Everest walked right into the sunlight. He threw his hands up and all the morpher-demons burst into ash that disintegrated before hitting the ground. The sun did not set him aflame, didn’t burn his skin. He wasn’t in a rush or panicked like it was hurting him. He just calmly walked into the horde of demons.

Sweyn screamed.

Everest stopped thirty feet away from us and smirked, the sunlight streaming over his entire body. Those blue and white eyes were locked on Sweyn’s even while he flicked his hands left and right, killing demons without watching.

Sweyn’s voice cracked yet she shrieked on.

“I KNEW IT!” the Unseelie Prince shouted. He ripped a piece of the doorframe off and threw it into the wall. Then he spun to face Sweyn with rage glowing in his yellow cat eyes. “YOU.”

Sweyn screamed.

“This is your fault!” the Prince bellowed. He thrust one arm out, pointing at Everest who was eliminating the demons by the handfuls. “How could you not know this? A thousand years and you missed THIS?”

Sweyn’s response was half-growl, half-scream. None of it intelligible words.

Everest is in the sunlight. EVEREST is IN the SUN. I gripped the doorframe and breathed through the heavy pounding of my pulse. Everest wasn’t affected by the sun in one bit. Everest turned me. Everest is the one who made me a vampire. Goddess, does that mean that I⁠—

Sweyn shrieked and grabbed my arm. I didn’t have time to react before she threw me out the front door. I screamed and tried to catch myself, but my body crashed into the hot pavement. The force sent me rolling toward The Coven. Smoke billowed from my body.

“Let’s see those acting skills, Samwise,” Tegan said into my mind.

Flames erupted along my skin, flickering and dancing in the sunlight. Smoke billowed from my body. Except I felt nothing. No pain. No burning. Nothing. I screamed. Tegan told me to act, and it wasn’t my place to question her. I arched my back and thrashed around like I was dying, like this was agony. My voice was raw and cracking. Everest had once praised my acting skills. I prayed this was selling it. I tried to look for him or for Tegan, but the sunlight was too bright. I hadn’t seen the sun in—-Goddess, I didn’t even know how long anymore. My eyes weren’t used to it anymore.