Chapter 26
Chapter
Twenty-Six
The stake was in her shoulder thirty seconds ago.
Thirty seconds, and I'm still seeing it. Still feeling the moment my dead heart tried to restart in my chest. Still tasting the panic that flooded my mouth like copper.
Now I'm tasting blood. Theirs.
A vampire rushes her from the left. Before she can react, I'm there, catching him mid-lunge, driving my blade through his throat with enough force to nearly sever his head. He drops. I'm already moving to the next one.
"I had him," Celeste snaps.
I don't answer. Can't. The rage has swallowed everything else.
She ducks under a swing, drives her blade up through an attacker's ribs, spins away before his body hits the ground.
Blood arcs through the air. Some of it hers, still seeping from the wound in her shoulder, mixing with the spray from her kills.
She's fighting like the injury doesn't exist. Like she didn't almost die a minute ago.
I intercept another vampire angling for her blind side. This one I don't kill quickly. I break his arm first, then his knee, then I tear out his throat with my bare hands while he screams.
The sound satisfies something dark in my chest.
They made her scream. I heard the pain in it, and something in me snapped clean in half.
Now I want to hear all of theirs.
We fall into rhythm despite my fury. She goes low, I go high. She draws their attention. I come from behind. Two bodies moving as one. But I'm not fighting tactically anymore. I'm fighting to annihilate. Every vampire I kill is the one who drove that stake toward her heart.
Another comes at me with a stake, movements precise rather than frantic. He feints left, strikes right. I read the deception a half-second too late, and the stake grazes my ribs, tearing through shirt and skin. Pain flares, hot and sharp.
Before he can press the advantage, Celeste sweeps his legs from behind. He goes down hard, stake clattering away. I crush his skull beneath my heel. No hesitation. No restraint.
Our eyes meet across his body. Her face is streaked with blood. Hers and theirs, indistinguishable now. Her chest heaves with unnecessary breaths, her fangs fully extended. The wound on her shoulder seeps through her ruined shirt, a dark stain spreading with every movement.
She's still fighting. Still bleeding. Still here.
The rage doesn't fade. It sharpens.
She nods once. I nod back.
Then we're moving again, because the fight isn't over, and I have more killing to do.
Around us, the tide is turning. My people have rallied at the service entrance, reinforcements arriving from other positions now that the east wing attack has been revealed as the feint it was.
Konstantin's soldiers are good. Underground fighters, just as Celeste predicted.
But they're outnumbered now, outmaneuvered.
And I am not showing mercy.
Julian takes down two attackers in rapid succession.
Nadia guards the medical wing door with lethal focus.
But I'm barely tracking them. My attention keeps snapping back to Celeste.
To the way she favors her injured shoulder.
To the pallor beneath the blood on her face.
To the wound that should be healing faster than it is.
One by one, Konstantin's soldiers fall.
The last attacker, a scarred woman with close-cropped hair and wild eyes, realizes she's alone. She bolts for the breach point. Julian intercepts her three feet from the exit, his blade flashing once, twice. She crumples.
Silence settles like dust after an explosion.
The service entrance looks like a slaughterhouse. Bodies everywhere, some still twitching with the last echoes of undead life. Blood pools on the concrete, runs in rivulets toward the drain in the center of the floor. The walls are splattered with it.
Some of it is hers. The thought won't leave me.
Celeste stands in the middle of the carnage, blade still raised, turning slowly to scan for threats that are no longer there. Her ruined shirt clings to her body, soaked through with blood. The wound on her shoulder has slowed but hasn't closed. Raw flesh visible through the torn fabric.
Another inch to the left.
The thought hits me like a physical blow. Another inch, and the stake would have found her heart. Another inch, and she'd be one of the bodies on the floor.
The rage transmutes into something else. Something that makes my hands shake as I lower my weapon.
"Clear," Julian calls out. "Service entrance secure."
"East wing?" I ask without taking my eyes off her.
"Holding. Konstantin's forces are retreating across all positions."
Retreating. Not defeated. He'll regroup, reassess, and come back stronger.
But that's a problem for later. Right now, the only thing I can focus on is the woman standing ten feet away, slowly lowering her weapon, finally meeting my eyes.
The adrenaline is fading, and in its absence, I can feel every wound I collected during the fighting. The gash across my ribs pulses. Something in my shoulder grinds when I move. Torn muscle, maybe, or a joint knocked out of alignment. Smaller cuts sting across my arms, my face, my hands.
