After
Adriana
It was in the early hours of the morning when Adriana awoke, gasping for breath as she coughed and heaved. The air that flowed through her lungs burned her throat and her chest—the bittersweet feeling of life mixed with the loss of comfort from a snatched-away oblivion.
Striga had once told her that when a Daemon died, Mortis would send an angel to accompany them to the Land of the Dead.
Adriana did not know if she had seen an angel.
The last thing she remembered was Xander, smiling down at her, as one of her hands reached towards his face whilst her other gripped the cold hand of death.
Only the Land of the Dead felt very much like the Land of the Living. Her own bedroom, to be exact.
She held a hand to her neck, trying to soothe the burn as her breathing gradually steadied, but the pain remained. Her entire body hurt, as if someone had set fire to the blood that ran through her veins.
She slowly stood, clutching the bed posts for support as her body swayed. The golden light from the start of the sunrise streamed through her window. It was then that she saw her arms. They were not only covered in blood, they were covered in swirling dark markings.
Adriana ran to her vanity, crashing into the mirror as she took in the thin lines that intricately wrapped and curled around her arms from her shoulders to the tips of her fingers.
She stared at her reflection, seeing the blood that covered her.
The deeper wounds were still covered with slick, red blood coating her skin, but the shallower ones had dried to a dark brown crust. She scrubbed the blood away with her nails, finding bite marks at various stages of healing across her neck, chest, and arms, and a small scar on her cheekbone.
But the blood that covered the lower half of her face had no scar, no mark, no trace of a wound.
It wasn’t her blood. It was Xander’s.
The memories of the night came flooding back to her.
Striga’s light had rattled the entire house, and when she had tried to leave her room, she’d found her door locked from the outside.
Her father had made her promise to stay inside, to use everything she could to protect herself.
She could not argue upon hearing the desperation in his voice.
It wasn’t long after that the screaming started.
She heard the shouts and cries from the staff outside, pleading for their lives to be spared, followed by harrowing shrieks of pain.
That was when she saw him. He wasn’t her Xander, not anymore.
This was a creature of nightmares, a powerful lord of death, the ruthless original Lamia.
It felt like a nightmare, one that she couldn’t wake up from, but the inevitable truth was drawn upon her skin.
Xander had killed her. He had tortured her, murdered her.
There had been no frenzy, no sign of the bloodlust she had seen him fall victim to before.
Though he had bitten her over and over, Xander had decided to kill her with his bare hands.
And he had unknowingly fed her his blood before doing so.
She scratched at his dried blood on her mouth, desperate to remove it from her skin as if it would reverse what it had caused.
She didn’t want this, she had never wanted a life of a Lamia.
And now, with Nocte brandings covering her arms, it would be obvious who she descended from.
Who she belonged to. Who had killed her.
Adriana’s breathing became erratic as she fisted at her tattered, blood-stained wedding dress, hating the feel of it on her skin.
She turned her back to the mirror and looked over her shoulder, peering down at her brands.
Her Luciferus sun stood untouched at the base of the back of her neck, but as she trailed her eyes down her Incantrix moon cycle beneath it, she saw the central moon had changed.
What was once a bright full moon was now an eclipse, with her new Nocte markings pooling from it.
She stared in shock, still not wanting to believe what she knew to be true. She had been reborn, she was immortal, and the pain in her throat was her deep, ravenous hunger.
She stumbled out of her room, not used to the strength and speed her body now possessed, and headed for Striga’s chambers.
She had felt and seen the light her great-grandmother had unleashed before Xander’s attack, everyone had.
Adriana needed to find her. She needed her help and she refused to believe that Striga would have allowed Xander to take her down, even if he wasn’t in full control of himself.
But as she rounded the corner to Striga’s open door and saw her great-grandmother lying in a pool of her own blood, the truth was undeniable.
Striga was dead.
Adriana dropped to her knees, her hands shaking as she crawled to where Striga lay and pulled her into her lap, cradling her body.
A guttural scream tore through her throat, shaking the walls of the room and rattling the floorboards.
Bright light emanated from her as the shadows from the corners of the room rushed towards her, dancing around as if to attempt to embrace her but could not quite reach through her Luciferus magic.
She did not want the shadows, she did not want any of it, and she just screamed and screamed until she couldn’t anymore.
Striga was gone, her father was gone, her entire house had been wiped out. All because of Xander. He had killed them all.
The thought of him made her head explode in pain, the burn in her throat increasing to a scorching fire, her control of her light and new shadows disappearing. She had told him before that her feelings for him were her weakness, and now he was her complete and utter downfall.
“Adriana!”
Her head snapped towards the sound of a man calling her name.
“Adriana! Are you here?”
It wasn’t just any man, it was Jonathon. She stood and drifted to the balcony that stood over the entrance to the house and saw him hovering over the body of a maid on the stairs.
“Up here,” she breathed out, her voice low and husky.
He raised his head and rushed up the stairs to her, but stopped when he saw her bloodied dress and the markings on her arms.
“What happened? Adriana, what have you done?”
“It was not me, you have nothing to fear. I promise you, Jonathon, it's just me.”
Her voice called out to him, her smile inviting him to move closer.
He slowly climbed the rest of the stairs, walking in a daze as he became enraptured by the Lure she had not even meant to cast. She knew she didn’t want to hurt him, she didn’t want to destroy the only person she had left, but she was so hungry.
