Chapter 43
Ambrose halted in his tracks. Every muscle, every hair on his head, every blood cell in his body—it all stopped. Lila’s blood sprayed across his face as her body was thrown from the room.
She was fine. She had to be fine.
She could heal.
She was the Sun Child, for lords’ sake.
Lila would be fine.
His wife would be fine.
“Lila?” Marcus’s voice cracked behind him, sounding so small, so . . . fragile.
Ambrose heard a resounding thump come from the window, and he knew it was Lila hitting the ground. He saw it, in his mind. Her body, mangled and broken and . . . cold.
Dead.
The word hit him harder than the knife she’d driven through his heart her first full day in the Crow Court. His eyes grew blurry, his cheeks wet, and he still wasn’t completely sure why he was crying.
Not until he tried to call her name through the Concord. Lila?
Not until she didn’t reply. And it felt how it did when she wore the collar. When the Concord between them simply didn’t exist.
He didn’t even realize what his body was doing. He lunged at Drusilla, his claws immediately digging into her head. He clapped his hands together, smashing her skull between his palms. Eyeballs and teeth dripped down his wrists.
But the fucking hag of the Arachnid Estate was a vampire, and a powerful one at that. She healed, just as Hektor’s jaw had swiftly healed when Ciro punched it clean off of him.
“You—” Marcus’s voice broke through the ringing in Ambrose’s ears, stuttering, stopping . . . breaking. “You killed . . . my sister.” He paused, and Drusilla’s head melded together, her eyes rolling as they grew back into place. “YOU KILLED MY SISTER!”
Marcus lunged, and Ambrose reacted solely on his fight or flight, unconsciously moving to assist Marcus’s attacks. He grabbed her and twisted Drusilla’s back toward Marcus, just as the younger vampire drove his hand through her. Ripping his hand back, he did it again, and again—until he punctured her heart with his claws.
Marcus slumped to the floor, his eyes dazed as he stared at the floor. “She killed Lila. Lila.” He repeated this over and over, and with each instance, the words nailed to Ambrose’s mind just a little bit more.
He dropped Drusilla, and took a few steps back. Ambrose ran a hand over his face, and when he pulled away, his palm was stained in red. Human blood. Lila’s blood. In a cacophony of anguish and pain and torment and hate and rage, Ambrose screamed his throat raw, he screamed his lungs out, he screamed but still felt far too much.
He needed to go to Lila, to confirm she was fine. He imagined her lying there, wound already healed, ready to fight on.
Ambrose ran to the window, ready to leap out. Ready to leap to Lila. The sun sizzled his skin as his head passed the windowsill. But it was fine. Lila was fine. This didn’t mean anything.
He saw her, lilac hair surrounding a serene face, blood pooling around, saturating that color he loved so much. His heart raced, slamming his chest with each beat, yet he felt like he couldn’t breathe.
Something crashed loudly behind him, but it didn’t matter—he needed to get to Lila. To just . . . get to her.
But the moment he pushed from the window, a long tendril pierced his calf, driving through his flesh, muscle, and bone, before it pulled him back into the room.
Ambrose smashed into the hardwood below, his wing taking the brunt of the damage as he landed on it, snapping the bone within. He grunted, but jumped to his feet quickly, taking in the room around him.
Everything was destroyed. Marcus caged Constance, now awake, under him. And a massive spider was crawling over him as it pulled its leg from his thigh, dripping his blood all over the floor.
Drusilla struck again, this time with two long legs, stabbing toward Ambrose’s chest. He spun out of the way, grabbing one of the long legs and snapping it. But Drusilla was in her prime, healing immediately. She lunged again, attempting to drive her fangs into him.
Snarling, he grabbed her chelicerae, and pulled them apart, waiting to hear the crunch as they dislocated. The moment they did, he puffed his chest, and summoned the crows from within as he’d done with Ciro. He pulled them farther apart, and released the murder into Drusilla’s face, knowing all of his crows would be diving beak first. They swarmed as they shot from him, piercing through Drusilla. She made a shrill noise, and reared back.
“Marcus, get Constance out of here!” he ordered. The birds took up the room, and as Drusilla backed away, she crashed through the door, breaking it and the wall down, into the main hall once more. The room was wild, but they’d been winning—before Lila.
Before Lila, they were beginning to outnumber the strigoi. They were beginning to take back the power. They were beginning to win.
But without Lila, all it took was a single bite. One bite, and they’d be changed into strigoi once more.
Ambrose snapped his wing back into place, flinched at the pain, but forced them to move as he launched toward the ceiling. From his brief glance around the room, he saw the other manor lords still fighting, Darius and Rebekkah back-to-back, Nostro surrounding them in a swarm of maggots to shield against attacks. Fangs and claws ripped into flesh. Vampire against strigoi.
