Chapter 26
Ophelia ghosted through the ship’s corridors, a cacophony of heartbeats from above bleeding into each other. They fluttered and jumped, erratic amidst the battle at sea.
Save one.
Memories of the massacre at the Citadel tripped through her mind. Of the single man standing at the center of the carnage, dispassionately disemboweling those that had risen against him. Severing their heads. The slow thud of his pulse against her afterwards. The emptiness in his eyes.
Kremlyn.
A grim smile tipped her lips as she locked onto it, letting it guide her steps. Worn carpet becoming solid planking, then harsh metal grating; the smell of the sea sharpening.
She passed few moving through the stark hallways.
Those she did pressed themselves to the walls and averted their gazes, her crimson robes marking her as Kremlyn’s property.
The doctor all those years ago had been right.
The vampire prince suffered no rivals for his concubine’s attentions, and at the Citadel, to look upon them uninvited meant a death far more final than vampirism had “gifted” them with.
Here, it meant the same, but their ends came at Ophelia’s hands.
Shadows writhed at her command and flesh ruptured. They slumped to the ground, eyes unseeing pits within their tatuaj and their corpses desiccated. Eviscerated. Gore spattered against long rows of piping and dripped through harsh metal grates as a warning to those cowering from her like rats below.
She slowed only to swipe a dagger from one of her victim’s belts, tucking it into her wide sleeve. Blood trickled from her ravaged flesh, the robe’s horrific rasp grounding her in her body, her mind fixated on the task ahead, and her fury buoying her.
This ended now.
Ophelia turned from the splayed remains, the dagger’s hilt sticky against her palm. Ahead was the door leading to the main deck.
And to Kremlyn.
A flutter of fear-tinged anticipation coursed through her and was silenced by her rage.
She pushed open the metal slab and stepped onto the ship’s deck.
A breeze lifted the stiffened edge of her hood shading her eyes from the bright sunlight.
The fog had blown back from the rails, leaving the boat in an eerie pocket of open water.
Battle raged around them, the sea faes’ screams and thrashing waves, seabirds shrilling, diving for spoils.
None of it registered, her attention fixed on the man standing in the center of it all, his heartbeat a siren’s call, luring her footsteps closer.
The vampire prince turned at the low scrape of her trailing robe against the deck. His brows furrowed as she neared, darkness glinting in his eyes, warning off his guards. They turned their backs, and for all intents, the two of them were alone.
“Little bird.” Kremlyn faced her, displeasure creasing his face. “Have you been gone so long you’ve forgotten the rules? You know better than to leave your cage.”
She wet her lips, the tang of copper teasing her tongue. “Vesper sent me.”
He frowned. “Did she now?”
Ophelia dipped her head, her fist tightening around the dagger hidden in her sleeve.
His aura was tangible, beating against her.
A malaise, snuffing out her light. Fear crept back in, and she trembled.
Kremlyn’s hand snaked out, gripping her throat and pulling her closer.
She gasped, her hood falling back enough for his eyes to meet hers.
His gaze roamed over her face, calculating.
“No, I don’t think she did,” he murmured, running his nose along her cheek and breathing her in. She froze beneath his predatory stare, and his fingers around her throat tightened. “You reek of blood not your own. Did I say you could feed?”
“I didn’t,” Ophelia rasped, fighting for air.
“Lies.” He licked a spatter of gore from her jaw and chuckled darkly. Her stomach roiled, sweat beading at her brow. “Ah, I’ve missed you. Do you know why?”
Ophelia shook her head, eyes closed, rooted as his other hand slid around her, cruelly cupping her backside and pulling her against him.
Glass ground into her flesh, and she bit back a whimper, everything he’d ever done to her crashing through her psyche and beating her down as surely as his fists had.
“Your continued defiance,” he gritted out. “I long to see that fire dim in your eyes and know that I’m the one who broke you. And I will, Ophelia. I promise you that.”
