Everything was different when Lucy opened her eyes to find herself in James's arms. He was different. Stronger, deeper, sadder-and also wiser-and it showed in his eyes. He'd acknowledged and incorporated the beast within him. Embraced it to save her life. Appreciated it and was, even now, getting to know the vampiric part of himself just as she was.
Because she was different, too. Very different.
"I...I feel so strange."
He held her, rocked her. "I know. You've changed. You're a vampire now."
She lifted her head and blinked, looking around her. "We're not at the university anymore."
"No. You had to sleep the sleep of the undead while the change took hold. And now we're on the island, but not for very long."
Sitting up, Lucy saw a campfire snapping and crackling nearby, sending sparks into the air. She felt and smelled and tasted it. Rhiannon was poking a long stick into the coals and staring into the flames. And as she widened her scope, Lucy looked around at the others. James and Brigit's parents were there, Edge and Amber Lily. Willem and Sarafina. Brigit and others, a couple of dozen at the most.
"They survived," she whispered. "Your family, your friends. They're okay." She was smiling at the people around her, though they all looked sad.
"They're...the only ones."
Blinking in shock, Lucy shot her attention back to James. "What?"
He nodded sadly, but before he could say more, Rhiannon had spotted them and was coming toward them. "Is she ready?"
"I think so, yes."
Rhiannon met her eyes, and then, to Lucy's stunned surprise, she smiled very slightly and extended a hand. "Welcome to your new family, Lucy Lanfair."
Lucy took her hand, and Rhiannon pulled her to her feet, led her to the fire, James at her side every step of the way. "Everyone, this is Lucy, our newborn fledgling and J.W.'s mate."
And then she proceeded to introduce everyone. When she had finished, Rhiannon turned to Lucy and said, "You now know the names of every vampire still in existence, little one. We've been calling out mentally, to no avail. Every vampire we know of back on the mainland has been wiped out by vigilantes, or by Utanapishtim, in his rage. The Chosen are being rounded up now, as well, by the government, and the gods only know what they intend to do with them. There's no sign of preternatural life anywhere but here. The refugees on this island are the only vampires remaining, as far as anyone knows."
Lucy could not contain her tears. She couldn't bear the thought of so much death, and her emotional pain was as magnified as everything else seemed to be.
Though now, she knew, was no time to be noticing that she could hear the flap of an insect's wings a mile away, or the swish of a fish's tail in the ocean depths. That she could smell the scent of every plant and animal on this island, and distinguish between them, as well. And then she realized why her emotions were so overblown. She was feeling the grief of every vampire around her.
James closed his hand around hers. "We have to decide how to proceed," he said. "But we cannot do so from here. I fear it's too close to the mainland, and of course Utanapishtim may be able to find his way back here. We have to move."
Damien stepped forward then, and he held a clay tablet in his hands. Someone must have retrieved it from the ashes of the mansion in Byram, where she had last seen it, Lucy thought. That reminded Lucy of the pieces still resting in her backpack, and she quickly spotted it, resting near a tree. Thank God.
"As far as the world of man knows," Damien said softly, "they have wiped us out entirely. They know of Utanapishtim, though of course most of them have no idea who or what he truly is. All they know is that some kind of supernatural being is blasting a path of destruction through anything in his path."
"We shall strive to keep it that way," Rhiannon said softly. "We must remain in the shadows, hiding our presence more carefully than we ever have before. If they realize any of us are left, there will be no peace for us or the world until every vampire is gone. We're sailing North. Cuyler Jade has a home above the Arctic Circle. We'll be safe there, for now."
"But what about Utanapishtim?" Lucy asked. "He can track you, he can sense you-I mean us." And that thought made her shiver.
Rhiannon turned to Damien, who held the tablet and read, "'The two who are opposite and yet the same. One light, one dark, the first the destroyer, the second the salvation.' It makes sense now." He turned to stare directly at Brigit.
She lifted her brows in question.
"Yes, my child," Rhiannon said softly. "You're the one destined to save us all. You-with your power of destruction-are the only one who can destroy Utanapishtim once and for all. It's your destiny, not your brother's, to be the salvation of your race."
Brigit's brows pressed together, her head tipped to one side, and she said, "Well, then we're all fucked. I'm the evil twin, remember?"
The vampires huddled together around the fire, comforting and being comforted. Someone began talking about one of the dead, telling stories of their deeds, then another jumped in, and still more. All night long they spoke of those who'd died, and James held Lucy close as they listened.
Lucy felt for all the world as if she'd been born at a funeral. And she wondered what the future held for her, for James. For his kind. Their kind.
She knew only one thing for sure. Whatever time remained to her, she would spend it with this man-this man who was, to her, an angel. Good through and through. This man she loved. The only man she had ever, or would ever, love. And whether that time was short or long, she intended to relish every single second of her new life.
Because she finally was alive. She was alive as she had never been before. And she would rather die with these supernatural beings, in the arms of this superhuman hero, than return to the sleepwalk she had called her life before.
She would love, and she would live, with every fiber of her being for every moment she had left, spending her life right by his side from now...until forever.
Everyone ought to live that way, she thought as she turned her face up to James's in search of his lips. Even ordinary humans. Otherwise, what was the point of living at all?
