Chapter 25 Crimson Crystal Calling #2
The knife came at me in a flash of silver, wild and clumsy but fast. Instinct took over. I threw myself to the side, the blade slicing through the air where I’d stood a heartbeat before. Pain flared hot across my upper arm as the edge caught me. It was only shallow but burned all the same.
I gasped, clutching the wound as she spun around, snarling like a feral thing. And that was when I saw it, the glint at her throat.
A crimson necklace.
Its chain was blackened silver, tarnished with age, and at its centre hung a single, blood-red stone the size of a grape.
It pulsed faintly, as if something alive beat within it, the color too deep, too rich to be anything but blood trapped in crystal.
The light shimmered through it, and for one disorienting moment, I could have sworn the glow was breathing.
Something about it called to me.
A low hum in my chest, a whisper just beyond hearing.
My body seemed to sway toward it without my permission, my heartbeat falling into rhythm with its pulse.
It wasn’t just glowing, it was reaching for me, beckoning, as if it knew me somehow.
My name trembled on the edge of my thoughts, carried not by her voice but by the thing hanging from her throat.
A wave of nausea hit, sharp and cold, but I couldn’t look away.
The stone shimmered again, and I thought I saw shapes twisting inside it.
Veins, like dark smoke swirling in liquid light.
The longer I stared, the louder that silent pull became, drawing at something deep in my chest, something that wasn’t quite my heart but lived just as fiercely.
Her hand brushed the pendant absently, possessively, as she raised the knife again and the stone flared, blood-red light spilling across her throat and face like it was feeding on her rage… or my fear.
I stumbled back, shaking my head to break whatever spell it was trying to weave around me. Still, the echo of it lingered in my veins, a whisper I couldn’t silence.
“You don’t belong here!” she shrieked.
“He’s mine, he’s mine, he’s mine!” Her crazed chant stung my ears, a banshee's wail that cut through me.
I stumbled back again, hitting the vanity table.
A lamp crashed to the floor, shattering into a thousand glittering shards.
She lunged once more, her movements jerky, feral, and I grabbed the nearest thing I could, the heavy porcelain jug that sat beside the basin.
“Stay back!” I warned, my voice shaking.
Her grin was wild, teeth bared, her expression one of pure madness.
“You think you can take him from me like she did? You think you can give him what he needs?!”
“I don’t even know who you are!” I cried, tears stinging my eyes as fear gave way to panic.
“Liar!” she hissed, spittle flying.
“He always chooses the same kind, you’re not the first blood giver he’s taken, to break, to feed the monster, to gift to me, those fragile, pitiful, humans!
He says he’ll protect you, but he’ll ruin you, just like he did me!
” She screamed before lunging again, the blade grazing my shoulder this time, and the pain made me cry out.
I swung the jug, desperate, catching her across the side of the head.
It shattered with a sickening crack, and she screamed, not in pain, but in fury, before tackling me to the floor.
The knife glinted above me, her hair falling around us like a dark veil as she pressed her weight down. I grabbed her wrist, both of us straining, the blade trembling inches above my throat. My hand reached up, trying to push her face away, but it ended up slipping down to her neck.
“Please!” I begged, tears streaming down my face.
“I don’t know what you want from me!”
“I want him back!” she snarled, her voice cracking with the force of her rage.
“I want him to remember who I was before you took him!” With a burst of panic-fueled strength, I twisted, managing to kick her off me.
My fingers that had been curled around her throat, hooking into the necklace, tearing it from her with the motion of my escape.
The clasp snapped before it skidded along the floor under the bed as she fell against the nightstand.
The knife also slipped from her hand and clattered to the other side of the room.
I scrambled up, but she was fast… Too fast…
Once more lunging for me and grabbing a fistful of my hair, this time.
We crashed into the bed, the headboard slamming against the wall with a deafening crack.
My hands clawed at the sheets, desperate to get away from her.
In my panic, my fingers caught on a pillow.
