Chapter Fifteen

 

Doc Jenkins stood beside Diana’s bed holding her wrist between his fingers. Shaking his head, he tenderly tucked her hand under the sheets. “I’m afraid she won’t last through the day.”

“She has to. Sebastian can’t come until sunset.” Angelina grasped his arm. “There must be something we can do to keep her alive until he arrives. Why won’t feeding help? Why can’t I let her feed from me?”

He continued to shake his head, and patted her trembling hand. “It won’t do any good. She needs a transfusion to replenish the massive amount of blood she’s lost. Feeding from you would only satisfy the craving.”

“But it might give her enough energy to hold on until Sebastian comes. We have to at least try.” She battled the massive lump in her throat, the searing sting of tears in her eyes. “Please, let me at least try.”

“Angelina, even if Sebastian walked through that door this instant, I doubt she’d make it.”

Angelina lost her battle to remain strong and slumped into the chair, her racking sobs tearing at her chest. “This is all my fault. If I’d kept her away from them like her father had wanted, she’d be home right now. Not in this Godforsaken place.”

Katie, the nurse who’d remained beside Angelina all morning, squatted beside her chair and wrapped her arm over her shoulders.

The sound of a helicopter hovering overhead drew everyone but Angelina and Katie to the window. Angelina covered her eyes when they shoved the drapes aside, allowing the bright rays of the midday sun to wash over the room. Diana didn’t even flinch as a beam slashed across her face.

“Three in two days. If they keep this up we’ll be overrun by Slashers,” Katie muttered, rising and drawing a curtain halfway around Diana’s bed.

“They’re dropping a box in the square!” Doc Jenkins shouted.

“A box?” Katie peeked around the curtain.

“It looks like a coffin,” one of the orderlies uttered in a hushed voice.

“Why would they be dropping a coffin on our side of the wall?” Katie’s voice trembled. Her hands clenched the curtain. “What if it’s a vampire? What if the one who brought you here heard we’re helping you?”

“Does that woman never give up?” Angelina searched the room for someplace to hide Diana.

“John’s got an ax.” Doc Jenkins winked at Angelina over his shoulder. “Looks like they’re going to bust it open. If it’s that Olympia, she’ll fry before she reaches us.”

“Sebastian…” Diana whispered and sighed.

The doctor frowned.

“Oh, my God, he’s in the coffin!” Angelina glanced down at Diana, then back at the doctor. “Sebastian!”

“Cover the windows,” Doc Jenkins yelled and flung open the door.

Angelina squeezed Diana’s hand as she watched the doctor race outside, heard his frantic demands that the coffin remain intact.

The orderlies closed the blinds and curtains. The two wearing extra layers of clothing darted from the room. Katie took a step to follow them, then turned and, raising her chin, returned to Diana’s bed.

Angelina brought her lips to Diana’s ear. “Your Sebastian’s here, isn’t he, honey? Diana? Is it Sebastian?”

But Diana didn’t answer, didn’t move no matter how hard Angelina and Katie nudged her. She looked so content, a soft smile curving her pale lips.

Angelina’s throat constricted. “He’s here, Diana. You have to hold on.”

A lone tear escaped from the outer corner of one of Diana’s eyes. A long, barely audible breath was the last sound Angelina heard before her own screams filled the room.

When the doctor and the men carrying the coffin entered the room, they found Angelina sobbing on her knees beside the bed as Katie, tears pouring down her cheeks, frantically searched Diana’s neck and wrists for a pulse.

The men dropped the coffin and quickly left, slamming the door behind them. Doc Jenkins patted Angelina’s shoulder.

“He’s too late. She’s gone,” Katie whispered.

An enraged, ear-splitting roar erupted from within the coffin.

 

Hearing Angelina’s sobs and an unfamiliar voice say that he’d arrived too late to save Diana, Sebastian roared in denial and burst free from the coffin. Splinters shot out in every direction as the wooden box shattered.

Standing amidst the remains of the coffin, he searched the room for Diana. His gaze swept past a man in a white, threadbare doctor’s jacket, past a desk, past empty beds, then came to an abrupt halt at a curtain partially obstructing his view of the only patient. He took a step closer and flung the curtain aside.

