Bloody Moonlight 4 by Becca Fanning

Stranded on a boat with my two vampire companions, Eddie and Vic, the tension is palpable. We’re returning to a Chicago that is now…different. The city’s silhouette looms ominously through the mist. Vic is frantically trying to conjure a spell, a magic we desperately need but that stubbornly eludes him. His frustration echoes my own fears. Eddie, usually more vocal, is unusually quiet, drained from a recent fight that has left both him and Vic barely standing. Amid the creaking of the boat and the looming crisis, I can’t help but feel a gnawing sense of dread for what awaits us onshore.

In a desperate measure to strengthen them for the impending battle, I offer myself to the vampires. The act is deeply personal, unsettling, stirring a primal nature within them that terrifies me. As they accept my offer, I feel an eerie sense of being both necessary and dangerously exposed. The pain and fear mingle with a strange emptiness; have I awoke some dark instinct within them?