Chapter 14
The last time Ambrose had been here, in Asterim, he’d allowed the Reinicks to take Lila away, he’d pretended she was nothing more than their murine. Regret filled every fiber of his being at the memory, and he swore he would never allow that to happen again. He would be leaving here with her, but for now, he was alone, the town empty, as he awaited the Reinicks to drag his beloved through the familiar streets.
As Ambrose flapped his wings downward, pushing his monstrous self into the night sky above the town and onto the roof of the nearest building, the empty village sang with crickets.
He would face them all—Hektor, Drusilla, Ciro, the strigoi, the other ruthless vampires of the Viper Morada. He would fight them all for her. In silence, he crept closer to the town square, watching all around, waiting for that glimpse of lilac, that brush of warmth that caressed his skin, his soul, anytime she entered a room.
But at the first sight of the entourage of vampires, of that color he loved so dearly, all warmth had been sapped from the very air he breathed.
Lila’s head lolled back, onto Ciro’s shoulder, who only smiled and tightened his grip on her waist, and Ambrose completely lost his mind.
Just as emotion overtook him, he heard the faraway—or maybe it was near and urgent—sound of a scream of words.
But Ambrose didn’t care.
The Crow Lord felt every fiber of his being grow taut, his hair stood on end, his vision tunneled, black surrounding everything—except for Lila. As his eyes focused on her, taking her in, the strange fabric she wore for a dress, the arm wrapped around her waist, Ambrose saw the love of his immortal life collared and chained by a golden metal wrapped around Ciro’s fist.
His mind emptied of everything—everything but pure rage. His body moved. His wings tucked in and he dove from the rooftop toward Ciro and Lila. Toward his sunlight and the eclipse threatening to block it.
The moment he landed, he grabbed the face of the closest enemy—one of the Morada nobility—and tore his arms from their sockets as he saw Lila had cuts and bruises all along her body, under the sheer dress. It was a thin white material—so thin it revealed everything.
Furor surged forth at her exposure, and Ambrose dug his claws into flesh, and ripped the head off the flailing, screaming noble’s body—his eyes never leaving Lila. He could see the inflamed scratches and bites, the red claw marks, from here, as the two pieces of cloth “covering” her breast met at the thick gold collar encompassing her neck.
His eyes focused, seeing Ciro’s burned hand too close to Lila’s breasts. Ambrose dashed forward, pulling another noble off her horse, and slamming her to the ground as he moved closer to Ciro and Lila. Blood was smeared on Lila’s ribs, just below her breast, and another under her collar bone. His hands dove into the noble’s chest, pulled apart her ribs, and revealed her beating heart. He stabbed into it with a stake on his thigh.
After he took another step, six of the twelve strigoi jumped on his back. They forced his body down to the ground, tearing into the hard flesh of his back, and the leathery film of his wings. Claws ripped through them and Ambrose yelled, but didn’t stop clawing his way to Lila.
Her legs were on full display as the pieces broke into four long panels, two on her front and two on her back, slit along the sides. Her thighs were covered in scratches, bites, and bruises, and her feet were bare and blistered.
Ambrose saw nothing but her. So just as soon as the strigoi appeared, they were gone. Ambrose threw them off, driving stakes into them, ripping heads off and hearts out. He could hear their cries, feel their blood coat his face, feel their flesh tear under his nails. But nothing would stop him from getting to Lila. The six strigoi were dead in less than a moment, and all the while, his eyes never strayed from Lila.
She had been dismounted, and was seated on the ground, her legs bent underneath her. Ciro stood to one side holding the thin golden chain attached to her collar as if she were their fucking pet.
“Take one more step, Draven, and you’ll regret it,” Ciro smirked.
Hektor dropped from his horse, the carriage behind him. Absently, Ambrose noticed the door swung wide open. Hektor stepped forward, with a smirk spread to reveal sharp fangs, beckoning Lila to him. Her head swayed and turned to him. “Come, pet.” And then she fucking crawled to him.
Ambrose couldn’t think beyond what he was seeing. The only words racing through his mind were her name, over and over again. Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila.
