Chapter 19 #2
His face is skeletal now, barely any skin left. Eyes a milky blue-white. A few strands of white hair here and there where he still has flesh on his head. Half of his bottom lip remains, bloody and trapped beneath his long fangs.
His neck is a rotting wreck, the skin gray and falling away. A corpse.
“You are late.” He points his finger, now only bones and sinew, at me. “Up.”
I get to my hands and knees, then to my feet, my body throbbing. I scan the room, looking for any sign of Valen. Nothing. He’s not here. I force myself to look at the heads, searching for his raven hair. Not there.
“What is it about you?” Gregor pulls my attention back to him.
He crooks his finger, and I labor up the shallow steps until I’m standing in front of him.
Then he points to the floor. I sit, my head leaning to the side, my body forcing me to rest against his bony knee. He strokes my hair, his touch like ice.
I gasp when I see him. Valen. Hanging suspended in the middle of the cavern. Crucified on a silver cross, his skin sizzling as he hangs limp, his face hidden beneath gore. His entire body is destroyed, blood and sinew, skin hanging in ribbons, bones broken and shattered.
“Valen!” I scream, the sound cut off when Gregor yanks my hair and orders silence.
Valen stirs, his head lifting the slightest bit. “Valen, I’m here,” I try to find our bond, to pick up the threads that linked us. But they’re nothing more than cobwebs that disintegrate at my touch.
“Valen has long been a disappointment.” Gregor continues stroking me absently.
“His weak blood made that inevitable. I often wonder why I kept him. I think it was for the novelty of it, really. A half human mutt. So rare. But made no more valuable for its rarity. Quite the opposite, in fact.” His claws dig into my scalp.
“But his disdain for the humans has been quite clear over the centuries. So what is it about you that makes him betray me? Makes him lie to me? Forces me to punish him?”
I grit my teeth.
“My lord?” Coal strides in, two other vampires at his back. “You summoned me?”
“Valen has proven not up to the task of finishing off the human command. He also failed me in Atlanta. As such, he is no longer in charge of my forces. Until a competent Dragonis successor can be found, you will lead my armies.”
Coal stops in front of us and drops to one knee, bowing his head in deference. “My lord.”
“You will go at sunset. Destroy them. Force them out of their holes, give them nowhere to hide. Bring me the head of their general.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“If you fail me, you will meet the same fate as my Specter.” His claws go deeper, digging along my scalp, separating skin from bone. I can’t scream, can only endure.
Then he withdraws and licks my blood from his fingers. He gasps, a horrid wheezing sound like a death rattle.
“A mate?” he asks, incredulity in his rasping voice. “A human mate?”
Valen twitches.
Gregor groans and lifts me from the floor, settling me sideways in his lap, his fetid stink making me gag.
Gripping my chin, he wrenches my head toward him, his dead eyes staring into mine.
“He didn’t just lie about your death. He betrayed me from the start!
” His voice rises to a roar, an ear-piercing howl of rage that rattles some stone free from the ceiling, the rocks crashing to the floor.
I shake uncontrollably, my teeth chattering.
“Shh,” he coos, then clucks his tongue. “Shh, now.” He drags his fingers down my throat, lingering at my pulse, then lower to my chest. Resting his palm over my heart, he stares up at Valen.
“All for this pitiful human? You’ve given up everything.
You’re still trying to shield your thoughts about her from me even now.
Your feelings, though, they can’t be hidden any longer.
You’re too weak. I can taste them.” He inhales through his rotted nose.
“Love and longing. Desire. You want her more than you want to live, more than you’ve wanted anything.
” He breathes out slowly, his emaciated body barely moving.
“You killed my son for her, didn’t you?” he says it so quietly, almost sorrowfully.
Valen grunts, the sound close to assent.
Gregor’s gaze flicks back to me. “My son Theo was a god. A more perfect being never existed and never will again. Your pathetic human mind can’t comprehend what he was.
His promise. His abilities. Your heart will never truly understand the pain of that loss.
” He presses his claws into my chest, easily piercing the fabric and through my skin.
“But I can give you an idea. Speak, now.”
I scream as he holds me still, his other hand at my throat, his claws embedded at the back of my neck.
“Why are you still here?” Gregor’s voice booms over me.
“My lord, I was simply awaiting your command,” Coal replies.
“Go, now,” he snaps, then gives me a skeletal grin, the scant flesh hanging on his face warping and stretching.
“I have business here with this human. Valen’s mate.
” His fangs lengthen. “I intend to make this last. He’ll hear your screams for days on end.
He’ll listen to everything I do to you. And when his eyes heal, he’ll watch, too.
” He presses his claws deeper, the tips scratching against my sternum, my ribs.
I scream again, the pain of it unthinkable, unbearable.
Tears well in my eyes, my chin trembling, but I can’t escape.
There’s no way out of his grasp. Fatima’s blade digs into my forearm, blood oozing from the cuts.
