“So ravishing... I would have loved breaking you in. But I’m afraid we only have room for one where we’re going.”
The twins cackled as her sister continued to resist their hold.
Dolion slid his hand from her chin to the back of her golden hair, arching her head up toward his face. Krysta’s eyes weren’t filled with terror. No, those eyes held pure, uncultivated hatred.
“You’ll burn in the six for this.” Her words dripped with abhorrence.
“Not before you, my dear.”
Helaina’s vision steadied just long enough to see it—Krysta’s own Crestonian blade rising in his other hand. She struggled to move, to do something—anything—but her body couldn’t catch up; none of her limbs were listening to her.
Krysta looked beyond Dolion to her sister. “Run,” she pleaded.
As soon as the word left her mouth, Dolion sank the dagger deep into her chest.
“no!” Helaina’s scream was shrill and devastating as her hands reached for her sister.
Dolion drove that blade down time and time again. A ruthless assault that left Krysta’s chest and abdomen massacred.
Helaina’s heart shattered into fine glass shards at the sounds. The squelching of metal into wet flesh. Blood trickled down Krysta’s shirt, glowing a fiendish red in the moonlight.
Her body went limp as they kept her standing.
“Krysta! Krysta!” Helaina shrieked again and again.
A ripple appeared in the tops of the trees as Helaina’s screams echoed into the night. An uproar of pure blackness that forced their torchlight to fight to stay alive. They all stared upward, completely bewildered at the sight of those menacing shadows.
Dolion turned to face her. His expression said it all. He knew those shadows belonged to her. He had known everything all along.
Before he could advance on her, the sound of an approaching crowd echoed in the distance. Familiar voices screamed her name, her brother’s distraught voice among them.
“helaina!krysta!where are you?”
Adriel. Adriel was coming. He had his men, he was bringing help. They could get Krysta to the castle healers in time.
The twins dropped her body. The sound gave the agitated churning in Helaina’s stomach new life.
Helaina tried again to stand. The pounding in her head kept her down. So she crawled to her sister, heaving Krysta’s chest up onto her legs.
“We can still take her,” she heard one of them say. “There can’t be more than thirty men.”
“No, we can’t. Her bitch sister struck my heart. I need to feed.”
Dolion kneeledbefore the disheveled princess. Sweat coated her body as she stroked her sister’s hair. Krysta’s breathing began to soften.
He ripped Helaina’s shirt down the middle to expose her chest. She didn’t care. She didn’t even fight him. If he wanted to kill her, right here and now, she would let him. Her hands continued comforting strokes on her sister’s smooth cheek.
He signaled to the twins to hand him the torch. He gripped it and plunged his own hand into the flame. He didn’t scream. His hand was submerged in fire, yet he did not scream. His fingers emerged unburned, his iron ring turned a furious orange. A ring she had never seen before today. He tossed the torch back to his comrades.
Dolion made a fist and, while holding her shoulder firm, plunged his knuckles down onto her bare chest, forcing that ring flush with her skin.
She wished she could remain quiet, but the scream was instinctive. She had never felt that kind of pain. The burning silver tore into sizzling flesh. He removed his hand, leaving the sigil upon her.
A brand.
“A reminder that I’m coming for you.” Then he kissed her forehead, all too gently. “You will always be mine. I will find you again, Helaina Ironblood. That is a promise.”
He glanced around the tree line once more, then back at her.