Small droplets of blood emerged on the skin of her knees from the hard ground below her. And her eyes—her sunshine eyes—were so cold and distant and just gone as they looked up at the fucking bastard above her. It froze Ambrose’s heart.
She wasn’t just enthralled. She was being controlled. Owned.
Ambrose couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see anyone but her and the fuckers next to her. He couldn’t hear anything over the race of his undead heart and the faint ringing in his ears. Even as the rest of the strigoi lunged at him.
Hektor placed a hand against Lila’s cheek as she kneeled next to him, stroking her lips with his thumb. “Ah, such a good pet.” Hektor flashed his fangs in another wicked grin. “Isn’t she so much better on her knees, Draven?”
Ambrose lost his goddamn mind.
Before he could even process what he was doing, the Crow Lord lunged forward—three steps, four, five. He snapped necks and pulled apart bisected jaws with little more than a thought. He plunged his fist into the face of another strigoi, over and over till there was nothing left but brain matter on his knuckles and blood on the ground. He knew his actions wouldn’t keep them down, but it would be long enough for him to get to Lila.
Ambrose was in front of Hektor in less than a heartbeat, his giant claws at the bastard’s throat, as the six strigoi around them all fell, near death. Hektor didn’t even have a second to react, his hand was halfway up to Ambrose’s wrist, but it never made it. Ambrose dug his nails into the flesh of the bastard’s neck, piercing skin and tissue and muscles and bone, until he had Hektor’s trachea gripped in his fist.
And then he pulled.
Ambrose tore Hektor’s throat open, ripping out his stupid fucking voice. It would heal over time, but he couldn’t hear him speak more about Lila.
Faintly, he heard Ciro say, “Kill him,” but his eyes didn’t stray from the fucker before him. Hektor’s eyes were so wide, they looked like they’d burst from their sockets, as he frantically gripped at his throat. Black blood sprayed all over Ambrose, but he didn’t care at all. He grabbed both sides of Hektor’s face, ready to pull it free from his neck, but something pinched on his tricep. Ambrose ignored it and just began pulling, stretching Hektor’s skin as he wailed, but then Ambrose felt another blunt pinch around his bicep.
Finally, he looked down to see Lila biting down, holding onto his arm—nearly the size of her body—and barely bruising the hard skin below her teeth.
Ambrose let go of Hektor’s head, grabbed her, and lunged back, using his broken wings to propel him farther. The moment he took a step away, Hektor covered his bleeding throat with both hands, and slumped down, bleeding all over the town square.
“Lila, love,” he whispered, turning his gaze back to her, as she was still biting at his arm. There was no reaction. He patted her head, brushing her hair between his fingers. “What the fuck did you do to her, Reinick?”
Ciro took a singular step forward, his tousled hair, slim fit clothing, and trimmed beard exemplifying every ounce of self-important pretension the vampire clearly held for himself. All the while, his “pet” was shivering from the cold, shoeless, underwearless—basically nude for all intents and purposes—and he didn’t even seem to notice, let alone care.
“She’s gone. Lila was a bad girl, and she needed to be taught a lesson. She’s been just a shell for us to enthrall as we please.”
Ambrose clenched his fists, his nails biting into the meat of his palms. His entire body was taut, incredibly worked up and ready to explode, even as Lila still fought him, but he held her arms down. She was so fucking cold to the touch. Her lips were chapped and her fingers from where she slapped him and her toes from where she kicked him felt like tiny pieces of ice. She was freezing. It was as if all her warmth, all her sunshine, had been torn away from her and she was left to be as cold as them. As cold as an undead vampire.
As he studied her, Ambrose noticed the welded seam on the collar. The only way off would be to break it. “What. Did. You. Do?” His voice was like a thousand sharp icicles pointed right at Ciro.
But the bastard smiled. “Whatever we wished.”
Ambrose flew. He couldn’t keep anything straight, but he needed to kill him. He needed to rip his tongue from his mouth and his head from his body. He needed to burn Ciro’s hands and rip his flesh off, inch by inch. Ambrose needed Ciro to be in pain, he needed Ciro to die, to cease existing. His hands buried into Ciro’s chest before he could stop himself, before he realized he lunged with Lila.
