Page 40 of Night Fall
Logically, Mya knew that if anyone had gotten their hands on an elder vampire who was now over one thousand years old, they would, of course, keep them alive, if for nothing else than simply the history in their mind and the blood in their veins.
But this was Erik. Her Erik. The same man that she had shrines and portraits of in her home so that she didn’t forget his face. The same man that she kept memories of in journals, re-writing them as the pages faded. She remembered key moments: the day he saved her life, the first day she felt something different toward him, the first time he’d kissed her, trained her, confessed his love for her. She remembered the day she lost him. Mya would never forget that pain and agony. She’d thought she would never see him again, and now she knew there was a chance she might.
Mya had never been good at having hope or faith, but she would pray to every old and new god if it meant she could see Erik just one more time, if she could hold him in her arms. But eight months of searching had yet to yield anything.
She knew Erik had been alive when they had faced off against Zachariah, and that he had been held in the same area as Johanna before Zachariah had dragged her out. But that cave had been buried under the explosives Zachariah had set, and the mountain was too unstable to explore.
Daniella wanted to use her magic to investigate the area, but it was too risky, especially while she was pregnant. Even though Mya wanted to find Erik, she didn’t want it to be at the expense of her friend, unborn niece, and, by extension, her brother. So, she waited, searched, located, and interrogated every rogue vampire she could find, but they were too crazed to give her any answers.
Johanna tried to help as well, but it mostly resulted in rogue vampires coming after her to try and drag her back to Constance. She’d offered to use herself as bait, but everyone, including Mya, had shut the idea down. Even though Mya had mostly ignored Johanna when they first found her—because of how much she reminded her of Erik—she was Luke’s mate and she’d become a close friend. Johanna had gone through far too much, and Mya was not willing to subject her to any more.
Johanna enlisted her younger sister, Tamara, who was hiding out in the Fae Realm with her family under Loe’s protection, to see if they could help. But even there, with all the powers and resources of the Fae Realm, they couldn’t find anything.
It wasn’t until Daniella gave birth to Mya’s niece, Ruby Adalyn Novak, a beautiful girl with her mother’s brown skin tone and her father’s hazel eyes, that things changed. Daniella refused to rest, and within days she began investigating the caves.
While Daniella grew tired easily, Johanna’s mental ability helped her fortify her strength. Over time they were able to search further and further, until they eventually located the cage Erik had been held in. Based on what Daniella could tell from the vines she used to feel around the bars, it had been broken open from the inside out. When Daniella didn’t find any bodies near that entrance, Mya breathed a sigh of relief. Erik had at least made it out on his own, but that didn’t answer the question of where he was now.
Daniella pulled several items out of the cave, including a partial map that Mya was now combing over. It was nothing more than lines and dashes, with a few small hand drawn markers. Mya had tried to plot out the distances, but they didn’t make sense, and none of the lines, which she figured must be some sort of route system, corresponded to any type of geographical location. She also discovered another partial map in some paperwork Luke had found when he was searching for Johanna. The maps seemed to match, but it was clear there was still a large portion missing. and she hadn’t been able to figure it out on her own, nor with the help of any of the databases she had hacked into. There was something there, she knew there was, but she couldn’t see it, and it felt as if her heart was breaking all over again with each day that went by without finding Erik.
Mya sighed, her whole body curling into itself over the map. She massaged her temples and closed her eyes. The deep breaths she took should have helped, but they only felt like a waste of time. Mya remembered all the times Greg had tried to beat into her head that she could cause as much chaos as she wanted, but if she couldn’t calm the storm when she needed to be mindful and take care of herself, she wouldn’t live long enough to find Erik in the first place.
“That bad, huh?”
Mya looked up to see Greg leaning against the doorframe with his daughter in his arms. For a second she wondered if she had manifested him with her thoughts.
No. He probably just has a homing beacon for when I need a dose of reality to kick my ass back into gear.
“Yeah,” she confessed.
“When was the last time you took a break?” he asked, walking into the room while gently patting Ruby’s back.
“It’s been…” She checked her watch and gulped as she realized that over four hours had passed since she’d last moved.
“Thought so. Here, let’s trade.”
He carefully laid Ruby into Mya’s arms and took the maps from her, settling down in the chair across from her. Mya smiled down at her niece’s beautiful, scrunched face. She loved her so deeply, so fiercely. It was a type of love she didn’t know she could ever feel again, but Ruby also reminded her of all the things she wanted, all the things she once thought she’d have by now.
Ruby cooed, wiggling and kicking her little feet. Realizing she was beginning to fuss, Mya started to softly hum the melody of a song that she’d written one night when she couldn’t sleep. It was a heartbreaking song about love and loss, about watching the figure she dreamed of disappearing the moment she opened her eyes.
When Ruby fell asleep, Mya looked to Greg and found him staring back at her.
“I haven’t heard you do that in a while.”
“What?”
“Hum. Sing. I didn’t even know you still did.” His hazel eyes looked back at the map as a frown creased his forehead.
Mya fidgeted slightly in the chair, embarrassed. “I do it sometimes when I can’t sleep.”
“And how often is that?”
“Most nights.” She shrugged gently, but she could feel the weight of her brother’s stare, the careful assessment of her that he took, as if he could see into her mind, her soul.
Greg flicked a piece of the map, studying it. “I thought that had gotten better.”
“It’s never really gone away. Some days it’s better, some days it’s not.”
He let out a soft hmm, eyes still on the map.
