Chapter 20
Blaise
Ipace the length of the dining hall, tugging at the ends of my braids in nervous anticipation.
I’ve sent word with Nella that I’m waiting for Sariah to dine with me, under the pretense of discussing the ever-growing number of Dark Umbras arriving in Drovillan and the logistics behind housing hundreds of new Fae every day.
But in reality, all I’m hoping is to get a quiet moment alone with her—maybe even a chance to prove I’m not the impervious rake she believes I am, not anymore at least.
As the minutes go by, turning into hours, and the hands of the wall clock mock me as they keep moving with no regard to my growing agitation, I resign myself to one glaring fact.
She’s not coming.
I pull out from my tunic’s pocket the thin rolling parchment and the pouch of tobacco I always carry around, although I rarely indulge in such a vice. On occasion, I have enjoyed a smoke, usually after a good lay.
But tonight, I need it to calm my nerves more than anything else.
I roll the tobacco in the small paper, wet my lips and lick a line on the paper’s end to close it off, then use the nearest candlestick to light it up.
The first inhale burns my lungs, and I revel in the strong tobacco scent as I hollow out my cheeks before blowing out a cloud of smoke.
This is definitely not one of my finest moments, but then again, I haven’t been on top of my game since I met the little pixie Fae.
She keeps messing with my head in ways I can’t predict or control.
I wish I’d uncover what makes her tick. What would it take for her to take me seriously?
I know I don’t have the best track record when it comes to females, and I’ve never really cared how they regarded me. My debauched reputation preceded me, and it kept expectations low for a reason. I was always ready for a night of demented ardor and wild abandon, but not one lick more.
Yet, as I’m plagued by dreams of her every night, and my waking hours revolve around wondering what she’s doing, who she’s spending her time with if it’s not me, and what would it feel like to hold her in my arms, I’m realizing I’ve unknowingly put myself in a corner.
Taking another long drag from the cigarette, I let the embers burn my fingers. I welcome the slight sting as a reminder that I can still feel physical pain. I might not have much humanity left in my body, not after six hundred years, but some aches never go away.
Like the ache of losing all your family at the murderous hands of the Fae.
Or the ache of knowing that the one female who captured your interest for more than just a fleeting tryst is probably the only one in the entire realm that wouldn’t bed you, wouldn’t trust you with either her body or her soul.
“Gloominess doesn’t suit you, pretty boy.”
Her voice shakes me out of my thoughts, and I raise my gaze to see her approach me on nimble limbs, quiet like the split-second before a blade finds flesh.
She really is a formidable spy. I didn’t sense her entering the room at all.
Sariah snatches the cigarette from my fingers, plopping herself on the dining table between the silverware and squashing the stub against a porcelain plate.
“What’s gotten you in such a mood this fine evening?”
“You’re late,” I answer, pointing at the now cold feast that the servants had prepared for her hours ago.
She picks a grape and pops it into her mouth, chewing slowly.
“I was out. I came as soon as Nella informed me about your dinner plans upon my return.”
“Out?” I ask in mild surprise.
“Visiting the barracks with the boys. Wanted to see how my Dark Umbras are faring in the vampire kingdom,” she answers with measured words.
“The boys?”
It seems all I can do is repeat her words like a broken tune.
“Mattya and Axel. Don’t you have them on welcoming duty at the edge of Drovillan, far away from the castle?”
“Oh.”
A black coil of envy swirls inside my chest; an ashen and foul taste taking residence in my mouth.
“You could have asked me to accompany you,” I say through gritted teeth. I don’t like how my voice has taken on a whiny inflection. Can’t find it in me to pretend that I’m unbothered by this turn of events either.
She rests her elbow on her knee, tilting her head as if she doesn’t know what to make of me.
“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, Blaise,” she says in a soft voice.
“I know that. I just, urgh, I can never win with you!”
“Didn’t know we had some sort of competition going on that requires winning,” she laughs before gasping, her eyes widening in realization. “Oh no, don’t tell me you’re jealous, pretty boy!”
“Of course I fucking am,” I say, throwing my hands in the air. My loud voice booms through the dining hall, ricocheting off the marble walls just for a second before it gets drowned out by the earsplitting chaos of glass shattering.
The dining-room windows burst inwards all at once in a storm of shards and wooden splinters, and my instincts kick in, throwing myself over Sariah, protecting her from the crystals raining down on us with vicious sharpness.
The frigid winter air snuffs out the candles, bathing the room only in the eerie glow of the moon.
I don’t have time to check Sariah for injuries before a dozen onpyrs pour through the ruins of the windows in a blur of fangs, claws, and burning red eye sockets.
“What the…” Sariah breathes against my chest, disoriented, before a howling creature lunges for us. I spin, unsheathing my scimitar and throwing myself against the abomination, slicing its head off its shoulders in one swift movement.
“Morweena’s puppets,” I say over my shoulder, grabbing a pair of daggers from their holsters and throwing them her way. “Beheading is the only way to kill these motherfuckers.”
She grabs the daggers mid-air with agile precision, crouching low like a cat poised to strike.
