on that island for centuries. And I’m sure we’ll be there for centuries more.”

“Centuries hating vampires... the very ones that got betrayed.” He arched an eyebrow.

I gave him a sheepish look. “When I return, I swear that I will tell them the whole story. I’ll tell them you aren’t the monsters we’ve been led to believe.”

“Well, not all of us, at least. Just like any people, there are good and bad of both.”

“Yes. This is true.”

“You think once you set your mom straight, she’ll let me come visit?”

With a snort, I shook my head. “Not likely. Her hatred for your kind runs deep.”

“Her misguided hatred,” I argued.