Fangs snapped behind him once more, and Ambrose’s quick reprieve came to an end. He turned and faced Drusilla, the brown fuzz, snapping fangs, and large beady black eyes already focused on him. The crows of the Crow Court surrounded Ambrose, a tiny army in size, but not in number. They were just as ready.
Ambrose slammed his wings down, propelling himself forward. He threw himself onto Drusilla and let the monster of Malvania take over. For Lila.
He slashed and tore, digging his claws into the spider’s sternum, pulling at organs as she screamed and writhed. Below, Marcus leaped onto one of her legs, climbing up it until he was next to Ambrose.
Marcus stabbed his hand, nails like knives, into the joint connecting her body and one of the eight legs. He repeated the motion, stabbing over and over until the leg came loose.
Drusilla buckled under them, knocking them both off. They caught themselves immediately, but Drusilla shifted back into her monstrous form, arm sputtering blood where it was ripped from the socket.
“You fucking bastards!” she screamed, then immediately lunged at them as the arm only just began to reform.
Ambrose met her midair, stabbing through her chest, slashing her neck, as her nails drove through his gut. He didn’t care, he snapped her neck, but she healed, and smashed her hand into his cheek, breaking his jaw. The crows swarmed them, diving at her, and driving their beaks through her fleshy wings. Torn open, her wings faltered, and as she fell, Marcus was there. He grabbed Drusilla by the hair, swinging her body up for Ambrose to catch.
Grabbing her shoulders, and Marcus wrapping his hands under her jaw, the two pulled, flapping their wings toward each other.
Drusilla screamed as she was being ripped in two. The skin on her neck stretched until it tore, black blood sprayed widely, sprayed all over them, all over the floor and strigoi fighting below them. Drusilla slashed and fought, but she couldn’t stop them.
“Just fucking die,” Ambrose seethed, pulling with all his might. Drusilla’s neck popped, her spine falling apart, and then her body fell limp in his hands.
“Marcus!” Constance called from below. She had a sconce in her hand, flame burning bright. Marcus pitched Drusilla’s head at the floor below, throwing it hard. The moment it smashed the marble floor, Constance threw the fire onto it, burning her head in the middle of the great hall.
“Ambrose,” Maronai flew up beside him, taking Drusilla’s body from his hands. “She’s my responsibility. Give her to me. I’ll bury her as far south as I can fly.”
Ambrose let him take her, and before he could process anything more, he flew from the room.
Lila, Lila, Lila, was all he could focus on.
He flew through the doors, the sunlight stinging his flesh, burning small holes in his wings. But he couldn’t stop. Not till he reached her. The battle with Drusilla must’ve only lasted a handful of minutes, but that already was too much time away from her. He rounded the corner of the manor, saw the bloodstain on the ground, covering the dirt.
But Lila was just . . . gone.
Lila? Lila!
He looked all around. There was no sign that she got up and walked away from here. No blood drops, no footsteps.
Am-Ambrose. A voice, faint and weak, but a voice. Her voice.
Lila! Where are you?
He waited for what felt like an eternity, spinning in a circle, looking for a sign.
Room.
Ambrose dashed back inside through the window of his office. He flapped his wings as hard as they would, flew through the main hall, up the stairs, down the hall, up the other stairs, and down to Lila’s bedroom. He heard crashing and cursing from beyond the door.
But as he broke through the door, nothing he saw was what he prepared himself for.
Her bed was covered in blood, the sheets were torn apart, feathers and fabric everywhere, chairs overturned, her clothes thrown about. But . . . the curtains were scorched, the balcony door was thrown open, and Hektor Reinick was hurriedly crawling away from them. His clothing had been reduced to scraps, his back was red and raw, with long, thin burn marks as though caused by a whip, his face half pink and raw and oozing, the other half a crispy, purplish black.
As Ambrose continued to survey the room, as he followed the path Hektor crawled from, he saw a figure standing on the balcony. The sun shone in his eye, peeking behind the figure, silhouetting her until she stepped forward.
A swarm of crows flew behind Lila, ready to defend her, cawing like a battle cry, as the sun fueled her. Her fiery brown eyes met Ambrose’s, bursts of oranges and golds and reds shimmering. Dried blood caked her neck, but there was no wound in sight. Instead, her neck was covered by a new golden collar, much like the one on her when they first reunited. But this time, the gold was dripping. Melting down her chest.
Pure liquid gold.
Lila’s light lilac hair blew in the morning breeze, the summer solstice sun at her back, and an aura of hazy heat distorted the air around her. The haze continued from her hand, like that of a whip, and Ambrose knew where the marks on Hektor’s back had come from.
“He’s mine,” she said, her voice pure fucking satisfaction. Her pink lips tilted into a smile, and Ambrose felt his cock harden just at the sight of her.
An utterly perfect sun goddess.