She pressed her free hand over her chest to soothe herself. She felt their emotions, muted from a distance and faint. But there.
Rage and violence. A mass of agony and vengeance in the gaping pit of her soul.
She clung to their ferocity because if she didn’t, she would break.
55
A VOW BROKEN
GRAVES
The throne room was in utter chaos.
Graves arrived just in time.
Azgorath roared as he seized an Umbra with his bare hands, then tore the Umbra’s arm clean from the socket, throwing it to the side in a spray of red.
Graves’s wings snapped open, propelling him forward. He cut right in front of Bastian, swooping low, wings catching him as he slid across the gore-soaked floor.
Graves slashed his dagger at the tendon at the back of the Umbra’s heel. The Umbra crashed to the floor, allowing Bastian to shove his boot on the Umbra’s chest. The vampire raised a hand, met Graves’s eyes, then made a fist. The Umbra spluttered as blood sprayed from his eye sockets.
"Ruptured brain," Bastian said, breathless—not a fighter. "Thank you." The vampire used the collar of his shirt to carefully wipe the Umbra’s blood from his neck.
Before arriving, Graves had ripped part of his shirt away and tied it over his lower face. He unknotted it and held it out to Bastian. "Here."
Bastian didn’t take it. "I’ll be okay."
An Umbra roared, charging, but before he could even get close, he fell, writhing on the floor as blood pooled from his ears, eyes, and mouth. Bastian didn’t even appear to be fazed as he used his Mind magic.
Graves pressed the makeshift cowl into Bastian’s hands.
Bastian needed a mouth covering more than Graves did. In the heat of battle, surrounded by all of this blood, he could fall into a frenzy. The last thing they needed was for him to turn Umbra.
Graves told himself that was why he fought—and not that he didn’t want to lose anyone else.
They were herding the Umbra to one central location—the prison island. It was the only way they could contain the spread.
It felt like a losing battle.
Graves was exhausted, but he didn’t stop.
His back muscles ached from overusing his wings, and his arms trembled as he twisted, shoving the blade of his dagger straight up into the stomach of an Umbra. The Umbra’s shadowed eyes flickered as she fell. Graves hadn’t known the female, but every death hurt.
He couldn’t help but feel this was all their fault.
When he wanted to give up, to give in, he thought of Luella, and suddenly he was filled with such intense determination he felt as though he could fight for eternity.
He felt her inside him—her fucking fear. At least that meant she was safe.
He’d rather her be terrified and safe than next to him and dead.
He fought until the Umbra’s numbers dwindled, never asking himself how they had gotten in. He saw the others sometimes, eyes meeting, before they were tugged back into battle.
His mother was safe. Soro had taken her immediately, along with Sorill and Sora. Opulus had gone with them after Graves had forced him. Soro alone wasn’t equipped to protect the three of them. That was Opulus’s charge—protecting the royal family and his mother. Graves couldn’t lose any more of his family.
The hilt of his dagger was slick with sweat and blood as he tried to drive it into the shoulder of an Umbra. He missed.
Gravesnevermissed.
