EPILOGUE
“That she was diseased aside, she asked you to.”
“I believe she said that she didn’t want to die.” Brey’s features scrunched as he pondered it. He waved his hand. “Nevertheless, it’s just really starting to chafe.”
I swatted a large insect away. “I love Hanna dearly, but she’s been a vampire for over eighty years. You’d think she’d have long found something else to gripe about.”
Brey slowed to heft the sack of books over his other shoulder. “Such as the captain’s staunch inability to admit that he’s in a committed situation with her and a ghost.”
“Exactly.” I pointed at him. “Everyone knows it.”
“Everyone,” he concurred, a little too loudly. Screeching birds scattered from the treetops. Brey peered at the flora surrounding us, then walked on with a sigh. “Truly. What else am I supposed to do?” A huff. “Apologize for giving her immortal life?”
As we breached the grove, we looked at one another.
Then laughed.
But when we crossed the clearing, our merriment came to an abrupt halt as we beheld a tall and odd something standing before the lagoon.
We stopped, and I asked, “Is that a…?”
“A cottage.” Tilting his head, as if to study it from a different angle, Brey muttered, “Of sorts.”
Of sorts indeed.
Boats.
Or what had once been boats—before Lovaila had undoubtedly destroyed them to keep my father from fleeing—had been used to create a leaning, two-story structure. As we dared to creep closer, I frowned at the dark green binding that held the shelter together.
Lovaila’s reeds.
“Huh,” breathed Brey. “Quite clever, actually.”
Unease further dampened my skin with sweat as the structure creaked. Something slammed. A door, maybe, followed by footsteps over the sandy grass.
Brey pressed his finger against his mouth, then took my hand and led me backward toward the lagoon.
“There you are.”
We froze. Slowly, we turned to the lagoon.
Lovaila lay on the sand before it, tail in the air behind her. I hadn’t seen it last time—how the fins fanned like half a flower. Her dark eyes gleamed. “I’ve had your sire count the days until your return for me.”
Brey threaded his fingers through mine, keeping me close. He gave the mermonster a charming smile. “Lovaila, darling.” Making a show of peering around the lagoon, he drawled, “I trust your captive is alive and well?”
“I gave you my word, and I kept it.” Crawling over the sand with eerie quickness and ease, she hissed, “Now prove that you have kept yours, or I’ll give you both to my vampire to play with.”
Ice climbed into my veins at the mere thought.
Brey’s smile didn’t falter. “No need to worry. Here hides your surprise.” Swinging the sack from his shoulder, he gently set it on the grass. “We took it to another ward first, and let me tell you”—he opened the sack with an amused huff—“escaping a snagorn with these in tow is not exactly—”
Lovaila snapped, “I care not for your stories.”
“Well,” Brey said, and procured a book, “I do hope you care for some stories, as we’ve brought you many.”
“Stories?” Lovaila shook her head, then came closer. “Empty that sack.”
My stomach hollowed.
Brey released me to tip the books onto the grass. Though he did so carefully, I still winced.
Lovaila’s crinkled features creased further. “This is my surprise?”
He grinned. “Excellent, isn’t it?”
She snarled. “I wanted treats, you miscreant tricksters.”
Brey didn’t so much as tense. With enviable calm, he said, “Books are a treat. These fictional tales will endlessly entertain you.” Gesturing to the pile, he winked. “For once you’ve read them, you can simply read them again.”
“Read?” she questioned.
“Aphylus can read them to you,” I said. “In fact, I’d wager you could even have him teach you how to read.”
Lovaila gave her dark eyes to me. “The queen finally speaks.”
“Where is he?” I asked.
“I told your sire not to come out of his dwelling until you have fed your precious ward.” Picking up a book, she sniffed it then clawed the pages open. “It took many years and severed digits, but he does as he is told.”
Brey’s smile wilted.
As he continued to tell Lovaila about the books and began to read a passage from one to her, I looked over at that leaning home crafted from broken boats.
Vines crawled up the front to tangle around the mast in the center of the structure. Gaps between the wood acted as windows, shells sitting on the small sills. The door was a sheet of rusting metal that screeched in the breeze.
Despite what Lovaila had said, I knew in my bones that my father wasn’t in there. He was lurking somewhere else, leading me to wonder if the mercreature was the monster we ought to be wary of when visiting this ward.
No matter how much Aphylus might fear Lovaila, he would never dutifully sit idle. He’d likely earned enough of her trust to plot and bide his time.
My mother had ceased hoping for her husband’s safe return some decades ago.
Of course, she hadn’t wanted to see him. She simply hadn’t wanted to fret about the fading coming for her. Now, should he manage to escape this isle and make it home to ours, she wouldn’t hesitate to have him captured and locked away.
For although she was as dramatic and extravagant as ever, Euricia Blueburn had become a name many in our province said with care.
She was more fair than my father, and far less quick to spill blood.
Yet she still evoked fear from those she conducted business with, and certainly those who owed or wronged her.
