Reuben shot straight to the brothers, momentarily touching their shoulders. That easily, their powers were weakened. Sebastian, his men, and Salem took out Blake and the other two vampires, leaving them nothing but ashes.

Still not willing to trust that they didn’t have the ability to harm Jared, I didn’t lower the shield as he and I walked to where the two brothers were now being held to the wall. When did Sebastian get here? I asked Jared.

He returned to The Hollow not long ago; said that he’d located the brothers and that they had you. I gathered the squad and we came here with Sebastian and his guys, and infiltrated the place. We’d been halfway through killing the vampires outside and in the rear of the house when I felt you.

Wyatt stopped struggling when he looked at me. “Quinn…her eyes.”

Similarly, Quinn stilled. “They glow silver. Mercury. Beautiful.”

I jiggled my head. “I tend to think of it as a bad side effect. But now that we have you, you’re going to fix that for me.”

Does Sebastian know what they did to me?

Yeah, I told him − I know we can trust him. But the others have no idea.

Obviously understanding that it was important that very few people knew about my new ‘hybrid’ status, Sebastian turned to his men. “Go and see if the others need any assistance.” As his men did as ordered, Sebastian turned to Salem and Reuben. “Perhaps it would be a good idea for you to check on the rest of your squad.”

When Salem and Reuben both looked to me, I nodded.

Only once they were gone did I speak to the brothers. “Now it’s time to put right what you did.”

“As your vampire has weakened our gifts, we cannot,” said Quinn.

I shrugged. “That’s fine. We’ll just keep you in a containment cell at The Hollow while we wait for the effect of Reuben’s gift to wear off.”

“I could not reverse the changes even if I wanted to.”

Jared shook his head. “If you did it, you can reverse it.”

“I could try, but I would not be able to completely reverse them.”

Narrowing his eyes, Jared demanded, “What does that mean?”

“It means that she would be somewhere between a Sventé, and what she is now.” Quinn gazed at me curiously. “Would you really want to change, Samantha? Would you really want to go back to being a Sventé?”

“I was perfectly happy as I was,” I told him.

“Perhaps you were. But wouldn’t you prefer to have all this power, to know that you can protect Jared and your squad much better by staying as you are?”

Jared growled. “By being as she is, she’ll always be in danger.”

Wyatt looked at me with something akin to reverence. “She is not dangerous, she is unique.” He sounded like a regular scientist talking about his subject.

“We’re getting nowhere with this,” I grumbled to Jared.

“So you can’t reverse it?” Jared asked them.

“We could try,” replied Wyatt. “Are you prepared to take the risks?”

Jared answered without missing a beat. “No.” Without moving his eyes from them, he spoke to me. “Sam, could you go with Sebastian to see the squad, let them know you’re safe. They’ve been worried about you.”

“Jared—”

“I warned these f**kers that I would find and destroy them.”

“Jared—”

Finally, he looked at me. “I need this.”

Yes, he really did, I realised. In doing what they had done, in putting me through pain, they had left him feeling helpless, powerless, and unable to help and protect the one person he most wanted to protect. And by having me teleported to them, they had put him through all those feelings once again. He had a score to settle. Just like Jude had needed to destroy Orrin to ease the rage and pain, he needed this now. And he needed to do it alone, just as she had.

I could have quite rightly pointed out that it was me who had been the true victim, and that I had some rage of my own, but I was willing to give him this. Besides, there was another score that needed settling, and I wanted to be the one to settle it. If I let him have the brothers, I could claim the right to punish Magda as I saw fit.

Giving him a nod, I left the room with Sebastian. But no matter how far away I got, I could still hear the screams.

(Jared)

I couldn’t stop staring at her. Didn’t want to. Not simply because of how beautiful she was, but because I’d never appreciated the sight of her as much as I did at that moment. I could see that it was annoying her, and I was pretty sure that she was going to hit me with her pillow soon if I didn’t stop. But after spending what felt like hours wondering if I’d ever see her again, I didn’t want to take my eyes off her. I wanted, needed, to drink in the sight of her.

Although coming inside her had felt like letting go of a lot of the stark fear I’d felt, it hadn’t been enough to reassure myself that she was back, here with me, and absolutely fine. The fact was, I had never had anything ‘good’ before, and I was petrified of losing what I never thought existed. Tonight had given me a tiny taste of what that would be like. Hell.

“Stop staring at me or I’ll poke you in the eyes.”

I smiled, running my hand through her hair. “Can’t help it. When Sebastian took me to the house where they were keeping you, it took everything I had not to charge inside. Even though I knew it was best that I didn’t risk exposing our presence to the brothers, all I wanted was to get to you.”

“You did.”

“How did you get your memories back?”

“I remembered Dexter first,” she admitted, which made me frown. I still had a love/hate relationship with that damn serpent. “They had a snake, and it was making me have flashbacks of Dexter, and then that led to me having flashbacks of the apartment, and of you.”

“So each memory triggered another?”

“Yeah, sort of.”

“Is there any damage? I mean, do you have any blank spots, like some of the memories are still repressed?”

“I don’t think so. Antonio said that Ryder can take a look for me, if I like. I’ll think about it. Right now, all I’m bothered about is getting some sleep so that I’m awake for our ceremony.”

“You’re feeling up to having it tomorrow?” I scrutinised her face. “You have to be tired.”

“The ceremony is not being postponed – deal with it.” There was no room for negotiation in her tone, which made me smile.