32. Vasile
Chapter thirty-two
Vasile
Is this what it was like when Deacon felt me die?
It is as though someone has reached inside me and hollowed me out. I am nothing more than an empty cage, something filagree and light, fit to be carried away on the wind.
Tamesis smirks. Blood drips from his glove to the floor and despite the fighting, all the noise going on around us, I hear it.
I growl, ready to leap for Tamesis, but Deacon makes a choked, wet sound that suspiciously resembles my name.
Sam drops to his knees by his side, eyes wide and assessing. “Vasile. Here! I need your help.”
My help? I can’t think why, but I stumble over to him anyway. Tamesis lunges for us but comes to a quick halt when he hits Sam’s shield. Sam glares up at him, and the stubborn jut of his chin is enough to make Tamesis growl.
“You’ve still got some fae blood in you, don’t you?” Sam asks me.
I don’t ask how he knows. I can feel it. Something in him—it resonates in me, too, though it’s growing weaker by the minute.
“Yes.”
“Use it. All of it. Heal him.”
“I don’t—” I don’t know how to do that. And Ophelia can heal, can’t she? She can help him. Deacon’s eyes are closed, but I can just about hear the weak flutter of his heartbeat. I cup the side of his face, keeping my touch gentle. “Deacon. Deacon, look at me.”
His eyes flutter but don’t open. A wolf leaps onto Tamesis and Tamesis growls, eyes flashing gold as they topple to the ground. Is it—I think it’s Kieran’s father. Tamesis shoves him away, and each step Darren takes towards him seems deliberate, heavy, like he’s fighting the control Tamesis has over the pack bonds.
Fighting and winning .
I shake my head and try to feel for that buzz under my skin, the one Lark put there. It’s as faint as Deacon’s heartbeat now.
“That’s it,” Sam says. “Concentrate. Pull it out of you, into him.”
I try to ignore the fighting around us. Sam has us, so all I need to focus on is Deacon. Deacon, who’s losing blood every second I hesitate. Who I’m not even sure can hear us now.
My next breath is a sob, and Sam grabs my arm. “ Do it , Vasile.”
The buzz of magic presses against my skin and I swallow hard as I drop my hand from Deacon’s cheek and press it against his wound instead. He lets out a pained moan. I bite back a sob.
“You are not even fun to play with anymore,” Tamesis growls. I look up in time to see the way he grabs Darren around the muzzle, wrapping an arm around his throat. Darren growls and thrashes, and there are plenty of us who turn to look, but no one can reach him before—
Tamesis snaps his neck, not a flicker of emotion crossing his face. Sam gasps next to me.
Across the floor, Kieran stops dead.
Tamesis lets go as Darren shifts back, taking two steps away from his corpse. Drew is looking, too, still shifted, and Adam reaches for him but pauses with his palm a hair’s breadth away from Drew’s fur.
I don’t have time to dwell on all of it. Kieran strides across the floor, approaching Tamesis without a shred of fear, and Tamesis flinches—I swear , he flinches—and I push that magic I can hardly feel further and further out of me and into my mate.
“Is it—”
“Keep going.”
Do I have enough? I don’t dare to ask. What if Sam says no? He wouldn’t make me try if he didn’t believe it would work. He’s not cruel.
Tamesis growls, and Kieran’s cry is one of rage, and I close my eyes. I can’t focus on the two of them. Not right now.
Of course it doesn’t matter. The bond that exists between me and Tamesis pulses with every hit he takes. It feels like Kieran is winning, but I can’t be sure.
The blood stops dripping from Deacon’s wound at the same moment his heart stops beating. My own jumps up into my throat.
He can’t be—
“Don’t stop!” Sam snaps. I look up at him, temper rising, and with it, the minute amount of magic still in me also flares. I blink in surprise. He shimmers , more brightly than the shield I can see surrounding us.
I look down. Magic moves under Deacon’s skin, burrowing into the broken edges of his wound. It is working. I can see it. I feed it a little more, even as I see the way magic trails tossed spell bags out of the corner of my eye. The wolves are wrapped in it, the vampires, too, but in a way that tells me it remains, for them, mostly out of reach.
“You see it?” Sam murmurs. He sounds, despite everything, faintly awed.
“Yes.”
I can’t stop looking at it. Not until Deacon’s heart stutters in my ears. He drags in a ragged breath. Blood flows through his system again, and his werewolf healing takes over, pushing the additional magic I’ve given him to where it’s most needed.
Tamesis has Kieran on the floor. He’s got about as much magic left as I do, and I ignore the thick, golden rope that shimmers between the two of us. We’re still connected. Still bonded.
There’s one that leads from Kieran into the fray—to Lucien—and then a handful more that I know signify the bonds he has with his pack. Tamesis rears up and Kieran gets a foot between them, kicking him hard in the chest.
“More,” Sam says.
I give Deacon more. Whatever he needs. Whatever he wants.
Tamesis sprawls backwards and uses some of his magic to get to his feet again. The bonds I can see are becoming hazier. Fainter. Kieran tackles him, trying to keep him down, but Tamesis is strong even without magic, and it’s clearly difficult.
“Drew!” he calls. “Help me!”
A big wolf—almost as large as Deacon—comes bounding out of the fighting. It’s almost over, all except Tamesis. Deacon stirs beneath my hands, but I don’t look at him. I need to see this.
