A Shade of Vampire 29: An Hour of Need Read online

  A Shade of Vampire 29: An Hour of Need

  Bella Forrest

  Contents

  Also by Bella Forrest

  Copyright

  The “New Generation” Names List

  1. Prologue: Brucella

  2. Victoria

  3. Ben

  4. Grace

  5. Grace

  6. Grace

  7. Victoria

  8. Victoria

  9. Bastien

  10. Bastien

  11. Victoria

  12. Grace

  13. Grace

  14. Grace

  15. Grace

  16. Grace

  17. Grace

  18. Grace

  19. Grace

  20. Grace

  21. Grace

  22. Lawrence

  23. Lucas

  24. Ben

  25. Derek

  26. Grace

  27. Lucas

  28. Grace

  29. Lawrence

  30. Grace

  31. Lawrence

  32. Ben

  33. Lucas

  34. Derek

  35. Grace

  36. Victoria

  37. Epilogue: Bastien

  Read More by Bella Forrest!

  Also by Bella Forrest

  A SHADE OF VAMPIRE SERIES

  Series 1: Derek & Sofia’s story

  A Shade of Vampire (Book 1)

  A Shade of Blood (Book 2)

  A Castle of Sand (Book 3)

  A Shadow of Light (Book 4)

  A Blaze of Sun (Book 5)

  A Gate of Night (Book 6)

  A Break of Day (Book 7)

  Series 2: Rose & Caleb’s story

  A Shade of Novak (Book 8)

  A Bond of Blood (Book 9)

  A Spell of Time (Book 10)

  A Chase of Prey (Book 11)

  A Shade of Doubt (Book 12)

  A Turn of Tides (Book 13)

  A Dawn of Strength (Book 14)

  A Fall of Secrets (Book 15)

  An End of Night (Book 16)

  Series 3: Ben & River’s story

  A Wind of Change (Book 17)

  A Trail of Echoes (Book 18)

  A Soldier of Shadows (Book 19)

  A Hero of Realms (Book 20)

  A Vial of Life (Book 21)

  A Fork of Paths (Book 22)

  A Flight of Souls (Book 23)

  A Bridge of Stars (Book 24)

  Series 4: A Clan of Novaks

  A Clan of Novaks (Book 25)

  A World of New (Book 26)

  A Web of Lies (Book 27)

  A Touch of Truth (Book 28)

  An Hour of Need (Book 29)

  A SHADE OF DRAGON TRILOGY

  A Shade of Dragon 1

  A Shade of Dragon 2

  A Shade of Dragon 3

  A SHADE OF KIEV TRILOGY

  A Shade of Kiev 1

  A Shade of Kiev 2

  A Shade of Kiev 3

  BEAUTIFUL MONSTER DUOLOGY

  Beautiful Monster 1

  Beautiful Monster 2

  For an updated list of Bella’s books, please visit her website: www.bellaforrest.net

  Join Bella’s VIP email list and she’ll personally send you an email reminder as soon as her next book is out! Tap here to sign up: www.forrestbooks.com

  Copyright © 2016 by Bella Forrest

  Cover design inspired by Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations LLC

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The “New Generation” Names List

  Arwen: (daughter of Corrine and Ibrahim - witch)

  Benedict:(son of Rose and Caleb - human)

  Brock: (son of Kiev and Mona – half warlock)

  Grace: (daughter of Ben and River – half fae and half human)

  Hazel: (daughter of Rose and Caleb – human)

  Heath: (son of Jeriad and Sylvia – half dragon and half human)

  Ruby: (daughter of Claudia and Yuri – human)

  Victoria: (daughter of Vivienne and Xavier – human)

  Prologue: Brucella

  After Sendira Mortclaw departed for the ogres’ realm in search of her cub, I was left alone on Murther Island. Well, not exactly alone—the rest of the Mortclaws were still in their cave—but I decided to move away from the prison and put some distance between myself and those murderous creatures for a while, to allow myself time to clear my head after the encounter.

  I waited and waited until Sendira finally returned with… bad news. She said that she had managed to find The Shade—or at least where she thought it was, based on the myriad of smells surrounding it. But on arrival, Bastien’s scent was far too weak. She’d concluded that Bastien definitely was not there, and must have left The Shade.

  I cursed, wondering where on earth he could be if not The Shade. Where would he have gone with that wench? Then it struck me that together, they might have returned to The Woodlands. Where else would they have gone?

  I instructed Sendira to search The Woodlands for the couple, in spite of my worry that she might snap up an innocent werewolf or two in the process.

  When she returned this time, many hours later, she had a smile on her face—a smile that I couldn’t recall seeing on her lips since before she and her family had been kidnapped by the black witches. She informed me that she had found her son in The Woodlands. She had picked up on his scent, soared over the land following it, and managed to track him down high up in a tree. She’d taken him away to a nearby rock formation where they could talk without interruption.

  To my dismay, Sendira informed me that Victoria had not been there—or so Bastien had claimed. I drew in a sharp breath. This was definitely a setback. I still feared for my life every moment that Sendira was outside of that cave. My safety relied entirely on my shaky bluff, and her not wanting to risk that I was lying.

