Chapter 16 #2
Any time but on the night before a Hunt that has been planned to execute us both.
I haven’t had a friend since Ciara who is as rebellious and free spirited as I am and I am not ready to lose this feeling.
The cool wind cuts across my cheeks, as I chase after the Shadow Human up the rocky slope. Three ravens fly close enough in front of me as guides that their tail feathers brush my forehead.
I could easily pass Barnabas, as he limps and staggers.
But I don’t.
Instead, I give him this final moment of victory.
This one last triumph.
Doesn’t the guy deserve that much?
“I win!” Barnabas hops up and down, smiling.
“So, you did. Well done.” I smile.
Suddenly, a dark shape emerges from the shadow of the largest pyramid, stalking toward Barnabas.
The Shadow Vampire was already up here, waiting for us.
My smile dies. Adrenaline spikes through me.
“Fuck.” My hand flies to my waist to where my non-existent bronze daggers should have been.
How is this fair without a weapon? When my magic is suppressed? When I can’t fly?
When Shadow Humans are magically weak and their Omegas are susceptible to an Alpha Shadow Vampire’s pheromones?
“Grand Vizier,” Barnabas breathes in panic. His antlers grow, becoming jagged with shadows. “Or more like slaughterer? Last time I saw you, blood dripped off your fangs, as you ripped out the throats of my people at your mother’s order. Did it make your feel powerful to murder so many Omegas?”
I step in front of Sobek, squaring my shoulders.
“I didn’t murder them,” Sobek replies, gruffly. “I executed them. As I shall execute you.”
Sobek’s attack is fast and brutal.
He wrenches me away from Barnabas by my throat.
I choke, scratching Sobek’s hand with my claws. He tightens his hold, as firmly as any warrior I have fought against. He pulls me up onto my tiptoes, twisting me from side to side as if deciding where to sink in his fangs.
When Sobek’s claws pierce my skin, my eyes flutter at the sharp bursts of pain.
His gray eyes burn into me.
My shadows whip out from me, volatile and violent. They crack across his face, but he doesn’t release his hold.
My vision grays.
This is it.
May the Shadow Devils break his fangs, this is it.
I’m not ready to leave my soulmate.
I haven’t arranged a safe, worthy pack for Freya. I haven’t brought my own court back to life or avenged it.
I am not fucking ready.
I’m sorry.
Sorry.
Then my ravens beat furiously in a black cloud around Sobek’s head, and Barnabas rams his antlers into the Alpha’s stomach.
Under the double attack, Sobek finally lets go of me.
I fall to the ground, coughing. I clutch at my neck, which is ringed with bruises. I slowly open my eyes.
Then I wish that I hadn’t.
I am staring directly into Barnabas’ blue eyes.
A single tear escapes, running out of the corner of his eye, before chasing down his cheek.
His head is twisted to the side, shoved into position, while Sobek feeds from his neck.
Barnabas’ blood soaks in a puddle around him.
It soaks into my hair and wings, dying them scarlet.
I can only see Sobek’s curls, as his head is buried against Barnabas’ neck. Worse, is the sucking, snarling sound, as he savages Barnabas’ throat.
I growl, attempting to force myself up, but Barnabas snatches desperately for my hand, forcing me to still.
“Stay with me,” he mouths.
Stay, while he dies…
It’s so little to ask.
It’s too much.
Too fucking much.
It’s watching Ciara being turned to ash in front of me all over again.
Feathers, blood, and ash rain from the night sky. The moon is veiled by smoke. The devils have ambushed the only family that I have, my brothers and sisters in the army. My kingdom is falling…
I shake, frozen.
I can’t…I can’t…
Yet I haven’t stopped squeezing Barnabas’ hand.
“Please…” Barnabas’ voice is faint and threaded with pain.
His eyes are glassy and dazed.
I pet his soft ears.
I can only give him this comfort. He knew that this is how tonight would end.
But I am going to fucking destroy Sobek, the House of Crocodile, the entire Blood Kingdom.
Finally, Sobek raises his head, licking his lips. “I didn’t expect that a traitor would turn out to be my Omega bond mate. Fate is unpredictable.”
My gaze snaps to Sobek’s hard gray eyes. “He’s your Omega? By the Shadow Devils, then claim him. Don’t drink anymore, bastard. Can’t you tell how close to death he is? Take him to a healer.”
I stiffen with shock, when Sobek spits Barnabas’ blood onto the ground.
