If you’re not here to squeeze my hand and tell me I’m spectacular while I’m quite literally ripping my body to shreds to bring our child into this world, then Evander Thornwall, I’m going to be peeved.

A pained chuckle escapes my lips. I imagine she’ll be speaking my full name when she finally meets me in the afterlife, too.

It’s the first time I’ve ever been grateful for Ellie’s mortal lifespan. Perhaps I won’t have to wait too terribly long for her to join me on the other side.

But no. I don’t want to leave her. Don’t want to watch her mourn me. Don’t want to hear her screams over my dead body puncturing the veil between this life and the next.

The thought should make my stomach roil, but it doesn’t.

What it does is give me strength.

What kind of things would you have wanted from your father?

I didn’t have an answer then, but they all descend upon me now. I wanted my father to teach me to read, to help me build fortresses out of blocks, to sneak me out to Forcier’s when I was supposed to be suffering discipline for my troublemaking.

I wanted a father who had been there.

I decide I will be there for our child.

So I let out a roar, one that expunges the pain as well as the air from my lungs, and I summon them.

The vines sprout up from the earth in droves. They’re nothing compared to what my sister can produce, but they slice through flesh all the same, puncturing lungs and vital organs, until the creatures writhe.

I only manage to fell three more of them, but the rest are spooked enough that they run, and that is enough.

Pain still rippling through my hand, I stumble to my feet, scanning the area for Marcus and Blaise.

Marcus is on his feet now, releasing arrows at a group of Others who are slowly backing him toward the tree line.

Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse more silvery beasts slink through the Rip.

Blaise… Where is she?

There.

Fighting off a pack of mere with her bare hands.

I watch as she rips the throat out of one with her teeth.

It’s rather disgusting.

I step toward Marcus, concerned for his illness. Blaise seems to be handling herself just fine, and I’m still peeved that she betrayed us, even if she seems to be fighting against the Others now.

But then I hear it.

A scream.

A scream that shouldn’t be here.

A child’s scream.

There’s a moment when the world goes still, except for Blaise, who throws the carcass of the dead mere to the side, her hungry eyes landing on me before swelling with horror. I can’t seem to get my neck to turn fast enough to look. Perhaps I don’t want to see, not truly, but my gaze hits Marcus, whose face has gone slack with fear, and is now bubbling with rage.

Because he recognizes that scream.

We all do.

I spot Amity, backed into the corner of two boulders as a mere races for her, then jumps.

Another scream pierces the air.

A scream that will be branded in my memory for the rest of my immortal life.

I summon the vines, but they can’t reach, not from such a distance. Not when I haven’t disciplined them to obey me.

So I watch helplessly as Ellie jumps in front of Amity.

I watch helplessly as the Other cuts down my wife.

CHAPTER 48

BLAISE

The agony in Evander’s sea-green eyes slices across the field, searing itself into my vision.

I recognize that cry. It’s the same one that’s been wrenched from my own twisted throat before.

It’s the cry of a mother.

There’s a moment when all is still, and it’s just me and Evander, his coat stained with blotches of ichor, his eyes widening, begging for it not to be true.

All around us, Others still midair, jaws frozen agape, their silvery coats glimmering in the moonlight.

Then the world snaps into action, and Evander and I run.

We weave through swarms of Others. I’m faster, nimbler, and while Evander has to muscle through several of them, I’m able to dodge their attacks with ease.

That means I get there first.

The world slows. It must be my vampire senses. They’re making sense of the scene before me with such speed, it only feels slower.

Ellie lies prone on the ground, shielding both her belly and Amity beneath her weight. Sticky red blood seeps from a gash in her side where her robes have been ripped. Amity’s face is flushed with exertion as she tries to wriggle out from underneath Ellie, whose entire body is trembling.

The Other still feeds from Ellie’s wound, digging its venom-soaked fangs into her side.

There’s a moment when this vision collides, lines up, with a memory, a dream.

Ellie crying on the floor, bleeding, her lifeblood being drained from her veins.