Chapter Forty-Five
Samara
Julian drew himself up behind Raphael, mask clattering to the floor.
His face, even with the panic rising through me, caused me to falter, because it was twin to a face I knew so, so well. Raphael had a twin? How?
“Nothing to worry about, just siblings bickering,” he called to the crowd, a king even as Raphael kept him pinned. “Please, carry on.”
The music slowly resumed, but that was nothing compared to the ringing in my ears. There was no time to process the connection between the two kings, because only one thought was blaring through my mind.
I just compelled Raphael.
His eyes were on me. He still held Julian against the column, but I was the one he was looking at. His expression was stormy, brows furrowed, fangs still gleaming in the torchlight.
He’ll kill you. He knows what you are. He’s your enemy.
The voice was loud in my head, cutting through the cacophony of emotions in my mind. This was what I’d feared. A few more weeks, that’s all I had needed. Then I could have left safely.
But in trying to stop him from killing his own brother, I’d signed my own death warrant.
Raphael was currently blocking my escape back out through the palace. I glanced behind me. The edge of the roof, where I’d been with Aella, was maybe ten feet away.
“Samara,” he cautioned.
I didn’t hesitate. I wasn’t faster than Raphael. I knew that. But Raphael had just assaulted a centuries-old vampire, and that fight was far from over.
And I was desperate.
I turned on my heel and sprinted for the ledge. In a leap, I jumped to the edge of the balcony and launched myself over.
It was a lot easier to jump off a great height when certain death is at your heels.
I landed with a thud, the impact of my shoes against the sandstone reverberating through my body. I took half a second—less—to kick away the impractical shoes and burst into a run.
I’d never run full out like this before. Never run like a vampire, so fast my surroundings blurred.
This time, I did. There was no time to think, no time to process. Just adrenaline barking in my veins—He’ll kill you, he’ll kill you, he’ll kill you.
He knows you’re his enemy.
I wove through the palace grounds as fast as I could, then through the markets.
My long skirts caught on a vendor’s cart and I tore them off, leaving the luxurious fabric floating in the wind.
People shouted as I shoved by. There was no time to care.
My bare feet pounded into the sandstone over and over, a frantic drumbeat.
The city disappeared behind me. I took a sharp turn away from the main road and headed for the woods, hoping that would better camouflage me.
I ran for miles. Whatever the limits were of a vampire’s strength, I found them and pushed back.
This is how you survive. You knew he would find out. You can’t let him catch you.
When they catch you, you die.
Had I gone far enough to lose Raphael? I leaned against a tree, wiping away the sheen of sweat that poured over me.
My once nicely combed hair was now filled with leaves and plastered to my head.
Running farther without a plan didn’t make sense.
I’d started north, at least. That would take me to the Witch Kingdom.
It was the only logical place to go. The grimoire was still in Damerel, but I didn’t let myself mourn the loss.
There was no time. Not when I was fleeing for my life.
In my wildest fantasies, I’d wondered if there could be another way. A way where I told Raphael. But while he might have forgiven my last betrayal, this one—that I was the witch with the power to control vampires, the witch he hunted—besotted or not, jealous or not, he would kill me.
It was dark in the forest, the canopy blocking out much of the moonlight. I could still see, though.
Which meant Raphael would be able to as well.
Would Julian keep him busy? I didn’t doubt Raphael would eventually get away. Would he find me? I checked my mental shields, ensuring all my own emotions were locked down.
Only then did I even remember the fledgling bond. I hadn’t felt its pain once since I’d run.
I scoffed. Hilarious. It had eased in the nick of time because I’d yielded to Raphael.
“Samara?”
I slammed my mouth shut. Raphael.
He was close. I hadn’t heard him behind me once. Shit.
“Come out, Samara. We can talk.”
I listened more closely. He was still a distance away by the sound of it. Half a mile? Maybe less, if the foliage was muffling the sounds.
Did I flee, or did I stay here and hope he didn’t see me?
I slipped the cursed copper blade from my thigh, silent as death.
Could I kill Raphael? No. Maybe not even to save myself.
But I could fight like all hells to get away. And if Lixa was generous, I’d manage it.
My fingers were clammy around the hilt. How long was I to stay there? I strained my hearing, but there was no sound I could pick out as coming from Raphael.
