Chapter 16
Jules
Cold. I’m so horribly cold.
The chilly damp isn’t just clinging to my skin anymore. It’s inside me, sinking into my bones, threading through my veins. Like I’ve swallowed a mouthful of ice water and it’s spreading everywhere, freezing me from the inside out.
I try to gasp but my lungs don’t want to work.
Something coils around my waist—thick, slimy, and writhing.
I jerk back, but it slithers higher, sliding over my ribs, crushing me like a python made of rot and smoke.
My skin crawls—it’s wet and sticky, yet somehow weightless.
I can’t fight it and it smells so bad—like a pile of garbage left to fester in the sun.
Like something dead and crawling with maggots.
I feel like I’m drowning in filth.
The voice rasps in my ear again, low and intimate, as though it’s whispering right inside my skull.
“Your grandmother never loved you. She raised you out of duty, not affection. She cursed the day she took you in and she died wishing you had never been born.”
The words hit me like a punch to the gut. My breath hitches, a strangled sob rising to my throat.
“That’s n-not t-true,” I whisper hoarsely. The cold has leaked into my bones now. My teeth are chattering. “She d-did love me.”
The Wraith laughs—a sharp, scraping sound like glass shattering underfoot.
“Your friends will suffer too. The bold one who hides behind her laughter? She will burn alive in her fancy law firm. The rich one will hang herself with her pearls. The shy one will waste away, forgotten even by those who once swore to love her. None shall be spared—all are doomed! Just as you are doomed.”
“No—stop!” I shake my head violently, hot tears spilling down my frozen cheeks. The words are too awful and they form pictures in my head—pictures of all my closest friends I can’t unsee.
“Oh yes, I see them—all of them,” the thing hisses in my ear. “Their fates are sealed. And it will be your fault. You brought them together. You led them into the path of ruin. They will die screaming…and you will die knowing you doomed them.”
The coils constrict. My chest is squeezed so tight I can’t breathe—can’t breathe. Black dots dance in my field of vision. The stench intensifies, overwhelming—grave dirt…mildew…blood turned rancid…corpses left to fester in the midday sun. My stomach heaves and bile rises in my throat.
“Please…” I croak. “Please don’t—”
“You will die as you lived,” it hisses, “alone… unloved…unwanted.”
The cold spreads deeper, seeping into my marrow. My knees buckle and my arms go limp at my sides. I can feel myself slipping, all the warmth leaking out of me…no joy left…my life unraveling thread by thread…
This is it, I realize. This is how I end.
Suddenly, the door slams open.
A shaft of torchlight cuts into the cell, illuminating the swirling coils of smoke that bind me. And in the doorway stands Lucian.
“Get the fuck away from her!” he growls, his voice deep with menace.
The thing clutching me hisses, the coils constricting one last time. My vision narrows, collapsing to a tunnel. I can’t breathe!
Lucian strides forward, his eyes burning scarlet. He raises his right hand, and I see it—embedded in his palm, fused with his flesh is a jagged shard of obsidian glowing faintly crimson.
Pain slashes across his features as he curls his fingers around the shard. Blood drips from between his fingers to patter on the cold stone floor. His voice rumbles with authority and something darker—something ancient.
“By the Brand I bear, by the blood that cursed me—I command you—release her!”
The thing screams—the sound so piercing I think my skull will split apart! The coils writhe, loosening against my body, slick shadows dripping like melted tar.
I drag in a ragged breath and then another. Oh thank God—I can finally breathe again! But though they are looser, the coils are still wrapped around me, just waiting to squeeze again.
Lucian clearly doesn’t intend to let that happen. His jaw clenches, his fist tightening around the shard. More blood drips from his fingers and then I smell burning—his flesh and blood, seared by the power he’s manifesting.
“I am Don of the Crimson Syndicate!” he roars. “I hold your leash—back to the dark with you!”
The creature of slime and shadows shrieks one last time before exploding into a cloud of foul smoke. The stench is unbearable—rot and mildew and filth—but as it dissipates, something else fills my lungs when the huge Mafia Don Vampire bends over me.
It’s his scent—Lucian’s scent.
I expected blood—metallic and sour. I mean, what else would a vampire smell like? But instead his scent is dark and spicy, masculine and intoxicating—like leather and smoke, with a hint of cloves. It’s strong and alive and utterly different from the decay I was drowning in a moment ago.
His closeness is apparently too much for the thing gripping me to endure.
The coils dissolve entirely, leaving me to collapse on the freezing stone floor.
My bare skin is covered in slime—thick, black sludge that clings to my body and smells like death.
I gag and press a trembling hand to my mouth. Oh, God, now I really am going to puke!
Lucian drops to one knee beside me. His suit is immaculate, cut to perfection, but he doesn’t hesitate to scoop me into his arms. He doesn’t seem to even see the slime I’m covered in.
“My lovely one…” His voice is ragged. His chest heaves as he cradles me against him. “Gods, you’re chilled to the bone.”
I’m shaking so hard I can’t speak. His heat seeps into me—he’s so big, so warm—his chest is like a furnace against my frozen skin.
“I’ll ruin your suit,” I mumble weakly, glancing at the streaks of black slime soaking into the fine wool.
“Fuck the suit,” he growls, his voice a low rumble in my ear. His arms tighten around me, both protective and possessive. “That fucking guard—I’ll have him killed for putting you in here. Slowly.”
Now that I’m safe, I feel weariness overtaking me. My eyelids flutter, fighting a losing battle to stay open. The big vampire’s scent surrounds me, heady and dark. My body—wrung out by cold and terror—finally yields.
The world fades to black and I know no more.