CHAPTER 22
Killian
Finally, finally, I was inches away from kissing Aimee, the culmination of a perfect night, of months of yearning and distrust. Our breaths were intertwining in the stillness between heartbeats when the beautiful illusion fucking shattered.
Was I so lost in the height of my desire that I didn’t even hear or sense the enemy approaching?
Am I so absorbed by our inexplicable connection that everything else around me vanishes into nothing whenever I’m around her?
As crazy as that might seem, it’s still better than the other option.
Because if I’m losing my abilities, we’re all in great fucking danger.
There was nothing loud to announce the pandemonium that ensued.
Only a smear of movement, a hissing sound like a burning blade through butter, and then chaos erupted all around us.
Something knocked me sideways suddenly, breaking contact with my sweet umbra.
Unforgiving hands seized her by the throat, and she gave a gurgled gasp as she was flung through the air, hurtling like a fragile doll towards a stone wall.
She didn’t even have time to cry out before the sickening crack of her skull resounded in the alleyway. I watched in horror as her delicate body slid down like a sack of potatoes, her eyes fighting to stay open, her once ruby cheeks turning porcelain white.
My shadows immediately jump from my skin, my shadow double emerging from a cloud of crimson mist.
Our eyes, hooded with lust just moments ago, ignite with the ancient fire of rage.
Several onpyrs draped in iron encircle us, their vile mouths pulled back in fanged grins, their scarlet sockets glowing like embers in the darkness.
As I look at them better, I realize, oh, Akaori! I know them. Blaise’s best spies—sent to gather intel about Morweena at Burneside Keep. We sent them to their own demise, and now they’ve come back, friends turned villainous foes, to return the favor.
“Lukha, Mayri, Amaiah, Desmond,” I spit through gritted teeth, each name a heavy burden on my shackled soul. Another four victims we lost to this cursed war. I can’t dwell on that now, though. Not when my life and Aimee’s are under grave peril.
The creatures start laughing, and the sound of nightmares fills my ears—a cacophony of broken howls that echoes into the night, fueled by Morweena’s willpower. They are splintered shells of who they used to be, their twitching bodies no longer their own.
“Are you ready to submit, Killian? To finally accept your fate? Destiny’s beckoning,” Amaiah says in a shrill voice, spit dribbling down her chin.
“Never!” I snarl, my body coiled like a spring.
From the shadows behind them, another unknown onpyr lazily emerges, seeming to have just arrived at the scene.
He regards me with his unblinking, vermillion, putrefied stare before directing his gaze towards Aimee’s limp form on the ground.
The creature cocks its head for a fraction of a second, regarding her nefariously, before turning towards the other onpyrs and nodding a silent command at them.
The first attack comes in swiftly.
Desmond.
“Your time has come, vampire filth!” he bellows in my face, but my shadow self is even faster.
A blade of billowing smoke hisses from his side, slashing deeply.
He steps like a predator into the strike, his swirling body a blur, and takes Desmond’s head in a singular, fluid stroke. The creature’s blood showers in a drizzle of gore across the cobblestones. The body staggers, while the head rolls, eyes turning back to emerald green.
There is no time to mourn him, though. Not when survival hangs in the balance. Mine, but more importantly, hers. I pray to Akaori that she is alright, not lost to me, but merely sleeping the hard hit away.
Amaiah throws herself at me, screeching and clawing. I shake the cursed female off my body like a cape, crashing her through a nearby marble pillar. She shrieks in agony before jumping back on her feet and lunging again.
I catch her flailing arm, twist it behind her back, then ram Alnashar up beneath her chin and out the back of her cranium. She writhes desperately, savagely as I wrench the blade out of her hideous skull, delivering one last fatal blow.
Beheading her completely.
Another head rolls down to my blood-soaked feet, lips frozen in a feral snarl, eyes losing the scarlet shade, back to a once pretty sky blue.
Lukha and Mayri stick together, each downing a set of daggers in their hands, their movements viciously coordinated. Just like they used to always fight in tandem in their previous, lost life.
“Relent, Killian! She will sink her clutches into you, eventually. You will bend down to her will for all the rest of your doomed immortality. It’s better if you do it willingly.” Lukha cackles menacingly.
I block their first double attack, spinning on the spot, delivering hits left and right. On the second charge, Mayri slices me open across my ribs, then slashes down my chest. But I do not falter. I cannot waver.
Like a roaring thunder, I crouch low on the ground, holding my bloodied chest with a shaking hand.
I smear the blood on my leather pants and kick Mayri’s knees backward with a crunching snap.
Before I can surge back up, my shadow self rains down vengeance in a blurred mist, slashing through Lukha’s neck mid-motion.
His head tumbles through the air like a rock thrown on a lake’s surface, skidding to a halt several feet away.
Mayri wails, crawling on his forearms backwards to the onpyr corpse, until my shadow double shuts him up with a final, barbaric blow.
