My son was going to die within hours. Maybe sooner.
This much was true.
I could save him. Giving him eternal life.
And I possessed a legendary medallion that could give him back his mortality. A loophole in death.
Not too many people had that option.
Not too many mothers. Desperate mothers.
I heard Kingsley's words again. And what if you can't change him back, Sam?
Anthony would be immortal. At age seven. Doomed to walk the earth forever. At age seven. To drink blood for all eternity.
At age seven.
It was one thing to consider turning the handsome, love-struck Fang into my immortal lover, someone who wanted to fill my nights with pleasure and companionship, perhaps for the rest of my existence, which could be thousands of years, but who knew? It was quite another thing to doom Anthony, my precious, precious child, to that same fate - he would always be seven years old, and a vampire. I could not even imagine how to explain it all to him if the medallion did not work.
My heart gave a tremendous heave.
I didn't know what to do. Who could possibly know what to do?
Time was running out.
My son was dying.
I tipped one of my wings and veered back toward the direction I had come.
My mind raced as I flapped hard, surging through the water, scattering tiny silver fish before me.
And then I came to a decision.
God, help me, I came to a decision.
I flapped my wings as hard as I could and burst free from the ocean and shot up into the night sky.