Page 89 of Ryder’s Storm

“My father?” She freed herself from the embrace, and spun around, staring at the house. “Oh God, no!” She would lose them both. “No! I have to do something!”

She tried to run toward the flames, but Maya pulled her back. “Gabriel went after him. Please, you have to stay here. Ryder will never forgive me should anything happen to you.”

Her last words were swallowed by the loud sound of the building collapsing.

“Nooooooo! Noooooo!” Scarlet screamed. The pain of her heart breaking buckled her knees, and the sobs tearing from her chest blurred her vision. Maya’s arms held her upright, or she would have collapsed.

Maya caressed her back and pressed kisses in her hair. “They’re alive, I know it. They’ll make it. Please trust me.”

The last few days flashed before her eyes, making the pain even more intense. Everybody she’d ever loved was gone, her mother, her half-brother, and now her father, and Ryder. There was no reason for her to go on living. It was over. She lifted her head from Maya’s chest, and Maya loosened her grip. Scarlet turned back to look at the smoldering flames.

“I love you, Ryder,” she murmured to herself and ran toward the house, past a firefighter. The heat became more intense the closer she got.

“Scarlet!”

She whirled her head toward the sound of Ryder’s voice. Was she hallucinating? She blinked and wiped her eyes, trying to clear her vision, when she saw him with a man in a full-body Kevlar suit—like the vampire prison guard had worn—carrying out a third man. They were hurrying past the left side of the building where a narrow path separated it from the house next to it.

“Ryder!”

Maya pulled her farther back now, leading her back to the ambulance. For the first time Scarlet read the writing on it. Scanguards Emergency Response, it said. This wasn’t an ordinary ambulance. Ryder and Gabriel lifted her father onto the waiting gurney.

“I told you they’d make it,” Maya said, before she embraced her husband.

Scarlet threw herself into Ryder’s arms. “I thought you were dead.”

He kissed her hard for a second, before he freed himself from her arms and turned to the gurney.

Scarlet leaned over her father. “Dad, please, you’re safe now.” But her father didn’t move, didn’t open his eyes.

Ryder put his fingers to his neck. “The pulse is weak.” He looked to Maya, who with Gabriel’s help was already lifting the gurney into the ambulance.

Maya jumped in with the gurney and listened for a pulse.

“You have to save him, please!” Scarlet cried. “Ryder, please, you said vampire blood can heal a human.”

Ryder took her hand, then exchanged a look with his mother.

“Get in,” Maya ordered, and they both jumped in.

Gabriel closed the ambulance door behind them. A moment later, he jumped into the passenger side of the ambulance, and Benjamin—or Damian, she couldn’t tell them apart—started driving.

Scarlet was painfully aware of the fact that Ryder hadn’t replied to her request to heal her father with vampire blood.

“I’m sorry, Scarlet,” Maya said, “it’s too late to heal him. His injuries are too extensive.”

“No! I can’t lose him. You don’t understand. The last time we spoke, I said terrible things. I can’t… he can’t die.”

Ryder held her hands. “Scarlet, there’s something that we can do. But it’s for you to decide.”

She noticed how he shared another silent look with his mother, who nodded.

“What?”

“When he takes his last breath, we can turn him into a vampire,” Ryder said.

Scarlet stared at him, her heart pounding.

“But it’s not a decision taken lightly. He may not want to live as a vampire. He won’t be like me. He’ll be like my parents, having to avoid sunlight. There’ll be many adjustments, and he’ll need to get his hunger for blood under control. It’s not an easy thing to do…”