I ignore all of it.
"You're hurt," I say.
She glances down at her shoulder like she's forgotten about it. "It's nothing."
"You're bleeding."
"So are you."
I close the distance between us in three strides. "Medical wing. Now."
She opens her mouth to argue.
"Now, Celeste."
I guide her through the medical wing door.
Inside, it's controlled chaos.
Elena stands at the center of it, clipboard in hand, directing traffic with the calm efficiency of a general commanding troops.
"Minor wounds to the left, serious to the right.
Anyone who can walk, clear the beds for those who can't. You…
" She points at a vampire cradling his arm.
"That's a clean break. Set it and move on. We need the space."
The staff move around her, following orders without question. The vampire healers work on the more serious cases, a woman with a stake wound to the abdomen, and others whose injuries I can't immediately identify.
"Shoulder wound needs cleaning," she says to Celeste. "Examination table three. I'll send someone."
"I've got it," I say.
Elena's eyebrows rise slightly, but she doesn't comment. Just nods and turns back to her coordination.
Celeste tries to wave off the treatment as we make our way to the indicated table. "I'm fine. There are others who need…"
"Sit down." I guide her to the table with a hand on her lower back, feeling the tension in her muscles.
"Maximus, I can—"
"You can sit down and let me look at you, or I can carry you to this table. Your choice." My voice comes out rougher than I intend. "I just watched a stake come within an inch of your heart. Give me this."
Something in her expression softens. "Okay."
"Let me see," I say, reaching for the medical supplies.
"You're not a healer."
"I've been treating wounds since before modern medicine existed. Since before this country existed." I gather supplies from a nearby cabinet: antiseptic, a clean cloth, and bandages. "Sit."
She sits. But her jaw is set, her eyes tracking my movements with wariness.
"Take off your shirt," I say.
One eyebrow arches. "Here?"
"I need to see the wound."
"I'm sure you do."
Despite everything, the battle, the blood, the fear that's still clenched around my heart like a fist, I almost smile. "Celeste."
"Fine." She reaches for the hem, then winces as the movement pulls at her shoulder. "Little help?"
I move closer. My fingers find the ruined fabric, sticky with drying blood. I work it up her body slowly, carefully, trying to minimize the strain on her wound. She raises her arms as much as she can, and I pull the shirt over her head.
Underneath, she's wearing a simple black undergarment. Functional, not decorative. Appropriate for battle. And yet the sight of her, the lean muscle, the pale skin, the scattered bruises already fading, makes something tighten in my chest.
The wound is worse than I thought.
The stake went deep, tearing through the muscle of her shoulder, scraping against bone. The edges are ragged, struggling to knit closed. Blood still seeps from the deepest part, welling up each time she moves.
"That bad?" she asks, watching my face.
I don't answer. Don't trust my voice.
Instead, I soak a cloth in antiseptic and begin to clean the wound. She hisses at the sting but doesn't pull away. Her hands grip the edge of the examination table, knuckles white.
"Sorry," I murmur.
"Don't be. Just do it."
I work methodically, carefully. The antiseptic clears away the dried blood and reveals the true extent of the damage. Deep, but clean. No fragments left behind, no signs of infection. It will heal. She will heal.
But the memory of watching her pinned beneath that vampire will take longer to fade. The stake driving into her shoulder. Her cry of pain. Knowing the next strike would find her heart if I didn't reach her in time.
"You're shaking," she says quietly.
I look down at my hands. She's right. A fine tremor runs through them, barely visible, but there.
"No, I'm not."
"You are." Her hand covers mine, stilling its movement. "Maximus. I'm okay."
"You almost weren't."
"But I am." Her fingers thread through mine, squeeze gently. "Because you got there in time. Because you came for me."
"Of course I came for you." The words come out rough, raw. "Did you think I wouldn't?"
"I didn't think anything. I saw the stake coming, and then you were there." She tugs at my hand, pulling me closer. "You're always there."
I'm standing between her knees now. One hand still holding the cloth, the other clasped in hers. Close enough to see the flecks of amber in her dark eyes. Close enough to count each individual eyelash. Close enough to feel the cool brush of her breath against my face.
"I should finish cleaning this," I say.
"Probably."
Neither of us moves.