A Curse’s Death Sun (A Rune’s Blood Moon #2)

Chapter 1

One

Immediately after the implosion of a star. . .

My soul is ripping out of my chest as I roar. My true devil taking over, bypassing Mavyn’s words of needing to stay in control.

I see nothing, scent nothing, feel nothing but her, her, her. Dying, broken and bleeding, almost gone. She is almost gone and I am too far away to do anything.

We should all be dead.

This world should be gone.

But I cannot think about those thoughts from others at her power because I can feel my fated almost dead.

I’m too slow. I’m too far away. I won’t make it.

Mavyn.

. . .

Thorne – Septmust 5

Immediately after the implosion of a star. . .

Someone roars but I can’t look away. Her body is lying there broken and bleeding from dozens of different wounds. She had fought against Kolasi – the Death Devil – a being where he is one with his true form, and she was going to win.

I couldn’t stop it this time. I don’t know how I was able to halt her blood before or why it hitting the ground correlated with her death blow to Percius, but I couldn’t help Varian’s brother this time.

Not that I had to. He and those witches that had been beating us and the rebels past disappeared. Better for them. At least they’re alive now.

But she isn’t about to be.

I run to her – my body moving without my permission – and crash into the crater Percius had made where she fell to. She’s drenched in blood. Her uniform destroyed. Her face still but frozen in pain. Not even in death is she at peace.

Save her.

It’s a chant in my mind. I can’t think of anything else.

Save her. Save her. Save her. Save her. Save her. Save her. Save her.

I don’t know how.

BLOOD! SHE NEEDS BLOOD!

But she’s already dead.

SHE IS NOT! NOT YET!

I was closest to her when she fell, but Varian should be here. Him or Castiel, she’s already drank from the demigod. She’s already –

Help her, Thorne.

A chill digs frozen claws into my spine and drags. I’ve never heard Callahan’s devil speak before. It shouldn’t be possible for me to hear – to know – it’s his true devil who is speaking. Its dominance, the power in just its voice, I don’t have a choice.

The skies open up right at that moment. A sheet of icy rain hitting me with a force I can’t feel. It washes the blood covering her face away as I take my hand and slip it under her head. She doesn’t stir. I don’t think she’s breathing.

I have to try, though.

So I take my free hand and bring it up to my mouth. Cutting a short line to allow my blood to bead before I put it to her mouth.

Everything feels so robotic. My brain is not functioning, my thoughts are going too fast and yet I hear none of them at all, and my body is moving on its own accord.

I smear the bloody cut over her lips like Hanna Waterstone had done to her on the first day of classes. She hadn’t even slipped her tongue out to lick the water mage’s blood, and she doesn’t do it now either. So I push my wrist into her mouth until her lips are forced open and I meet her teeth.

I can feel the sharpness of her fangs and I wrap my hand holding her head into her hair to position her head.

I sink her fangs into my wrist and hold her there.

She will drink my blood. The stubborn fucking poison drop is not allowed to waste my blood when I have let no one else ever drink it.

She is not allowed to be a brat right now.

I sink her fangs deeper as my blood fills her mouth and then spills out. Tightening my hold on her hair as I hunch over to whisper in her ear.

“You are not allowed to die now,” I force.

“Not when I need answers for how you lied to Varian and the Mage Board and how you used blue flame and a fractured blood art and how you are her. I need to know if everything Esmirra said about you is true. You are not allowed to die yet. So drink my fucking blood, Mavyn.”

I tip her head back and will it down her throat. Taking control with my own blood art and forcing it into her.

Her pale face that had gone white with a death mask gains its color back and her mouth twitches.

Yes.

Her jaw clamps onto my wrist and her hands wrap around my forearm. Then I feel her suck and my blood flies through my veins into her mouth. Her throat works as she swallows and a pressure I didn’t know I had within me releases.

I pull her into me with her back propped against my spread knees.

Tucking her head under my own so she doesn’t get the onslaught from the rain, and I pull my hand from her hair to wrap under her arms. Drawing her closer to me as she drinks.

As my blood slides down her delicate throat. Keeping her alive.

She’s alive.

She’s alive.

She’s alive.

Good girl.

