Not really how I saw my life ending.

A breath in, a breath out, and the old ones attacked. Faris, Doran, Berget, and Jack each took one on.

Faris, Doran, and Berget held their own, using their physical abilities, along with vampiric powers to keep the old ones from breaking through to the rest of us.

Jack, on the other hand, was not doing so well. Being the youngest of the vampires made him the weakest. He was pushed back, step by step, until closer to me and the shamans. I wanted to help, but they moved so fast, I only saw what they were doing a split second after it happened. I couldn’t keep up with them. So I balanced on my toes, fatigue and nausea rolling through me, waiting for what I knew was coming.

Jack couldn’t fend this one off. The blows from the old one came harder and faster, like a lion feeling his prey weaken. The old one’s power rippled forward, smashing Jack in the chest, dropping him to his knees.

When it picked up Jack to feed on him, I hesitated, my heart faltering with what had to be done. If the old one took Jack’s blood, it was even more power for those we fought.

Jack’s eyes met mine, the swirl of the three blues filled with sadness. “My blood will give him too much. Do it.”

With every ounce of strength and regret I possessed, I drove my sword, through Jack’s neck, clipping into the old one behind him. Jack’s body convulsed, his eyes frosting over as his head rolled. The old one dropped the husk of a body that had moments before been Jack to the floor. A snarl rippled over his blood-stained teeod- eyesth as he spoke to me, his English heavily accented but still clear.

“The young ones, they can’t take a blow like that and survive. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

I held my sword up. “You old timers can’t take a blow like that and survive either, asshole.”

As the old one advanced, I backed away. Sure, I’d stopped him from feeding on Jack, but there were still a number of potential victims. I couldn’t kill them all.

“Al, you and the shamans stay behind us!”

Alex moved to my side and let out a snarl that under any other circumstance would have startled the shit out of me. But there was no room for shock, not here.

The old one, grey hair hanging to his shoulders, pitch black eyes with the barest hint of white in them, and a set of fangs that would put Tespa to shame, attacked. The eyes were different than when they’d first emerged. The fresh blood was bringing them back to life. Not good, not good at all.

His mistake was discounting Alex. The old one swept a hand to knock Alex back, but the werewolf had tangled with vampires a few times now. He ducked under the hand and tackled the vamp to the floor, snapping both of the its knees. I jumped forward and drove my sword through the old one’s heart and into the stone floor.

I lay my second blade against his neck. “Let’s keep this nice and simple. You don’t move, I won’t take your ugly head, got it?”

His black eyes glared up at me. “Heathen bitch.”

“That’s a new one. I’ll add it to my collection.” I grinned until something tried to sweep me backward. I say try, because it was an old one using power against me. Power that slid around me, melting like ice in a volcano.

I lifted my eyes to the old one, a woman, and grinned at her too. I even gave her a wink. She was in the middle of a fight with Berget, but seemed to be attempting to take us both. Not smart on her part. “Try again, dipshit.”

Yes, egging on a very old, very angry vampire didn’t tend to be good for one’s health. She leapt at me, launching through the air over Berget’s head.

Thank the gods I had kick ass vampires on my side of the fence. Doran snatched her mid-air and burrowed his fangs into her neck, draining her so fast I saw her skin shrivel and shrink, tightening over her cheekbones until as skeletal as she’d been before. Maybe even more so.

He dropped her body and she hit the ground with a rattling thump, the sound of a bag of bones clacked together. Behind Doran lay another lump of bones that twitched periodically.

Faris pinned his opponent face down to the ground. “Take him, Daywalker.”

Doran came toward me, calling over his shoulder, “Hold him, Faris.”

No animosity hinted in their voices, more of a camaraderie I didn’t expect. But then again, they fought for the same reason now, finally working together.

Doran drained the old one I held, then Faris’s captive. Four lumps of bones under rumpled cloth scattered the floor.

Just like that, it was over, the battle done. I moved to Jack’s body, felt the momentary high at surviving another near death situation, dissipate.

Another friend gone. I bent a put a hand to his face, my heart whispering goodbye to. I glanced at Berget and she smiled, though it was tired; maybe not all of this was a loss. A year, Doran said the opal would last a year. I refused to think about what would come after that. There would be a way to keep her heto of re, to keep her from the madness.

Doran and Faris dragged the remains of the old ones back to the hole they’d come out of, bantering back and forth. Like old friends.

Al and the remaining shamans stepped forward like nothing had happened and Faris stepped back, leaving Doran to face the shamans on his own.

“You chose well, Tracker. Doran will make a good leader,” Faris said softly as the shamans conducted what I assumed was the final ceremony.

“How could Berget not have known this was where the Blood resided? She held the memories of the last Emperor and Empress. Why didn’t they tell her where to go?”

Berget slipped beside Faris. “Because there is a different task every time. This is the first time in thousands of years, perhaps the first time ever, that the task involved the Blood. From what I understand”—she frowned and I could almost see her accessing memories that were not her own—“something of this magnitude only happens in times of desperation. Doran will be, is stronger, than any other vampire this world has known. He holds not only the strength of a vampire and shamanic abilities within him, but now carries the strength of all the old ones. And he has not lost his soul. I do not know why, but it resides in him yet.”

I couldn’t help the shiver that ran down my spine. Faris and Berget stared at me, perhaps guessing my thoughts. If either of them had taken the blood of the old ones, there would be no stopping them.

Fuck me sideways—that had been closer than I dared think about.

It all happens for a reason, Rylee. You know that, Giselle’s voice whispered through my brain. Yes, it all happened for a reason, but sometimes seeing the reasons laid out were more than my measly brain could handle.