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“You’re safe, Lenore.”
Solon’s voice comes from beside me and I whip my head around to see him on his back beside me, his legs half in the red ocean that keeps lapping at the shore.
“Solon,” I cry out, dragging myself over the pebbles toward him, my body coming alive at the sound of him, the sight of him, the smell of him.
“Stay,” he says, and he moves over, not as fast as he normally would, but then again he is a new vampire now and everything might take some getting used to. As for me, I feel like I’m moving through molasses.
He grasps my hand and lays the side of his head down on the shore, staring at me with those beautiful blues of his. “We’re both a little weak,” he says. “After I fed from you, you passed right out. The tide started rising. I tried to move you out of the water as much as I could but I’m…I’m learning.”
“How do you feel?” I ask.
He smiles softly at me. God he’s beautiful. “In some ways, like I’ve been hit by a truck. In other ways, like I’ve just been born.”
I swallow thickly, my throat feeling like sandpaper. “Do you think it worked?”
He smiles. “I’m here, aren’t I?” Then his smile falters. “I shouldn’t be here, Lenore.”
“You expected me to let you die?”
“No,” he admits. “You’re too stubborn for that. But…you didn’t know what you were doing.”
“Yes I did,” I say defensively, pushing myself up on my elbows. “I was told that I wouldn’t create feral vampires. I knew exactly what I was doing. You were fucking dying, Solon. No, you were dead. You really think I would let that happen without trying everything I could?”
“And who told you that?”
I bite my lip for a moment. “Jeremias.”
“Then you didn’t know for sure that it would work,” he says with a pained expression. “Jeremias could have been lying.”
At the mention of his name, I look over at his lifeless, charred, headless body. Fuck. He’s dead. He’s real dead because I killed him. I killed my own father, as estranged as he was.
“Moonshine,” Solon says, bringing himself closer to me. “I know how badly you tend to latch onto guilt, but please don’t go down this road. Not now.”
“If not now, when?” I ask helplessly.
He gives me a soft smile, then lets go of my hand as he pushes himself up, getting to his feet. “There will be plenty of time of introspection later. For now, we need to get out of here. This isn’t any safer than it was before.”
“Even with our fathers dead?” I ask, as he reaches down and hauls me up to my feet, putting his arm around me for support as I wobble a little on the pebbles.
“Even with,” he says. “Kaleid is still alive. And while I don’t expect him to jump out from around the corner and get us, he did try to kill you.”
“Technically he didn’t know if he could kill me.”
“Then he wanted to torture you,” Solon says sharply. “And for that, he’ll forever be a mortal enemy of mine. If I ever see his face again, I will spit in it, rip his head off, then tear the rest of him limb from limb just to make sure.”
“Like you did with Skarde?” I look over at the remains of Skarde’s eviscerated body. It’s not lost on me that the two of us with our daddy issues just murdered the both of them, complete with two different styles of beheadings.
“Just like,” he says in a low voice.
“Even though he’s the king of the vampires now?” I ask, leaning into him. He’s like a tree, so strong and rooted, my body instantly relaxing against his.
“We’ll see how long that lasts,” Solon says gruffly. “Vampires followed Skarde, but they were always looking for a way out. That’s why so many end up at Dark Eyes, to disappear into that subculture, the freedom of it all. Kaleid may lead Helsinki and some other cities in Europe, but it’s only because he’s the son of Skarde. Or was, anyway. I’ll be surprised if the majority want to follow someone under new rule.”
“You willing to bet on that?”
He looks down at me and smiles. “No. Never.” Then he puts his arm around my waist, supporting my weight and we start walking off across the snow, past the ruins. Every horrible thing that happened there looks differently under the light of day, because that’s what’s changing here. The day. The red sunset sky is growing more pale, more blue, and when I look behind us at the ocean, that too has shades of indigo mixing with the red. Whatever hold the Dark One had on this place to make it this way is losing its grip. With Skarde gone, maybe it can revert back to its natural form.
