A Shade of Vampire 30: A Game of Risk Read Online Free Page A

beach. I began to run toward him.
    I expected him to turn around immediately, for a relieved smile to light up his face, for his arms to stretch out and welcome me against his chest. But he did nothing of the sort. He whirled around, but on spotting me, alarm filled his eyes. Even a look of… guilt ?
    Then, without a word, he grabbed Rona by the arm and raced across the rocks, and into the ocean.
    I was so shocked, my voice was faint as I called out, “Bastien? Wha-What’s going on?”
    He dashed into the waves with Rona before he twisted and yelled, “Stay away, Victoria!”
    Then he dipped beneath the water, dragging Rona down with him.
    My feet felt like heavy weights. It felt like I was sinking slowly into the sand. My hands trembled as I stared at the churning waves where they’d disappeared.
    I wanted to run after them, into the water, reach Bastien, grab hold of his shoulders and shake him, demand to know what was going on.
    But I remained frozen to my spot, stunned.
    What on earth just happened?

Bastien
    I should have guessed that Victoria would be coming to look for me. On spotting her with a warlock and a witch—two allies from The Shade, no doubt—my immediate reaction was longing. I ached to rush toward her, wrap my arms around her and claim her lips. But I could do no such thing. My mother’s warning still rang loud in my ears. I couldn’t have anything to do with Victoria while the Mortclaws were around. One might be spying on me even now. I still didn’t understand the extent of their strange powers.
    I had to go by my gut instinct, which was to run, run far away from her, before she could approach me. Before she could stop me with her witches. And I yelled at her to stay away, even as my chest cramped up. It killed me to address her so harshly. But I was terrified. I felt I had to scare her somehow, and the only way I knew to do that was to be forceful. I could not have her approaching me!
    Recalling the expression in her eyes cut me to the core, even as I swam wildly with Rona, further and further away from the shore. We stopped only once I felt we had reached a safe distance from the beach, and I prayed with all that I had that Victoria had not followed me into the waves with the witches. As I surfaced, I kept my head low against the sea level, while scanning the sky and the beach in the distance. I could spot her there, however small, still standing and staring out toward the ocean, her two witches behind her.
    She had to heed my words and leave The Woodlands. Leave me. And stop looking for me. She had to return to her safe, beautiful island in the human realm and stay there with her family.
    I prayed that someday soon I would be able to visit her again and explain why I had done what I had done. But I didn’t know how or when that could ever happen. For now she had to be shaken. She had to back out of my dangerous life.
    “What’s going on?” Rona panted, voicing the same question that Victoria had asked of me.
    “Let’s keep moving,” I told her, even as I turned my back on the beach and continued to swim.
    “Keep moving where ?” Rona asked, desperation rocking her tone.
    She was still overtaken by grief over witnessing the harrowing loss of her father and the other Northstones at the hands of the Mortclaws. My family . And I had not even told her about her mother’s death yet.
    “I don’t know where we can go,” I said. “Or what we can do.” The reason we had been stalled by the beach was because I had felt unable to leave my homeland while it was under such a threat, while all those in Blackhall mountain were at risk of being targeted next. But what could we do about it? We had sat there among the rocks, Rona sobbing and hardly capable of offering a single useful idea, while I racked my brain for any possible solution.
    We swam a little further, and I kept twisting around and scanning the beach for Victoria, to see if she had left yet. She was still standing there, though it