Vail had never felt anything like the surge of energy that coursed through his body as he drained Victoria’s blood. It turned out that his foresight to cut himself before he began feeding had been a smart idea, because as he drank from her neck, his predatory nature overtook him, and he lost sight of why he had bitten her in the first place. His grip tightened on her pale hand, and he buried his fangs as deeply as he could into her flesh. In the back of his mind, he realized why the Wynter they had been fighting had been so impossible to defeat. There was a power to Lady Crest’s blood that was like a strong steroid mixed with cocaine to one of his kind, and it flooded every fiber of his being with fire.

When he swallowed the last drop, he sat up on his heels and caught his breath. A slight tremor had seized his limbs, the byproduct of his excess energy, but the sensation that came with drinking all of Victoria’s blood was euphoric. It was a good thing that vampires had no appetite for the blood of their own species, because if she woke up with the same addicting liquid in her veins, he would have found it difficult not to bleed her dry again and again. He felt invincible after just doing it once.

With a flicker of a glance at Gerald, he slipped his arms underneath the dead woman’s body and lifted her up. She felt feather-light to him, though he couldn’t tell if that was because he’d siphoned all of her blood or because of the strength he’d gained from doing so. Perhaps it was both. Regardless, he held her close to his torso and followed Jean-Claude through the back door to the waiting carriage, keeping watch for any Wynters along the way. Now that Victoria had passed, there was nothing left for the other vampires to get from her, but he wouldn’t have put it past them to run silver through her heart out of spite. If there was even a sliver of a chance that she would wake up again, he was going to do everything in his power to keep her body safe from harm. He wasn’t ready to lose her for good.

Setting her down in the carriage with Diana and Jean-Claude, who sat in the middle to keep the widow from laying eyes on her daughter’s corpse, Vail remained outside the wagon as they took off for Scotland. There were still Wynters nearby. Some of them had even begun pursuing the vehicle to catch them before they could get away, so the Hygrace heir made it his personal mission to keep the other vampires from getting inside the cabin. It was shockingly easy for him too. With more than four liters of Victoria’s blood in his system, he felt like his enemies were moving in slow motion. Every sense and reflex was heightened, and any time one of his rivals managed to injure him, the wound healed almost instantaneously. At that moment, unless he was stabbed in the heart with silver, he was untouchable. It was an exhilarating feeling.

The other vampires seemed to realize it too. After he fought off a little less than a dozen of them, they began to back off, and he turned around to chase after the carriage, climbing into the seat beside the coachman as they fled from the fallen Crest manor.

--

Over the course of the following week, Vail remained busy. The effects of Victoria’s blood sacrifice lingered far longer than he had expected so, taking advantage of the temporary bolster, he returned to England after she had been safely spirited away to her relative’s home in Scotland. The words of the Wynter who had attacked him had stuck with him, and he wanted to make sure that his family was still alright. However, to his dismay, he’d come back to a manor devoid of anything but a few corpses that belonged to some of his cousins—and one lone thief from another clan who’d had the misfortune of taking the brunt of the vampire’s rage.

After that, he had left his home behind to search for survivors, whom he eventually found taking shelter in a farm on the outskirts of the city. The sight of them had been startling. Only a few of his cousins had survived the slaughter along with his parents, and they were all in poor shape. Worst of all was Peter. According to his mother, the leader of their clan had been permanently crippled by a Wynter named Mikael—most likely the same culprit who had broken Victoria’s body, he presumed—but even more destructive than the damage to his body had been the wound to his mind. The Hygrace patriarch was barely responsive. Even when Vail urged him to bring what was left of their clan to the safe house where he’d taken Victoria, Peter wouldn’t do anything but stare vacantly ahead and repeat that there was no point; that they were all going to die anyway. The Wynters were too strong, and he wasn’t capable enough to protect his family from them.

Seeing his father in such a state had been unnerving to Vail, but he knew that he couldn’t leave them in the barn. The Wynters would want to finish them off while they were still weak. So, breaking a tradition that had been founded thousands of years ago, he took charge of their diminished clan against Peter’s wishes and brought them all to Scotland. Unlike the last time he’d tried to lead them, the other vampires actually listened. They had been made homeless and feared for their lives, so they were quick to jump at the prospect of a place where they could go to escape the clan that had dethroned them, even if that meant allowing themselves to be led by him instead of Peter.

The journey back was slow but successful. Twice, they encountered Wynters prowling the city streets to kill any enemies they came across, but Vail dispatched them easily. The other vampires couldn’t stand up to him as long as he was still fueled by the effects of Lady Crest’s blood. He protected his clan effortlessly, preventing the Wynters from taking any more Hygrace lives and establishing himself as a trustworthy leader among his family. By the time they made it to the property in Scotland, he had grown comfortable directing his cousins and his mother, and they had accepted him as their patriarch as long as Peter was unfit to govern them.

After he’d helped the other Hygraces settle into a summer house on the edge of the estate, Vail spent each remaining day by Victoria’s side, waiting for her to wake up. Diana and Jean-Claude had set her up in her own room, with her cold body lying on a bed as if she was merely asleep. The Hygrace heir had pulled a chair up to the edge of the furniture and alternated between sitting there next to her and climbing onto the mattress to lay by her side. He found it surreal to see her like this. The lively woman he’d fallen in love with was now nothing more than a lifeless husk. He knew it had taken a toll on Diana as well. Sometimes, he heard the widow weeping, but he had yet to shed a tear, himself. As difficult as it was to envision her limp corpse coming back to life, he held out hope that the turning ritual would be a success and that he would see her again.

So, on the last day of her dance with death, he had laid down beside her body yet again with one arm draped over her torso, slumbering lightly while sunlight filtered in through the window. Since the battle, he’d reverted to a nocturnal rhythm, but even in his sleep, he refused to part from her. He guarded her body like a dragon guarded its hoard of gold, waiting with endless patience for her to stir.

And then the time finally came.

His hazel eyes fluttered open as he felt the thump of a single heartbeat in her chest.