Chapter 22 #2
She tried to fight the command, but she felt it burrowing into her mind. Gritting her teeth, she pushed back with every ounce of will she possessed. Beside her, Raziel was doing the same—she could see the strain in his face, the way his jaw clenched and his hands trembled.
The other vampires in the room had no such luck.
They dropped like puppets with cut strings, their knees hitting the marble floor in perfect unison. Their eyes were wide, terrified, but their bodies refused to obey anything except Lilivra’s command. They knelt there, frozen, as helpless as the humans Raziel had controlled so many times before.
Mael and Lana.
Mael’s golden eyes were blazing with impotent fury, his massive frame straining against invisible bonds.
Lana’s face was a mask of terror, her magenta eyes darting frantically, searching for an escape that didn’t exist. And Zabriel…
Zabriel looked like a man who had just watched everything he believed crumble into dust.
It was an expression that seemed perfect to be the last one he ever made, as his head rolled cleanly from his shoulders. Nadi hadn’t even seen Lilivra pull the two silver short swords from her gown.
They were beautiful—slender blades not much longer than daggers made of silvered steel that caught the light and threw it back in a thousand glittering fragments. There were runes carved into the hilts that Nadi recognized from the deepest parts of the Wild. Fae runes. Ancient words of power.
One now dripped blood onto the floor.
“A distraction.” Lilivra nodded with satisfaction. “Now then.” She turned back to Raziel and Nadi, and her smile was warm—almost loving. “Come forward, my child. My children. It is time to claim what is yours.”
“My gifts to you.” Lilivra held them out like offerings. But it wasn’t just the swords she was giving Raziel. “Take the throne that was always meant for you.”
“Raziel—” Nadi reached for him. This felt wrong.
This was wrong.
But the opportunity to kill Mael and Lana?
Raziel looked down at her, his expression a tangled mix of fury, panic, uncertainty, joy, something manic she couldn’t even name. “We have to do this, Nadi. We have to.”
He rolled his shoulder before taking her hand in his and squeezing it gently before pulling her up to her feet. It was his injured arm. Vampire healing. She was jealous of it, honestly. But it wouldn’t get them out of this situation.
Together.
She squeezed his hand back silently. Together.
Raziel stepped forward first. His expression carefully blank as he examined the sword, testing its weight, running his fingers along the flat of the blade.
Nadi followed, her wound still throbbing but her mind strangely clear. The sword felt right in her hand—like it had been made for her. Like it had been waiting for her all this time.
“This is your birthright,” Lilivra said, addressing Raziel. “You were always meant to rule, grandson. Not as a puppet of your mother, not as a rival to your siblings, but as the king of all vampires. The one who tears down the old order and builds something new. Something better.”
She gestured at the kneeling figures before them. “These two stand in your way. They always have. Mael, with his political games and his dreams of empire. Lana, with her schemes and her cruelty. They have done nothing but hold you back from your true destiny.”
“You want us to execute them,” Nadi said flatly.
“I want him to take his rightful place.” Lilivra’s starlight eyes met hers before she turned her attention back to Raziel. She smiled. “Kill them, and the throne is yours.”
This was wrong.
Very wrong.
But to have their deadliest enemies served up on a silver platter…?
How could they say no?
How could they walk away?
They should.
They absolutely should.
Lilivra was…
This was all too much.
Nadi looked at Raziel. He was staring at his siblings—at Mael’s furious eyes, at Lana’s terrified ones—with an expression she couldn’t quite read. Was he actually considering it? After everything they had done? After the coffin and the drowning and the endless betrayals?
Of course he was.
This was what he had wanted from the beginning. What Lilivra had seeded in his mind as a child and cultivated through decades of suffering. The throne. The power. The chance to tear it all down and start again.
“Raziel,” Mael said, his voice strained against Lilivra’s control. “Brother—you can’t—this isn’t you—”
“Isn’t it?” Raziel walked forward, the silver sword gleaming in his hand.
“This is exactly who I am, Mael. This is who you and Mother and everyone else in this miserable family made me. A monster. A killer. The mad dog who delights in murder.” His lips curved in a smile that was all teeth.
“You should have just settled for killing me, dear brother. You really should have.”
He stopped in front of Mael, looking down at his golden-eyed brother with something that might have been contempt—or might have been pity.
“Any last words?”
Mael’s jaw worked, fighting against the compulsion that held him silent. When he finally spoke, his voice was a growl of pure hatred. “I should have cut out your heart when we were children. Mother always said you were broken. She was right.”
“Yes,” Raziel agreed. “She was.”
The sword moved in a silver arc. Mael’s head left his shoulders in a spray of dark blood, his expression frozen in that final moment of hatred. His massive body slumped forward, hitting the marble floor with a sound that seemed to echo forever.
Lana screamed—or tried to. The sound came out strangled, choked by Lilivra’s control over her throat. Tears were streaming down her face now, ruining her perfect makeup, making her look young and vulnerable in a way Nadi had never seen before.
“Please,” Lana gasped. “Raziel—please, my brother, my dear sweet brother—I never wanted—I was just trying to survive—you know what she was like—what Mother expected of us—”
Raziel’s voice was flat. “You helped Mael put me in that coffin. You laughed, Lana. I remember. You laughed as they sealed the lid. You laughed when I was in the bottom of that fountain.”
“I was scared! I was—I didn’t have a choice—”
“There’s always a choice.” Raziel looked at Nadi, and something passed between them—an understanding that needed no words. “Do you want to do this one?”
Nadi stepped forward, the silver sword balanced perfectly in her grip. She looked down at Lana—at the woman who had traded in flesh, who had helped orchestrate so much suffering, who had smiled and schemed while people like Nadi’s family were hunted like animals.
“You were going to make an example of me,” Nadi said quietly. “Execute me publicly and use my death as a symbol.”
“Please—” Lana’s voice broke. “I can be useful—I know things—I can help you rule—”
“No,” Nadi said. “You can’t.”
The blade sang as it cut through the air. Lana’s head joined her brother’s on the floor, her magenta eyes still wide with terror, her perfect lips still forming a plea that would never be finished.
Nadi stared down at the severed heads of Mael and Lana. And expected to feel something. Anything. Triumph. Victory. Relief.
Nothing.
Not even disappointment.
Raziel had a blank expression on his face. Likely thinking the same thing, if Nadi had to guess.
Maybe they really had nothing left in their black hearts to feel. Maybe they had just killed one too many people in their lives for these to matter.
“Good.” Lilivra drew their attention back to her. “Now that the ugly family situation has been dealt with, there is one more matter to address, Raziel, before you can ascend to your newfound glory.”
There it was. The other shoe was about to drop. Raziel stepped just slightly closer to Nadi. “Which is what, exactly?”
“Oh, sweet boy.” Lilivra’s words were soft with a gentle sweetness that did nothing to betray the nature of what was going on around them. “I’m sure you know what must be done.”
Raziel went rigid in front of her. “Spell it out for me anyway.”
Lilivra shrugged and smiled. “Now, of course, Nadi must die.”