Chapter 43 Bronwen
Bronwen
Adar didn’t try to change my mind. He just looked at me, and something in his eyes shifted. He knew he couldn’t sway me. Not now.
I closed my eyes and sent the image into his mind. A place where I knew one vampire would be alone. Always alone.
Adar nodded once, jaw tight, and vanished before my eyes with a soft snap of pressure in the air. And I waited, hands clenched into fists, every nerve in my body bracing for what was to come.
I blinked—Adar was back, with Benedict slumped unconscious in his arms. Adar let out a breath, his chest heaving as he flexed his fingers, magic still crackling faintly around them.
“What—?” Benedict gasped, stirring as he hit the floor. His eyes locked on mine. “Bronwen.”
I didn’t answer.
Adar looked at me. “What now?”
I couldn’t tell him. But if I did, he might have tried to stop me.
“Give me a blade.”
He hesitated for a fraction of a second, then reached beneath his coat and passed me a dagger, handle-first.
Benedict moved to rise, but Adar’s hand clamped down on his shoulder, forcing him still. I stepped forward, the blade steady in my grip. I didn’t ask permission. I didn’t explain. I just sliced a clean, precise line across Benedict’s forearm. Blood welled immediately.
And I brought it to my mouth.
The taste of Benedict’s blood hit my tongue, warm and metallic, and magic sparked through my limbs like wildfire.
“B!” Adar’s voice cracked with panic as he lunged forward.
But I was already moving. I turned the blade inward, pressed it against my sternum, and drove it in before he could stop me.
I woke with a sharp gasp, air flooding into my lungs like I’d been drowning. My back arched off the floor and I flailed for a moment, unsure if I was alive or trapped in some other twisted dream.
Then I stilled. The dark cell was suddenly clearer than I’d ever seen it—every crack in the stone, every speck of dust floating through the air.
The distant drip of water sounded like it was beside me.
I could hear things—tiny things—like the scraping of rats in the walls, the flutter of moth wings in the light slit above. And something else.
I could hear a heartbeat.
I turned my head slowly and my nostrils flared as Adar’s scent hit me like a wave—earthy, warm, tinged with fear.
And underneath it, his blood.
It was intoxicating. Rich, alive, calling to something deeper than instinct—something primal and starving. My throat burned with need. My teeth ached.
I could smell him. I could feel him. Every beat of his heart thundered through me like a drum summoning a forgotten hunger.
I was a vampire.
Benedict slumped on the floor, his skin still pallid but slowly regaining color—signs of life inching back into him. Adar must have drained him of everything he had. Good. He would need every scrap of magic he could muster to get us as far as I intended to go.
“B.” Adar dropped beside me, his hand pressed to his chest. His breaths were uneven, and though he tried to mask the pain, I could see it clearly now—his pain and mine, mirrored in his expression.
The moment our eyes met, I felt it. The horror, the disbelief, the weight of what I had done. “What did you do?”
“I’m putting an end to this.”
Maybe it was reckless. Maybe it was the last desperate act of someone with nothing left to lose. But it was the only path forward I could see. I didn’t care what it would cost me—not if it meant destroying the monster who’d taken everything.
Even if I never felt the warmth of a fire again and the sun forever burns me. Even if this hunger would hollow me out until nothing remained but a shell of who I used to be. Even if I would be driven closer to the insanity I saw August fight every day.
The hunger was growing.
I turned my head toward Adar. His heartbeat still pounded in my ears, his scent flooding my senses.
The thought of sinking my teeth into him surged, violent and hot, and my chest ached with the war between hunger and love.
He had come for me, risked his life, and yet my body screamed to devour him.
I shook my head hard, tears burning as I forced the craving down.
I would never hurt him. Never bite him.
I clenched my jaw and forced myself to look away. I would find another way to feed. He had already given me enough.
“You have to leave,” I said through gritted teeth.
He reached for me, and I jerked back.
“I am not leaving you again.”
I closed my eyes as I tried to focus on the smell of the cell and not Adar. “I will meet you at the gate. You can’t be here for what I am about to do.”
Adar hesitated. I felt it ripple through him—the conflict, the disbelief. But I knew he could feel me too: the wall of fury and resolve that would not budge.
His jaw clenched. “What about him?”
I followed his gaze to Benedict, still slumped on the floor. My stomach twisted, but all I saw now was betrayal. Memories of his betrayal burned hot and sharp—how he had come for me and delivered me straight into Carrow’s hands. Rage and grief tangled in my chest.
“Burn him.”
* * *
I lay sprawled on the cold stone floor, my limbs limp, every nerve still screaming from the transformation, my skull pounding with a single, relentless command to feed. Footsteps echoed beyond the cell door—measured, deliberate, heavy, as though each one was meant to remind me of what was coming.
I forced myself not to move, though my body trembled. I already knew who it was.
The hunger inside me stirred again, clawing at my insides. I clenched my teeth and kept my eyes closed. They were red. I knew they were red.
I didn’t want him to see me like this. Not yet.
The door flew open with a heavy slam that echoed through the stone chamber. I flinched but didn’t move, keeping my eyes shut, my breathing shallow.
“Is my dear wife asleep?” he drawled, amusement laced in every syllable.
Still, I didn’t move.
He crouched in front of me, his presence thick and dark, pressing in all around me like smoke seeping into my lungs. His hand trailed slowly up my bare leg, pausing at my knee before his mouth latched onto my thigh. Fangs pierced my skin—sharp, possessive, certain he still owned me.
But I smiled as my eyes snapped open.
The sound he made was a wet gurgle, his hands clawing for his throat. His arms went slack, his body toppling backward, confusion flooding his gaze.
Vampire blood was poison to other vampires.
I sat up and hummed as I looked down at my hands.
The ugly metal gloves still clung to my skin—too tight, fused with pain and time.
I flexed my fingers and slowly began to tug at the edge of one.
It resisted at first, the edges catching against raw, tender skin.
Then it gave way with a sickening pull. Skin tore. Blood welled.
But the pain faded almost instantly, replaced by a strange tingling warmth. I watched, breath caught, as the skin began to stitch itself back together, slow but sure.
I pulled off the second glove. More flesh came with it. More blood. But again, it healed.
I stared at my bare hands, flexing them slowly. The skin was pink and new, but stronger. The black veins still curled up my left arm, stark against my skin—a mark of what we had failed to do.
I straddled him and cradled his face, desperate for one more glimpse of the man I had once loved. My chest ached with the want to believe I could find him again, but that man was gone.
“Where is my baby?”
Carrow tried to speak, but nothing came out.
I patted his cheek. “Come on, I know you can do it. Tell me where she is.”
A sinister smile twisted his lips. “D-d—” he choked, the vampire blood still eating away at his control. “Dead.”
Rage ignited in my chest, raw and wild. My hands shook as I pressed one flat against his ribs. He didn’t even have time to blink before I plunged my hand into his chest. Flesh gave way. Bone cracked. My fingers closed around the thrumming organ that had once belonged to the man I trusted.
His eyes widened, a choked sound escaping his lips.
I felt nothing but fire.
“This is for her. And him. And every fucking thing you’ve taken from me.”
His eyes shifted into something softer and closer to fear. “No—it’s me. I’m still here.”
I hesitated, just for a second.
“It’s me, Bronwen.” His voice cracked like something human, something buried.
My grip on his heart tightened, fingers digging into the muscle. “He didn’t call me Bronwen.”
His expression twisted with anger, but before he could say another word, I rose from the floor with his heart clenched in my fist.