Page 30 of Stolen By the Vampire

Eventually, they settled onto the grass, sated at last. They were no longer in the scorched field where she’d met Jared, but the setting was one Esmae innately recognized. The stars glittered overhead, though she no longer needed their light to see in the darkness, not with her vampire vision. The change was surprisingly comfortable. Sure, there would be a learning curve, but being here, next to Silas, felt like the most natural thing in the world. Like she’d always been meant to take this path.

“Why here?” she asked.

“I wanted you to wake in a place that was familiar. This is the hill you described, is it not?”

The one she’d told him she would go to when she wanted to daydream of a better life. “How did you know?”

Silas pointed to the river. “This seemed like the perfect spot for an adventurer to plan her maiden voyage.”

She grinned, curling into the crook of his arm. Her body temperature had cooled—not to ice, but to a vampire’s colder levels. Silas, however, was even warmer than a human. “A dragon, huh?”

“I thought that part of me was lost forever,” Silas confessed. “For centuries, I was ruled by my vampire nature. But seeing you in danger awakened my protective instincts, breaking the restraints that turning had put on me.”

“We saved each other,” she murmured.

“We always will, my love.”

They stayed like that for a long time, a tangle of limbs under the night sky. “I suppose this means we have forever, then.”

“We do. We’ll have enough adventures for many lifetimes,” Silas promised.

One side of her lips curled up into a smile. “Where do you suppose we should go first, then?”

Silas pressed his lips to her head. “Anywhere you wish, as long as I’m with you.”

Epilogue

The weather was perfect.

Okay, it was actually a little too hot even after the sun had set, and was so humid Esmae’s summer tunic clung to her sweat because apparently vampires could still do that, and mosquitoes were no less annoying when they could tell you how they ‘just want a little nibble.’ Perhaps fellow blood-drinkers shouldn’t throw stones, but whatever. There was only one creature entitled to her blood.

Yet with her bag packed and secured on her shoulders and the map Silas had helped her chart a course on tucked safely inside it, it could have hailed and she still would’ve thought the night was perfect.

“You’ll remember to take your potions,” Esmae repeated to her father for the third time that hour. “And for flame’s sake, just stay home when it rains and your bad knee is acting up.”

Silas grinned, like he didn’t turn into just as much of a nanny when it came to her. But it was just as likely he smiled because he’d once told her he really enjoyed seeing her take up his turns of phrases.

“I can handle myself,” her father assured her. “You’ve given up so much to care for me, Esmae. But it’s time you start having your own adventures.”

It was. She and Silas were departing that night. They’d enjoyed a bit of a honeymoon once their curses had lifted, losing days and weeks as Silas showed her all being a vampire had to offer. But Esmae couldn’t wait to travel, and Silas was eager to show her the world.

“Besides, you’ve stocked me up with enough provisions for the next decade. You’re only going for a few months, isn’t it?”

Silas had given enough gold from his hoard—their hoard, as he insisted—to take care of her father and brought in the best potions to handle her father’s myriad ailments, so she could relax, plus with his wings they could visit whenever if they wanted to come back early.

Dirt had ventured from the caves and found a permanent home with her father. She’d inherited her magic from her paternal side, so communicating wouldn’t be a problem.

“You’re right.” A wave of calmness settled over her. “And you’ll keep each other company. Now, there’s one last thing I wanted to do.”

She reached into the deck holder on her belt and drew out the last oracle card. Her fingers slowly traced the familiar edges, the echoes of her mother’s magic still beating against her own.

The card was contraband, but so was harboring two vampires—well, one vampire and a dragon-vampire hybrid—in a witch’s home. Anyone who could come after them would be ash before they so much as summoned their magic. Though she could feel the remnants of her mother’s magic and could use her own magic as a vampire, she couldn’t draw from the cards anymore.

“Would you do the honors?” she asked her father.

His eyes teared up. “You kept them after all these years?”

Oracles may have been scorned by witchkind, but her mother had rescued her. She nodded. “They saved my life.” They’d led her to Silas. Tears beaded in her eyes.

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