Chapter 43

VALERIA.

The realization hits all of us like a rushing train. We all sit back, shocked by the discovery. It’s as though Stefano and I dropped a bomb in the room and now all of us are dealing with the damage.

It seems to specifically affect Auric too, being someone who Jake was close to. “But he couldn’t have done it on purpose. Right?”

“I don’t think he could have,” I say, and Stefano nods. “Poor Eden.”

“We should have asked her to come here,” Celeste says, but then she pauses. “Is Jake even alive? The way Eden reacted to my question before…”

“Well, there’s one way to find out,” Stefano puts in, flipping another page in his notebook and showing us a list of contacts. “These are the contact details of every asylum in the Society and close by. We have to call each of them and check if Jake is in any of them.”

I look at him, impressed. “You’ve really been doing all this work on your own, huh?”

His cheeks go red. “It’s just good to be prepared.”

Celeste smiles knowingly, but she doesn’t say anything about it. She just looks at all of us and says, “Well, I will ask for four separate phones tomorrow and we will start calling these numbers.”

We all nod, and with that, Stefano starts to shrink his notebook back into its original size, sliding it back into his coat. Celeste starts to put away the food and drinks. I notice that Auric is putting down some lush cushions on the floor. It’s time to sleep.

When all the things are ready, we all lie down on the thick carpet, staring at the shadows slanted over the ceiling. Auric is the one who falls asleep first, rocking the whole place with his snores. Celeste turns over and sleeps silently, but I remain awake. I look over at Stefano to check and I see him flicking over pages in his notes.

“What are you looking at?” I whisper.

He flinches and quickly pockets it again. “I thought you were asleep.”

I shrug and get up. “Well, it’s pretty hard to sleep after that conversation.”

“I agree.” Stefano gets up too. “Do you want to talk outside? Discuss things a little further and maybe put our minds to rest?”

“Sure.”

With that, we both leave our little campsite. He offers me his coat and I take it, both of us stepping out into the cold night air. The gesture surprises me, but I don’t say anything as we continue to descend from the cabin and reach the deck stretching into the lake. We sit at the edge, dangling our feet into the water without actually touching.

The moon is out, and everything just feels so peaceful. I take deep breaths, letting the cold air enter my lungs. It hasn’t snowed yet, but something about the bite of coldness in the air tells me that it’s close.

“So,” I begin, looking at Stefano and trying hard not to think about how handsome he looks under the moonlight. “What were you looking at in your notebook?”

“Just the details for the numbers,” he replies, his eyes narrowing for a bit. “I just want to make sure I’m on the right track. I want to get to the bottom of it. I just don’t want you to get into trouble.”

My heart skips a beat. “Stefano…”

He shakes his head. “I know, it’s stupid. It’s none of my business, and I know that you won’t be accused either way. It’s just that I feel bad for leaving you alone after that incident. I feel bad that I basically abandoned you after bringing you to the School. We’re mates, and—”

“You still haven’t told me what that means.”

Stefano finally looks at me. “It means that you and I are bonded. In the world of Werewolves, being mates means that two people are destined to be together.”

I swallow hard. “You mean as friends? Just together?”

“No.” He holds my gaze. “Together as lovers. Destined lovers. Old souls just finding one another again in a different life.”

“So we were meant to find each other?” My pulse quickens. “All this time, we were meant to be together?”

“That’s why I found you. That’s why you found me. It was written in the stars.”

The energy between us shifts. Suddenly, the moon is too bright, almost like it’s telling us something. I meet his eyes and I find that I can’t look away. Gravity is surrounding him now. Gravity is him, and I’m just being pulled close.

I find myself leaning in. Stefano mirrors my move. I put my hand on his shoulder. He puts his hand on my waist, drawing me closer with his eyes fixed on my lips—

SPLASH.

The sound of something hitting the water makes us flinch and jump away from each other. We both turn and see that the once calm surface of the lake is now filled with ripples, circulating from a single point in the middle.

Stefano pulls me to my feet and pushes me behind him. “Don’t move.”

“What?” I splutter. “Why?”

I wish I didn’t ask that, because as though on cue, the water starts to get more and more disturbed. Something rises from it, a cloaked figure that’s all black, with leathery bat wings.

A vampire.

I gasp, staggering back and tugging at the hem of Stefano’s shirt. I want to tell him that we should both come back to the cabin, but then I hear another thud. This time, it’s on the dock itself.

Another vampire.

And two more are landing on the field, right next to the dock.

We have nowhere to go.

“What do you want?” Stefano demands, but I can already see something glowing in his fists. “Why are you attacking this place?”

“We are not attacking,” the one in the lake says, slowly floating out of the water, hovering above the surface. “We are merely paying a visit.” The vampire looks at me. “Hello, my dear.”

Repulsion attacks my body. I look at all of their gray faces and see that they’re all looking at me, their eyes beaming like lasers in the dark. I vaguely wonder how and why no one else sees this, and then I remember that it would be a lot of trouble if the vampires see the onlookers in return.

What if they get to Celeste’s parents? What if they attack Celeste and Auric?

What if they already did and we just didn’t notice?

I remember the time where I saved Celeste from the monster in the tunnel, how I managed to turn into a wolf. I prepare myself to do that again now, looking at all the vampires. They don’t look particularly eager to fight, but I can see them tensing, especially when they see the glowing light in Stefano’s hands.

“A fire wielder,” the one on the dock says. “Do your friends know about that? I wonder what they will think…”

“They will think it’s good enough to destroy all of you,” Stefano spits out, and without any other words, he aims his open palms at the vampires and shoots them with white hot fire. “Valeria, duck!”

I do as he says, just in time for him to blast the vampire on the dock and the ones on the shore. They shoot up into the air and start to circle around him, so I raise my fists and try to reach for them. They can easily scratch me out of the battle, but to my surprise, they avoid me.

Stefano’s eyes go wide. “Why—”

One of the vampires try to dive-bomb him, but he acts quickly. He raises his hand and incinerates the three vampires, the air filling with heat. He turns to the water to finish the job, but the last vampire is quick to submerge himself into the water.

Stefano blasts it with so much hot fire that the water starts to boil, but it’s already gone, successfully escaping.