Angelina rocked on her knees beside the bed. Shaking from the sobs racking her body, she didn’t even acknowledge his presence. The sweet scent of Diana’s blood was so faint, he had to strain to separate it from the stench of medicines and antiseptics and fear permeating the air. Straining his ears, he sought some sign of life from the frail body lying in the bed but heard not a wisp of a breath over Angelina’s blubbering.

He glowered at her until she stood, then brought his face close to hers and growled. “Stop crying. You hear me? Don’t you dare give up on her.”

A whimper drew his attention to the nurse standing on the other side of Diana’s bed. Her hand trembled, making the sheet clutched in it flutter above Diana’s face.

“What the hell are you doing,” he snarled.

The woman reeked of fear, a foul, pungent odor that made his stomach roil. Her hand twitched. Her wide eyes darted from him to the doctor, then back to him.

“I-I…” Crimson tears pooled in her eyes. She blinked until they spilled over her cheeks. “N-no pulse.”

“Drop it.” He flexed his fingers against the pain of his nails growing. Before she could cover Diana’s face, before she could utter those two words again, he bellowed, “Now!”

The sheet fluttered from her hands as she crumpled to the floor in a dead faint. Tossing a chair out of his way, Sebastian leapt across the room and caught the sheet a hairsbreadth away from Diana’s face.

“She’s gone, Sebastian.” Angelina sobbed and buried her face in her hands. “I heard her take her last breath. Our Diana’s dead.”

“She is not dead,” he stated, his voice, burning glare and clenched fists daring anyone to disagree.

“Then save her. Bring her back to me.” Angelina pried open one of his fists and pressed Diana’s wrist in his hand. “Like Mina brought back Dracula, you bring her back to me.”

Sebastian refused to acknowledge that his soul mate’s heart no longer beat. How could it not when his own pounded in his ears? He leaned over and kissed her lips. “Come back to me, Diana.”

When her breath failed to touch his lips, he howled in denial. “She has so little blood,” he breathed. They were one. Their hearts would either beat as one or he would join her in death. A tear burned a path down his cheek. Swiping it away, he licked the blood from the back of his hand and vowed he would not shed one more bloody tear. Diana needed every drop he had to give. “Mina help us, it’s the only way.”

Yanking the sheet from her body, he hissed. Gaping wounds marred nearly every inch of Diana’s arms and legs. After he eased her out of the gray hospital gown, he discovered that more covered her torso. Thick, black thread sealed some, but others oozed with pus.

He tossed the sheet to Angelina. “Rip off a long strip.” After shedding his clothes, he gingerly climbed onto the bed and lifted Diana’s left wrist to his mouth. Sinking his teeth into her pale skin, he tore open her artery. Seeing through a crimson haze of tears, he hesitated when a miniscule drop of blood slid down her arm. When he opened the artery on his right wrist, his blood spurted out onto the pristine sheets.

Moving so quickly his hands blurred before his eyes, he pressed his open vein to hers then, using his mouth and other hand, bound their wrists together. Then waited.

And prayed to God, the angels, Mina, Dracula and all who might hear. He focused on her lungs, her heart, their connected wrists. The tale of Mina’s miracle rang in his ears. How she’d bound herself to her fallen love and begged the angels above for mercy. How a light brighter than that of the sun shone down upon them, filling her with warmth, peace and hope. How Dracula’s vein had felt as if it were suckling on hers, drawing in more and more of her blood to replenish his.

“Please,” he whispered, gazing down on the face that had bewitched him from that first night by the lake. “Don’t leave me.”

Sebastian saw no light, felt no warmth or peace. Diana’s cold, limp wrist pressed against his. His lungs seized. He’d lost her. When he opened his mouth to curse the angels and anyone else responsible for taking Diana, he felt her vein adhere to his, felt her heart stutter. His blood surged through his veins to his wrist, left his body with every beat of his heart and flowed into Diana’s. He allowed his tears free rein when Diana’s blue lips turned pink.

“When I pass out, you must keep us together. And don’t touch the bindings. Do you hear me? No matter what happens, we must stay together,” he said, never taking his eyes from those lips.

