Chapter 22
Killian
“Are you sure we can’t go back to the lake cave, postpone the world ending for a while longer?” I ask my beautiful, fearless future Queen, as she drags me by the hand through another lightless tunnel.
Finally, she is mine. No more pretending or denying the blatant truth.
She huffs a laugh, squeezing my hand but not slowing down.
“Believe me, the thought crossed my mind, too. But we’re too close to falter now. That Goddess bitch owes us an explanation, and it better be a good one.”
I sigh and tug her into my arms, gripping her waist possessively just as the underground passage opens into a larger gallery.
“Fine, but once we’re back in Sangeries, I’m not letting you out of the bedroom for a week.”
She twists in my arms to face me, amusement shining in her amber eyes.
“I appreciate the stamina, Killian. And the wishful thinking.” She presses a soft kiss on the corner of my mouth and tries to disentangle herself from me.
I grip her harder, my fingers digging into her hips as I cast a wary glance at the vast space before us. The final trial.
“I love you, Aimee,” I breathe against her lips, my thumb caressing slowly the Ouroboros mark I gave her.
“I love you too, Killian,” she says, and my heart soars at the admission. I will never get enough of hearing those words. “Now stop stalling.”
We step into the chamber, and alarm bells go off in my head immediately. There are no ominous words scribbled on the dark stone. No disappearing entrance. Just an eerie silence that rings balefully in my ears, pressing against my skin with olden magic. The air tastes stale, too still, too quiet.
My hand searches for Aimee’s, needing her soothing touch, but I’m greeted by empty space. I turn to check on her, and she’s no longer next to me. She’s staring straight ahead, her hair covering her face, her posture rigid, fists clenching. The distance she put between us feels off.
“What’s wrong, little umbra?”
“I really hate it when you fucking call me that,” she says in an icy voice filled with scorn.
“Aimee, what’s happening?”
“Aimee,” she mocks me as she leaps toward me, drawing two blades from their sheaths. I stumble back in shock, her dagger missing my chest by an inch. I block her next blow with my arm and push her off me. She recovers quickly, eyes dark with cruelty, a snarl escaping her lips.
“What’s the meaning of this, love? It’s not funny.”
She circles me like a huntress out on the prowl, a malicious glint shining in her eyes that I’ve never seen before. Her jaw is tight as she hisses between clenched teeth.
“Pathetic vampire, so easy to fool with empty words and hollow vows.”
She lunges at me again, blades drawn, and I jump out of her way, refusing to fight her. She keeps coming at me, again and again, steel slicing the air between us with monstrous hunger.
This is not who she is; I know it deep in my bones. Not after everything that transpired between us earlier in that grotto. It wasn’t a lie; it couldn’t have been.
“Fight it, Aimee, whatever compulsion this is. Must be the last trial.”
She cackles—a nerves grating, hellish sound.
“So presumptuous, you leech. Must be a compulsion because how could I possibly hate your fucking guts, right?”
She throws herself at me with all her might, nothing but raw violence seeping out of her pores.
I catch her wrist and twist, making her let go of one dagger, but she swings the other one in a wide arc, cleaving it between my ribs.
I wince at the sudden pain as she twists it and pulls it out, licking the blade clean.
That sight shouldn’t arouse me, not in our current predicament, but I’ve never pretended to be anything but a sick bastard.
My cock strains against my leather pants, even as blood pours from my wound.
“At least your blood doesn’t taste half bad. Shame it will spill on the ground soon enough.”
I press my palm into the stinging gash, willing it to heal faster.
“Love, this is not you. Fight it for me.”
She spits at my feet, eyes blazing with hatred.
“My sister should’ve ended you when she had the chance.
She would have done us all a favor.” She swings her blade again in the air, and I catch it in my palm, the steel embedding deep in my flesh.
I wrench it free of her hands, throwing it as far away as possible, but she’s relentless.
She lands a blow to my jaw, and I throw her off on instinct, her back hitting the granite wall with a loud thud.
“Don’t make me do this, Aimee,” I plead with her, but it’s no use. Whatever ancient magic wrapped itself around her mind like chains is not letting go. She summons her black shadows and blasts them at me, forcing me to unleash mine in defense.
“Aimee, please, I love you,” I say, hoping the truth behind my words will be enough to break the spell. “You love me too, my umbra, you just need to remember. You just said it too, a few minutes ago.”
“And you’re so gullible to eat up any meagre promise of attachment I made. You’re nothing but a tragic waste of a creature.”
“I don’t believe you,” I grit, fighting the grief that threatens to swallow me whole. This is not her; I have to cling to that, repeating it obsessively in my mind.
“And that will be your downfall, Vampire King. Killed at the hands of your love. How poetic.”
“Nobody will die here,” I answer with conviction. This damned mountain will not destroy us. I will not become the monster this place wants me to be.
Fuck Ereshkygall and her stupid, idiotic challenges.
“That’s where you’re mistaken, vampire. One of us dies now. If you don’t kill me first, I’ll end you,” she says in a rageful fit, forming a swirling sword from her shadows and attacking.