“Revolting. Why would I want to take a heretic into my nest? Mother would never accept a lowly fawn like this into Crocodile House.” He grips Barnabas’ chin harshly, yanking his unresisting head around to try and make him focus on him.
“Don’t.” My voice is low. “Isn’t this enough? Just don’t…”
“I reject you,” Sobek says with grim satisfaction. “Do you hear that, Omega? I break our bond.”
Barnabas arches in despair. Tears course from his eyes.
Just for a moment, he appears to gain a sudden clarity through the pain and blood loss.
He meets the Alpha’s eyes, before he spits into his face.
“Rebel to the end.” I tighten my hold on Barnabas’ hand, filled with pride. “You showed them. You’re a stag. You’re a…”
Snap.
Sobek breaks Barnabas’ neck like he’s nothing: not an Omega, Blood Lover, or his Omega bond.
My friend.
When he drops Barnabas’ lax body, Barnabas’ hand falls from mine.
I can’t hold onto it, but then, I can’t hold onto his soul.
I don’t even know where the soul of a heretic Shadow Human flies after death…if I will see him, when I follow him soon.
Despair hits me like a whirlwind.
I throw my head back and howl to the heartless stars.
“Stop that barbarous noise, savage.” Sobek wipes his hand across his mouth, cleaning it with a grimace.
“Although, after what that little monster took from my brother with his worthless demonic lions, it would only be fair for me to take the Blood Lover from him who he is too scared to take for himself.”
Lost in my grief, I don’t realize what he means, until Sobek has rolled off Barnabas and onto me.
He’s heavy, pressing me down into the rocky earth.
He’s taller and larger than me, an oppressive weight on top of me that reminds me sickeningly of all the times that I played courtesan for Maximinus.
Except those times I had a concealed weapon on me and a plan for how I’d slit the throat of my mark.
I was in control.
I’m not now.
“May you be damned to hell, you bloody bastard.” I struggle, as Sobek pins my wrists in one of his strong hands, using his other to force my neck to the side. “Why don’t you just kill me?”
“Tempting, fae, since I have executed more of your kind than most, but you’ll be more useful to hurt Lan alive than dead. And I enjoy hurting him more than anyone.”
My wings are crushed painfully beneath me. My heart is racing in terror.
My ravens dive, attacking Sobek’s back, but they can’t peck through his crocodile armor.
I attempt to buck him off, using every move that I know. Sobek looks rested, however, energized by his fresh feeding on my friend, while I have been running for hours, while bleeding out.
I haven’t eaten or drunk for days.
I headbutt Sobek, instead, using my mask as a weapon.
Sobek hisses in pain, burned by the silver. He backhands me across the mouth.
My lip busts. So, I spit out the mouthful of blood into Sobek’s shocked face.
It’s the most fitting memorial for Barnabas that I can think of.
“Will people stop spitting on me?” Sobek roars.
“Only if you stop tearing out their throats.” I bare my blood-soaked teeth. “Deal?”
Sobek backhands me again.
Worth it.
I’d rather be unconscious when he bites me. I don’t want to feel the way that he sinks his teeth through my skin, followed by the violation of him drinking from me.
“Is that all you’ve got?” I slur. “You hit like a knotless Alpha…wait, that’s your brother, aye?”
This time, my jaw cracks.
Is that my ears ringing?
Why are the stars dancing?
What’s happening?
Where’s Freya?
Why aren’t I with her?
My Omega? Soulmate?
Who’s turning my head to the side?
What’s…?
“On my blood, it appears that we have different ideas about how to hunt down Blood Lovers,” a smooth but dangerous voice says above me.
I struggle to open my eyes.
A tall figure, which is wreathed in shadows, is standing behind Sobek. His long black hair winds around him like snakes with diamonds for eyes. His own red eyes are piercing and fixed on me.
Lanlin…he was watching.
He is here for me.
Please.
“Bat,” I whisper through my fucked-up mouth, “take me home, aye?”
The home slips out.
I’m too wrung out after tonight to care.
Silence.
Sobek stiffens in shock, before tightening his hold on me. “I caught this one. I’m claiming him.”
“Your fangs aren’t in his neck yet,” Lanlin replies, silkily.
Sobek slowly stands to face Lanlin. “You’d fight me over a fae whore?”
“You’d fight your King at all?” Lanlin cocks his head.
“Why do you want him?”
“How can a puppy understand the ambitions of a wolf?”
“How can a little monster understand anything?”
“Fight me then,” Lanlin snarls, circling Sobek. “One shot only. If I win, I win the fae in the Hunt.”
I attempt to push myself onto my side.