He slid beneath the sheets and drew Diana into his arms. They had to be united. Completely. But his fear that he still might fail left him impotent. Closing his eyes, he envisioned her naked, teasing him as he undressed in the cottage, moaning as she watched him wash her in the shower and drawing his hips down to hers as she accepted him for what he was. Nothing worked.

And then he saw her as he did that first night, dancing naked in the moonlight, running into his arms. Recalling the feel of her body slamming into him, then melting against his chest when he captured her lips, desire stirred.

With a relieved sigh, he nudged the head of his cock between her nether lips. His breath hitched when instead of being engulfed in her heat, he felt as if he’d just dipped himself into a cool pool of stagnant water. He thrust deeper. A wave of dizziness from his blood loss hit him. Lowering his lips to Diana’s, he struggled to remain conscious.

They were together again. Nothing else mattered. If this failed, they would at least die together. Bound as they were always meant to be.

 

“You want me to what?” Frank sputtered, spraying the ancient map and Damien’s face with coffee.

Damien scowled and grabbed the lace doily on the arm of the chair. He gently blotted the drops off the already bleeding ink. “Do you have any idea how old this map is?”

“No, but I do know that my mother will have your head for ruining her great-grandmother’s doily.” Frank leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Ink and coffee. Ruined.”

“Your mother and daughter need this map more than some wisp of lace.” Damien tossed the doily across the table.

“I won’t do it.”

Damien ran his hands through his hair. “It’s the only way, Frank.”

“It’s suicide. From what you’ve told me, if I drop you into the center of the city, they’ll have you bled dry before you hit the ground.” He swiped his hand across the table, sending the map and doily to the floor.

“Frank!” Damien leapt up, tossed the map back onto the table, then bent to retrieve the doily. He turned the delicate strip of lace over and over in his hand, then tenderly folded it and stuck it in the pocket over his heart. He turned to Frank. “I know it’s risky, but if we do this right, if you dangle me out of reach until every damn one of them is there, then by the time I hit the ground, you’ll have Angelina and Diana out of there.”

Frank hung his head and dropped back down into the chair. “I never believed until today that you loved my mother, you know? All these years, all those executions, simply because I refused to believe a vampire could have any reason to want my mother except as a blood bank. My God, I even killed my own brother.”

Damien shook his head. “You didn’t know.”

“What have I done? How many children are orphans because of my own jealousy?” Frank rubbed the back of his neck, then stilled. “Did my brother have children?”

Damien hung his head. “He had a little girl.”

Frank pounded the table with his fist. “I should be the one dropped. I deserve to die, not you.”

Grasping Frank’s shoulder, Damien squeezed. “Thanks for offering, but they don’t want human blood, Frank. They want vampire blood.”

“Then transform me.” He raised his head, his eyes wide. “Give me your blood.”

“It wouldn’t work. Your scent wouldn’t be strong enough to draw them all, if any. Even if it could work, I could never do that to Angelina. How could I look her in the eyes knowing that I’d sacrificed her only living son rather than myself?” He went back to his seat and smoothed out the map. “No, Frank, this is the only way.”

Frank leaned across the table and grabbed Damien’s arm. “A bag. We could fill a bag with some of your blood.”

“No, Frank.”

“We’ll poke a hole, let some drip down.”

“Frank!”

“What? It could work. They’d definitely smell it.” He dug his fingers into Damien’s arm. “Goddamnit, at least consider it!”

Damien scowled. “They’d know, Frank. They may be mad, but they’re not stupid. Some wouldn’t even bother to show up for a small bag of blood. The first bite and the ground would get more than them.”

Frank slumped back in his chair. “Ironic, isn’t it, Damien? I spent my whole life trying to kill you and failing. And now? All I want to do is find a way to keep you alive and I can’t do that.”

“But you can save your mother and daughter, Frank. Now let’s get this rescue on the road. Get me some more coffee. We have a long day ahead of us and I’m not used to being up at this hour.” He watched the man he’d once feared drag his feet as he left the room.

“Damien?”

