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The sunset wouldn’t be the same without her, and neither would I.
Chapter Eighteen
Mariah
I awaken in the grass outside the main house to the clamor of swing music and clinking glasses. After all the carnage I’ve witnessed, I’m glad to see the ghosts are still having a good time. However, I’m decidedly not in the partying mood, so I make my way out to the field, running my hands along the tops of the vine rows as I go.
Will isn’t here, but I don’t expect him to be. Now that he’s free, he doesn’t need to escape to the spirit world to be with me. He can simply pull me closer.
Someone whispers my name. I turn in the direction of the sound. A mist rolls through the field, a thick, white cloud as high as my waist, carrying voices.
He’s coming...He’s coming... He’s here...
A shadow falls over the vineyard. I feel its presence. Cold. Dense. Menacing. I yelp as someone grips my shoulders and turns me around, bringing me face to face with my mother.
“Wake up, baby.” She snaps her fingers.
I startle awake in bed. It’s nighttime, possibly very early morning. My chest feels tight. I cough. The evil presence I felt in the spirit realm is still here, curling around me like smoke. I reach for Will, but his side of the bed is empty. Then I recall him mentioning something about going to find a bear before dawn.
Pulling the covers back, I pivot to climb out of bed—and then rear back as a figure emerges from the shadows.
“You disappoint me, Mariah,” Edward says, his eyes glowing like embers in the dark. “I had such high hopes for what we might accomplish together.”
I swallow the lump of fear in my throat like a bitter pill. “I saw you fall, Edward. I watched you die.”
“You did,” he says. “But I have been reborn.”
He moves toward the bed. I attempt to scurry away from him, but he grabs my ankle. His grip is like iron. I’m as vulnerable as it gets, naked without a weapon. I flinch as he reaches out to pinch a lock of my hair between his fingertips.
“I see now that this is how it was always meant to be,” he says. “A human can only gain so much from drinking vampire blood. But a vampire possesses infinite power, so long as he’s well fed.”
Fear tightens its hold on me, as I gaze into those floating red embers.
My father is a vampire, I realize.
And I’m the only living human in the house.
“I understand how William got to you,” he says. “How he turned you against me. Sadly, your powers are lost to me now. But your blood can still be of use.”
He lunges, pushing me down on the bed. I slap and kick and shove, but it’s like trying to fight off a rockslide with your bare hands.
Pain explodes in my neck as he sinks his fangs into me. I scream, but the sound is cut off by blood flooding my throat. It fills my mouth. Everything is happening at once, and yet I feel every second of it, as though the last remaining minutes of my life are being played out in slow motion.
My attention fades as fatigue sets in. I attempt to call out to Will with my mind before darkness overtakes me.
I’m too late.
I come to on the floor in the conservatory. My mother is here, holding out her hand.
“Come on, baby,” she says. “We have to hurry.”
My grandmother appears. They each take one of my hands, and the three of us start running. Through the foyer, up the stairs, down the hall to where Edward crouches over my body.
The wet, gurgling sounds of his feeding make me nauseous. I glance down at my own face, at the life quickly draining from my eyes.
“You can stop him,” my grandmother says. “Use your gifts.”
I take a breath and work to channel my focus into Edward’s mind. He shakes me off like a fly.
