A World of New (A Shade of Vampire, #26)

Saira, however, did not seem to find my visit curious at all. She listened and responded with compassion and without judgment. I did not know much about Saira’s past before she’d arrived in The Shade. Perhaps she’d once had a child, or children, of her own. But whatever her background, by the time I’d finished pouring my heart out to her about everything—call it maternal or she-wolf intuition—she told me exactly what I needed to hear.

“Wolves have good instincts, dear,” she said. “I can’t say that your wolf friend has survived, of course. But if he has, you’re causing yourself a whole lot of unnecessary heartache by worrying about what he might think of you.” She leaned in closer, her kind eyes fixed on mine. “Shall I tell you a little something about male wolves?”

“What?” I asked.

“They sense a good woman when they find one,” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest. “They may not realize it on a conscious level, but their subconscious knows it. Their affection is raw and often uncontrollable. They’re drawn to protect them, touch them, smell them, keep them close… to a point where they become dependent on the female, and it can intensely hurt them to be apart. Sometimes even psychologically damage them. Male werewolves, in many ways, are more fragile than their female counterparts. They fall harder and deeper. Even in light of so-called evidence of your betrayal, if there was truly a spark between you two, as it seems there was, and if he’s alive… I believe with all my heart that somehow or other, he will find a way back to you.”





Bastien





As far away as I wanted to remain from all that was familiar, I could not venture too far in my boat. Not when my homeland was being bludgeoned and raped. It was like a cord around my midriff, binding me to the land. It was my duty to return, but I was not ready yet.

I sat in the small boat, my back turned toward the shore, while the endless expanse of blue stretched out in front of me. And I wished. I wished that I was stronger than this. I wished that my heart was lined with steel, as hard and enduring as my muscles. I wished that I did not feel all that I felt in this moment.

Would Victoria really have betrayed me? Was she as callous a woman as Brucella?

When she had responded to my kiss, had it all been an act?

All along… had she never been my friend?

It didn’t make sense. Every part of me wanted to reject it. But then, I reminded myself, a lot of things in my world hadn’t been making sense of late. Not since the night I’d lost my family.

Maybe things will make more sense if I just accept Victoria for what she is. A liar. A cheat. A player of hearts.

But then, each time I tried to accept it, I would remember her light blue eyes, the way she’d looked at me. The way she’d smiled or squeezed my hand. The way she’d nestled her head against my chest at night. The way she had pulled me closer as I had caressed her lips. The way she’d breathed my name.

Although evidence for her betrayal was before my very eyes—what kind of a coincidence would it be for the hunters to arrive with their monsters just after we accepted her family into our midst?—I could not ignore the feeling pervading my body that Victoria was innocent. And there simply has to be another explanation.

Life would not be so unkind to me. It would not…

“Bastien!”

My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach as a familiar voice shrilled out from behind me.

I whirled around and, to my shock, laid eyes on one of the old port’s large ships gliding toward me. I had been so lost in my own mind, I hadn’t even sensed its approach. Gazing up toward the deck, I was met with the odious face of my aunt. Standing next to her on the deck were Sergius and Rona, along with many others from the Northstone tribe. So they had managed to escape, and they had gotten the same idea as me.

“Climb aboard, nephew!” Brucella called, even as she began to mount the railing. Her ship was more than close enough for an easy jump.

And jump she did.

She hurled herself across the waves and landed at the bow of my boat, causing it to shudder and shake beneath my feet. Then she lunged toward me. But I did not give her the chance to touch me.

I would not climb aboard her ship. I would not allow myself into the Northstone fold. Doing that would be like admitting that I had lost Victoria forever. It would mean putting aside the fact that my aunt and Dane had attempted to kill her, and simply accepting that she had deserved it all along. That Brucella was right, and Victoria had been a rogue.

And it would be one step closer to Rona.

One step closer to falling into a life that I did not wish to be mine.

“No,” I growled beneath my breath.

With a forceful thrust of my legs, I leapt off the boat before Brucella could reach me and dove into the waves.

I did not look back to see if she had followed me—I was sure that she had. I just kept thrusting myself downward into the water, kicking as hard as I could. I did not stop swimming for many miles, until I was certain that I’d lost her.

I did not know what I might come across in these waters. In all my life, I had left my home country only a handful of times, and that had simply been on boat trips with my father to traverse the ocean for a couple of miles.