“Who are you?” Rose asked.
“This is River,” I said, reaching a hand down to River and pulling her up to stand next to me. “She’s my friend.” I was about to add that she was also a half-blood, but that would just invite another onslaught of questions, and I still had a huge backlog to start answering.
And so the four of us gathered on Rose and Caleb’s boat and sat around on the deck. I started my story from the very beginning and told it through to the end for my sister and Caleb. They displayed similar reactions to my parents, asking the same questions and looking concerned when River and I showed them our tattoos.
It was strange to have been away from my sister for so long. It had been the longest separation in our life. We’d both had such different experiences, and grown in different ways apart from each other.
I understood why she had wanted to turn into a vampire. And I also understood why my parents hadn’t wanted to turn her. After what had happened to me, I wouldn’t have wanted her undergoing the risk either. But my sister wasn’t one to shy away from danger or risk. Although it unnerved me that something was so different about me, it didn’t bother me as much as it should have, because we had a plan now. I was going to become a half-blood.
A part of me was actually grateful that Rose had turned. I’d been dreading our meeting because I’d feared how much her blood would call to me. Now that she was a vampire, I could relax around her.
Once I’d come to the end, Rose walked over to River and kissed her cheek. “Welcome to The Shade,” she said, squeezing her hand.
“Thank you.” River beamed. I could see that my sister’s gesture meant a lot to her.
“No, thank you for helping my brother.”
From the glance Rose gave me as she sat back down in her seat, I could tell that she’d already figured out that I felt more for River than just friendship.
“So,” Caleb said, looking at me, “the plan is for you to turn back into a human today?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“And then turn into a half-blood.”
“How soon that happens will depend on how soon we’re able to get a…” My voice trailed off. My eyes shot toward my sister. “Rose, you could half-turn me.”
Chapter 27: Rose
My eyes widened as I stared at my brother. “Are you serious? I—I only just turned. I don’t feel confident that I wouldn’t just rip out your throat.”
“The only vampire who can turn me is one who was just newly turned,” Ben replied. “You need to try for me, Rose. You don’t have the problem around humans that I do, you’ll be as good as anyone.”
I looked at Caleb nervously then back to my brother. “Once you’re a human, I… I’ll think about it,” I said.
“Your parents are here,” River said, looking toward the Port.
I spun around to see that she was right. My mother and father were sailing toward us on a boat.
“Oh, no,” I murmured, “Dad’s a human.” The first human I encountered in The Shade and wanted to suck dry was my own father. I clutched Caleb’s knee, then looked toward my brother and River. He had reached for her and sat her on his knee as he looked out toward our parents approaching in the boat.
“You’re going to be okay,” Caleb said to me. “You are strong enough to control yourself now.”
And yet as my father drew closer and closer, I did not feel strong at all. I sat next to my brother and River in the far corner of the boat, trying to breathe in River’s scent so that my father’s blood would not be so alluring to me.
“Stop hogging River all to yourself,” I said to my brother, managing a grin even as my stomach tensed up in knots.
River chuckled, then lowered her arm to me and allowed me to hold it. I leaned closer to her and took a deep breath.
The fact that my brother had called her just a “friend” was amusing to me. I knew him too well to not notice the way he looked at her, how much he seemed to adore her.
As my parents reached the boat, I braced myself for the explosion.
My mother was the first to lay eyes on me. Her expression of joy at seeing me again soon turned to shock, then horror, as she realized what I had become.
“Rose! You… turned?” She clasped a hand over her mouth, then leapt onto our boat and rushed up to me. Holding my head in her hands, she examined me closely as if wanting to believe that her eyes were deceiving her.
My father’s jaw dropped as he saw me. He took a step closer and my whole body tensed up. The demon inside of me clawed for release. I could practically feel the hot blood pumping through his veins.
I imagined how bizarre this experience must have been for my father. His own son and daughter were doing everything they could to not launch at him and drain him dry.
I was used to the abnormal, having grown up on an island of supernaturals, and after everything we had recently been through there wasn’t a lot that could faze me these days. But this… This was weird.
Exhaling slowly, I remembered what Caleb had told me.
I can do this. I’m strong enough.
Thankfully, my father didn’t step forward as close as my mother did, wisely realizing what I was going through. He looked from me to Caleb, then back to me.
“This was my idea,” I said quickly, not wanting them to think that Caleb might have influenced my decision. “Caleb was completely against it.”
“Why?” was the one word that spilled from my parents’ gaping mouths.