I threw it at her with all the strength I had, but she tore through it as if it were nothing.
The fabric split apart beneath her claws, and a cloud of feathers exploded into the air, swirling around us like drifting ash.
“Stop!” I screamed, my heart pounding so loud it drowned out everything else.
She grabbed me, turning me around so I was now on my back.
Her face was inches from mine, eyes burning with something not entirely human.
Blood red and burning. She curled her clawed fist in my hair to wrench my neck to the side.
My eyes widened as I watched her fangs emerging, as if at the ready to plunge into my throat and tear it out.
“He was mine!” she screamed again, spitting the words as if they burned her tongue.
“My fated. My curse. My ruin. And I’ll be damned before I let another take him!” Before I could respond… before I could even breathe… her head snapped up. Her eyes went wide, pupils dilating like a startled predator’s.
Then, just as suddenly as she’d attacked, she froze. Her grip on my hair loosened, and her gaze shifted toward the door. Towards something I couldn’t see, and for the first time, the madness in her expression flickered into fear.
“No…” she whispered, shaking her head slowly.
“He’s here.”
My blood turned cold as the door slammed open behind her with a force that made the walls shake. The sound that tore through the doorway wasn’t human.
It was a roar, one that was deep, primal, and so powerful that the air itself seemed to tremble. The woman’s head snapped toward the sound, and before I could blink, something dark and furious filled the room.
Vasileios.
He moved like a shadow given form, the storm outside raging again as if called by his fury. The windows shook, the curtains whipped, and for a heartbeat, I couldn’t tell where the thunder ended, and his demonic voice began.
He crossed the room in a single blur of movement. The woman barely had time to gasp before his hand was around her throat, slamming her back against the wall with such force that the mirror above the vanity cracked.
I could only stare, trembling as the sight unfolded before me.
His darkness was alive.
It crawled along his skin in violent, pulsing tendrils, spreading from his face down his neck and across his arms like veins of black lightning. The firelight caught the sharp planes of his chest, his eyes burning silver with the kind of rage that belonged to gods and monsters.
He looked terrifying.
And beautiful.
And mine.
The woman clawed at his wrist, gasping, her legs kicking as he pinned her higher against the wall.
“V…Vasilei… please!” she choked out, her voice rasping through the constriction of his grip.
“You don’t understand… she’s… not… your Vanes…”
“Don’t!” he warned, cutting her off, his voice a growl that rumbled through the floor.
“Don’t speak her name.” I pressed my hand to the wound at my arm, the blood slick and warm beneath my palm.
“Vas…” I managed, my voice shaking.
“Stop, please… You’re going to kill her” He turned his head sharply at the sound of my voice and the moment he saw the blood smeared across my skin, something inside him snapped.
The shadows around him surged like smoke, twisting through the air as his jaw clenched and his fangs bared in a sound that made the glass lamps crack.
His grip tightened.
“How dare you touch her,” he snarled, his voice low, trembling with barely contained fury.
“You dare spill her blood in my house, the blood of my fated!?” The woman struggled, choking, her eyes wild.
“She is poison! She will steal your soul, suck you of your power, reduce you to nothing,” she spat, her voice breaking through the pain.
“She’s another curse! Another lie!” He slammed her back again, the wall cracking beneath the impact.
“Enough!” The shadows writhed up the wall behind her, framing them both in a macabre display of light and darkness. He looked every bit the monster he claimed to be, and yet, he was the monster that wanted to protect me.
“Vas,” I whispered again, tears streaming freely now.
“Please… Who is she?” For a long, heavy moment, he didn’t answer. He just stood there, chest heaving, his hand still tight around the woman’s throat. His head bowed, and when he finally looked at me, there was something broken in his expression. A kind of anguish I had never seen in him before.
When he spoke, his voice was raw, hoarse, and trembling with a truth that shook the air between us.
A truth I wasn’t prepared for when he told me…
“She’s… my mother.”