Kieran moves and Drew lands on Tamesis, paws on his chest. Bone cracks beneath the force of the blow, and Tamesis lets out a pained, angry howl.
I feel it, too, and flinch. Sam reaches for me, his grip on my forearm tight. “The bond—”
“I won’t die when he does,” I say, my voice sounding as though it is coming from very far away. I’m not certain if it’s true or not, but I don’t plan to.
Deacon’s head moves from side to side. His eyes are still closed when I check on him, and the last dregs of magic are moving through me, almost sluggish now. His wound is beginning to knit together from the inside out, his breathing becoming less laboured, less wet.
“Fuck,” Kieran hisses. “Hold him down. I need to—”
He moves so he’s kneeling above Tamesis’ head. Drew has him pinned on the ground, but he’s thrashing, trying to buck him off, and Kieran traps Tamesis’ head between his thighs.
Drew growls, setting his teeth to Tamesis’ throat. Tamesis goes still, eyes wide, and I feel anger—bright, disbelieving anger—as he bares his fangs.
Kieran pulls a knife out of his back pocket and Sam, watching this play out just as I am, makes a questioning sound.
“He won’t make Drew do it,” I say quietly, realising what he intends to, and Sam looks at me, bemused. “I think he likes the poetry of it.”
Is that true? Maybe not.
I like the poetry of it, though.
Kieran slashes his wrist. Blood drips down his arm and Tamesis growls in his throat but firmly shuts his mouth. Drew growls in response, and Kieran tries to get Tamesis to open up, but it’s no use.
Vampires don’t need to breathe, not really. If he can hold out…
“Vasile?” Deacon murmurs.
He blinks up at me. He’s awfully pale, somehow almost gaunt, but his side is still healing, and I can hear the strong, steady beat of his heart. I move one hand—covered in his blood—and cup the side of his face.
“You’ll be okay in a few minutes,” Sam says. “He did it. He saved you.”
“Vas,” Deacon says. It’s an exhale, the way I always want him to say my name. I want it on every breath. I want it to be the only thing he wants to say.
I want that because it means he’s safe.
The minute amount of Lark’s magic left in me buzzes like it knows that, too. Sam’s gaze cuts from Deacon to me. “Vasile…”
“Just a little.” I remember standing next to the river, feeling a thick, inescapable darkness wrap itself around the bond that existed between me and Deacon. I remember being unable to fight it except for tearing everything apart.
Deacon’s and my bond is gone. Perhaps it can never return, but this—
A sire-turn bond goes one way.
This one, the one we created, goes both.
I feed what’s left of the magic—fae magic—into the bond. It’s only a little, but the bond reacts as though it’s a parched riverbed feeling raindrops for the first time in years; it sucks it in and expands, glowing so brightly that I almost have to close my eyes.
Tamesis tries to look at me. His lips are still firmly shut, Kieran trying to force them open.
I take in the shape of him, my creator, my greatest enemy, and feel the magic that fizzles down the bond between us.
“Drink.”
Surprise—so furious, so helpless—and Tamesis opens his mouth on a snarl. Kieran shoves his arm down, wedging his wrist between Tamesis’ lips. He doesn’t make a sound as Tamesis bites down, doing his best to make it hurt. Blood flows down Tamesis’ throat, and as Drew keeps him pinned, Kieran keeps him fed.
I sway where I’m kneeling, and Sam grabs me, keeping me upright. Deacon tries to sit up, but Sam pushes him gently back down. “Don’t.”
I don’t know how long Tamesis drinks. It cannot be that long because Kieran’s blood is still flowing, and we all know how werewolf blood works.
Still, after a while, he stops struggling. His arms go slack, eyes rolling back in his head.
Drew lifts his head but doesn’t climb off him. Kieran doesn’t move his arm.
The bond between me and Tamesis goes taut. I press a hand to my chest, gasping at the sudden pain, aware that the fighting truly is over now and that everyone is watching Tamesis die.
It snaps. Pain spirals through me, cramping every limb, and Sam’s hands are on me, but then so are Deacon’s. I lean into him, careful to stay on his good side, and he rubs my back, his scent warm and familiar.
Everyone is quiet for a moment.
Then, “He’s dead,” Kieran says.
The words are hardly more than a whisper, but he might as well have shouted them for the way they travel through the room. Drew climbs off Tamesis and leans into Kieran’s side. Kieran grimaces, tugging his arm free of Tamesis’ jaws.
He’s still bleeding, flesh torn from frantic bites, the marks of a vampire desperate to survive. He cradles his arm against his chest before he sits back hard, eyes moving between Tamesis’ body and his father’s. Drew follows Kieran’s gaze and lets out a quiet whine.
“You’re good?” Sam asks.
“Go,” Deacon says.
I lift my head. He looks at me, and his eyes hold none of the anger I’m expecting. I deserve it. I should have told him—
“You’re alive,” he says. He cradles my face in his hands, thumbs rubbing over my cheekbones.
“Yes.”
He nods, closing his eyes, but I see the tear that escapes. I let out a breath. I’m still dizzy, feeling wrung-out in a way I never have before.
Tamesis is dead.
He’s dead and we’re alive and we—
We did it.