Page 123 of Slayer

Tall. Elegant. Raven hair pinned at the nape of her neck. A white lab coat hung over fitted black armor, sleeves rolled to her elbows.

In her hands…

She held a heart.

Not dead.

Growing.

Its surface shimmered like glass as new muscle fibers formed and fused in real time, knitting themselves together while it pulsed softly against her palm.

Harper sucked in a sharp breath behind me, and I followed her gaze. Two runes glowed brightly across the stainless steel table, and I was fluent enough now to read them. Cardiac regeneration.

Luna’s face drained of color.

The woman with the dark hair slowly turned.

Her eyes were a cold, glowing red, and she held a rune-drawing wand in her hand.

An arcanist vampire.

She studied me with open fascination, as if I were simply another specimen that had finally wandered into her lab.

“They always said the heart was our weakness,” she said softly. “So fragile. So easily pierced.”

Her fingers tightened around the living organ in her hand until it mushed like putty, ripping, tearing, bleeding.

The muscle then began to stitch back together, small fibers curling and growing, weaving like a run on a loom. It contracted, pulsed.

Healed.

“But what if,” she continued calmly, “it could grow again?”

My blood went cold.

They were trying to make hearts that couldn’t be destroyed?

Around her, the vampires grinned, anticipation rolling through the corridor like a held breath.

“Imagine it,” she said, eyes never leaving mine. “A heart that re-forms around the stake. Muscle that expels foreign objects. A body that remembers how to live…even after death.” She tilted her head. “Immortality at last.”

The rune in my palm ignited.

And for the first time, I realized exactly what would happen if she succeeded.

“Kill everyone else but the marked one,” the arcanist vampire said, and the vampires flanking her moved.

“Stop!” I screamed, and an actual light wave of power lashed out from me. The light hit the vampires one by one, and they froze in midair.

“Work quickly!” Celia barked behind me as Asher and I rushed into the room, killing the bloodsuckers as fast as we could.

I realized too late that the arcanist vampire had never stopped moving when I’d given the command. She was immune. She grabbed some vials and then jumped into a shadow portal before I could end her.

I was just driving a stake up into the chest of a frozen male vamp when a splitting headache hit me. I collapsed to the floor as something warm and wet dripped down my nose and onto my lips.

“Stella!” Luna ran to my side and began to fiddle with the wafer tin. The edges of my vision blurred, and then suddenly Celia and Asher were standing over me, concern etched across their faces. “I shouldn’t have given her that rune.” Luna pulled out two other wafers and shoved them into my mouth.

I let them dissolve on my tongue, and the headache pain eased but I still felt unwell. Dizzy, out of it.