Damien turned. Tomas, his wounds already healing, sat on the couch glaring at him.

“Are you crazy? You’re going to let him drop you on Fentmore, in the middle of the city?”

Damien shrugged. “Angelina’s my soul mate, Tomas. Her life is more important to me than my own.”

“But if you’re dead—”

“If I’m dead there’s at least some chance we will meet again in another lifetime. Go back to sleep, Tomas. We’ll need your help tonight.”

“Sebastian’s already there, you know,” Tomas mumbled as he snuggled back down into the cushions.

“He’s on Fentmore?” Damien strode over to the couch.

“Yup. The fool thought I was dead.” He yawned and rolled over. “They’re bonding the ancient way.”

Damien grabbed Tomas’ shoulder and rolled him onto his back. “The ancient way? Why the hell would he do that?”

“What’s the big deal? All of the ancient ones bonded with their human mates that way.”

“And most of them died, Tomas. Most of them bled to death and were buried still tied to each other. You know that.” Damien shut his eyes, searching for Sebastian, but Tomas’ finger poking his chest broke his concentration.

“I think the two thousand years you’ve lived since your days in school have fogged your memory, Damien. They died because both their bodies didn’t really need to take in the other’s blood. Not so with Sebastian and Diana. She was already dead, bled nearly dry—”

Grabbing Tomas’ arms, Damien raised him until their eyes were level.

Tomas’ eyes flew open. “Put me down, Damien.”

“Explain what the hell you’re talking about,” he uttered, his voice deadly.

“Well, I didn’t get all of it, because Sebastian kinda vanished from my mind in the middle.” He watched Damien’s rage escalate and rushed on. “But I’m sure he’s okay. He’s in some sort of hospital. Outside the city.”

Damien dropped Tomas back down to the couch and strode to the table. He returned to couch, the map crushed in his fist. “There is no hospital outside of the city. There’s nothing but wilderness around it.”

“Ah, well, it seems that an awful lot has gone on over there you elders don’t know about.” Tomas leapt over the back of the couch when Damien advanced. “Okay. Shit! Get a grip.”

“I’ll get a grip on your neck if you don’t tell me what the hell you’re talking about.” Damien soared over the couch and pinned his nephew against the wall. “Talk, Tomas. And don’t stop until you’ve told me everything you know about Fentmore.”

“Okay. Okay. You elders all blocked that place from your minds. Sure, you had the Slashers dropped down in the center of the city, but you always had us young ones fly the helicopters. And never more than a few times, warning us to wipe the memory from our minds and block out the maddening cries for blood. We had to promise when we returned not to talk about it so that we wouldn’t open any vampire’s mind to the cries. Well, some went when there was a full moon, some saw a different place than the—”

“Different?”

“Yeah. Marek told me right before he,” he nodded toward the kitchen, “killed him. Marek said a wall surrounded the city. Olympia used to tell him frightening bedtime stories about the island. So when he returned, he said she’d lied, because it wasn’t all that bad. He’d seen a town on the other side of the wall, so it couldn’t be like she’d said.”

“A town? You mean the Slashers built a wall and a town? That’s impossible.” Damien started to turn away, chuckling. “Marek was pulling your leg.”

Tomas grabbed his arm and jerked him around. “Marek didn’t lie. He said the Slashers were in the city. This town had others in it. It was night, but he saw women with babies, kids playing in a park and even farms.”

“Did Sebastian know about this?” Damien couldn’t believe word of these changes hadn’t leaked out.

“If he did, he didn’t hear about it from me. I swore to Marek I wouldn’t tell anyone that he’d talked. He was afraid you and the elders would punish him. Can you imagine if Tobias heard someone talked?” He let out a long whistle.

“Go on, Tomas. What else do you know?”

“Well, I did tell Diego, you know, because he’s been my best friend for, oh, years and—”

“Just get to the point, Tomas.”

“Diego flew Sebastian in this morning, so I guess he went right to the town instead of the city. Well, Sebastian yelled some sort of goodbye to me, like I was already dead. I set him straight and gave him a piece of my mind about not coming to save me. Then, bam! He floods me with info. Diana’s dead. Ancient bonding. Hospital. Doctor. Nurse. Diana dead. He shouted that about twenty times.”

