What has become of you, Hans? What has become of us? Of our story?

Where was he now, the real Hans? I still couldn’t bring myself to believe that the creature who had attacked his own brother had been my Hans. How could somebody change so drastically? It was one thing for the physicality of a person to alter, but there wasn’t even a sliver of the Hans I used to know left in that body.

As about a dozen more of the creatures burst out from the trees, each of them carrying victims—both vampires and witches—I shook myself to my senses. What am I doing still stalling like this? Get a grip. I had to get us both out of here before we ended up the same way.

Tightening my hold on the reins, I urged the sharks forward.

Arletta’s eyes were fixed in horror on the beach. She watched as the creatures piled into their ship—our ship—with their newly found victims.

“Keep your head down lower,” I ordered her, even as I did the same. Some of them might notice our boat, but hopefully they wouldn’t see much more than a seemingly empty boat. The sharks could have gotten fed up of waiting for their master in the harbor.

I needed to navigate us away from their ship, but before I could, thanks to a line of buoys that marked the enclosure of the small harbor, I was forced to swerve outward, closer to the ship. As we moved around the boulders, something caught my eye up in the mast of the ship. Something… someone… was perched there. With long, matted black hair, and a slim body that extended only to the hips before turning into smoke, it was Aisha.

I averted my eyes and focused even harder on racing away from this forsaken place, but she had already seen me.

Aisha

I’m going to kill that vampire.

The moment I locked eyes with Julie Duan, fury erupted in my veins. So much anger welled within me at the sight of her that it even diverted my mind from mourning the loss of my family.

My body felt weak, weaker than ever, but I left my spot on the ship’s mast and glided down toward the two vampires who were now speeding away in their boat as fast as they could. I caught up with them and landed directly in front of where Julie sat, blocking her view of the ocean ahead.

The two vampires froze, panic lighting up their eyes. Abandoning their positions behind the reins, they hurled themselves off the boat and into the ocean. I wasn’t going to let them off the hook that easily. I dove in after them, swimming deeper and deeper beneath the surface until I spotted Julie, her legs kicking up a whirlpool as she desperately swam for escape.

Forcing my aching body to move faster, I extended my hands and closed them around the vampire’s ankles. She kicked and flailed to break free of me, but slowly, I pulled her back up to the surface. Still clutching her, I tried to lift her above the surface of the waves. To my horror and embarrassment, it was a gargantuan effort to support anyone but myself, and she was only a short woman.

Still, my determination took over and I found a way to lift her. I was greatly tempted to carry her back to the ship, drop her down to the center of the deck, and then return to the mast and watch with satisfaction as the monsters ripped into her. For betraying Benjamin, that was the most fitting punishment that I could think of. Besides, I was feeling too lethargic and weak to keep struggling with the vampire myself. I wanted to hand her over to them and have them finish the job for me.

Then there was the other girl with her… I wasn’t sure who she was, but she was clearly an accomplice. Maybe she deserved the same fate too. But she had swum further away, and as I hovered over the waves, I couldn’t spot her beneath the surface. I could always come back for her later. Julie was the main culprit. She was the one who was going to feel the bulk of my wrath.

Perhaps it was all my pent-up emotions unleashing all at once in a flood—the grief, fear, hopelessness—but as I carried the flailing vampire toward that ship filled with monsters, something had snapped in me. I felt as bloodthirsty as those creatures.

“No! Please, don’t!” Julie sobbed beneath me.

I dug my nails spitefully into her ankle. “You’re going to regret what you did to Benjamin, you little bitch. And I’m going to enjoy every single second of it.”

There wasn’t a single bit of mercy running through my veins as I arrived at the ship and floated with her higher, toward the spot where I’d been perched at the top of the mast. If I’d still been in full possession of my own powers, perhaps I might’ve concocted a worse way for her to suffer, and a more enjoyable one for me to watch… though I doubted it. But even if I could have, right now, my magic was faded and other than basic movement—which I struggled with considerably—there wasn’t much I could personally do to Julie that would be satisfying enough.

I cast my eyes downward, scanning the deck that was now swarming with the pale monsters again. Their visit to this quiet little island had been brief. I’d watched them all pile off the ship and disappear into the trees, but I hadn’t found enough strength or willpower in myself to follow them. My mind had been rooted to the spot, grieving for my family. But then when the creatures had started to return, and I’d noticed Julie trying to escape in her little boat, a surge of adrenaline had jolted me to life, as though I’d just been electrocuted.

Now the monsters were laying out their newly found victims in rows along the deck—the same way they’d positioned their previous catch. Though they had captured a number of vampires, I was shocked to see more than a few witches lying among them. Were these brutes really capable of overpowering witches? Wouldn’t the witches have just used their magic to blast them away? Or perhaps the monsters had taken them by surprise, crept up on them in their sleep and dug their vicious fangs into their necks. I guessed that was the more likely scenario—that the witches hadn’t even had a chance to retaliate before it was too late. Now that I looked more closely at the victims, the witches were quite still as they lay on the deck, with blood seeping from deep wounds in their necks. They were not displaying signs of consciousness—unlike the vampires who were groaning in pain and writhing about the wooden floorboards.