So that’s what this trial is about. A test of weaponized devotion. Kill or be killed.
I rein in my crimson power and open my arms wide in acceptance. I’d rather die at her hands than lay even one finger on her. If this is my cursed fate, then so be it.
“Then slay me, love; I won’t defend myself. If one of us has to perish, let it be me.”
I half expect my sacrifice to shatter the magic, but it doesn’t. Her shadow blade goes through my chest with vicious precision, and I slump to the ground, blood spilling from my mouth. She wrenches it free and brings it down toward my throat with unrestrained fury.
The killing blow.
I close my eyes, and images flash behind my eyelids. A rapid-fire recollection of my indeed tragic existence.
My mother. Drusilla. Drovillan. Dying and being reborn as a vampire.
Being crowned King. Ayana. The Fae wars.
The onpyr attacks. The prophecy. Blaise and Leilah, and Marhus.
Meeting her, falling in love for the first time. The only time.
The kiss of steel touches my neck, and I brace for true death.
When no pain explodes in my mind, and no darkness takes over me, I open my eyes to the same empty chamber.
Aimee is slumped against the far wall, breathing erratically and clutching her chest.
“You—you tried to murder me,” she whispers raggedly.
The pain in my chest and side has vanished, and my hands are no longer coated in my own blood.
“I did not. But you tried the same,” I answer between bated breaths.
“No, I didn’t. I…” she heaves, emptying her stomach on the stone floor. “I could never.”
It was all a fucking illusion; I realize with a start. We were not pitted against each other, but against chimeras wearing our skin.
I crawl to her on my hands and knees, gathering her into my arms as she cries despondently.
“It was not real, my love. Just these fucking trials playing mind games with us.”
“Oh, Killian,” she says between gut-wrenching sobs.
“It was so awful. The things you—that thing said. That my sister was right all along. That I was nothing. Deserved nothing. That you couldn’t wait to finish me so you could be with her instead.
You—it said I had it coming all along, the abuse, the rape, that it was all my fault. ”
“Shhh, umbra, it’s over now. We passed the test.”
Teardrops cling to her lashes as she gazes at me, her weeping quieting down.
“I couldn’t harm you, Killian. Not even to save my life. I was ready to embrace death at your hands.”
I press my lips to her tear-soaked ones in a gentle, reassuring gesture. She melts under my grasp, a sigh of relief shuddering through her.
“I meant every word I said, little umbra. I love you. Really love you. The realm-shattering kind. Even if we die in this war, I know we will find each other again in every lifetime. Even if there is no such thing, we would forge it out of nothingness. I waited a thousand years for you and you can be Akaoridamn sure I am never letting you go.”
She gives me a weak smile, wiping out the last vestiges of terror from her damp cheeks.
I kiss her again, pouring all my feelings into it, just as the mountain shudders, tremors filling up the chamber while a gaping breach in stone gives way to a new entrance.
Faint light pulses from the other side, warm and inviting.
My little menace’s face hardens, her mouth set in a tight grimace.
“Right. Better not keep the fucking Goddess waiting.”
I squeeze her hand as she tries to stand, halting her movement.
“She can wait, Aimee. Take all the time you need.”
“I don’t need time, Killian,” she says solemnly. “I need the truth. Finally.”
We step into the pulsing light together, hand in hand, and I’m blinded for an instant by the golden intensity as it washes over us like a shroud of sunlight.
When it ebbs away, a circular sanctuary emerges, all burnished marble and flickering flames, torches smoldering in gleaming sconces carved directly into the walls.
Nine alabaster statues, wrapped in crushed velvet and flowing silks, stand proudly in a circle of gilded pedestals, facing each other.
The Fae Gods of legend.
I know instinctively who they are, as if a part of me recognizes their sculpted forms, and a distant vagary in the recesses of my mind keeps chanting “home.”
A smirking Kreyos swathed in shadows casts his empty gaze at a voluptuous Reythia, her mouth forever open in a silent moan.
A severe Xeys holds a flaming sword above his head, poised for attack.
Alektriona’s sweet face, painted with a gentle smile, her body turned toward a solemn Ereshkygall, her arms crossed against her chest in eternal slumber.
I part my lips to summon Ereshkygall to show herself, but before I utter the command, Aimee’s fingers slip from mine and she marches with determined strides toward the Goddess of Death’s statue, rearing her arm back and punching it squarely in its marbled face.
I brace for her yelp of pain and the crunch of bone against implacable stone, but her fist meets soft flesh that ripples from the impact.
The statue’s opalescent eyes swirl with consciousness, turning molten silver as a bronzed glow bleeds into her skin.
Her snowy hair bears argent highlights, cascading down her back toward the polished floor in undulating waves.
The corners of her pouty lips turn upwards, silvered fangs peeking from underneath as she assesses us with a shrewd, calculated gaze that speaks of eons of wisdom that only immortality yields.
“That’s no way to greet an old friend. Although I suppose I deserved that.”