Vampirates 4: Black Heart Read Free

Vampirates and here?"
    She shrugged. "Not at home exactly, but as though I'm meant to be here. I'm meant to be with them."
    Connor's eyes widened at that.
    "I know," she said, squeezing his hand again. "It's hard to understand."
    He shrugged. "I don't see why it should be. After all, our mother is here, isn't she? She was on board the ship, and then she came here, traveling within the captain's body somehow. It sounds weird when you try to put it into words, but I saw it ... saw her ... with my own eyes."
    "Yes," Grace said, her eyes bright with the image of their mother sitting up and smiling at her. Her beautiful mother, with her emerald green eyes and long auburn hair, opening her arms and drawing the twins into a hug. "She was just as I always knew she would be," Grace said. "Just like in my dreams."
    Connor leaned over to rest his head against Grace's. "Maybe that's all this is. Everything you and I have been through since the shipwreck. A dream, one we're dreaming together."
    Grace smiled and snuggled in closer to her brother. Shutting her eyes, she allowed herself to retreat into her memories of happy times in the lighthouse. But it wasn't long before her restless mind offered a fresh thought. "How did you find the climb up the mountain last night?"
    "What? Oh, that. Nothing to it," Connor said. "A bit of a hike, but you know me. Super fit and all that. Besides, there was a full moon. It was almost like daylight out there." He turned toward her. "Why do you ask?"
    "We had the most arduous journey up here," she said. "The captain, Lorcan, Shanti, and I. It was so dark, and of course we had to lead Lorcan because he couldn't see back then. Shanti lost her footing and almost fell. And just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, it began to snow. The path was so steep. Didn't you think so?"
    Connor shook his head. "It was like a country road. Maybe you took a different route. It's funny, though, I only ever saw one path at the foot of the rock."
    "Yes," Grace agreed. "Yes, but it must be like Olivier told me once. That the mountain changes. That everyone makes a different way up here."
    "Who's Olivier?" Connor asked.
    Grace paused, remembering Mosh Zu's former lieutenant. He had been by turns indulgent and irritated with her, his moods as changeable as the weather. And he had betrayed his master, thinking that Sidorio would promote him, only to find himself betrayed and rejected by the renegade Vampirate. "He was no one you need to know about," she said at last. "He's gone now."
    Connor slipped off the chair and drew himself to his feet once more. "How much longer do you think we'll have to wait to see her again? We just got to say hello to her and then they took her away."
    "They have to be careful," Grace answered. "She was one of the lost souls traveling with the captain. You saw how fragile they were, how bewildered at being set free."
    "Is she our mother, Grace, or some kind of ghost?" He looked at his sister in confusion. "She reached out her arms to us. She kissed us. I didn't imagine her, did I? She was as much flesh and blood as you or I."
    Grace stood up and went over to him. "I don't have any answers for you, Connor. I wish I did. All I know is that Mosh Zu will do what is best. Until then, we just have to wait."
    "I'm not very good at waiting," Connor said, starting to pace once more.
    "We've waited for her for fourteen years," Grace said. "What's a few more hours?"
    Connor smiled. "I guess when you put it like that ..."
    As he spoke, there was a knock at the door. It opened and Mosh Zu's assistant, Dani, poked her head around it. As usual, her face was impossible to read.
    "Mosh Zu asks you to join him in his meditation room," she said.
    "Is our mother with him?" Connor asked. "Is she all right?"
    Perhaps Dani didn't hear his question. She had already begun walking briskly along the corridor.
    "She'd tell us, wouldn't she?" Connor turned to Grace. "If something was wrong?"
    Grace could hear the rising panic