Page 31 of Ever Dark Academy: Volume 6

There must be a way back, Grayson said.

Must there be? I can’t see why you’re so sure of that, Eyros grumped.

Because Seeyr wouldn’t have caused a future like this to be created if I didn’t. Daemon needs and wants all of us with him in the future, Grayson said as he gently set his head and visor down on the ground. He’d remember where this was and come get when he returned to the future. He knew that would happen. So now I just have to figure out what my way back is.

Even if you can make it from that shitty field to Lasting–which I highly doubt in your rather feeble condition–you’ll just find a city full of your enemies, Eyros pointed out.

There will be a gate there, Grayson said. I think the gates are more than just conduits between our cities. I think they can pass back and forth through time.

Really? You’re going to somehow get through a whole city of Kaly Vampires to the gate and then magically make it transport you to the future? Eyros was laughing bitterly again.

Kaly sent me here. Or Roan did, Grayson explained. The structure they created that sent me here altered time so I’m betting they might know how to use the gate the same way.

Ah, again, that won’t work, Eyros protested. The only Kalys in charge right now are hateful and crazy as shithouse rats. The real Kaly is… Well, they aren’t in Lasting. None of them you meet in Lasting will help you. They’ll just kill you again, Ashyr. Slowly.

I’ll figure something out. There will be a way, Grayson said firmly and got slowly to his feet.

He lifted himself up so that his eyes were at the level of the tops of the grass. He groaned internally as he saw that the grass was moving–or rather, being moved–as things foraged their way through it. And they were coming in his direction. And, of course, the way to Lasting was right through them.

Of course, but I’m not giving up. I’m not dying here, Grayson thought. And at that moment, Ryder’s smiling face flashed before his mind’s eye. I’m going home and I’m going to ask Ryder to turn me. That’s the one thing I will allow myself. I will get back to him. I will.

Wilderness

Ryder landed face first in the mud and long grass. Not even his vampiric reflexes helped him stick out his hands to catch himself in time. Because one moment he had been standing and the next he had a mouthful of mud. He pushed himself up off the ground and onto his feet in one graceful, powerful movement, spitting out the rich earth.

“Gods! What the hell?!” He wiped the back of his right hand across his lips. “Grayson? Charlie? Fiona?”

“Oh, I am a city Vampire not a country Vampire!” Charlie wailed a few feet away, sounding so like Balthazar that Ryder would have laughed if not for the complete shit show this had turned into.

“That bastard,” Fiona hissed. “That absolute bastard Roan Tithe!”

Satisfied that the other two Vampires were fine, Ryder turned in a tight circle, looking for Grayson. He called the young man’s name again, “Grayson?”

But there was an edge to it, because his other senses told him Grayson was not here. Neither was the woman who had been his mother and currently housed Roan’s soul. A panicky feeling filled him. Were Grayson and Roan together? Were they still back at the house while he and the others had been teleported here? And where was here?

They were in the Ever Dark. But they were nowhere near Nightvallen. He knew all of the surrounding woods, fields and oceans around the Vampire King’s city and this was not that. So either they were so far away from Nightvallen that he’d never come this far or this was home to another Ever Dark city he wasn’t as familiar with. A scan of the horizon showed only vast forest, but they were in a slight depression so there could quite possibly be a city not too far away and they wouldn’t see it.

“Where are we, Fifi?” Charlie was wiping his hands almost convulsively on the fronts of his thighs. His shoulders were curled up almost to his ears and he looked like a hunted child. He most definitely was not a country Vampire.

“Fifi?” Fiona lifted an eyebrow. “I suppose I’ll allow it. We’re definitely not in Nightvallen.” She slowly looked up at the sky, frowning. “And there’s something else. Something truly wrong here. I can’t quite put a finger on it.”

“Let’s not discover what that wrong thing is, shall we? That always leads to bad things,” Charlie suggested. “I’m all for a drink and a warm fire and–”

“We need to find Grayson. Fiona, can you get us back to that house?” Ryder asked as he walked towards the Wyvern Vampire. The mud sucked on his boots and he grimaced at every squelching step. This place was more of a swamp than a field. Not even him with all his wilderness-loving ways enjoyed a swamp.

“Right. He must still be there. I felt him and Roan… go.” Fiona’s forehead furrowed. “There was something in Roan. A–a–”

“Structure,” Ryder filled in. “We didn’t check. We just assumed there wouldn’t be one. Foolish to do that. But it was a shock to have Roan there.”

It had been a far greater shock to Grayson now that he thought about it. His beloved had been so tense about meeting his mother again that he hadn’t considered she would be used in the way Roan had.

“Roan was always the absolute worst of all of them,” Charlie muttered as he carefully picked his way to them, every footstep squelching.

Frowning, Ryder looked at Charlie. “Worst of them? You met the other Kaly slices?”

Charlie blinked rather owlishly at him. “Well, yes, haven’t we all? Artemis and Roan and whoever! Quite boors! So gauche and no fun at all!”

“Right.” Ryder kept frowning, but he didn’t pursue whatever it was that was niggling at him about Charlie’s statement. “We need to go back.”