“Diana’s dead?”

They both turned. Frank stood on the other side of the couch. The cup of black coffee tilted forward in his loosening grip, its steaming contents pouring onto the cushion below.

Damien rushed to him. “No, Frank. She can’t be. Angelina would have sent me some kind of word.” He grabbed the cup and looked down at the dark stain on the couch. “When she gets back here, we’re going to have a lot of explaining to do.”

“Maybe she didn’t send word because she’s dead too,” Frank mumbled, turning away.

“Oh no. I definitely picked up that Angelina was fine. Just freaked out about Diana being dead and all—” Tomas clamped his mouth shut when Damien bared his fangs. “But Sebastian’s giving her his blood.”

“And probably killing himself in the process,” Damien muttered, draping his arm across Frank’s slumped shoulders. “Frank, Sebastian won’t let her die. He’ll give her his last drop before he lets that happen.”

Frank shuddered. “If she’s already dead, how could she suck—?”

“Ancient bonding, man.” Tomas leapt across the couch and flung his arm over Damien’s from the other side of Frank.

Frank looked at the vampires standing on either side of him. “You’re both consoling me as if I’ve never killed your kind. You’re better men than I could ever hope to be. So how does this bonding help Diana suck?”

“Sebastian tied his open vein to hers,” Tomas said, making the motion of biting into one of his wrists, then holding it to the other.

“Tied?”

“This way, when he passes out from loss of blood, his vein remains on hers,” Damien answered, a chill at the implications running down his spine. “The old ones believed their blood would pass back and forth until it had completely merged, making them one with their mates.”

“Right. We’re talking big-time romance, Frank,” Tomas said, grinning.

“Except Diana supposedly has hardly any blood. Which means it will all flow into her, probably take all day. We heal during the day. By dusk, Sebastian’s vein will have closed.” Damien stared at the two men and waited for what he said to sink in.

Frank grasped his meaning first. “Before enough flows back into his body?”

Tomas’ grin vanished.

“Then she would live and he would die,” Frank mumbled.

“It doesn’t quite work that way,” Damien explained. “If he dies, then his blood will be useless to her. Ancient Bondings are where you humans got all those fallacies about vampires only living as long as the one who transformed them lives. The Ancient Bonding created one entity of two people. Each couple’s blood is unique. Ancient Bonding is no longer acceptable because, for some reason, when one of the bonded mates died, the other quickly followed.”

“And Sebastian knows this,” Frank asked.

Damien raised a brow and looked at Tomas.

Tomas grimaced. “I guess that’s what he meant by their hearts would either beat as one or he would join her in death.”

“Do you all commit suicide so casually?” Frank gasped.

“Only for our soul mates, Frank.” Damien tried to smile, but failed.

“He’s counting on us getting there in time,” Tomas said. “He said you knew what to do.”

“Then let’s get moving. If I understand you two,” Frank said, moving out from under their arms, “I don’t have to use Damien as bait.”

Damien nodded.

Frank glanced at the clock. “Well, we’ve got three hours ‘til dusk.”

Damien handed his cell phone over to Tomas. “Call your friend, Diego. Tell him to pick us up by the lake at dusk.”

When Tomas had finished, the three gathered around the map. Damien grabbed a pen and drew a circle around the city.

Tomas once again let out a long whistle. “I bet the Slashers can smell Sebastian’s blood a mile away. They must be freaking out.”

Two grim faces turned his way.

Tomas laughed. “They couldn’t get over that wall. Marek said it was really tall.”

Damien scowled.

Tomas shook his head and looked at Frank, then back to Damien. “They couldn’t possibly get over it. Could they?”

 

Doc Jenkins paced back and forth between the foot of Diana’s bed and the window.

Angelina tore her gaze from Sebastian and Diana and watched him peer into the darkness for the tenth time. “Doc, would you please sit down. You’re driving me crazy.”

They were the only two left in the makeshift hospital. The minute Katie, the nurse, had opened her eyes, she had taken in the scene on the bed, listened to the screams coming from the Slashers, then fled to the safety of her house.

