I shot both Pagoris restraining her with energy balls and she dropped to the floor like a sack of spuds when they disintegrated into ashes. “You alright?”

She nodded and gripped my hand as I pulled her upright. “Thank you so much. They knocked Evan unconscious. Is he okay? Where is he?”

I was just about to wrap my energy shield around us both when suddenly she was sucked away from me as if by a vacuum, but instead she was in the arms of a Keja. Before I could act I found myself in a large frosted cube. No matter how many beams or bolts or balls I hit it with, it remained strong. “Bastard,” I hissed at Bennington as he approached and studied me curiously.

“I had to have you, Samantha. There was no way I was going to leave without taking you with me. You had to have known that.” His smile was self-satisfied and slimy.

“If you honestly think you’ll leave here alive you’re dafter than Victor was.”

“Oh things may not be going so great over here, but then I had expected Antonio’s legion to be the strongest. My allies are having a lot of success attacking the other sides, thankfully. The Hollow will be mine.”

“Let me ask you a question, Bennington. If your little helpers are winning the battle on the other sides, what makes you think they’ll hand The Hollow over to you?” His smile faded. “The Hollow’s not exactly an apartment building, is it? I can’t see someone handing such a grand place over to you like that. It strikes me that whoever penetrates the walls will be the one who apprehends it. Looks like that won’t be you, eh.”

“Then perhaps I shall use my new Feeder to aid my cause.”

“I’d sooner see to my own death before I’d help you.”

“Don’t worry, baby. It won’t come to that.” Jared’s voice sent a bolt of warmth through me.

Bennington chuckled as his army gathered around him and the cube. “You really are very fond of your consort, Jared. Victor was much the same. I must assume, then, that she is quite the performer in the bedroom. Perhaps I should take a leaf out of yours and Victor’s book and take her as my consort as well as having her in my army.”

I snickered as I appraised him. “Sorry, your Monopoly Man look does nothing for me.”

“She’s not my consort,” said Jared. His voice was dripping with rage and a need to kill.

“Oh? Then what?” Bennington seemed confused.

“She’s mine.” He left no doubt of what he meant by that. He must have felt my shock because he nodded slightly at me to assure me of his honesty. Bennington’s confident smile faltered. When a vampire chose someone for their own it was considered an extremely serious thing: they each belonged to the other and had the right to stage a full-scale war over them. It had happened plenty of times. Taking the Heir’s chosen was as good as signing your death warrant; Bennington would be automatically putting a bounty on his head. If Jared didn’t kill him, some random vampire could and would just to collect on whatever reward came with his death.

“The Heir has claimed a Sventé vampire?” Bennington chuckled nervously.

I scowled at him. “If you see Sventés as such low-lives then you’ll have no qualms with handing me back to Jared, will you?”

“I have to say I’m surprised you have allowed anyone to claim you, Samantha. I saw you as too much of a free spirit for that.”

“Stop stalling, Bennington,” ordered Jared. “Give her back to me.” He didn’t follow that up with an ‘or’, and that made his words sound all the more threatening. His tone made it clear that there was no room for bartering or negotiating or making any deals. Bennington was to hand me over: The End.

I heard a slight crack and frowned. Then there was another. I swerved to see a large crack forming in the wall of the cube. On the other side of the cube was Reuben, palms up against it, trying to weaken the strength of it. He nodded at me and shrugged as if to say the rest was up to me now. I sucked the energy around me into my palms and then I placed my hands on the wall of the cube as Reuben had done. Then I released a scorching heat near the crack. As I’d hoped, the crack widened and then split until more cracks were branching off it. I kept emitting the heat, conscious of Bennington and Jared talking but not hearing their words. Then the cube began to tremor and quake as the split ran through the floor of it. I absorbed more energy into my palms and then slammed a massive energy bolt into the ground of the cube. The entire thing cracked and fragmented.

Everyone turned to look at me and then, taking advantage, my squad appeared and attacked using their formations. Jared then created and projected an extremely high voltage bolt of lightning and aimed it at a distracted Bennington. The sad little man shook and convulsed and made the most ear-piercing noise as the electricity ran through his body, stealing his life. I almost danced at the sight of his ashes. Instantly Jared was there, holding me tight to him. At the same time those who were left of Bennington’s army suddenly looked unsure and apprehensive and while some surrendered completely, others fought harder as if they’d sooner die than be caught – we happily indulged them in that. Within seconds it was over and all was quiet around us. There were still sounds of battle in the distance, but at least Bennington was dead.

Jared scrunched his hands in my hair and rested his forehead to mine. “I could kill you for getting caught.”

“I didn’t do it on bloody purpose.”

He kissed me hard. “I’m still strapping you to the bed.”

“Coach! Look!”

I turned to see Denny pointing through a part in the trees. I gasped at the sight. At least three hundred more vampires had just teleported. Twat. The Monopoly bloke had had more allies than they’d expected. Or were they allies? It seemed more likely that they had acted as though they were working in league with Bennington but were in fact planning to let Bennington fight most of the fight and then jump in at the last minute to steal the victory.

Suddenly there was a lot of cursing and shouting and movement and the squad retreated to join the others and prepare for the new invaders. But when Jared tried to drag me along behind them I resisted and shook my head. “We can’t fight off that many, you know that.” He was going to electrocute me for this but I couldn’t see any other choice. “Don’t resist it.”

“What?”

That was when I merged into him. Just like last time, there was that sensation of fusing and melding with this other body as though I was encasing myself in an all-in-one suit. Each of my five senses came to me, one by one. And then there was that burning pain as though I was melting into this suit, into Jared, and our cells knitting together. Again, I felt totally and utterly omnipotent. But unlike with Joy, there was another feeling: that I was complete, which made no sense but it was there.