Chapter 16
Aurora awoke to a beautiful lavender sky stretching above the desert.
~I can see!~
She sat up slowly, painfully. Beside her, Jez was breathing quietly, her bright red curls tumbled around her.
She looked out over the group. Slowly, people were rising among the scattered bodies, shaking the heads, glancing around.
She got up slowly, ignoring a pain in her back and stomach. She didn't have time to think about it. She had to find Aden.
There he was, slowly getting up from beside Thierry. Hannah was checking them, making sure they were okay.
Aurora stopped to help Poppy. Looking into her eyes, she had never noticed how bright the green was.
~Something different about them . . .~
They moved to the group of the original Daybreak team. Aden grabbed and held her tight. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." She breathed deeply. Her senses must be out of wack. She couldn't taste the humans in the air.
She looked at Thierry from over Aden's shoulder. For the first time, his eyes weren't sad. He was holding Hannah . . . and something seemed different . . .
She turned to Morgead, watching him help Jez from the ground. Something was different about him, too . . .
She pulled away from Aden quickly. James . . . he was different . . . She glanced around the group quickly. Ash, his eyes, they were a steady hazel-blue. Quinn, his dark eyes were brighter, almost a dark shade of brown. Suddenly, she remembered what happened before she had passed out. "Oh my goddess . . ."
Aden touched her shoulder. "What is it?"
She looked at his neck, focusing on the throbbing veins beneath the flesh. She tried to smell the blood, tried to extend her teeth to feed . . .
And her body's only response was a low growl in her stomach.
She stumbled to Thierry. "Thierry, can you smell the humans?"
He turned worried eyes on her, "No, but look at what we just went through. Our systems are out of commission."
Smiling, she shook her head quickly. "No, no! That's not it!"
She turned to Jez, who seemed to be remembering as well. "That last spell," Aurora spoke in hushed tones. "Do you realize what happened?"
"Our blood!" Jez exclaimed. "It's . . . it's . . ."
Aurora turned to Aden. "I'm human again."
He looked at her, searching her eyes, a smile growing on his lips. "You are, aren't you?"
She turned to the slowly growing crowd. "All of us! The lamia and the made vampires! We're human!"
Dawning realization surfaced on every former-vampire's face. Thierry touched Hannah's face, just in the place where her birthmark was. "My curse is gone."
Ash held Mary-Lynette close. "I've never been human before." He turned quickly to Aurora. "How did this happen?"
Iliana was the one that spoke up. Her beautiful blonde hair disarrayed. "After we banished the evil, Hellewise came to us. She told us to break the curse of Maya's people."
Quinn smiled, holding Rashel to his chest. "It'll be great being vermin again."
"Actually," Iliana smiled. "You're not quite humans."
Aurora looked at her, confused. "What do you mean?"
"You all still have the blood of Maya and Hellewise inside you. The only difference is, the spell that Maya created has been broken. You're no longer immortal, you don't have to drink blood, and you can continue to age, but . . ."
Thea was the one who finished for her. "You all have the blood of the Hearth-women inside you. You are all now . . ." She laughed quietly. "Witches."
"Does that mean, we can all be reborn?" Aurora asked.
Iliana nodded. "And every vampire who has died since the creation of the vampire will be reborn as well."
Aurora held Aden tightly, feeling his breath in her hair. For the first time in all of her lives, she knew everything was going to be okay.