Two heartbeats of silence pass. I poise myself for attack, ready to jump on the last assailant. And then, he’s gone. Fucking vanishes into the night like a chimera.
I spin, scanning the darkness, my chest heaving, the slash against my ribs stinging with every inhale. The threat is gone, and I take in a battered breath.
Aimee still lies slumped against the wall, her face so serene, so still, it makes my heart bleed. I run to her, and check frantically for her pulse. She’s still alive, thank Akaori! My little umbra is a fighter, and my heart swells in gratitude that I did not lose her.
I gather her gingerly into my arms, pushing down the cobbled street for support. I need to get her to the castle healers immediately.
Behind me, footsteps slap noisily on the cobblestones.
Vampires emerge from the nearby houses, pouring down the alley with daggers clutched in their hands, barefoot and frantic. They rose from their bloodwine-induced slumber, stirred by the commotion, by the violent battle cries echoing through the empty streets.
“King Killian,” one breathes in alarm. “We heard the scuffle. What occurred here?”
“Onpyr scouts,” I hiss. “They must have slipped unnoticed during our battle in Dithrau. Crossed the Gorgnome Pass, and who knows for how long they’ve been waiting here in the shadows. Gathering intel. One escaped.”
I turn to the nearest vampire, a warrior that recently joined Blaise’s ranks. My voice is cold as steel as I command.
“Mattya, find Blaise. He must be sleeping off his drunken stupor between the thighs of a willing female, deep within the Plaisir District. Tell him his spies have fallen. Lost to Morweena’s will. Beheaded with my daggers. Tell him to hunt the escapee before he reaches his mistress.”
He nods once and runs off into the night.
With my little umbra gently gathered into my arms, I stride purposefully towards the tunnels, towards Sangeries.
I run through the castle at blinding speed, shouting orders at the wide-eyed servants.
“Bring the healers to my bedchambers. NOW!”
I boom through my bedroom door, the chamber a temple of shadows and overindulgence.
Darkness pools in every crack and edge, interrupted only by the flickering radiance of a flame that burns low in a hearth sculpted with snarling vampiric beasts.
I move towards the bed, wide and draped in cascading black fabric.
I place Aimee’s sleeping form against the obsidian silk sheets, my fingertips grazing her clammy skin.
A trickle of dried blood stains her temple, and I shudder at the thought of losing her.
I have just found her, the absent piece of myself that I wasn’t even aware was missing.
I cannot stand facing the rest of my eternity without her.
If Akaori finally found me worthy of such a creature, I will not lay waste to her blessing.
“Where are those blasted healers?” I ground out through clenched teeth.
Someone is going to lose a head, and several limbs, if they don’t arrive here sooner.
Her heady scent envelops me like a caress, blending in with that of old parchment, blood, and incense.
She smells of peonies, of summer rain and laughter, and the intoxicating aroma has weakened my knees since the very first moment I met her.
Right when I’m about to march out and murder the first fool I lay my eyes upon, the door opens and two healers enter.
“My King, you’re injured!” the female says, moving to reach me.
“I’ll survive, Esmera. Heal her! She has taken a nasty blow to her head.
Her breathing is even, but she won’t wake up,” I say agitatedly.
My wound is already stitching itself up, all on its own, the pain a distant memory.
It’s one perk of being what I am. Nothing can kill me anymore.
Except for the fragile Fae female slumped on my bed.
The healers work in silence, inspecting the wound, cleaning it with herbal remedies, and pouring their palliative magic into Aimee. The color has returned to her cheeks, and she looks more than ever like a sleeping beauty.
“She’ll be fine, my King,” Esmera says as they prepare to leave the room. “She won’t even have a headache when she awakens.”
I grumble in response as I watch them see themselves out.
I won’t leave her side until she wakes up, and she pushes me out, once again.
I close my eyes, groaning, remembering our almost-shared kiss.
How her breath had hitched. How her eyes had closed in sweet surrender.
Oh, how I wish that our moment hadn’t ended so abruptly.
Will she awaken in the same fortuitous mood, or will she revert to her usual stone-faced demeanor?
My shadows creep towards the bed, the red mist swaddling her like an ethereal blanket.
They have even less self-control around her than I do.
At least the misty bastards get to touch her more often, to feel her warm skin, her silky smooth mane.
She seems to accept my shadow’s touch much more easily than my own.
Whether or not she realizes it, I do not know.
A sigh escapes my lips as I unbutton my ruined shirt. I need to wash away all the blood and gore—to purify myself in cleansing water. I stride towards the clawfoot tub that stands beside the towering, vaulted windows—where the night tumbles in like liquid ebony.
While I shed all my clothes, my gaze lingers upon my naked reflection in the glass. My cock hangs heavy, semi-erect against my thighs. An effect brought about by my little umbra’s presence. I almost feel like a creep, being aroused around her when she is soundly sleeping in my bed.
I submerge myself in the sunken basin, a bathtub fit for a ruler who bathes in stillness and remembrance. For me.