It’s pinned between us, my other hand mangled and useless from the fall on the stairs.
“I was once told by an ancient that the suffering of one’s mate bestows the same pain tenfold upon the other.
Mates cannot bear it. It drives them mad if they’re helpless to save the one their soul is bound to.
” His black tongue snakes out and licks the blood and tears on my cheek.
“Though I suspect he broke your bond, didn’t he?
Rejected his claim on you to save you?” He nods.
“I can taste it, the shattered link like burned blood. The same feeling I had when he killed my son. My precious child.”
“Theo,” I force the word out.
“You knew him? Yes.” He pulls his claws from my chest and licks them one by one. “Oh yes, yes you did. I remember now. Speak,” he commands. “Tell me about him.”
“He was cruel. Vicious. A horrible vampire who killed my friends and tortured my sister. I hated him. I’m glad he’s dead.”
He makes a rasping, wheezing noise. I realize it’s a laugh.
“He was born to rule you, that’s why you hated him. Lesser creatures always hate their gods to one degree or another, either borne of jealousy or helplessness.”
“I can tell you more about him.” I wriggle my hand, the blood making my grip on the knife slippery.
“Tell me about Valen.” He grins again, his dead eyes boring into me. “Did he promise to turn you?”
“No.”
The raw muscles on his forehead flex in consternation. “Is that so?”
“He never said he’d turn me. We never even discussed it.”
“Strange.” He slides his claws along my front and down to my thigh. “Perhaps he’s more like me than I imagine. He knows you’re weak, human. And even though you’re his Blooded mate, he would rather you die than carry on his line.”
Valen grunts, his body twitching.
“No need to deny it.” Gregor stabs his claws into my thigh.
I scream and writhe.
“It was a compliment, my Specter.” Gregor laughs.
“Another thing,” I gasp through the agony, through the searing pain.
“Do go on.” Gregor scrapes his claws along my femur. “So very entertaining.”
Another wail, tears blinding me. I can barely breathe. Darkness encroaches on my vision, but I shake my head, fighting it back. I can’t pass out. I can’t give up. Not now. If I do, Valen’s dead. I’m dead.
“About Theo,” I howl the words as he removes his claws again and snakes his black tongue out to clean them.
My heartbeat thunders in my ears. “I’m the one who killed him.”
He jerks, his dead eyes widening.
Then I stab sideways into him, cutting through my sleeve, through the rotten fabric of his black robe, and into his chest.
His scream is like a lightning strike, and he throws me off him. I land halfway across the cavern, my body slamming into the stone and skidding. There’s a roar in my ears, and I can’t catch my breath. My ribs are broken. Maybe more. And I can’t see clearly, can’t tell what’s happening.
I fumble for my pocket with my good hand, now slicked with blood. My fingers graze a syringe, and I grab it but can’t get it free from my pocket. My hand has gone cold, numb.
Gregor is still screaming. Not dead. He’s not dead. I failed. I have to try again. But I’m cold now. So cold.
I still can’t breathe all the way, my head getting lighter as I try again to get the syringe.
“Georgia.” A voice I know. A voice I’ve loved for most of my life.
I whimper, my jaw not moving as I try to tell Juno what’s in my pocket, what it can do.
She smooths her fingers along the wound in my arm, warmth fluttering across my skin. Her blood. Juno’s Miracle.
“I’ve got you.” She strokes the hair away from my face, my vision clearing slightly as I stare up at her. Wings flap far above me, right where Valen was hanging. Is it Coal? Is he—
A hard impact sends me flying across the floor again and hitting the wall with the force of a car crash. I’m dazed, my body erupting in pain again.
“Juno!”
“Fucking human bitch!” Gregor slams her to the ground, his rage palpable.
She fights, her claws shredding him, his threadbare clothes falling away and revealing nothing but a corpse.
Bones and sinew, yellow fat and grey, half rotted organs.
He lifts her head and smashes it into the floor again and again as I crawl toward them, the syringe in my hand.
Her blood is healing me slowly. I can make it. I can save her.
He jerks his head to the side, his milky gaze on me. “Valen, kill your mate!” he bellows then slashes Juno’s throat open, the blood spurting out as he sinks his fangs into her.
“No!” I scream.
And then I’m on my back, Valen on top of me his hands around my throat. One of his eyes is healed, the ocean of dark blue staring into me as he squeezes.
“Please,” I choke. “Valen.”
His eye waters, his grip tightening.
“Fight it. Fight him,” I say with the last of my breath. “Kedves verem.”
I clutch the syringe in my hand, the only weapon I have left. A tear falls from Valen’s eye, his body shaking as he chokes the life from me.
I raise the syringe, my vision fading as I lose oxygen. I could stab him and depress the plunger. With the last of my strength, I could save my own life.
His face goes fuzzy.
“Valen, I love you.” I let my hand drop, palm open.
The syringe rolls away.