The remaining few hours of daylight had dragged on. Sebastian’s breathing grew shallower with each passing minute.

At one point, John, the man who had carried Diana out of the city, had returned to check on her. Seeing her cradled in Sebastian’s embrace, he had left and returned with a bowl of cool water. He’d wiped the faces of the couple with a wet cloth, declaring gruffly that Angelina and Doc Jenkins should take better care of them.

His wife had arrived with enough food for an army shortly before dusk. Angelina virtually drooled from the aromas rising from the steaming dishes. She avoided asking what animal they feasted on, preferring to enjoy the succulent meat ignorant of its origin. Corn, broccoli and carrots melted in her mouth. But the food lodged in her throat each time a moan arose from the bed.

When John and his wife finally left, she and the doctor had nothing left to do but wait until sunset and pray that Damien had heard her calls.

An hour after the sky grayed, it sounded like all hell broke loose on the other side of the wall. While most of the Night-timers—too afraid to be near a full-blooded vampire again, too afraid that the scent of his blood would tempt them and awaken the beast they’d worked so hard to control—had stayed away from the doctor’s, it soon became apparent the Slashers wanted nothing more than to storm the town in search of that same scent.

Screaming and snarling, they clustered at the base of the wall closest to the doctor’s street. One by one, the residents of the town flew into the hospital with word from the lookouts.

“Every single Slasher in the city is clawing at the wall.”

“They’re killing each other!”

“The dead are stepping stones for the living!”

Then John charged in, his eyes filled with terror. “The pile of dead is almost to the top of the wall!”

One hour after dusk, a crowd of terrified residents gathered on the doctor’s front lawn and demanded he hand the vampires over to the Slashers.

“The Mayor’s here. He’ll calm them down,” Doc Jenkins said, moving away from the window to unlock the door.

The Mayor charged into the room, his eyes wide and his hat twisted between his trembling hands. “They’re going to reach the top!” he cried, his voice as shrill as a young girl’s.

Angelina placed her hand on the Mayor’s arm. “Calm down, Mayor. Sebastian’s stepfather is on his way. I can feel it.”

“Another vampire? Oh no! They’ll get over for sure if they smell another one. We’re doomed if they come over that wall. Doomed!” He crept over to the bed and peered down at the couple. “One might satisfy them.”

“Don’t even think about it, Mayor.” Angelina ran up and slid between him and the bed. “If you separate them now, they’ll both die.”

The Mayor held out his hands. “What can I do? I can’t sacrifice a whole town of innocents for one vampire!”

Doc Jenkins walked away from the window. When he spoke, his soft voice seemed to calm the Mayor. “If you take him, you’ll kill the girl. Give them a little more time. The Slashers have never scaled the wall before.”

“They’ve never had a full-blooded vampire on the other side before, either.” He dropped into a chair by the window and resumed twisting his hat. “As if this one’s scent weren’t enough to drive them over the wall, we have reason to believe he’s not the only vampire on the island.”

Angelina’s heart swelled at the thought of seeing Damien again. “You’ve seen him?”

He jumped as the demands outside suddenly surged. “No, but the field workers came in this morning with news that the helicopter that dropped off this young woman crashed. They were on their way to check it out when they saw the wreckage fall off the cliff.”

Doc Jenkins looked up from taking Diana’s pulse. “So what makes you think anyone survived?”

The Mayor smacked his hat down on his leg. “Vampires don’t die that easily, do they? And the Night-timers could smell it. The males said it was a female.”

“Olympia.” Angelina walked up to the Mayor. “Release the Slashers into the woods. Let them go after her.”

He laughed nervously. “The only way from the city to the crash site is right through the middle of town, woman. They’d feed on every Night-timer they found on the way, not to mention these two.”

“He’s right,” the doctor added, his hand now on Sebastian’s free wrist. “I just can’t imagine how they could scale the wall. Do you realize how many of them would have to die to create a mound that high?”

The Mayor and Angelina shuddered in unison.

If Damien didn’t get here soon, he’d arrive to find no one alive to rescue.

