Impressive strength and speed. But not enough to save her.
Springing to my feet, I dodged her stabs, punching the weapon from her hand. She snarled, going to sweep my legs out from under me. I jumped, bringing my right leg up in a kick that missed her by inches.
She laughed, her yellow wolf eyes flashing. “I’m taking you down.”
Cockiness. The bane of us all.
Her stakeblade returned to her hand as if it’d never left.
I attacked her again, and she spun out of my trajectory with the elvish lightfeet her blood lent her.
“Not so amazing, are you?” she mocked, a mortal man falling down dead beside her.
Another executioner joined her. “Agreed,” he said to her.
A terrible ache bloomed in the Heart of All. I saw the cloud of crimson bone dust as the sorrow seared through me. A vampire gone. Gilbert. One of the rebels I’d asked to be freed from the dungeons.
His loss joined the permanent pain that would never leave me, another hole in existence.
I’m sorry,I sent out to his soul.Be at peace.
Grief, my constant bedfellow, taunted me again. The red stone shone brightly in my chest, pulsating its sadness, scarlet veins spidering across my skin.
“The Heart of All!” the woman roared.
They all attacked me at once. I ran, dashing across the ballroom into the corridors.
Not from fear, but because a plan had sparked to life, one to make them pay a terrible price.
CHAPTER EIGHT
PARIS
The rancid stench of Aidan’s decayed body triggered my gag reflex. But that didn’t stop me from charging down the stairs, the crystal blade puffing to life in a cloud of silvery smoke in my hand.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I demanded, my eyes burning from the stink.
Maggots spilled from his mouth as he grinned, part of his jaw bone exposed from a nasty hole in his face. But that hole seemed smaller, as if he’d healed some.
Ugh. I didn’t need this shit right now.
“I’m here to see you,” he answered, his voice like a death rattle.
“Your timing is bollocks,” I countered.
He opened his arms, causing more waves of stink to hit me.
I paused at the foot of the stairs, my insides curdling, the fear itching across my epidermis like a million flea bites.
I had to kill him. Shove this crystal blade through his rag-clad body and end him before things got worse.
But years of devotion froze me to the spot. How could I undo all the prayers, all the love, every whispered plea to guide my steps through life?
And what had he done with them?
“Liar,” I whispered, my timbre a tremor. “Nothing but a liar.”
His golden eyes flashed. “Who? Me?”
