Chapter 15
Lila couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, as she sobbed into Ambrose’s shoulder. He was here, he was real, and he would keep her safe. She could feel each of her limbs trembling, and she couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or from how afraid she was.
She couldn’t remember a single thing. And that terrified her. What had they done to her while she was in the collar? What had they made her do?
What if . . . what if Hektor touched her? What if Ciro had?
Lila’s cries grew ravenous. All she wanted to do was bury herself into Ambrose, into the man she loved.
But he wasn’t holding her anymore, he was . . . looking past her, down at Ciro.
“Draven,” Rebekkah said more sternly. Lila hadn’t even registered that she was there until that moment. She was standing in her monstrous form, snarling at her brother as well. “You need to hear this. All of this was a diversion from my brothers. A fucking trap. Drusilla and an entire battalion of her strigoi are in your manor right now.”
Lila’s heart dropped.
The manor is in peril? she asked through the Concord.
She didn’t really know if he’d reply, until she heard a gruff, The entire population of Asterim is there right now . . .
Lila gasped. If the humans were in the manor, they were probably all being changed into strigoi morte.
We have to—
“I. Don’t. Care,” Ambrose seethed, his eyes still on the prone Reinick below them. Ambrose’s skin felt hot to the touch, but it wasn’t the usual warmth Lila knew. This was different. And his voice. No longer was it dripping liquid gold. Now, it was pure ice. “Get Lila out of her, now,” he said to Rebekkah.
Something wasn’t right.
She pulled away from him to look into his face. But a small squeak escaped her lips as she did. Ambrose’s jaw was clenched so tight, it looked like it might break. And his eyes . . . they were so, so incredibly bloody red. Though the same color as his usual rubies, it looked so different with the rage flaming behind them. His entire monstrous form was twisted in rage and it might just have been the scariest sight Lila had ever seen.
But she wasn’t afraid of him.
She was worried.
“Ambrose,” she said. Her voice was hoarse and cracked on the syllables, coming out in barely a whisper.
But it was enough. Ambrose’s eyes fell to hers.
“Go with her, love.” Though slightly softer, it was still a command.
She looked at Rebekkah, who shrugged and held her arm out for her.
“Get the fuck off me, Draven,” Ciro grunted from under them. “And you, sister,” he said like a curse. “Fucking traitor! I am your lord. Get him off of me!”
Rebekkah ignored him as, in the same moment, Lila was practically thrown into her arms. Without so much as letting Lila get another word in, Rebekkah flapped her wings and they burst into the sky.
“Bek,” Lila croaked. “I want to . . . I want to make sure he’s okay.”
Rebekkah glanced back at Ambrose, before meeting Lila’s gaze. “Very well. But I must warn you, Mousey, I’ve never seen Ambrose like this, but I’ve only heard stories from my parents. I don’t believe he is himself right now. Not in the way you know him. He’s—”
“The monster of Malvania.”
Rebekkah clenched her jaw, and Lila saw a rush of thoughts sweep across her expression before she stilled and nodded. She softly landed on the roof of a nearby building, but kept her arm around Lila’s waist, ready to fly off with her at a moment’s notice.
“I am not afraid of him, Bek. Any part of him. Nothing he can do will change that.”
“Even when he chased you after being turned into a strigoi?”
Lila nodded. “Even then. I still love him.”
Something in Rebekkah softened then.
As Lila turned her gaze downward, she saw Ambrose and Ciro fighting like animals in a den.
Ciro was already torn apart, his eye had been swollen shut and was trying desperately to heal itself, but Ambrose didn’t give it the chance as he threw punch after punch. Ciro finally managed to dodge a singular blow and jumped back, just out of Ambrose’s reach, and shifted into the giant horned viper Lila had seen only a handful of times. The black serpent slithered away so fast, but he clearly didn’t realize his size would be a disadvantage.