Exhaustion tugs at my bones and weighs harder as she continues drinking. I can’t even feel her venom in my veins. She’s about to pass the amount you should stop at to keep the health of the other person, but I can’t even care because she is alive and that is all that matters.

I saved her.

Someone calls my name behind me but I can’t turn around. I can’t do anything, and then everything goes black.

. . .

Thorne – Novam 11

Callahan looks pitiful. Begging to let Esmirra help him into the poison drop’s mind so he can try to wake her up. It’s already been sixty-two days since she went comatose. Since she drank from me until I was nearly dead myself. Since we all learned she is not a vampire.

I trace the pads of my fingertips over the mark still visible on my right wrist. I had expected the mark to disappear after a week, but when three weeks passed and it was still just as stark I sought out Castiel.

He had said her mark was only now just disappearing and she had drank from him four months ago.

I had asked Esmirra about it and she said it was normal for Mavyllora. Which is something I’m still processing. The girl Esmirra had started talking about five years ago right before my first year at the university was someone I unfortunately used to dream about.

She said the girl was indescribable. A blood art she hasn’t seen since before the War of Gods and a talent and strength that matched it.

She said this girl was sharp and deadly, but could be soft in a way I have yet to see.

Esmirra said Mavyllora was a wonder, with long dark hair the same black as the night sky between stars and eyes that held so much within.

Emirra must have hit her head.

Even Varian has said he thinks she doesn’t have a soul with how empty her eyes are.

Callahan shakes his head and looks at the bone witch. I had thought she was the last one alive until that day on the eastern field. As of now she might be. They must be speaking in their minds.

I trace the mark again and watch her. Her dark hair with the ends dark blue and soft pink flared around her shoulders.

Eyes shut and unmoving. Needles stuck in her hands, connected to tubes that are giving her nutrients, fluids, and blood to sustain her.

A dome of soft green hovering over her head that keeps her internal organs working.

She can’t even breathe on her own.

Maybe it wasn’t worth keeping her alive. If she’s basically brain dead.

“She is not,” Esmirra grumbles at me. “I can – “

Something cuts her off as she and Callahan stare at her with wide eyes.

I take a step towards her and growl at Esmirra, “Let me in.”

She does so without hesitation and I catch Callahan repeating something in his mind as he says her name to her.

I do not like devils in my mind.

She responds to Callahan calling her name with a simple, sharp what.

His emotions flutter through me but I block them out.

Mavyn?

I already said what?

I can’t feel her at all. There’s no presence from her within my mind as she speaks, and there’s only emptiness within her mind. But it can’t be empty because she is responding and she has an attitude.

You can hear me, Firecracker? Can you wake up for me?

Callahan sounds tortured. I can’t fault the devil, unfortunately she is his fated.

Mavyllora, Nana interrupts, her words snapping through. Why can I not feel you? Why is there nothing here? It’s like darkness. Where are you and how are you hiding within your mind?

Her voice sounds smaller somehow. I do not like the light.

Yes you do.

No –

Yes, Esmirra hisses. You miss the warmth without the burning.

There’s a pause where she doesn’t speak again and I can feel Esmirra’s irritation but pleading.

Wake. Up. Now.

This is becoming tedious. The back and forth and her acting like a child pouting. It’s also grating me that Callahan has been moping these past two months. Skipping classes and training to stay right beside this bed as if it would do anything.

I trace her mark again and it reminds me of when we had been in her room and Castiel checked in her debt.

He said she owed him for allowing her to drink his blood.

Despite him saying he gave it willingly and freely, he called it in there to ask about what had happened to her.

When she had disappeared to her sun death realm.

You owe me.

I keep my tone light, lazy and slightly drawling like I do when I’m waiting for what I know is already mine.

I can almost feel her baring her teeth at me. I do not, demon.

You do. It was my blood you drank on that field that prevented you from dying. Nearly sucked me dry, so you now owe me.

She goes silent again but I can now feel a presence within her. Her eyes hidden under her lids flutter and then her aura peaks out from her. Her heart beating a half step off balance before she rights it.

I’m calling in my favor now. Wake up.

She growls. You will regret this.

I smirk and focus my vision on her still sleeping form. Wake up and make me then.

I will.

It sounds like a threat. It sounds like she means it too.