Chapter 32 #3
Tòrr nuzzles Folke’s shoulder, firm and urgent, as if demanding the man get up. Gods help me, I could swear that bloodthirsty beast, who has never cared about any mortal in its thousands of years, feels guilty.
Sabine calls to him again, and Tòrr swings his head around, and after giving Folke one more look, rears up on his hind legs and charges down a side alley.
Gone.
“Hang in there, old man.” I squeeze Folke’s shoulder, then stagger toward Sabine, lifting my sword to block a walking cadaver who lunges at me. I slice him clean through, leaving two steaming halves on the broken cobblestones.
Rian leans over Sabine, picking glass shards out of her bare skin. Silver blood pools beneath her, but her wounds are already healing.
It’s wrong, somehow. That within seconds, my perfect goddess, my warrior queen who has been to hell and back, doesn’t have a scratch on her.
In seconds, her skin is once more smooth, flawless.
Cheeks perfectly flushed.
Lips so full they glisten.
She grabs my shoulder and pulls me into a tight hug. “Basten, I can’t—can’t use my fey. There’s nothing left.”
She lifts a trembling hand, but her fey lines are faded to a ghost of themselves, barely pulsing beneath her skin.
Without hesitation, I tilt her close to my jugular, my arms tightening around her weakened body. “Drink. That’s an order. Every gods-damned drop.”
Her sob catches in my shirt, ragged and raw, and it shatters something in me. She shakes her head, still pressed against the seam of my shoulder. “It’ll take all of you.”
“No. It won’t.” Rian drops beside us, kneeling on the blood-slicked stone. He rolls back his sleeve, revealing a gash already weeping red. “Not with both of us.”
Sabine looks between us, her eyes impossibly wide, and then she makes her choice. She grips Rian’s arm, where blood already flows, and drinks.
Deep. Desperate. Hungry.
Rian leans back, his breath hissing through clenched teeth—pain and something darker, sharper, humming beneath the surface.
Slowly, his face pales. His eyes sink.
Still, she drinks, and I see it—that fever in her eyes. The same reckless fire that nearly consumed Tòrr when the wildness took him.
“Enough!” I pull her off Rian and twist her toward me, pressing her face to my neck, to the spot where my pulse hammers. “Now me.”
She struggles at first, but only briefly.
Then she sinks in.
Her lips part, her teeth find the artery, and the pain flares before it fades to something else entirely. Something electric. Her breath shudders against my throat, and the world tilts sideways. It’s intoxicating, transcendent.
But I can feel it—how much she’s taking.
Too much.
A heavy hand latches onto my shoulder, and I’m roughly pulled away from Sabine. She growls, angry and still hungry, eyes flashing, and starts to lunge toward me again.
But Rian presses a hand against her chest. “Sabine, you’re going to kill him!”
She sways on hands and knees, hair blood-soaked and streaked around her, blinking hard to try to center herself. She licks a trace of my blood from her lips.
Her fey lines throb, but they aren’t as bright as they need to be to defeat the entire fae court.
She knows it, too. “More.”
I don’t hesitate. I yank open my shirt, baring my chest to her. If she needs more, she can take all of me. When I swore I’d sacrifice myself for her, I meant every gods-damned word.
But Rian steps in, scowling, and shoves me backward. “You’re the king. People need you. Let me.”
He starts to unfasten his shirt.
I stop him—grab his hands, steady and firm. My breath shakes, but my voice doesn’t. “It’s because I’m king that I have to do this. This is what a true king does.”
Rian looks at me with wide, confused eyes.
“It’s not about the throne,” I continue. “It’s this—sacrifices no one will remember but matter more than anything.” My throat tightens as my gaze shifts to Sabine. “There was a time I didn’t care about kingdoms. About anyone, really. But you changed that, Sabine. You made me care.”
Sabine’s eyes flicker with a brief flash of understanding, breaking her hunger.
Then we hear them.
Hoofbeats thunder down the alley—sharp, rhythmic, determined.
I spin just in time to see him.
Tòrr.
He charges through the chaos like a comet.
He crashes his battered body through the ranks of the dead, sweeping them aside with bone-snapping grace.
Silver blood streams down his sides from claw marks and bite wounds.
His solarium horn, once flawless, is cracked, splintered in half, barely hanging on.
Still, he comes.
Skidding to a halt, Tòrr lowers his head. His massive frame shakes with effort, breath hitching with every ragged inhale. Wounds bloom across his flanks. He’s broken, bleeding.
Silent and reverent, he kneels.
And the truth slams into me: He’s giving himself to her as a final offering.
My blood, Rian’s blood…it isn’t enough for what Sabine is going to have to face. So Tòrr is making up the difference.
Sabine throws herself on his prostrate body, running her hands over his thick fur, the broken black scales slick with blood.
“Tòrr…no,” she whispers, then her voice rises, fracturing. “Please. Please, no. I can’t lose you, too. My heart—” She presses her forehead to his neck, choking. “It won’t survive another goodbye.”
For a moment, he is still.
Then, with what little strength remains, he lifts his head.
His eyes find hers.
They’re already dimming, the red fire in them dying, but when they meet Sabine’s gaze, something ancient stirs. I don’t know if her godkiss has returned, but something passes between them. A moment, I think, not meant for mortals.
A thousand unsaid thank-yous.
A meeting of minds.
A dirge for what could have been.
And then, her sob breaks free. Raw. Seismic. She shakes her head, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I won’t…I can’t…”
But he presses his brow against hers, like a priest giving a benediction.
Like an order.
Sobbing harder, she bends and drinks from the wound. Her shoulders shake, her breath hitching with every swallow. For a second, she tries to pull back, but her body betrays her, clinging desperately to his offering.
She drinks deeply.
“I love you,” she whispers, finally pulling her lips free. “I will honor your loss. I’ll…I’ll never let the world forget you. What you did for us.”
Tòrr exhales one final time.
Sabine screams into his fur, the sound fracturing against my ears, full of bitter pain that she is only strong because he gave her his dying power.
Around us, chaos rages. Rian pushes back to his feet, slicing through corpses. Ferra and Suri appear from the smoke, wielding makeshift weapons, pushing back the horde inch by inch.
Seconds pass—but they feel like a lifetime.
Tòrr’s eyes, once full of starlight, go cloudy.
No blink. No breath.
His heart—all six great ventricles—falls silent.
And then—
Sabine gasps.
She rises, shining like a fallen star, eyes burning with silver light, hair billowing as though caught in a whirlwind.
Alive. Glorious. Unstoppable.
Tòrr is gone, yes—but through her, he gallops still.