Page 19 of Winterfall Destiny

"I want the little bird to feel better," Mia says with teeth-gritted determination.

Feel better? The thing is dead. But I give a small smile rather than inflame the child or the situation.

"Uh. Leave them to their family problem," says Ash, and guides me away by the elbow.

"Don't worry, we'll make sure Mia cleans up her mess," calls Dorian, as if Mia found a pen and scrawled on the table, or poured a drink on the floor.

"I hope they take that child back to their island soon," I say. "She's terrifying."

I stumble again as a swearing Zeke walks by with Ethan and then quietly closes the kitchen door behind him. Eloise's voice inside the room is not quiet.

"If Gabriella and Oskar die, Dorian wants to step into their shoes." Tobias now joins us, and his comment isn't as shocking as the blood spattered across his neck and chest. "The hybrids refuse to exile themselves again."

"Dorian in charge?" Ash scoffs.

"Why are you covered in blood, Tobias?" I ask, everything else around me fading.

"The vamp told us what we needed to know." He turns stiffly to Ash. "I'll clean myself up, then we all need to talk."

Tobias. Blood-covered. "You killed him. You didn't need to."

"Probably a mercy killing," says Dorian as he sidles through the kitchen door, escaping the chaos his spawn created. "I was about to finish the job before Ethan called me to deal with Mia's latest little mishap."

"Mishap? Omigod," I say. "I don't know what's real anymore. Either I'm in a sick TV sit-com created by my even sicker mind or... or..."

Or everything's real. And the world might end.

9

MAEVE

The family stay the night. Many childless people secretly cheer after a visit from friends with toddlers, but an immense weight lifts from me after this family and their child depart this morning. I whisper to Tobias that I half-expected Mia to use that knife on somebody in the middle of the night.

Our visiting family brought chaos but also what we needed. The vampire that Dorian captured revealed Gabriella's whereabouts, and her plans, in return for his life. Tobias and Dorian never kept their end of the bargain. We now have our way forward thanks to the permanently deceased vampire, now resting in a bonfire towards the rear of the property.

Is this how the endgame will be?

Following our discovery, we held a meeting. Eight of us wouldn't fit into Andrei's room and so we gathered in the hallway, door open, as if Andrei were part of the meeting. I insisted because maybe Andrei can hear us. At one point, Mia drifted into the room and Eloise snatched her back. Good. If the child touched Andrei, I might've caused a huge incident between us all.

Did Mia think Andrei was dead and needed her 'special help’?

Midway through the conversation, the child fell asleep on Ethan's lap—thank whatever god might exist in this unexplained universe.

Not surprisingly, Gabriella plans to leave the country. The woman's delusional to think she'll escape the First, but hopefully that desperation will see Gabriella slip up. Or at least enough that we get a hold of her before the First does.

If the vamp told the truth, Gabriella's in London. This makes sense since there're more places to hide than the smaller port towns and she's likely to have allies. Dorian, Ethan, and Zeke already pre-empted this by following information found on Declan's laptop, the day he and Ash confronted the dragon alpha. They’re investigating every port town in the country, and located the unlucky vamp in London.

The hybrids intended to search airports next, but I doubt Gabriella would travel lightly or use any of the supes private jets. No. A port makes sense, especially London, where everything is privately owned, and the port boasts the largest variety amongst cargo. Besides, this wouldn't be the first time a vamp used the port. According to Dorian, the Tepes original arrived in London years ago, but history twisted the tale several times over. That's why the book tells of his arrival in Whitby.

His. Dracula. The humans got one part correct—the name: Vlad Tepes. Ironically, I've no interest in horror movies or stories, partly due to the frightening visions, so I never knew Vlad Tepes was Vlad the freaking Impaler.

The Tepes' history explains a lot, especially about Gabriella's personality and ambitions but also the power in Andrei that frightens people. Now Andrei's working with a Winterfall and Blackwood, I’m unsurprised both sides fear our combined powers. All of us.

Dorian never spoke about Andrei again or his own plans, but he's clear—locate Gabriella before she skips the country. But what would we face if we find Gabriella? She'll surround herself with a lot of protection; Dorian temporarily killed her once already, and she knows we all intend that to become permanent.

Tobias suggests Gabriella's counting on the First killing us before the creature moves on to her, thus buying time for the Dominion leader to leave. One thing I don't understand is that Gabriella helped free the First. Did she not pay attention to the rare cooperation between Blackwood and Winterfall to secure the creature from the world? The families never worked together as far as anybody knows, even when both were loyal to Confederacy, which suggests the magnitude of the threat that forced them to. Gabriella couldn’t see that reversing the witches' magic would be a bad idea?

But then how many others have believed they could leash and use the creature's powers? Plenty. Gabriella wanted to use the First like so many before her and tricked the Blackwoods into helping once they finally located the last Winterfall. Me.

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