Page 94 of Thorns from the Fall

“What kind of dreams?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer.

“With Cynthia, I was too late. In murdering her, I believe Johnathon was trying to get revenge. He took from Bill Parsons that which belonged to me.”

“This all sounds awfully fucking convenient when everyone in your story is dead,” Nico says, and I’m tempted to agree with him.

“Proctor still lives,” he says, then sighs. “When you are stuck in Slumber for nearly thirty years after the death of your mate, it leaves much time to riddle over the past. I fell in love with Cynthia while she dreamt of a future for the child growing inside her womb. I don’t know if she loved me back, but I have to hope she would have. Are we nearly there?” he asks.

I look down at my phone to see we aren’t even halfway there and tell Agnarr as such. He sits back in his seat, and his story seems to be over. I don’t know what the fuck to do with it.

The only thing I don’t find confusing is what Gwyn is to me.

Mate. Partner. Félagi.

The rest means nothing. The sins of the generation before us don’t fucking matter. It doesn’t matter if I was born of an affair, and Gwyn was an experiment. Who gives a fuck? We’re both hybrids. If there’s a bigger meaning within that knowledge, it can wait. It’s not what’s important. I am hers and she is mine, and all I know is that if I don’t find her, I will destroy every vampire from here to the Pacific.

“What does Ketill want with her?” I ask when we’re only a few minutes out.

“If he hasn’t already killed her, he plans to use her.”

“He hasn’t killed her,” I insist. “I’d know.”

“Perhaps.”

“It’s probably that building on the corner,” Nico says as he pulls into the parking lot. My heart stops when I see the Chevelle.

“We must hurry and find the portal,” Agnarr says, but I’m already out of the car and halfway to the building. I kick the door in and close my eyes. Breathing deep, I feel for the crackle of magic that I thought everyone felt. Down a hallway, past what I think used to be a break room, there’s a storage room.

Faintly, I sense the shape of the portal. Instead of an object existing in space, that I can see or feel or sense with closed eyes, this magic feels like the lack of something. Like a subtraction from the air around me.

“Do you feel that?” I ask Nico, assuming the hairs on the back of his neck are standing up like mine.

“We cannot feel it,” Agnarr says. “The witch said only two may travel through it.”

“Great,” I deadpan. “I can only take one of you then?”

“Fuck,” Hale swears. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Agnarr,” I say, betting on the original vampire’s strength—and his story. After the last few months, I probably shouldn’t trust fucking anybody. But here I am.

“If it’s already set up, all you have to do is spill your blood,” Hale instructs.

“What’s your plan when you get there?” Nico asks.

I don’t hesitate. “Kill them all.”

39

GWYN

“Wake up, sweetheart.”

I’m not cold anymore. Instead, I’m wrapped in a warm embrace, and his breath smells of mint.

“Roman?” I ask, confused as I blink up at the man holding me in his lap. I think we’re sitting on the floor, but he doesn’t let me go. The fluorescent lights are so fucking bright that it’s hard to make out his face.

But it’s him.

“A stubborn will to live, don’t you think, cockroach?”

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