Dev’s eyes blinked open right as his father stepped back through the broken pane.
“Really,” came a warped voice. “Over avampire?”
And then there was no more talking. Lash let loose a barrage of dark magic, the power so great the whole house rumbled on the foundations that had been drilled into the very bedrock of the mountain—
As the force hit, Dev’s metaphysical shielding of Lyric held, the evil diverted so that she wasn’t hurt. But as the barrage continued, Dev could feel himself losing strength.
And he knew what he had to do. One shot. He needed to take his one shot—
Give all of himself, as the angel had said.
Summoning his strength, Dev yelled out a battle cry, and embraced the opposite of what he felt for his female. Instead of love, he accessed the deep hatred he had for his sire—and in doing so, he started to absorb the dark energy being sent at him, his corporeal being turning into a repository for the evil, until he felt his soul sicken and contort. But he took still more, the longer his father continued, the further down he sunk as he collected the root of all that was cruel and conniving and angry in the world—
When he couldn’t hold it any longer, when he was full beyond bursting, he flipped the switch and sent the hatred back to its source.
The explosion of energy was so great, it blew out all the windows along the front of the house, the shards of glass mixing with the flurries that fell, the shock wave also felling trees and shearing rocks off the mountain’s elevation.
Lash was swept off the porch and carried far, far out over the lake, his form spinning in the midst of the black energy, trapped in everything that he brought to fate and destiny, captured by the dense darkness that contaminated hearts and souls and condemned those who acted as evil to an eternity inDhunhd—
There was a moment of suspended pause, the sky storming around the concentration of malevolence, lightning flashing.
And then the teeming mass of evil dropped into the middle of the frozen lake, the impact breaking the ice and creating a tidal wave that emanated out from the center hole, swamping boathouses all around.
After that…
Nothing.
There was nothing left of his father.
Dev collapsed to his knees and fell forward. When he was rolled onto his back, Lyric was leaning over him.
Her eyes were wide, her breath coming out in pants. “Dev…”
For a moment, he had a ringing sense of completion, the job well done as she was alive and his sire gone. But then he felt his strengthstart to ebb, and he realized, in saving her and her kind, he had sacrificed himself, just as her brother and those males had intended to do.
Just as the angel had foretold: He had given his all and gotten his wish for her.
With a trembling hand, he tried to reach up and touch her face. “I’m… sorry.”
Yes, the angel had been right, but destiny had also been a kick in the balls. He was “dying” in the only way an immortal could.
There was no more soul left in his corporeal body.
Fine, if this was his fate, then he had finally done something important, something worthy of the love he had at last known, at the end of his destiny.
“Dev, don’t leave me—”
“It’s okay… better off… without me…”
“No! You have to stay,” she stammered. “Please, we have to figure this out. We have to figureusout—you saved my life, you can’t leave me now—”
“And you saved my soul.”
Damn it, he wished he could touch her; he had to settle for looking at her.
“Live your life free and out loud…” he whispered. “And know that you are loved…”
That was as far as he got. His life-force was like a rope he’d been holding on to.
