Chapter 101: The beginning of a new age

/Luca/

The moment Edlyn’s body went rigid between us, every instinct I possessed screamed that something was terribly wrong.

One second she had been standing there with Nelson and me holding onto her, and the next, a force I couldn’t understand exploded from her body and sent a wave of energy tearing through the entire forest. I felt it hit me so hard I had to dig my feet into the ground just to keep from being thrown backward off my feet.

My monster roared inside my head. Protect her!

“I’m trying,” I snapped back at him.

I reached for Edlyn, but the light surrounding her was too powerful to get close to. Her hair lifted around her face as though she were standing in the middle of a storm nobody else could feel, and the strange glow beneath her skin had turned nearly blinding.

“Kitten!”

She didn’t respond.

Her eyes were closed, but tears streamed down her cheeks, catching the light as they fell.

Nelson was on her other side, holding onto her just as tightly, his knuckles white with the effort. “Edlyn, wake up!”

Nothing.

I looked at the creature standing several feet away, still and watching. “What did you do to her?”

It didn’t answer. Instead, it lowered its head and stared at Edlyn with those blank silver eyes, patient in a way that made my blood boil.

I stepped toward it. “If she gets hurt, I swear to every ancient vampire that has ever existed, I will—”

“Stop.”

Nelson’s voice cut through mine, sharp enough to actually pull my attention away from the creature.

I turned toward him. He was staring at Edlyn, something changing in his expression.

“Look.”

I followed his gaze. The light around Edlyn was shifting. It wasn’t attacking us anymore. It was moving through us, threading itself into whatever connected me to her, touching the deepest part of the bond between us.

It wasn’t painful.

It was almost comforting.

And that frightened me more than the pain would have.

My monster went completely silent, a silence I had never felt from him before, not once in all our years together.

Then he whispered. This is old.

I frowned. “How old?”

Older than the vampire bloodline.

That shouldn’t have been possible. My family had existed for centuries. The first vampires had been created before most supernatural kingdoms had even taken shape. If my monster believed this power predated us, then whatever Edlyn was connected to had existed before our entire history began.

I looked at Nelson. He was already staring at me.

“You feel it?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

For once, neither of us had an answer to give the other.

Then Edlyn gasped, her body jerking violently between us.

“Edlyn!”

She opened her eyes, but they weren’t the eyes I knew. They were completely silver, no pupils, nothing human left in them at all.

She looked directly at me.

“Luca.”

I froze where I knelt.

Her voice sounded like hers, but there was something underneath it, something ancient stretching beneath every syllable.

“I’m here,” I managed.

She smiled, but it wasn’t the smile I knew. It was sad, and knowing, like she was looking at me from somewhere very far away.

“Do you remember the first time you saw me?”

My chest tightened. “Of course.”

“Do you remember what you felt?”

I swallowed hard. “Like I had known you forever.”

Her expression softened into something almost tender. “You had.”

I stared at her, my mind refusing to catch up. “What?”

Before she could answer, the light disappeared all at once.

Edlyn collapsed.

Nelson caught her before she hit the ground, pulling her into his arms.

“Edlyn!”

I dropped beside them, my hands hovering uselessly. Her eyes had returned to normal. She was breathing. Alive. But unconscious.

“Is she okay?” I asked, my voice not quite steady.

Nelson pressed his fingers against her neck, his own hands shaking slightly. “Her pulse is strong.”

I exhaled, relief crashing through me hard enough to leave me lightheaded. Thank the Goddess.

Then I heard screaming.

I turned. The masked army had started moving, closing the distance between the tree line and where we knelt.

“Forget this,” I said, standing.

Nelson rose immediately too, his body already shifting into something ready for a fight.

“We deal with them first.”

The creature suddenly stepped between us and the advancing army, and the masked soldiers stopped in their tracks.

I narrowed my eyes. “What is it doing?”

The woman who had been speaking to us earlier looked terrified now, her composure completely gone. “No.”

The creature turned its head toward her, unhurried. “You have failed.”

She stepped backward, her hands raised. “Wait.”

The creature lifted one enormous hand.

The woman screamed. A black symbol appeared beneath her feet, spreading fast.

Then she disappeared. Just like that, gone.

I stared at the empty space where she had been standing.

Nelson looked at me. “Did it just kill her?”

“I don’t know.”

The creature turned toward us, its silver eyes calm in a way that felt wrong given what had just happened. “She was not meant to survive the awakening.”

I felt a chill move through me. “Awakening?”

It nodded slowly. “Your queen has awakened.”

I looked down at Edlyn, still unconscious in Nelson’s arms. “What exactly has she awakened?”

The creature’s silver eyes seemed to look straight through me, past skin and bone. “Her inheritance.”

“What inheritance?”

It didn’t answer. Instead, it turned its gaze toward the sky.

I followed it. The clouds had begun gathering above the forest, but these weren’t normal clouds. They were black, completely black, and lightning flashed inside them without a single sound of thunder to follow.

Then I felt something. A pressure. A presence. Something approaching that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

My monster finally spoke again. We’re not alone.

I looked around. The warriors were staring up at the sky too, their weapons lowered slightly as confusion spread through the ranks.