A Trail of Echoes(10)

What is happening?

I kept asking myself the question as I stared up at the cloud, squinting through the droplets of blood.

And then I heard it.

A voice, male or female I didn’t know. It was too soft, too echoing, to tell.

It started out quiet, so quiet that I could barely understand what it was saying. Then it grew louder and louder, until it was echoing in my ears so loudly that the words couldn’t be mistaken:

“Come back, Benjamin Novak.”

My name. How does it know my name?

The resounding voice repeated again and again in some kind of sinister chant. I clutched my ears, as if that would make any difference.

“We know who you are, and we know what you want.”

We? Who’s we?

I staggered to the edge of the ship, clutching the sides and staring up at the sky, blood now streaming down my face.

Despite my mind being preoccupied, my body was aching for the blood. I reached up to my face, touching the blood, and then moved to taste it.

Human blood.

It’s raining human blood.

“Come back, Benjamin Novak…”

Suddenly the tattoo seared severely—more severely than I remembered experiencing before. My legs gave way beneath me and I fell to the deck, crouched on all fours as I clenched my jaw against the pain.

By my side, River crouched down and touched my shoulder.

I was so consumed by the burning, I could barely see. Then I felt a different type of sensation—a burning not just in my upper arm, but the rest of my body too.

River tugged on me.

“Ben, you need to get out of the sun.”

The sun. It had broken through the sky.

The blood stopped. The cloud vanished.

The pain in my tattoo ebbing away, I crawled toward the shelter.

“What’s wrong?” River asked, looking at me worriedly.

Still recovering, all I could manage to reply was:

“We need to get you to The Shade.”





Chapter 7: Rose





Caleb and I sat on the steps of our mountain cabin, admiring the magnificent view of the island. The ocean in the distance shimmered beneath pale moonlight and a cool breeze rustled the leaves of the redwoods. We planned to move into a new penthouse soon, near the Residences with the other vampires, but for now we were still enjoying this mountain location.

Aside from the strange gray ships moored outside the boundary, things in The Shade had been peaceful since our wedding and the departure of the dragon prince. I wasn’t going to complain. We had all had enough drama recently.

I took a sip from my mug of hot chocolate, while Caleb took the last draught from his glass of blood. We sat in silence, content with each other’s presence.

I glanced down at the beautiful ring on my finger. It was still bizarre to think that I was married.

Married.

I looked sideways at my new husband. His eyes looked slightly glazed as he looked out toward the ocean in the distance.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked softly, leaning in and resting my head against his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around me, his hand on my thigh as he pulled me closer toward him.

“A lot of things.” He averted his eyes away from the ocean and looked down at me, a mischievous glint in his gaze. “One of them being… How much longer do I have to wait for you to finish that hot chocolate so I can take you to bed?”

His gaze gave me butterflies. He hadn’t been able to keep his hands off me since we’d exchanged vows. While previously he had been restrained, he was certainly making up for it now… which sure suited me.

I sloshed the liquid in the cup. It had cooled by now. I swallowed the last two mouthfuls within the space of a few seconds, then showed him the empty cup. “No more need to wonder about that,” I said, giving him a sultry look.

His hands reaching around my back and beneath my knees, he swept me up into his arms and carried me back into the cabin. Closing the door behind us, he headed straight for the bedroom and placed me down in the center of the bed. I was expecting him to begin removing his shirt, but instead he paused, giving me a thoughtful look.

“Something else I was thinking about was… our honeymoon,” he said.

I raised a brow, moving back toward the headboard and sitting upright. “Oh?”

“I know you said that you don’t mind waiting for now, since I’m a vampire and traveling anywhere is going to be difficult. But it doesn’t have to be.” He reached for the nearby table and slid open the top drawer. He pulled out a sheet of paper filled with sketches and various mathematical notes. It all looked rather complicated, but I focused on the diagram in the center of the paper as he sat next to me and spread the sheet out on the mattress. It was a fairly large boat, about twenty-five feet long and eighteen feet wide according to the notes, and a shelter of some sort covered the entire deck.