In my final moments, I closed my eyes and dismissed the slayers. They’d never had my best interests at heart.
I yearned to see the faces of the men I loved one more time. The ones who’d defended me, and stubbornlyremained beside me, helping with my impossible quest. With them, it had felt possible that I would be queen.
“Say your prayers, Ilyana,” Emmeline said triumphantly.
A roar shattered the night sky. A flare of pain pierced the skin over my heart as the spearhead drove in further. My eyes flew open as Ash’s bulk descended, his wings two shaggy flags. His massive bearlike paw fell upon Spear with a violentcrackas the rest of the tytoursus landed atop the devotee and his beak tore off the vampire’s neck.
The spear clattered to the ground, leaving a jagged puncture in my skin that pulsed with sharp agony.
Emmeline released a hideous gasp. “No!” she shrieked. “You stupid animal! He was my favorite.”
Telekinetic launched his rock while his Beloved screamed. It arced and slammed into Ash’s side, staggering the great creature. He released an ursine bellow as one of his front legs gave out. With a heavy thump, he collapsed.
“Ash!” I cried. He turned a liquid-dark eye my way, a depthless well full of pain.
At the same time, Emmeline’s expression shifted with murderous intent. She eased backward and leapt, sword angled for his head.
I rushed to intercept her, ramming her heedlessly with my wounded side. Momentum sent her crashing into a rosebush. It broke with a brittle snap. The only reason she didn’t topple fully to the ground was the stone wall behind the bush.
My lips parted with a choked scream at the agony coursing through my damaged nerves. Crimson rained from my wound, reopened from its half-healed state. My right arm hung uselessly. I still had a dagger in my left, which Ithrew at Emmeline. It embedded in her chest, inches from her heart.
A surprised shout and the heavy thud of another rock hitting the ground drew my attention. Telekinetic’s cry cut off halfway as tendrils of shadow dragged him off. My heart soared with hope as I spotted my mate’s face in the moonlight.
“Zane,” I breathed.
Earth turned toward the sound of a commotion and shouted as Boris and a horde of rats leapt on him. He raised his weapon just in time, and it rang from the impact of Finn swinging his sledgehammer at him.
With Emmeline’s devotees taken care of, I could focus all of my attention on her. Ash prevented her from getting off the impaling thorns of the rosebush she’d broken. A threatening growl rumbled in his throat. He’d dragged his bulk to block her way, just out of range of her hand as she swung my dagger at him but within lunging distance should she attempt to escape.
Emmeline raised her palm. The soil beneath my boots trembled with a mounting, rhythmic pulse. Ash roared in her face before the magic could crest. The force of it whipped her hair back from her temples, and a spray of hot spittle glistened on her cheek. She recoiled, the spell shattering as she shrank into the rosebush with wide, hollow eyes.
Her sword lay discarded amidst the roots of the rosebush. I picked it up and severed her hand at the wrist. An agonized cry rose from her. Tears already stained her face, undoubtedly from the pain of her devotees dying around her. “No more. Please.”
No pity stirred my heart. It felt still in my chest, frozenfrom its brush with Terrigana’s hell. “Save the theatrics. It’s over.”
“You are too naïve…to be a queen,” she said on a pained wheeze.
Naïve. How true that was, an insight I’d only received on the brink of death. The reaper’s cold presence seemed to linger, waiting for one of us candidates to die.
“Did you sneak into my room and steal my stake?”
“No.” Her expression held bitter satisfaction. “But I wish I had. Exquisite… the hunter being stalked.”
The words landed like more stone shards embedding in my stomach.
“I’m going to tell you the truth.” I couldn’t say what motivated me in that moment. A desire, perhaps, to unwind some of the misdeeds that’d twisted my very soul. “I didn’t kill Genevieve, but I was a slayer.”
“Was,” she echoed faintly. “Lie.”
“They don’t care what happens to me.” This, she didn’t contest as a lie. Somehow, it burned all the worse. I was cauterizing a wound that’d been leaking a long time, unseen and festering. With increasing bitterness, I told her, “I bet they wanted me to die. All so I could cross off a few names on a list for them. I’ve always been a tool to them, not a partner in fulfilling Aetherius’s will.”
“Your dhampir blood has always been a liability, Sidney.”
My sight swam. The truth had been in front of me all this time, wrapped in a thin layer of piety.
“Vampires kill slayers. So, slayers kill vampires. The cycle continues unbroken.” As she spoke, silver light bloomed in her remaining hand. Spear’s magic, perhaps the last piece of it she had remaining.
I nullified her attempt to create an explosion. Shereleased a helpless cry as the light flickered and died around her fingers. Now she knew what it was like to be cornered and helpless.
