Vampires Realm Prophecy 01 - Child of Light

ignore. Only Valentine’s return could fix this emptiness inside her. In her hour of need, she had found that two of the people she believed would stand by her had turned their backs instead.
    Dmitri had refused her request for help in finding Valentine. Mia had done nothing to change his mind.
    She could understand their reluctance to offer her assistance. After all, it was her fault they had lost half of their army of werewolves in a battle that shouldn’t have been fought. She should have listened to Valentine. She should have trusted him like her mother had told her to in her vision. But then her mother had told her she would make mistakes and those mistakes would show her the path in the darkness. She wished she could make sense of that and see something positive in it. She felt weaker for her mistake, not stronger. Her mistake had cost her Valentine, and subsequently Mia and Dmitri.
    The only one on her side now was Venturi, the man walking with her to Elena’s place, and he was the one she’d thought would shun her.
    “I can’t see why you came with me,” she said, avoiding his glance.
    “I have pledged my allegiance to you and it stands, regardless of what you have done by killing my lord. My family can take care of themselves. They do not need me as their lord to lead them. Tenebrae blood is strong. We are natural leaders and work best without the restraint of a master. They will be fine. Someone must help you since the werewolves will not,” he said in a low voice, as though he was frightened of someone overhearing them.
    She glanced around them at the deserted street. The weather had driven everyone inside, leaving the streets mercifully clear of tourists. She couldn’t face them right now, not when she was barely holding on.
    Her companion hadn’t spoken much during the journey to Venice, but she had managed to pick up the tiniest trace of Italian in his accent. The rest was as muddled as Valentine’s and the other vampires she’d met, all except Mia. Prophecy frowned when she thought about her. She had believed in her heart that Mia would have wanted to help her find Valentine, but she supposed that the Venia had to do as her husband wanted. Dmitri was a powerful werewolf and commander. For all Mia’s power over him, she knew that when he gave a command, not even Mia would disobey. In time, they would forgive her. Mia had promised to keep her eyes and ears open for anything that would give them a clue as to Valentine’s whereabouts, but that was all she could do.
    “They have every right to be angry. They lost so much because of me.” Prophecy looked up into Ventruri’s blue eyes and found he was frowning at her. His look softened a fraction and he turned away, staring up at the sky.
    “We have all lost something,” he said.
    He couldn’t have spoken truer words. She had taken his lord from him, leaving him as the new master of his bloodline, and in turn, fate had taken Valentine from her. Her chest tightened.
    Valentine.
    His name brought fresh pain each time she thought or said it. She wished that she knew where he was. All she had to go on was the fact that the portal Valentine had disappeared through was similar to the one she had passed through in order to enter Elena’s hidden home. She wanted to believe that she would find him on the other side of the invisible barrier, but her mind overruled her heart and said different. There was no reason for Elena to take him from her. She hadn’t forgotten the way Elena had openly flirted with him when they were last here, but a voice at the back of Prophecy’s mind reminded her that there was only one man in Elena’s heart and she had lost him to Ineru. It made no sense for her to take Valentine.
    Approaching the end of the road, Prophecy stared at the black water on the other side of the low wall. The thought of what she was about to do still scared her. She could still see her mother in the water telling her not to be frightened and could almost picture Valentine when he’d held his hand out to her and said exactly the same thing.
    Stepping up onto the wall, she took a deep breath and prepared herself. No matter how much she tried to control them, her emotions still ran riot inside of her. In the depth of her heart, she wanted revenge for what had happened at the castle, but she knew that letting that emotion rule her would lead to her killing Elena before she had any answers. It had been the idea of avenging Valentine’s