Page 31 of Veradel

“I’m fine.”

“You’renotfine,” my father protests. “You’re going to die if it happens again.”

“Well,you’regoing to die if you don’t.”

They stare each other down for a moment, two sick people trying to win a battle in order to save the other. And I think I start to understand, as my father’s eyes flick toward my mother’s neck, toward the same spot the Eleventh Guardian stole blood from him. Heneedsit. Needs the same sustenance I’m currently lacking in order to keep living. But the more he takes from my mother, the more her internal organs begin to fossilize.

She was already turning to stone years before the Guardians picked her out of the crowd.

Bitten by my father before she was Chosen by them.

But my father shakes his head, a determined film clouding his eyes—hiscrimsoneyes. They’re not as deep of a red as Arad’s, but pink-tinged with popping blood vessels, as if they’re getting there. To his fellow citizens, it might look like he just needs a better night’s sleep, but if they get any redder…

He’d look just like a Guardian.

“Then so be it,” he rasps at my mother. “I can’t hurt you just to help myself. It wouldn’t be living anyway.”

I don’t need to relive him dying all over again, even though now I know… he was dying of starvation. Of thirst. Of refusal to drink from the innocent people around him. The housing unit dissolves before he can crash to the floor, and suddenly, we’re sitting on top of the blood moon itself: a cratered ground the color of blood with endless space spreading beyond it.

“Dad was a vampire?” I breathe. Heartbroken. Horrified. Hating what it means.

My mother nods from across the table but doesn’t speak.

“How?”

Her voice twists, dropping into a low, guttural growl again. “The Thirteenth Guardian.”

“Mom?” I whisper, confused. It looks like her but doesn’t sound like her.

She shakes her head, clears her throat. “We never understood. Never could figure it out. The Guardians limit our resources and prevent us from learning about our past, present, or future. But it only made sense that your father had some kind of biological difference that responded to vampire venom by… becoming one. Because he didn’t change until after he was attacked in the alleyway.”

I exhale, inhale, exhale again, feeling that treacherous burn slowly crawl up my throat again. Need. Need.Need. I needed the right kind of sustenance, and I failed to get it in time.

“I’m dead, aren’t I?” I ask my mother. “That’s why I’m able to talk to you right now. I died like you and Dad?”

She stares at me for a second before swallowing thickly. “Not yet. You know what you have to do if you want to survive this, little nightmare. Drink.”

I cock my head. Little nightmare? She’s never called me that before. “I don’t want to. I don’t want to bethatkind of monster.”

“My dear girl.” My mother reaches across the table and clutches my hand. “Whatever monster you become is the monster youchooseto be. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Choose,” I repeat.

“Choose,” she confirms with a nod.

And then the crimson of the moon washes over us, crashing into the kitchen table, knocking over both our mugs of tea, and sending my mother scattering into mist. I try to scream, but water fills my mouth, and waves knock me back down into a state of drowning.

Only this time, that drowning smells a lot like blood.

She’s a vampire,” Taika says.

“No,” I manage to exhale hoarsely. “That’s not possible.”

The elderly healer stares at me for a beat before his eyes slice to Saskia’s pale face. “Lucan,” he says simply, lifting up one side of her lips. “Look.”

My throat closes. Taika exposes four normal white teeth sitting in a row between…

Two elongated canines. Thinner and sharper than mine. Sharp enough to pierce tough skin and delicate veins.