I don’t know if I should be running from Lanlin as well, but I’ve made my choice.
Better the monster you know.
I can’t see more than a blur of fight moves and growls between the pyramids, as both vampires move at lightning-fast speeds. I wince at the tearing of flesh and the crashes that sound like stone blocks being turned to sand.
How much was Lanlin holding back when he sparred with me?
He’s not holding back now.
Finally, there is an eerie silence.
I strain to hear anything.
My fingers brush against Barnabas’, which are already cooling. I wish that I had something to lay over his body.
I wrap my arms around myself. “Lanlin?”
Nothing.
With difficulty, I struggle around onto my stomach and with a grunt of pain begin to crawl down the path away from the pyramids.
At this point, meeting any Blood but Sobek would be preferable, and if he has won in the fight, then I’m not just going to wait around for him to claim me as his Blood Lover.
I yell out, as suddenly someone is pinning me down with a firm hand on my neck. “Where are you going, Little Dove?”
Lanlin.
I let out a sigh of relief.
“Is Sobek dead?” I demand.
“By law, any Alpha who harms an Omega warrants death. Sobek is from the House of Crocodile, my kingdom’s top warrior, and my half-brother,” Lanlin replies. “Was.”
“Shame.”
“Now,” Lanlin drops in a seductive sprawl in the sand next to me. His face is close, and I can see that it is as busted and bruised as mine is, “my turn.”
He pushes the curls back from my neck with his delicate fingers; they are shaking.
His lips twitch into a smile, one which howls of dark eternities and the screaming abyss.
I can’t hold it in any longer.
“May the Shadow Devils choke you, arsehole.” My eyes glisten with tears.
He startles, as if I would melt at his dominant Alpha vampire performance.
I’m not one of their fanatical Omega Shadow Humans.
“You rejected me because you didn’t trust me.
You know my secret is that I am blind and iron poisoned, but you still set me up to be beaten, locked up, and starved.
Then you sent me out on this Hunt, where I was only ever intended to be executed.
You asked me if I thought that you were the type of monster who would scar a Blood Lover…
? I didn’t…but I do now. You’re the type who allows Blood Lovers to be fucking killed. ”
Lanlin becomes ashen.
Is that true guilt in his eyes?
“Dearheart,” he murmurs, “I had no idea that you would be treated in such a barbaric way. I have only seen the Blood Lovers being cherished. The Hunt should be symbolic. Fae’s blood is like nectar; I believed that some noble would take you in as his precious, prized Blood Lover.
I feared that if I kept you in my nest, then I would truly have to break you. And I cannot get myself to do that.”
“I want a shrine for Barnabas, the killed Shadow Human,” I demand. “A whole bloody tomb. I want you to send his body back to his father and sister in his village. You won’t let him be forgotten.”
Lanlin hushes me more gently than I’m expecting. “As you wish.”
“Why are you here tonight?” I suddenly feel impossibly weary.
Lanlin plays with one of my curls. “Since she woke up, our dear Omega threatened me in the most…impressive ways…if I did not retrieve you immediately to our nest.”
That’s my Spark.
Despite myself, I bark a laugh through my tears. “How are your balls?”
“Sore.”
“Good. They deserve to be.”
Lanlin leans closer, until I can feel his hot breath ghosting the skin of my throat; I shiver. “What do I need to do to earn your forgiveness?”
“What do I need to do to earn your trust?”
“You called our nest home in your fear. You looked to me to protect you. You trust me to feed from you. It is a start.”
“Then a start to me forgiving you,” I say, “will be destroying the House of Crocodile and Nebet.”
I crane to meet his gaze over my shoulder.
Say aye…
“Because of how they hurt you?” Lanlin asks.
“Nay, I don’t care that they hurt me. I’m covered in the scars of people who have done that.
Because they’re all part of the reason that my friend is dead.
Sobek just murdered his own Omega bond mate in front of me.
On his mother’s order, he slaughtered Barnabas’ people — Omegas.
Nebet set us both up to die in this Hunt.
With or without you, I swear on the Shadow Devils that they will die for that. ”
“Sobek slaughtered his own bond mate?” Lanlin says in horror, before his eyes darken with rage. “I swear that your friend will be avenged.”
I tip my head to side, baring my neck. “Then it’s a deal. I hear that my blood is as sweet as ambrosia. Careful, you may get addicted.”
Lanlin snarls.
His gleaming fangs elongate, longer and longer. Then he launches forward, sinking them savagely into my neck.
As he bites, I scream with both pain and pleasure.