Ambrose lifted both hands above his head and, with more force than Lila had ever seen, thrust them down into the snake’s scales. Lila could practically hear the gush of thick flesh as Ambrose’s claws dug into meat as he pulled Ciro back. Ambrose dragged him across the town square, every muscle rippling and straining from the weight. Ciro fought with all his strength, but it didn’t seem to be enough, all he could do was snap his fangs at Ambrose, try to slither around him and constrict him. But Ambrose was having none of it.
He yanked Ciro toward a massive post in the dead center of town and with an incredible show of force, he lifted the tail end of Ciro up above the post, and pushed it down. The post broke through the viper, pinning him to that spot. Ciro hissed so loud, it sounded more like a sharp howl of wind hissing by a cracked doorway. He whipped around, and snapped his fangs at Ambrose, but Ambrose was faster and seemed to expect the attack. He threw his fists forward, catching the snake’s jaws in each of his hands.
Lila grimaced at the sight, the raw anger and bloodlust in both of them, and she knew she was about to see Ambrose kill someone. It was different than watching him stop strigoi. This was . . . someone she knew. Someone she hated. And though she had always claimed she wanted him dead, in a strange twist of fate, he had been her only protection these months. It was jarring, to switch her view of him from relative safety to enemy. And, she also knew, whatever he knew happened to her while she wore the collar would die with him.
But it didn’t matter, because Ambrose had made his own decision.
He spread Ciro’s jaw down, his knee high enough to force the lower jaw under his foot, and then stomped down. With both hands now, he stretched his arms up as high as they would go, stretching Ciro’s jaw uncomfortably wide, but not enough to break it.
Ciro looked like he was trying to force his jaw shut, trying to snap it on Ambrose.
Ambrose! Lila called through the Concord. He’s going to kill you!
No, he will not.
The voice was cold, determined, and utterly confident.
His head turned around and his eyes shot up, gaze locking with hers even though they were so far.
He was the monster of Malvania. But he was her monster.
Ambrose looked back into the open maw of the viper before him.
“I told you, if you hurt her, I’d fucking kill you.” Ciro thrashed in his grip, but Ambrose’s hold was unrelenting. “Now—fucking die.”
A burst of black erupted from Ambrose’s chest, and a massive murder of crows dove into the mouth of the snake.
Ciro tried to shift back, arms would appear, then a few ringlets of brown hair, but if he fully shifted back, his jaw would split completely apart.
The crows dove into Ciro, and Lila could only imagine how gruesomely they were tearing him open from the inside out. A few burst from scales at his center, then more from his back.
The sound alone made Lila want to vomit, but she watched. She would not turn away, even as the flap of crow wings were nearly deafening. Rebekkah squeezed her side, but from the corner of her eyes, Lila saw that Bek wouldn’t look away either. She’d watch her brother, corrupt Lord of the Viper Morada, die just as Lila would watch her tormentor die.
The snake flailed wildly as crows tried to fight their way out of him and Ambrose let go of his jaw. The moment Ambrose’s grip was released, Ciro thrashed even wilder, slamming his own body into the ground so hard, it rumbled the buildings below Lila and Rebekkah.
And then he made a fatal mistake.
The viper thrashed upward, leaving his underside fully revealed—revealed and angled toward Ambrose.
Ambrose lurched forward, grabbing Ciro and slamming his fist into the right side of him. Blood gushed onto Ambrose’s arm, but as he pulled it back out, Ciro immediately stilled.
There, in Ambrose’s hand, was a black, gory heart, and it was still pumping. Ambrose tightened his grip on it, squishing it between his massive palm, but from the sheath on his lower back, he pulled out a plain wooden stake.
This was the moment Lila had been waiting for, yet her heart stopped completely. She wouldn’t so much as take a breath, and her insides felt ready to implode. She didn’t know how to feel. Happy this monster was finally being stopped, by the love of her life no less? Or was it concern for Ambrose, who didn’t seem to be himself?
Lila didn’t have any more time to consider her feelings as Ambrose drove the stake through Ciro Reinick’s black heart.