Victorija couldn’t remember feeling as awful as this before. All she wanted to do was go to her room and pass out, because if she passed out, she couldn’t feel the torment any more. She pulled her teeth from the wrist of her vampire and stumbled to her feet.

“Principe? Are you okay?”

Victorija heard but ignored the woman. She made her way on unsteady feet over to the stairway and began lumbering slowly up the stairs, feeling extremely woozy. It was amazing she was still on her feet.

She got to her rooms at last and walked over to her bedside. Victorija fell to the floor and began to feel a cold, icy atmosphere encircle her, and the unmistakable sound of heavy rain. She opened her eyes, and although she had a drink-addled brain, she could see a circle of ghostly figures standing around her.

She jumped in fright and tried to scramble backward towards the wall but then noticed the ghostly people were at her back, too.

“Face us,” the spirits said loudly.

She was sure that she recognized a few faces from somewhere. Then from the circle, a blond woman walked forward. It couldn’t be.

“Angele?”

Angele crouched down. “Yes, it’s me.”

Utter shame spread all through Victorija. “Don’t look at me.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve become everything I hated in my father. I’m a monster.”

“You can change your life, Torija. You still have light in you.”

“There is nothing but darkness in my soul. No light, no love, only pain. I have blood sickness. I can’t keep my vow to you any more, Angele. I’m going insane. Why is she my blood bond? It should have been you.”

“I was your beginning, Torija. Daisy is your end. I know you will keep your vow.”

“I won’t. I’m going to find her and rip her throat out,” Victorija screamed.

Angele got up and started to back away. “All you have to do is face what you’ve done.”

The circle of ghostly figures stepped forward, and Victorija began to recognize more faces amongst the crowd. They were people she’d killed or ordered dead. Pain, guilt, and despair tortured her.

“No, leave me alone.”

Then she spotted one face that particularly stood out. It was Alexis’s lover who had been killed on a raid on the Debreks’ London home. Victorija wasn’t used to feeling shame, or any such emotion. She had switched off any emotional response apart from hate and anger a long time ago.

But her grandmother had kicked the door of her emotions open a crack, and blood sickness and her mental health were pushing it open further, inch by torturous inch.

“Face us, face us,” the souls shouted, louder and louder.

Victorija covered her ears and screamed, “No!” as the feelings of guilt, remorse, and shame stabbed her in the chest and guts, like heavy spears.