I risked a glance around the tree I’d hid behind. I didn’t know much of tracking in the woods, but I had been careless, entirely focused on putting as much distance between us as possible. I swallowed, studying the ground. Did the disturbed earth show a clear path of footprints?
There was no way Raphael would give up. An invisible clock counted down overhead until he found me. There would be no outrunning him. I might be fast now, but vampires gained strength with each year, and he had several hundred on me.
I could sit here and wait for Raphael to find me here, cowering against a tree with my knees shaking.
Or I could face him head-on.
“Don’t hurt me, Raphael.” I spoke the words rather than yelled.
Before I finished, Raphael stood before me. Fallen leaves flared in his wake.
“Didn’t I say I would never hurt you?” he murmured.
“That was before.” It was nothing more than a whisper.
“Before?” he prompted.
Did he want me to say it? Was he playing dumb? Or maybe he hadn’t realized what I’d done.
No, that was impossible. I wouldn’t kid myself.
I looked him in the eyes, summoning every lesson on compulsion he’d given me in the past two weeks. “Leave me be, Raphael. Forget you saw me here, forget you were even looking for me, and go back to the palace.” I focused on my intent, my needs, saying the words in the quickest rush I could manage.
But Raphael didn’t back up. Instead, he took a step forward, devouring the scant space between us. “Sorry, my dear viper, but that won’t work if I’m ready for you. I’ve had centuries to prepare for you.”
He took another step toward me, and I didn’t think, I just reacted. I had to fight. I swung my blade in a wide arc, trying to put distance between us.
It shouldn’t have worked. It never had when we sparred. But Raphael didn’t jump back, as if unwilling to put even an extra inch between us to dodge. I pulled my strike at the last second, scraping him across the cheek instead of cutting deep.
Blood formed across his cheek in a sharp line of red.
The instant my blow landed, he caught my wrist, slamming it above my head on the tree.
“So vicious,” he murmured.
“Why didn’t you dodge?” I demanded. It was the wrong thing to focus on, but he’d let me strike him when I’d never managed to land a proper blow before.
The blood dripped from the wound.
I hated that I wanted it.
Hated that I wanted him so painfully when I should be focused on getting away.
“Don’t you like when I bleed for you?” He leaned closer, so close I could have lifted my head and brushed my tongue over the wound. “I’ll bleed all you like. It’s all yours, always yours. But just talk to me, viper.”
“Talk?” My voice jumped an octave. “You expect me to believe all you want to do is talk?”
“Now that you’ve finally admitted to me that you’re the necromancer, I think it’s about time. Don’t you?”
His words were like a blow to the chest.
“You knew?” Disbelief covered up any sense of self-preservation. When had I revealed myself? I’d been so careful, so terrified the grimoire might make me slip up around him. Terrified he would dispatch me as he had the last several necromancers. “What do you mean you knew?”
“I suspected it the first night you came to my cell when I couldn’t thrall you.”
That soon? I hadn’t even suspected. Hadn’t even known such a thing was possible.
A pit hollowed inside me, a black hole of fear and anger.
I’d lived in fear for months, scarcely convincing myself to confide in Thea—another witch—for fear she’d expose me to Raphael.
For fear I’d be signing my own death warrant.
And he was going to stand here, holding me against a tree, like this should come as no surprise?
“And when did you know?”
He held my gaze, unapologetic. “Not long after.”
How long was not long? I certainly hadn’t known while I was living.
“Did you also know how scared I have been every day since I learned I was the same scourge everyone praised you for hunting down? Did you like knowing I was convinced you would kill me if you discovered what I was?” I was reeling, spiraling, screaming.
“That I think even now I’ll be dead by the end of this conversation? ”
“You won’t be,” he growled. “Of course not.”
Of course not. Like I was irrational for thinking the vampire king would do such a thing. “And when did you decide you weren’t going to murder me?”
“At first, I was going to let you go.”
When, when, when? When we’d parted ways in Apante?
When we’d gotten the grimoire? “Why didn’t you tell me you knew what I was?
That I was the necromancer you were hunting?
” Instead, he’d avoided even telling me the purpose of his trip, always dodging the questions.
I’d thought it was because he hadn’t wanted anyone to know he’d taken the grimoire.
“I wanted you to tell me. I wanted you to confide in me the way you wouldn’t before.”