CHAPTER 30
Killian
My shadows explode from the confines of my skin, crawling towards Aimee and dragging her towards me, protectively. She’s shaking uncontrollably, sobbing and in what seems to be a state of shock.
Aurora’s eyes burn through us with endless rage and yearning, her silver shadows poised to attack. Her words churn horribly through my mind: “…compel countless vampires to rape your crummy ass, just like I did with Jonathan and the rest…”
A loud roar escapes my lips as I unsheathe Kadirah and Alnashar from my belt.
“You are behind her rapes?” I ask, disgusted by the poor excuse of a female in front of me.
Prophecy be damned, I will slaughter her for all the pain she inflicted on my little umbra.
I don’t even care anymore if I damn the entire realm to its final ruination.
This wench will pay for every tear, every fear, and every panic attack she caused Aimee.
She’s a dead bitch walking. “Behind all her pain and trauma? What the fuck is wrong with you, you demented psychopath? How could you do that to your own sister?”
She lets out a sinister chuckle. “What a poor twist of fate to be shackled down in this flesh to my worst enemy,” Aurora says in a high-pitched voice like a lunatic, making no sense whatsoever.
“She’s no fucking sister of mine. She’s the bane of my existence.
The reason I don’t have you, over and over again.
I will fucking kill her once and for all, just as I have done before.
This time you will belong to me, vampire.
” Her silver shadows, crackling with electricity, throw themselves towards Aimee, but my crimson ones blast them away, creating a protective shield around us.
“You’re out of your Akaoridamn mind, Aurora!
I’ve never met you before. What the fuck do you mean, kill her again?
Are you high on faerie wine?” My shadows erupt her way, but she pushes them back easily, not even breaking a sweat.
No matter how much power I pour into my shadows, she won’t budge.
She won’t even wipe away her crazed smile from her despicable face. We are evenly matched.
“You might not remember, either of you, but I do! I remember everything, vampire. And this time around, I will get what is mine! The Fates can’t deny me now, and you won’t either.” She cocks her head to the side, her forbidding grin widening.
“You’re insane!” I say in dismay. Aimee is shaking behind me, tears streaming down her face, as she clings to my back.
Aurora’s shadows regroup behind her, forming a silver halo, like a wicked crown of liquid destruction.
“I’m bored, puppet. It’s time to end this!” She starts to shake and twist at impossible angles, as if she’s shedding her own skin.
A loud boom resounds in the dining hall as the doors shatter into flying splinters everywhere, and several onpyrs pour into the room, hissing maniacally.
I can count the onpyr prisoners from the dungeons, the unknown onpyr that escaped in Drovillan and that Blaise never caught, and Leilah, her eye sockets crimson and bleeding.
“It’s time for your reckoning, Killian,” Leilah bellows just as Aimee stutters behind me, looking at the other creatures. “Jonathan..” she whispers in terror. “Rami…Corbyn.” I frown, my gaze honing in on her abusers. I’ve had two of them in my dungeons all along? Fuck this shit.
Footsteps and shouts come from the hallways, just as Blaise, Marhus and several warriors come running. A cacophony of chaos ensues as onpyrs and vampires lock into battle, while Aurora starts floating from the ground, shrieking menacingly.
Her limbs elongate, lengthening and bending in a completely unnatural way.
Her once-tan skin is losing all color, becoming a sickening papery white, while her chocolate brown hair turns flaming red, floating in the air like blazing snakes.
She’s becoming my worst nightmare right in front of my eyes, the very evil we are fighting against.
I feel the blood draining from my stony face as I stare into the soulless white eyes of my arch-enemy.
Aurora Vaureghain, the Foretold One that was supposed to be my kingdom’s salvation, the sister I’ve put all my hopes in—the one meant to help me defeat Morweena, has just transformed into the very creature that plagues my lands like a spreading cancer.
She is no salvation; she is destruction personified!
I don’t even have time to wrap my head around this fuckery.
In our desperate attempts to secure the Foretold One’s help and fulfill the prophecy, we’ve basically allowed entrance to our nemesis in the heart of my kingdom.
Received her with open arms right in our midst. I might as well have given her the entire realm on a silver platter. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!
