Page 55 of The Eighth Isle

I turned around and I ran for Grey, who could barely hold himself up on all fours. My God, his chest was torn open,slicedlike with an invisible knife—and he wasn’t even bleeding anymore.

I lowered on my knees and pulled him by the neck with all my strength until I could see his face. He was as pale as he had been that day I found him on the Eighth Isle after his banishment. He was on the brink of dying from all that blood loss, but his eyes were still open a slit. His fangs were extended, his wings gone.

I wrapped my arms around him the same way I did that day, brought his head down on my neck, and held it there.

Bite me, bite me, take my blood,I begged, and this time it happened faster. This time he didn’t scare the shit out of me first but bit me right away, sinking his fangs in my skin, drawing out my blood like he was starving—and he was.

Almoststarving.

Then, he let go.

Drawing in air wasn’t something vampires needed to do, but Grey must have been in shock. He pushed himself back, his hands on my shoulders as he looked down at me, mouth bloody, eyes wide and alive. Like he was surprised to find me there, and…

Holy shit, I’m not dead.

Syra had attacked me, and I was still alive. That’s how I knew that something wasn’t right.

Our eyes locked. We understood each other without words, Grey and I, and though I felt a little lightheaded from the blood he drank from me, I was fine. I could stand. I could run.

Then Storm roared, and we both turned to the center of that stone plaque. To Syra, on her knees still, tears streaming from her eyes, her whole body shaking.

Once again, I felt her pain all the way to my bones as if I had walked into another Storyteller. My God, she was breaking apart right there, and it made no sense that she would. Even Grey was frozen in place, and even Storm didn’t know whether to attack her now, to spit fire her way, or to just stand back, stop moving.

Something is wrong…

Wasn’t it funny that something wasalwayswrong when it came to me?

Wasn’t it funny that nothing ever went right for longer than three fucking days in my life?

“She didn’t kill you,” Grey whispered, and I shook my head, unable to look away from Syra. Those blue eyes so full of tears that didn’t stop spilling down her cheeks, dripping from her chin. The heartbreak in them. The way she shook…

What is it?I wanted to ask—wasdyingto ask despite everything. Despite the fact that she was just about to kill me. Right now, minutes ago, she’d squeezed me with her magic, had been about to pop me open, had made my nose bleed—but shehadn’tkilled me.

Why? Why was she crying?Why are you shaking, Syra?!

Her body let go of her and she sat on the ground, head lowered, her hair falling in front of her like a curtain as she cried. Shesobbed.She barely held herself up by the hands.

Something is very, very wrong.

“Fall, we need to run,” Grey said, standing up and pulling me with him, and my body moved on autopilot, but I wasn’t aware of anything that wasn’t Syra.

Why-why-WHY?!

“She’s crying.” It made no sense.

Storm was roaring at the skies, and that made no sense, either.

Grey’s wings spread around me, all around my shoulders as if to shield me, but from what? Syra was on the ground, sobbing. Shaking. She wasn’t trying to kill me.

“It doesn’t matter,” Grey said. “Look at me, baby. We have to go—now.”

And maybe I would have.

Maybe I would have turned around and jumped in his arms and we’d have taken this absurd, impossible opportunity given to us right now, but then Syra spoke, and I heard her as if her voice had popped right inside my head.

“Don’t worry, younglings. I can’t kill neither one of you,” she said, and slowly raised her head, bloodshot eyes on me. “But I promise you that I won’t even try.”

She pushed herself to stand, then touched her cheeks as if she just realized that she’d been crying.

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