A soft whimper from the bed drew their attention. Diana’s eyes opened for only a moment, but the smile on her face as she tucked her head under Sebastian’s chin gave Angelina more hope than she’d had since she watched Olympia lower her granddaughter from the helicopter.

“I hope your vampire gets here in time,” the Mayor whispered. “I’d hate to see these two go through all this just to have to fall into the hands of the Slashers. It’d be a damn shame.”

“He’ll make it,” Angelina stated, her voice sounding surer than she felt. Ever since she’d landed here, her abilities had weakened. Past visions had never gone further than their rescue from the city.

John burst into the room. “The beach lookout said a helicopter’s coming this way.”

“Damien.” Angelina turned toward the door but halted and glanced at the Mayor, then Diana and Sebastian.

“Go on,” Doc Jenkins said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, “I’ll keep them safe.”

She ran to the door, then, with a weary sigh, turned away. “I haven’t seen him in decades.” Her hands flew to her hair as she glanced down at her bloodstained clothes.

John let out a bark of laughter. “You couldn’t look awful if you tried.”

The Mayor nodded and smiled. “You look fine.”

“The man flew across an ocean to save you. Don’t keep him waiting,” Doc Jenkins said with a wink.

Her heart lodged in her throat. “I’ve waited so very long for this moment. And now I find I’m terrified he won’t want me anymore.”

The sound of the helicopter finally met their ears. Doc Jenkins and the Mayor went to the window and peered out into the darkness.

“You’d better hur—”

Angelina ran out the door.

* * * * *

Olympia huddled against a boulder. Unable to stop shivering since she’d taken refuge in the dank cave when dawn had approached, she wished she had the courage to get closer to the band of fading light at the entrance. The remains of the rats she’d drained during the day were sprawled at her feet, along with the swarm of insects drawn to the blood surrounding them. She saw them, heard them, felt them crawling up her legs.

She tenderly ran her fingers down her left arm. The gash on the back of her shoulder from the helicopter blade striking her when they crashed had already begun to heal, but throbbed relentlessly. The throbbing could only mean an infection brewed.

Olympia regretted ignoring her pilot’s pleas for help as he struggled to release his seat belt moments before the helicopter tumbled off the cliff and fell onto the rocky coast below. She could have used some help, someone to lick her wound clean, someone to toss to the Slashers. Someone to keep them busy long enough for her to get off this damn island.

The screams from the city made their way into the cave and kept her from moving toward the entrance long after dusk finally arrived.

She jumped up as some unseen pest pierced the tender skin of her inner thigh. “Ugh, they’re in my damn pants!”

Running out of the cave, her pants half down, Olympia screeched and started swatting at the red ants covering her legs. A rustle to her left sent a chill down her spine. Trembling, she searched the shadows surrounding her.

Slashers inhabited this island. Hovering above the beachfront entrance to the city, safe in her helicopter, she’d watched them rip each other to shreds over and over again. Ragged teeth slicing through flesh and muscle as if they were butter. Screams of agonizing pain giving her a little too much pleasure and no guilt as she tossed the newest resident of the island into their midst. She never imagined that her feet would ever touch Fentmore soil.

A twig snapped. Olympia leapt from the rock and ran toward the scent of the ocean. Branches whipped at her face, animals, catching scent of her weakened state, lurched from the darkness and nipped at her ankles. For the first time in her life, Olympia was terrified.

Father! Father!

She’d been trying to reach him last night and all day, but to no avail. She refused to believe he would block her from his mind, decided instead that something on this wretched island, something the elders must have installed to protect their kind from hearing the constant calls of the Slashers, blocked her own cries for help.

Taking a deep fortifying breath, she slowed to a walk. She had no idea how she’d get off the island, if ever, but sitting on a rock all night wouldn’t get her any closer to home and running in circles would only wear her out. If she could make it to the ocean without bumping into a group of Slashers, she would figure something out.

Something scurried out of the shadows. Expecting to see crazed eyes and rows of jagged teeth, Olympia flew into a tree. Down below a raccoon sniffed the ground. Blood from the scratches and bites covering her arms and legs cooled as a soft breeze rustled the leaves around her. The cries of the Slashers grew more frenzied.