She rips her headpiece, throwing it to the ground, her rotten black lips curled in a sinister sneer, and her washed-out eyes focused on me. “No need for this iron trinket anymore. It’s time to kiss goodbye your free will, Killian darling.”
I push Aimee backwards with all my might, throwing her out of the thick of the battle, and delve straight back into it, unleashing my hungry shadows on Morweena.
Aimee
Everything happens in slow motion and at a dizzying speed all at once.
One moment my sister is showing her true colors, and the next she is morphing into Morweena, the very sorceress Killian hoped to destroy with Aurora’s help.
And oh Gods, Jonathan, Rami and Corbyn are still her minions—her onpyr underlings. Leilah is now one of them too.
My head is spinning uncontrollably, and I’m suffocating under the weight of what is happening. There is no salvation! The prophecy is an utter sham.
I watch in horror as Killian throws himself into battle, spinning his shadows like merciless weapons, but Aurora—no, Morweena—placates every one of his attacks, cackling like the nightmare she is.
“Fight me as much as you want, darling vampire. You are no match for me; you never were. I’m the one who created you after all.
” She growls, hurling her zapping shadows at him, but Killian jumps out of the way and rolls on the ground just in time to avoid getting fried, before sending another crimson blast her way.
Created him? What is that supposed to mean? Nothing she’s saying makes any sense. I feel like my brain is frozen, missing the bigger picture, even though I hold all the pieces in my hands.
Behind them, Blaise is swinging his scimitar left and right, wounding Rami in the torso, before jumping high and driving the curved blade deep into Leilah’s neck.
With one violent movement he pulls it out, severing her head from her body, and she dies with a deafening shriek.
I wince as her head rolls down onto the hardwood floor.
She was a raging bitch, it’s true. But she was part of their inner circle, and if there was ever any hope for her redemption, now that’s lost forever, just a heap of rotting sinew and mangled flesh.
Marhus is fighting against Jonathan and Corbyn, but it’s easy to see that they are overpowering him.
The moment Jonathan drives a sword through his chest, impaling him, I scream in horror.
Marhus spits rivers of blood as he tries to fight the creatures off of him, but it’s futile.
Jonathan grabs his neck, throwing him blistering fast towards Morweena.
She doesn’t even break her hold on the shadows that come relentlessly at Killian, throwing one arm to catch Marhus mid-air by the jaw, and I watch in terror as the once turquoise eyes of the vampire general turn completely scarlet.
“No, no, no!”
I watch through frantic tears as Morweena releases the new onpyr creature from her hold. Marhus turns his vicious gaze on Blaise, tackling him to the ground.
I feel something slithering under my skin in trepidation, trying to break free from the confines of my flesh. Blaise can’t die! I try to focus on the buzzing in my veins, but it’s somehow locked—right there, but so annoyingly out of reach.
More and more vampire soldiers spill into the room, fighting their way through the onpyrs, but more than half are being thrown into Morweena’s clutches, turning instantly.
The foul stench of death fills every crevice of my body, staining my very soul.
Head rolls right and left, and I can barely see anymore through my tears.
Killian is holding his own, locked in a show of strength and shadows with my evil twin, while Blaise throws Marhus to the side, pushing his scimitar between his former friend’s ribs.
He unsheathes a long dagger from his belt and grabs Marhus by the hair before swinging the blade through the creature’s throat, hacking and sawing until nothing’s left beside blood and gore.
I see him closing his eyes in remorse, mouthing, “Sorry, brother,” before he jumps back on his agile legs and throws himself on the nearest onpyr, beheading him.
There is no time for tears, for mourning.
These cursed creatures are relentless, and they will stop at nothing, leaving only mangled corpses and despair in their wake.
And I’m so fucking worthless, unable to even breathe properly, or use a blade.
All my training was for nothing. Faced with the barbarity of battle, I am nothing but a scared, useless girl, cowering in a corner, weighted down by panic and grief.
I can’t even decipher what this thrum in my core is, or how to bring it to the surface.
“It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault,” I whisper in a broken voice, unable to look away from the slaughter of the beings that I came close to calling my friends, my family.
All at once, I’m yanked from the ground by a hissing Jonathan, grinning like a madman, as he pushes me against the wall. I didn’t even see him coming.