Two snarling onpyrs attack me at once, and I spin and parry, throwing one off me with a boot to the chest, while impaling the other one with my sword. Sariah’s holding her own, blocking their lunges and cutting through rotten flesh and bone with terrifying ease.
But it’s no use. The two of us can’t face alone the inpour of attackers; more and more rolling in by the minute.
Where the fuck are my warriors?
I kick the dining table, toppling it over as a protective shield against the mindless monsters, and dragging Sariah behind it by her wrist.
A creature leaps over the overturned furniture, sinking its fangs into my shoulder, before I twist, giving Sariah clear aim at his throat.
She drives a steel blade up through his jaw and wrenches it free in a spray of gore that splatters both our faces.
I lose no time in finishing the job, driving my scimitar through its skull and twisting; the head rolling to the ground with a wet thud.
“Your shoulder,” she breathes, trying to reach out to touch it, but I brush her off, pushing her behind me.
“It’s nothing,” I say, wincing through the burn. “It will fade away.”
We keep fighting in unison, backs brushing, our breaths tangled as we slash through sinew and bone marrow.
By the time my warriors come to our rescue, the room has become a slaughterhouse, with blood and brains splattered everywhere.
I duck to avoid a snarling onpyr aiming for my throat, and he changes course, grabbing fistfuls of Sariah’s blond locks and throwing her against a wall.
Several onpyrs lunge for her at once, and I panic, throwing my scimitar through one’s forehead as I push her out of the way.
They’re upon me as one, and I fall to my knees as a handful of daggers find their way through my flesh, and pain erupts in various places.
Fangs tear out my skin, taking chunks of my neck, my back, and a gash against my ribs oozes blood in rivulets.
“Blaise!”
Her screaming is fading in my ears as I thrash on the ground, managing to crush one creature’s rotten eye sockets with my thumbs, before another three jump on me, disarming me completely.
The pain is excruciating, taking me back to that ransacked village long ago, where I sat on the ground, all mangled and broken, while Fae soldiers raped and brutalized my mother and sister, my father and brothers’ corpses staring at me with empty eyes, witnessing from the afterlife how I was letting all of them down.
I was useless then, and I am equally useless now.
I stare at the ceiling, unseeing, unmoving, blood draining out of my wounds, staining the floorboards underneath.
Faintly, my ears pick up on the commotion all around me, broken wails of agony and the harsh swoosh of metal through the air.
A blade enters my vision, moonlight glinting from its blood-soaked edge as it cuts onpyr throats without mercy.
One by one, heads roll like fetid apples on the ground, bodies collapsing like butchered carcasses onto the ruined hardwood.
And then she’s on me, cradling my head, blood, tears and snot dripping from her face and into my eyes.
“You fool! What have you done?”
I don’t know why she’s so undone, and I try to say as much, but all I manage is a garbled cough, choking on my own blood.
My movements are heavy and uncoordinated—like fighting to stay afloat in muddied waters—as I try with trembling fingers to wipe away her tears.
I only smear more crimson on her cheek, and she looks entirely like a vengeful Goddess, dipped in violence and gore.
“Get healers now. He’s losing so much blood,” she screams at no one in particular before wrenching her sleeve and pressing her soft wrist to my lips.
“Drink,” she urges me between sobs, and I must be delirious because she couldn’t possibly have offered me her life essence.
“Drink, you stubborn male.” She shoves her wrist deeper into my mouth, pushing against my fangs until they sink into her vein and euphoria bursts into my weakening body. My survival instinct kicks in, and I wrap a hand around hers, gulping down mouthfuls of the best damned ichor I have ever tasted.
“That’s it, take it all,” she whispers, and I yank my canines free from her flesh, afraid of depleting her.
“If I’d known my dying would stir such a reaction in you, I’d have done it sooner,” I say in a hoarse voice, my breath ragged as I attempt a weak joke.
She swats at my chest, more tears flowing from her storm-cloud blue eyes.
“What were you thinking, Blaise? Why, why would you do that?”
“Your life was in danger,” I answer simply. Isn’t it obvious?
“And now yours is hanging by a thread,” she says, sniffling. “Where are those fucking healers?” She screams forcefully, limping warriors scurrying out of the room at the command in her voice.
“My death would be inconsequential.” I answer between wet coughs. “Yours would be too much to bear, moonlight. Haven’t you figured that out?”
My words freeze her fidgeting; her pupils swallow the blue before her lips come crashing down on mine in a kiss I’d almost given up on.
Her soft lips move gently against mine, as if she’s scared she’ll break me further.
I muster up the last dregs of vitality left in me and part her trembling mouth with my tongue, exploring slowly, languidly.
She makes a choked sound in the back of her throat, something between a moan and a sob, and I smile inwardly. If this is what death tastes like, I’d welcome it again and again, a sacrificial lamb on the altar of her being.
“Hold on, Blaise,” she whispers against my lips, her jasmine-scented breath warming my shivering skin.
“I wouldn’t dream of going anywhere, moonlight,” I answer before darkness finally envelops me.