  We couldn’t just skip over the first task of ending Victoria and immediately launch into the second condition of our agreement. If Victoria was not taken out of the picture, Bastien would still be clinging to her in his mind. It would be hard enough for him to move on after her death, but knowledge that his little human still lived would make it a thousand times more difficult to ever get through to him, and for him to accept my daughter.

  Victoria had to be eliminated before any marriage could take place.

  Thus, as much as it killed me, it seemed that I had no other option than to wait. Hopefully not for too long. I’d witnessed with my own eyes how hopelessly infatuated Bastien was with the girl—I knew he could not stand to be parted from her for long. They would meet up sooner or later…

  But I needed it to be sooner.

  Very soon.

  I did not want to enter a waiting game.

  Hm.

  Maybe, just maybe, there is a way for me to speed things up…

  Victoria

  We were all in an utter frenzy over Grace’s condition.

  A Bloodless.

  She had been bitten by a Bloodless and she was displaying the first symptoms of turning. After her initial fit on the bed, none of us were sure what to do. What we could do. Then Corrine, shellshocked as she was, took charge.

  “P-Perhaps,” she said in an unsteady voice, “Grace’s tremors could be a symptom of something else. Please just… Let’s not assume anything at all, until I have conducted a thorough examination. Dammit,” she added to Grace beneath her breath, “I knew I should have done this as soon as you stepped in here.”<
br />
  She requested everyone leave the room except for River and Ben, who could hardly be expected to part from their daughter at a time like this. The rest of us piled out into the corridor, our stomachs tied up in knots.

  Although we had been asked to leave, every single member of my family remained hovering outside the door, as if bound by invisible chains. But after an hour had passed, I found the wait unbearable. I kept mulling over and over the very worst-case scenario—that Grace’s fae blood was not strong enough to counteract the Bloodless venom. That she was turning, slowly but surely.

  As was usually the case in times like these, it was the uncertainty that wore us down the most.

  I couldn’t stand waiting outside the door any longer. I rose from the seat by my mother’s side and stood up.

  “I need some fresh air,” I said to my parents, my voice raspy.

  They nodded, and I took my leave. I had no idea how much longer Corrine would take. I imagined that she was exploring absolutely every possible option before coming to her conclusion. As I made my way out of the hospital and into the flower meadow, the beauty of our island felt bittersweet. Almost taunting. I was close to Grace. Closer to her than many of the girls my own age. I loved her like a sister, and the thought of anything bad happening to her made me feel ill. But this… this was a level of bad that was practically incomprehensible.

  I tried to force my mind onto more positive thoughts while winding my way through the sunflowers toward the woods. But it was a feeble attempt. There was no stopping my worry. The most I could do was walk and breathe deeply.

  At least all would be clear after Corrine’s diagnosis. We would know exactly where we stood.

  I had almost reached the Sanctuary when a voice called behind me. “Hey, Victoria!”

  I turned to find myself face-to-face with Brock Novalic. He stood on the forest path with a piece of parchment clasped in one hand.

  “I just, uh, came from the hospital,” he said.

  “So you heard about Grace?”

  “Yes,” he replied grimly. “News is spreading quickly.”

  We fell quiet, gazing at each other as we both felt for our friend’s plight. Then Brock cleared his throat. “The reason I came looking for you was… uh, I was by the beach about an hour or so ago, before I heard about what happened to Grace. And a message was delivered for you.”

  I knotted my brows. “A message? What do you mean?”

  He handed me the parchment, upon which was scrawled a short note in black ink:

  “Bastien wishes to see you about an urgent matter. Please return to The Woodlands as soon as you are able to.

  - Cecil”

  I stared at the note, reading it over several times. Cecil? Bastien’s counselor?

  “Wh-who delivered this note?” I stammered, gazing in utter confusion at Brock.

  “A woman pulled up in an old boat outside the border. She was in a hurry and, to be honest, I didn’t get much of a look at her. Just noticed she had darkish hair… She simply asked me to give this note to you,” he explained.

  “And she left?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he replied.

  I blew out, glancing down at the note. This was strange. This was very, very strange. Was Bastien in trouble? Why would Cecil be sending me this note via some woman?

  “Did she have straight hair?” I asked.

  Brock squinted, as if dredging his memory. That wasn’t exactly a difficult thing to remember about someone, but then again, Brock was a guy… “No,” he replied after a pause. “She had curly hair.”

  Curly. Well, that definitely ruled Brucella out. Her hair was straight, not to mention lightish brown. I was sure there was at least one female member of the Blackhall tribe who had curly dark hair, though… She could have been delivering the note on behalf of Cecil, who was, after all, quite elderly.

  Hm…

  “Well,” Brock said, sucking in a breath. “I need to get going. I’ll see you around…”

  “Yeah.” My eyes fixed again on the note.

  I still couldn’t shake my doubts about it. What trouble could Bastien possibly be in that I, a mere human girl, could help him out of? Unless he was assuming that I’d bring help with me, from The Shade. Dip into our pool of supernatural creatures.