“I saw the bodies,” he stuttered. “I saw your father outside. I thought you were hurt. I thought you were dead.”
“Hush, there is no need to worry, I am still here.” She leant into his touch as he raised a hand to stroke her cheek. “You can touch me, I am right here. You can kiss me. That is what you want, is it not?”
He nodded as he brought his face down, tilting to the side to pull her into a deep kiss.
It was so easy to convince him, so easy to trap him in her Lure.
And then, before his lips could even brush over hers, Adriana grabbed him by the back of his hair and wrenched his head to the side.
With a horrifying snarl, she sunk her teeth into his neck.
Jonathon cried out, falling to his knees in pain as she bent down to follow him, her mouth never detaching from his neck.
Adriana could taste his sweet blood soothing the burning of her throat.
She could sense the power it gave her as she drank deeply from him, the remaining wounds on her body instantly sealing themselves shut.
She felt incredible. She was so overcome with euphoria that she didn’t care who he was. And she did not register the dagger he unsheathed until he embedded it into her side.
She pulled back with a growl, before snapping out of her frenzy and staring down. Her trembling hands pulled the dagger from her side with a grunt. It hurt terribly, but she could already feel her body healing.
She turned back to Jonathon, ready to either explain herself or let him kill her, only to watch him cough on his own blood as he collapsed. And then she realised, she had torn his throat out with her teeth.
“No! No, no, no, no, Jonathon, please no!”
She caught him before his head could hit the floor and knelt down beside him. His eyes met hers and the hatred within them only reflected the loathing she, too, felt for herself.
“Please, I can save you—I can turn you!”
She brought the dagger up to his mouth, urging him to lick her blood from it, but he shook his head, his mouth clamped shut. Even as he bled out, he tried to get away from her, to get away from the monster she had become.
“No, please, no. I’m sorry, Jonathon, I am so sorry. I did not mean for this, I swear I did not mean for this to happen.”
She cried as she held his body, the blood pumping from his torn throat gradually coming to a stop as his chest stopped moving. She had killed him. In ravenous bloodlust she had killed her oldest friend, her first lover, her stable boy.
The grief and shame of her actions assaulted her mind in waves of pain. She was a monster, a bloodthirsty monster, and she knew what she had to do.
The sun had finally fully risen and it had begun to snow, a thin layer of white covering the grounds of Amara House. Adriana stood in her destroyed wedding dress, clutching Striga’s Tales of Daemonium and staring at her home as it was engulfed by her flames.
She had laid all the bodies of the staff, her father and Jonathon in the hallway, before she lifted Striga into her bed and left a rose from the garden in her hands. She could not find it within her to cry anymore as she watched her home burn down. There was nothing left for her now.
A dark wisp slithered up her arm and wove through her hair before coming to a stop on her shoulder, its cool touch familiar.
It was one of his shadows. She had felt that comforting caress so many times.
She’d felt it as a child when she first found him in the cellar, again when he first worked out who she was the day he moved into Duran Manor, then when they’d spend night after night tangled up in one another, and when she had taken her final breaths as he killed her.
It was his shadow, and it was offering itself to her.
She didn’t want it. She didn’t want any of this. Xander knew she had never wanted to become a Lamia and he had agreed. And yet here she was, a figure forever frozen in time, cursed to live an undying death.
As she threw the shadow away in disgust, there were shouts from the manor across the lake, one of which she recognised as Deion’s voice with her heightened hearing.
She knew it wouldn’t be long before they came to investigate, and so she stepped forward to join the fire.
This was not a life she wanted. It had been forced upon her, but she refused to be forced to live it.
Adriana felt the flames lick her bare feet when she was suddenly pulled backwards.
She spun round, ready to attack whoever it was from Duran Manor that had come for her, but froze in her tracks.
It wasn’t any of Xander’s brothers, but a woman, dressed in a pristine purple dress with her black hair held in several braids that ended at her waist and familiar eyes.
“Do I know you?” Adriana asked.
The woman smiled as she held her hand out for Adriana to take. “In a sense, yes, as all family know one another. I am Armida Romilly, my grandmother was Divina. I had a feeling you would need my help today.”
Adriana’s heart skipped a beat. She knew Divina’s family had gone into hiding when she had died and had no idea where any of them had gone, nor if she would ever meet them again. She had thought she was all alone, with no one left.
“We do not have much time,” she continued. “His brothers are on their way, and he will come back soon now that he is awake again."
Adriana paled. She could not see Xander, even if he was back in control of himself. She would never be able to meet him again, it would destroy any last bit of humanity within her. He could never know that she was alive.
She turned to watch the porch of her house collapse as the fire ravaged the building. Just a few steps forward and it would all be over.
"Do not stay here to join the dead," Armida softly spoke, her hand coming up to rest on Adriana's shoulder. "You do not have to live as the monster you think you are, nor do you have to lose your life. Please, let me help you, cousin.”
She faced Armida again and, before she could contemplate it any further, she took her outstretched hand.
They ran behind the treeline to a horse before anyone could see them, where Adriana climbed up on the saddle behind her. She refused to glance back as they sped away through the trees, away from the life she was leaving behind, from the life that had been stolen from her.
But Adriana could not help but weep into Armida’s shoulder as she heard the unmistakable sound of Xander’s gut-wrenching roar of despair.