“Missed me, baby doll?” he spits as he forces my hands above my head, pushing his pelvis into me and licking my tears away.
“My cock surely missed that sweet cunt of yours. Can’t wait to have you turned and be my pet for eternity.
Mistress promised I can keep you as my little sex slave. You’re my reward once she is Queen.”
I flail and buckle to no avail, screaming in distress as he angles his head to bite into my neck. The buzzing only intensifies, thrashing madly inside my very soul, and I close my eyes, just as filthy fangs graze my throat.
“Nooooo,” Killian shouts, throwing one of his family’s daggers into Jonathan’s skull, enough to make the creature loosen his hold on me. But that distraction costs him dearly, and I watch at a crawling pace how Morweena leaps onto his back, fighting to grab his handsome face.
Time stops to a halt.
The world tilts on its axis, distorting everything like violent ripples in the still surface of a bloodied lake.
Killian is about to become her onpyr puppet.
I am losing the love of my life, and I didn’t even get the chance to tell him how much I love him.
That I would die a thousand deaths and be reborn a thousand times, just to spend another blissful night with him.
That he is the air I breathe, the tears I cry, the sun I revolve around, and the gentle breeze that will carry my ashes into the afterworld.
Something deep inside my bones finally snaps.
A power surge like nothing I’ve ever felt before swells from the darkest corners of my damaged soul, hungry for vengeance, for comeuppance, and total annihilation.
It chews my insides like a raging black fury, starting from my chest and reaching the tips of my fingers.
I throw my hands in front of me, screaming bloody murder, in a voice I don’t even recognize.
It’s ancient and angry, filled with every single torment I have ever faced, every unkind word I have been cut open with, every abuse, slap, kick and perversion I have ever endured at the hands of my sister and her henchmen.
A stygian abyss of nothingness erupts all around me, covering the entire chamber in its perpetual vacuum of life-absorbing force.
Windows shatter, chandeliers fall from the ceiling, and deafening onpyr wails resound through the never-ending blackness.
I sense my sister’s body flying off Killian’s shoulders, hurtling across the room and through the broken windows, before vanishing in the frigid night.
There’s a moment of absolute stillness.
Irredeemable silence.
Not even my heavy breathing can be heard in this deafening muteness.
Torturously slow, the sable shadows recede, slithering on the ground towards me, like death-eating serpents that coil around my shaking limbs, imprinting my skin with their swirling forms. I watch in awe and consternation how my arms and legs display inky tattoos of scaly creatures, writhing under my skin as if they are alive.
Bone-weary and depleted, I raise my gaze from my body to the heartbreaking mayhem marring the once opulent dining hall. Charred, blackened piles of goo steam on the ground, where just moments ago the onpyrs stood. At my feet, a pool of such foul sludge stains the floor.
Jonathan. I almost smile, knowing I have reduced my defiler to nothing.
Several dazed vampire soldiers lie on the ground, panting and shaking their heads, as if to dispel the last remnants of a gruesome night terror. Blaise is among them, staring at me shocked, his jaw slack and face battered and bruised.
Killian is on his knees a few feet away from me, disheveled and bloodied. He studies me with narrowed eyes, as if he is seeing me for the first time in his existence, and he doesn’t know what to think of me.
With my last crumb of vigor, I throw myself at him.
A relieved “You’re alive,” escapes my lips, as tears run down my face, staining my cheeks, my neck, my teared-up gown.
All I want is to fling my arms around his powerful body, to squeeze him tight and weep this horrifying experience away.
I long for his soothing touch, his warm embrace, and gentle words that can mend me back to myself.
I yearn to hear him tell me how much he loves me, that he forgives me, that we’ve prevailed.
None of that happens.
He recoils from my touch, letting me fall helplessly in front of him.
“You lied to me,” he snarls, betrayal etched deeply in his beautiful features.
I want to counter his accusation.
To deny, to explain, to supplicate. To shout my truth, my love, once and for all.
No words leave my lips, however. My mind shuts down as numbing darkness pulls me under, and I fall into a desolate dreamscape of utter nonexistence. Oblivion greets me with its bleak hold, whispering, “Welcome home, Foretold One.”