He saw her crash to the ground as he lurched to a stop. But her expression didn’t change. Like a doll being tossed around, she threw herself against Ambrose’s legs again, clawing with all her little might to attack him, to stop him.
Ambrose pushed Ciro down, and stomped on his chest, holding him in place with the weight of his foot above him, as he lifted Lila up, her feet dangling from the ground.
“Hektor!” Ciro yelled. “Help me!” He tried to push Ambrose’s foot from his chest, but to no avail.
Hektor, meanwhile, only stared between the two of them. And after a pregnant pause, Hektor hissed out, “Sorry, brother,” and ran into the woods, disappearing in less than a moment.
Lila still squirmed and slashed at Ambrose’s face, cutting a line in his cheek, but he only brought her closer.
Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila Lila.
He couldn’t take seeing her collared any more, knew it had something to do with her state. He opened his giant maw, as wide as it would go, and brought his lips to her throat, snapping his jaw against the gold around her neck.
Snap!
The noise cracked throughout the town center as the gold pieces fell from her throat. Being so close to her neck . . . it reminded him of when he’d been forced to chase her. Sent wild from bloodlust to hunt her down like an animal, biting into her neck with a ferocious need. Her blood coating his tongue, her skin under his lips. He felt the pull to do it again, to taste her again. He could almost feel the give of her flesh under his fangs, wishing the golden collar had been her beautiful, racing pulse.
He snapped his jaws shut at the realization of his thoughts. What the fuck was he doing? Ambrose slowly pulled away—everything felt slow.
His eyes were inches from hers when she seemed to finally come back to herself, the dull brown bursting like a ray of golden light as her gaze finally connected with his.
Her chapped lips trembled. “A—” she paused, trying again. “Am—”
Ambrose. The Concord burst open and he felt her there, through the link they shared, as though a curtain had been tossed open on a dark room, the sun beaming through the window to light the void. Warmth spread through his bones at her presence, even though she was still cold to the touch.
“Lila,” he began, but his voice got caught in his throat. She was in his arms, she was back, she was safe. But he tightened his grip anyway, pulling her flush to him. She touched his chest, placed her palm over his heart, and studied him. But her lips were just trembling so much.
Tears dripped from her eyes. She lifted a finger to her cheek, touching the wet trail and analyzed it. For a moment, her eyebrows scrunched, but then her eyes grew wide, and in the next instant, the tears were pouring down her cheeks and a whimper escaped her lips.
“Lila, I—” he tried again, but she threw her arms around his neck and wailed. All of her cold limbs shook as she cried into his shoulder. Her chest felt like it was bursting with each short, haggard breath she took and it only broke Ambrose’s heart further.
For the first time ever, Ambrose Draven was paralyzed. He didn’t know what to do, what to say. His hands had their own ideas as they viciously squeezed her closer, and his usual silver tongue felt like lead.
He held her, but he couldn’t do anything for her.
Then, a growl erupted from under his foot. And he remembered something he could do. His grip on Lila loosened and she wailed harder.
“Lila,” Ambrose’s voice changed, inside somewhere, he knew he didn’t recognize this voice anymore. He hadn’t heard it in nearly two hundred years.
She looked up at him, and the sunbeams in her eyes reflected pure gold, as her entire face reddened.
“Don’t let me go,” she mumbled. But he had to. In order to do something, he had to.
A brush of wind neared him. He saw auburn hair. “L-Lord Draven.” Rebekkah. He’d give her to Rebekkah. “They kept me locked in the carriage. I got out as soon as we saw you. I defeated all the Viper nobility, but Drusilla—”
“I don’t give a damn about her right now. Please, Rebekkah, take her.” His voice was ice, it was steel. Distantly, he asked himself why was he giving Lila to someone else, another Reinick, when he finally got her back in his arms?
It was like Ambrose was trapped within himself, and a monster had taken over his body. The monster was in control now, and Ambrose could do nothing but watch.
And all the monster of Malvania could think was, I’ll fucking kill him for hurting her.