Hey guys! This is the last chapter of Sire and the final book in the Thirst trilogy is titled . . . DRUMROLL PLEASE Salvation. It takes place directly after Sire and the summary is already up on my bio, so go and check it out. Because I've been working on the story of the Thirst trilogy for months now, I've decided to hold off on doing Salvation for a little while and instead doing a Divergent story called Reminiscence, so if any of you are fans of the Divergent trilogy, go and check that out too. Anyway, thank you, guys, so much for loving and reviewing this story so faithfully. It really does mean a lot to me.
As soon as they walked into the house, Sky knew something was wrong.
"Ezekiel?" Sky shouted, stomping through the house. "Ezekiel? Uncle Zeke! Where are you?"
"The living room." Aneisha said. "He's in the living room."
As Tom and Sky charged into the living room, Dan turned to Aneisha, his blue eyes desperate. "Zoe?"
Aneisha gave him a sympathetic look and shook her head. "She's not here, Dan. I'm sorry." Dan nodded and followed her into the living room, immediately noticing Ezekiel on the floor. Suddenly he was kneeling on the floor beside Sky, watching as Ezekiel's eyes opened wide and he shook his head as he struggled up into sitting position.
"Ezekiel?" Aneisha asked. "What happened?"
Ezekiel said nothing. He just stared at Dan, who could only hold the only remaining Old One on earth's gaze for a few moments before he looked away and took a deep breath. Finally, Ezekiel turned to Sky. "You can read minds, dhampir. You know."
Sky gave him a sad look and then she nodded. She took a deep breath and said, her voice shaking with emotion, "The link that signals the nearing end of a Sire Bond was established so that Zoe could feel what William felt."
As he listened to Sky explain what had happened, the guilt that he'd been drowning in for the past half an hour intensified. He'd completely overlooked the link that was established at the end of a Sire Bond, completely overlooked the pain that would be inflicted on Zoe in William's final moments.
Halfway through Sky's explanation, Dan got up and walked out – he felt sick in ways he hadn't felt, even when he was in that semi-human stage that he'd been in for the first sixteen years of his life. He walked out into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of Vampire Spirits and poured half a glass's worth into a glass and filled the rest of it with human blood. Generally, he didn't mix food with Spirits, but as he watched the liquids in the glass swirling and mingling, mixing together, he recalled how this was anything but a normal situation. Zoe no longer was in possession of her own humanity, the very thing that made her who she was.
"Are you alright?" Sky asked from the doorway.
Dan took a gulp of his drink before he answered sarcastically, "Peachy."
"Dan." Sky said as Dan leaned his head back against the cupboard and asked, "What, Sky?"
"Your girlfriend no longer has her own humanity." Sky said. "Both your parents are dead. Something in that has to sting."
In other circumstances, Dan would have flinched at the reminder that he was now an orphan, but in the past couple of days, so much had happened that he'd become almost numb to it. He took another mouthful of his drink and stared at the purple liquid. "Zoe's humanity – her caring, her kindness, her compassion, it's who she is. How she puts everyone else before herself, how she has more of a right than anyone else to be selfish, but she's still so selfless and brave and strong and kind and despite everything, she's still able to love so completely. She . . . She never wanted to be a vampire, but she never complained once. She embraced it as best she could, fighting her nature to drink from animals, instead of humans."
Sky gave him a sad look. "She's only lost her humanity, Dan. She's not going to die. We can get her back. You don't have to mourn her."
Dan gave her an incredulous look. "I'm not mourning her life. I'm mourning the person she was when William snapped her neck because I will never get to see that girl ever again, thanks to our father."
Sky gave him a small smile. "We will get her back, Dan, I promise."
Dan finished off the rest of his drink and then slammed his glass down on the counter. It shattered under the force and Dan watched, mesmerised, as the shattered glass rained down over his hand, the tiny pieces of glass slicing across his skin. He barely felt it and simply watched as he quickly stopped bleeding and the cuts closed over. Finally, he brought his sad blue eyes to meet Sky's. Although his eyes were pained, his mouth was set into a hard line. "I gave up on promises a long time ago, Sky. I promised Zoe she'd never be a vampire and now look where we are. She's exactly what the Hunters, what the humans think we are – a soulless bloodsucking monster."
Sky's brow furrowed. "Speaking of the Hunters, do you think that William was right? That they're watching us because Zoe killed Keri?"
Dan shrugged as he grabbed another glass and made himself another drink. "I don't know. Right now, All I want to focus on at the moment is how we're going to get Zoe back."
"Who are the Hunters?" Aneisha asked as she walked in with Tom and Ezekiel.
"They're vigilante human vampire hunters." Ezekiel replied. "They're total idiots, but they're deadly idiots. If they're watching us because of Zoe, we need to be careful and we need to stop her from killing as many people as possible."
Dan grunted as he took a gulp of his drink. "I agree. But I was thinking that, you know, if Zoe kills, it'll destroy her."
"So what's the plan?" Tom asked.
"That's probably the stupidest question you've ever come out with, Tupper." Dan said bitterly. "We find Zoe and we get her humanity back before she kills too many people. Does that answer your question?"
Tom glared. "Has ever told you that you're a dick?"
"Has anyone ever told you to leave pissed off vampires alone?" Dan retorted, swallowing the rest of his drink. Sky watched him sadly, knowing full-well that her half-brother wasn't going to be okay for a very long time.