Brey had kept his promise.
We had stayed at the Blueburn Estate until we were all confident the remaining made vampires and staff could be trusted. Few humans were told to leave unless they had found themselves working for our family to repay debts that were not theirs.
The made vampires from my father’s tediously curated army had been our primary concern. Those who displayed an unmistakable thirst for power and carnage were now part of the city guard. A role that allowed them to attend to their own needs as well as ours.
Which meant Brey only went out hunting when he felt like it.
The metal door to my father’s home swung and creaked again.
“Very well,” Lovaila sighed more than said. “I will trust that the rest are as intriguing as what you just showed me.” She flicked some of her seaweed hair over her shoulder, then stabbed a clawed nail at me. “But you will bring me more gifts.”
I raised a brow. “Now who is rude?” Walking to Brey’s side, I swept a hand at the books. “Some of those are my favorites. First editions. Irreplaceable.”
“Why give them to me, then?”
“Because I’ll get them back next time.” I smiled brightly. “When we bring you some more.”
The face Lovaila made might have been comical if she weren’t still mildly terrifying. “And what if I do not want more of these books?”
“You will.” With that, I took Brey’s hand.
As I pulled him toward the lagoon, he said cheerily, “Until next century, Lovaila.” He then turned back. “Oh, and do not get those wet. Parchment and water are the fiercest of foes.”
Too preoccupied with trying to stack the books—a difficult task with claws—the mermonster just grunted.
We crossed the lagoon at the same place as last time. As we emerged, the ward’s energy hummed and pressed, pebbling my wet skin. Only when we were dripping onto the sandbank before the crumbling well did Lovaila say something else.
Not to us.
“I thought I told you to stay in your hut.”
Distracted, Brey hissed as he accidentally dug the blade too deep into his palm.
My heart pounded. I fought the urge to look for the man Lovaila had spoken to. I took the dagger from Brey and quickly sliced open my own lifeline—right as something embedded in the sand by our feet and swayed.
We gaped at the poorly made spear, then at each other.
Brey swallowed. “I think we’ve outstayed our welcome.”
He pulled me down behind the well with him. There, he moved our clasped hands over the rim and squeezed. Again, we looked at one another, wide-eyed.
“Did you see him?” I whispered.
Brey shook his head.
A splash had us peering over the well. In the lagoon, Lovaila surfaced with another spear. Shaking it above her head, she grabbed something floating beside her.
A book.
“Look at what you’ve done.” She tossed both items onto the sand.
“I give you my blood, let you build a home on land, and even lick your cock when you ask me, and this is how you repay me?” Water crashed as she turned in a rapid circle, hunting for my father’s whereabouts.
“By thwarting my chance to get more gifts?”
With a roar, Aphylus leaped out from behind the mangroves.
A spear raised, he ran toward the lagoon. Sand sprayed beneath his bare feet. His hair sailed behind him, long and bound in two braids by reeds. He’d grown his beard to his sun-bronzed stomach. Some sort of soiled material flapped over his thighs.
The blood leaving our hands finally slowed to a drip.
But the darkness didn’t come. Not before the father I hardly recognized reached the lagoon and hollered, “I’ll kill you. I’ll drain you both before I slaughter you and pick fish from my teeth with your bones.”
Chest-deep in the lagoon, he prepared to throw another spear at us when water exploded.
Lovaila.
She snatched his spear and thrust it into his stomach.
Again, my father roared, but in pain.
Brey winced. “Maybe next time, Aphylus.”
The forgotten lord thrashed in the water. As an enraged shriek from Lovaila splintered the air, gulls squawked and fled the beach beyond the mangroves.
Just when I thought I should stay and make sure she didn’t kill my father and therefore my mother, we were sucked into the well. Another roared shout followed us down, then we were seized by that impenetrably dark river.
And tossed onto the highest city street.
I rolled to a stop. Dazed, I pushed up from the cobblestone. “Do you think she’ll kill him now?”
A few feet away, Brey sat and reached for his dagger. He sheathed it. “Her gifts are no good without Aphylus to read them to her.” His lips wriggled. “Genius idea, by the way. Creating another reason for her to keep him.”
Freeing my hair from my wet braid, I hummed. “It was, wasn’t it?”
Brey smirked, then sighed as he studied the streets sloping into the city.
Midday heat glazed the cream and brown maze of cluttered structures.
For some moments, we just sat there, drying. Enjoying the quiet and that we’d survived. One more ward remained for this century. Now that we knew to make an offering to the giant spider’s offspring, we were hopeful it would be the easiest one.
Brey got to his feet.
After helping me to mine, he took his time dusting sand from my chest, stomach, and ass. Straightening, he brushed more from my cheek. He kissed it, then stole my hand and brought it to his mouth. Mischief brightened his eyes. “It’s still daylight, lethal.”
I smiled. “So it is.”
Walking backward down the street, he tugged me along with him. “Let’s go make some shops open just for us.”