“No!” I scream.
And then I’m on my back, Valen on top of me his hands around my throat. One of his eyes is healed, the ocean of dark blue staring into me as he squeezes.
“Please,” I choke. “Valen.”
His eye waters, his grip tightening.
“Fight it. Fight him,” I say with the last of my breath. “Kedves verem.”
I clutch the syringe in my hand, the only weapon I have left. A tear falls from Valen’s eye, his body shaking as he chokes the life from me.
I raise the syringe, my vision fading as I lose oxygen. I could stab him and depress the plunger. With the last of my strength, I could save my own life.
His face goes fuzzy.
“Valen, I love you.” I let my hand drop, palm open.
The syringe rolls away.
20
Isurge back to consciousness, my throat tight and hot.
Valen is still above me, blood pouring from his nose as he trembles. His hands hover just above my neck.
I cough, drawing in searing breaths as I kick weakly to get away from him.
Someone collides with him, tackling him as they roll to the side in a blur of wings and claws.
Coal. I list to my side, then get to my hands and knees, searching the floor for my syringe, for my only chance at ending this. Packed with hemophiliac agent, it’s not as potent as the poison, but it’s still a weapon.
Two more Corvidions fly into the Black Cavern, both of them diving for Gregor. He’s standing with his arms out, the air around him hazy with power or rage or both. At the last moment, he dodges their attacks and spins in a dervish of claws and fangs. Blood and screams. Bits of wing hit the floor, and the Corvidions are no more.
Juno lies where he left her. Body unmoving, face smashed to pulp, throat ripped out.
My heart wrenches as I get to my feet. “Gregor!” I scream his name.
He snaps his head toward me, a vicious hiss on his tongue as he rushes me.
His fangs are in my throat before I can scream, before I can think.
He rips his head back, my lifeblood in his jaws. I stab my syringe into the rotten flesh of his back, into his heart, and depress the plunger. He bites me again, lifting me until I’m dangling. He didn’t even feel the sting of the needle.
“Georgia!” Valen’s anguished cry is a million miles away.
Tired. I’m tired. I hurt.
I drop suddenly, the floor a welcome relief from being in Gregor’s claws.
He trembles.
I can only stare up at him, my eyelids heavy. I’m dying. Without a transfusion, not even vampire blood can save me now. I’ve lost too much. “Valen,” I whisper his name.
“Wha—” Gregor staggers back, blood pouring from his mouth, his eyes. Every bit of sinew and bone, every ounce of skin, all of him bleeds. It gushes from him; more blood than any one human body could hold. The river turns black, a torrent of evil and death.
Valen, his body shaking, fighting the compulsion that must still be running riot through his blood, appears behind Gregor. He raises two silver blades, his gaze catching mine right before my eyes close.
A scream unlike anything I’ve ever heard hits me like a physical blow. It grows louder, a tornado of voices, thousands of them imprisoned inside one. Gregor’s. His victims. His twisted, vicious soul.
