Two vampires came running for her at parallel sides. Astraea took a second to flick a look over her shoulder and cast a smirk toward the shadows next to a high chimney. Nyte was very well hidden, but not to her.
“Arrogant,”Nyte mused in delight.
He was referring to the fact she’d taken that moment to pin him, letting the vampires get dangerously close. She threw her stormstone dagger at the last second, precisely into the heart of one before ducking under the other’s arms as they lashed out to grab her, simultaneously cutting clean through his knees with her key blade. Twisting as she stood, her next swipe cut through his neck and his body fell as a heap of limbs.
“You are an absolutely exquisite vampire slayer.”
“Show is about to be over,”she said.“If you could please find out your father’s motives before I’m forced to.”
“Since you begged.”
“You can makethatup to me later.”
“I’ll beg for you, Starlight. Only to make you scream for me in return.”
Those were his parting words, and as Astraea retrieved her stormstone blade from the chest of the vampire, she cast her sight up anyway, disappointed he was no longer a spectator. Her mood dampened now that he was gone even though she’d pushed for it.
That she had fallen for the enemy was a secret that would shake the continent, but she wanted it to be free. Wanted the world to know, and in her fairytale mind they would accept it; one day they might even rejoice about it. One thing she treasured most about Nyte, though many would never understand, was how he didn’t pretend to be anything he wasn’t. Every dark and bloody confession he owned, and she believed he wasn’t beyond redemption.
Astraea was the world’s goddess of justice, thrust into this role to govern people in peace, amity, and equality. She only hoped they wouldn’t question her judgment when it came to him.
Their bonding might have been forced as there was no other way to save her from a fatal wound, but part of her was glad for it. Knowing her attachment to him, her desire for him, had been a root growing deeper over the many years they’d spent together. Nyte had nestled into her mind, body, and soul. Soslowly she didn’t think either of them realized, or wanted to admit, what had been entangling them together from the start.
Astraea was snapped from her thoughts when a vampire dropped down from the sky, and she cursed Nyte now for distracting her from detecting it. She was thrown onto her back while vicious teeth snapped at her face. Holding him off by his shoulders, she was about to burn him inside out with her magick. She was saved from the bother when blue lightning seized the vampire and Astraea pushed him off. Seconds later, Auster’s mighty stormstone sword plunged through the nightcrawler’s chest.
As she caught her breath, Auster towered above her with a frown of disapproval and concern.
“I was daydreaming,” she said sheepishly.
“Unlike you while in battle,” he said skeptically, holding a hand down to her.
Astraea smiled sweetly, accepting the aid up and brushing herself off.
Surveying their surroundings, the other High Celestials—Notus, Aquilo, and Zephyr—finished off the last of the attack.
“I wonder what they hoped to achieve,” Zephyr pondered, wiping the blood off his blade on a fallen nightcrawler.
Nyte would find out, then Astraea would know.
“Abominations,” Notus spat.
She didn’t like that term. How he could so easily condemn an entire species for the heinous acts of some of them. Three of Astraea’s six guardians—each chosen from all races by her creators, Dusk and Dawn—were vampires. They had all raised her to be a fair and unbiased ruler. Her guardians passed on to their blissful Aetherworld decades ago with their sacred duty fulfilled. Astraea had to lead and discover herself now.
When more celestial soldiers approached, Astraea ordered them, “Start checking for wounded and clear the streets.”
She stepped over bodies, heading for some nearby homes to account for innocents.
“You should go back to the castle,” Auster said, following her.
“Why should I do that?”
“It’s safer. Leave it to us to discover what might have brought on this attack and scout outside the city for others.”
He always tried to shield her behind high walls. She’d never outright admitted this to him, but a lot of the reason why she’d stayed to govern in Vesitire rather than Althenia was to be free of Auster’s and his brothers’ suffocating measures for her safety.
Auster’s sigh was audible as she disregarded his suggestion and knockedat the first home. When there was no answer, she entered gently, only to see immediately that the residents were all slaughtered. Four humans.
“We can’t keep letting him pick off our people like this,” Auster snarled.