  The question continued to nag at me… What if Bastien really does need me?

  Ben

  As River and I stood by our daughter’s bedside with Corrine, I prayed harder than I had ever prayed before.

  Please, don’t let this be happening.

  Don’t let this be.

  The death of a child was something a parent could never, ever recover from, no matter what the circumstances of their death was. But like this? I couldn’t think of a more hellish punishment. I would rather spend the rest of my life in The Underworld than lose my daughter like this. And there was nothing I could do. Neither I, Lucas nor Kailyn were “true” fae like Sherus. We were byproducts. We didn’t possess the ability to turn others into fae. Besides, it wasn’t even possible for Grace to adopt the form of a fae without shedding her physical body and becoming a ghost first.

  Corrine refused to say a word to any of us as she moved about examining Grace: checking various parts of her body, prodding her with odd witch-crafted equipment, and feeding her various colorful substances. The methods she used were a mystery to us, and we were forced to sit quietly and watch.

  I tried to hide my fear from our daughter, and I could tell that River was too. Though neither of us could think of much to say to comfort Grace in any way. As much as we tried, we were both simply too tense ourselves.

  I wasn’t sure what exactly the witch was thinking, but I already suspected her conclusion. It would be far too much of a coincidence for Grace’s tremors to be caused by anything other than Bloodless venom. Was Corrine honestly hoping that they were the result of some kind of post-traumatic symptoms?

  I couldn’t believe it.

  My eyes fell on the puncture marks in Grace’s leg. And then my mind fixated on one thing: the document I had glimpsed on Atticus’s laptop.

  “Fight for Open Education on the Bloodless Antidote.”

  FOEBA.

  Thank God that I had entered Atticus’ room to see that. In this dark hour, that single headline of white text was my only glimmer of light, my only shimmer of hope that a cure did exist. Somebody must have discovered it, otherwise there would be no need for “Open Education” about it, and why were the hunters fighting so hard to suppress it?

  We just had to find out what it was.

  Grace is going to be okay. She’s going to be. She’s a fighter. She’s a Novak.

  I was already picturing myself hurtling back across the ocean toward the IBSI’s base in Chicago to hunt down that laptop and swipe it. Wherever it was now, I would do whatever it took to get my hands on that information.

  I waited another half an hour, which was what Corrine estimated it would take to complete her examination of Grace.

  I could already tell from Corrine’s expression what her conclusion would be as she took a step back from the bedside. Her face stricken with worry, she looked from me to River. She swallowed hard and shook her head.

  “I’ve checked for every other disease and illness I can possibly think of that could bring about a violent reaction like Grace just displayed.” She clasped her hands together. “I…” She averted her eyes to Grace. “Honey, I don’t know what to say.”

  Grace looked paler than a spirit as she sat up on the bed, clutching the blankets to her in fright. I wished I could take away all of her fears and carry them on my own shoulders. I wished she didn’t have to go through any of this.

  River trembled next to me. I reached for her and Grace’s hands, holding them as steadily as I could before clearing my throat. “Well,” I said, my voice gravelly, “at least we know of a cure.”

  Grace stared back at me. “But we don’t… We don’t know of anything.”

  “We know of the existence of a
cure,” I corrected myself firmly. “It’s clearly what Georgina died fighting to expose to the world. Somehow, I have to get hold of Atticus’s computer. The details must be on those files, or the IBSI would not be so hell-bent on guarding them.”

  I rose to my feet and leaned over Grace on the bed. I brushed my fingers against her cold, pale cheek. Pressing my lips against her forehead, I cupped her face in my hands. I looked down at her steadily, forcing assurance and confidence into my expression.

  “I’m returning to Chicago.”

  Grace

  My father didn’t delay his departure in order to go outside and inform the others of Corrine’s conclusion, or to fetch Kailyn or Lucas to assist him. He thinned himself and left instantly, leaving Corrine, my mother and me sitting in deathly silence.

  My brain still hadn’t quite accepted what was happening to me. But my emotions had. Fear gripped me so tightly, I was breathing like an asthma patient.

  My mother moved close to me and placed a palm over my forehead. There was nothing she could say to ease my nerves. Nothing she could do. I might as well be all alone in the room. It felt like I was on an island all of my own right now, unreachable to everyone. Unhelpable.

  Dad has to find those cracked files.

  At least the tremors had stopped. I prayed that they would not return for a while.

  “We should probably tell the others…” I croaked.

  My mother nodded, her expression strained. She looked far older than her years right now. She headed to the opposite end of the room and opened the door. My family immediately rushed forward and began inquiring about Corrine’s findings. My mother’s expression should have been enough of an answer for them.

  “I’m certain that Grace is infected,” Corrine said quietly.

  She might as well have announced that I had died already from their reactions. My grandmother Nadia burst into tears—hardly making me feel any better about my predicament—while the others looked utterly terrified.

  “Ben just left for Chicago,” my mother explained in a hushed tone. “He’s gone to search for the FOEBA files that he spotted on Atticus’ laptop.”