Her rage flickered. He already had. In so very many ways, but Gideon had put her back together, and she’d be damned before she let Kremlyn take anything from her ever again.
A low whistle sounded, and he dropped his hand from her throat. “Ah. Right on schedule.” A wicked smile slicked over his face, and his attention moved from her to the sky. Ophelia’s gaze darted to where he was looking.
Gideon. A fist clenched around her heart. Oh God, he’d come for her.
Vampires skittered around them, rushing to the gunwale, shouting and pointing. The fist in Ophelia’s chest tightened. Gideon was struggling. He fought to gain altitude, but the beat of his wings was jerky and uncoordinated. He dipped lower toward the sea.
Oh, Deo… Please God, no. Not him…
“Do you think he’ll make it?” Kremlyn crooned in her ear. “He could. I wonder how much damage he’d do before the ocean renders him completely impotent. I thought about it. Letting him land, then leaving him to suffer as a statue. Would you like him to watch you take your punishment?”
She bit back a sob, tears tracking down her cheeks. Gideon seeing her like that wouldn’t just break her—it would destroy them both.
“But I’ve a sneaking suspicion that would end our game far too quickly, and I haven’t even begun to get my fill of you.” Kremlyn pulled her against him again and chuckled at her whimper. “Thank me, Ophelia. I’ve decided to show your gargoyle mercy instead.”
He raised a hand, signaling, and a massive blast came from the ship, rocking the vessel as several projectiles sped toward Gideon.
He fought to change his trajectory, but was too slow, the ocean siphoning his strength.
Ophelia watched in horror as they slammed into him, grit and stone exploding into the air, and Gideon plummeted from the sky, the icy waves below swallowing him whole.
A harrowing scream ripped from her throat. “Noooo!”
Kremlyn chuckled malevolently, his hardening member pressing against her abdomen. “There’s my little bird’s song. Sing it again for me, darling. Give me all that pain from knowing you’ll never see your gargoyle again.”
Ophelia panted, then she wet her lips and swallowed, that strange calm descending over her like a shroud. Her rage flared anew, fear leaving her.
Her gaze slid from the waves back to the vampire prince’s. He was wrong.
She would see Gideon again, and she would see Kremlyn in hell. She clutched the dagger in her hand and thrust it into his gut. He gave a strangled grunt, his eye flying wide in surprise.
“You want all my pain?” she gritted out, her voice thick with compulsion. “Then take it.”
His face twitched, rage blossoming across his countenance, and his body trembling beneath her command, fighting to regain control.
“Shh…” Ophelia twisted the knife, keeping him close, his guard oblivious to what was going on. “What’s the matter, Kremlyn, does it hurt?” she murmured, sawing at him. He coughed, a bloody mist speckling her face and a long line of gore erupting from his mouth, painting his chin.
Several guards glanced over at the sound, their hands going to their weapons.
Too late.
Long, writhing shadows shot from her, spearing into the troops. Vampires exploded into steaming piles of gore, their dark entrails heaped in mounds where they’d stood, bones blasted over the deck and embedded in the cabin walls, their weapons scattered across the deck.
Fear flickered in the depths of Kremlyn’s eyes, and beyond it, where his soul should’ve been, something turned its attention toward her.
“I’m not your little bird, and tell your master Havers is mine,” she hissed, another shadow rising to rope itself around his throat.
Ophelia stepped back, her rage condensing into a tight ball of fury.
She sent it out, her entire being willing him to suffer everything he’d ever visited upon her.
Kremlyn screamed, flailing as his skin was stripped from his body, muscles erupting into gelatinous globs, and his innards exploding into steaming trails of viscera across the blood-soaked deck.
The sound of waves against the ship’s hull was the first sound to register in the silence. Then the cry of birds. Their wings flapping. Landing to gorge themselves on the macabre bounty.
Ophelia staggered, the rapid the heartbeats of those cowering below the last to reach her ears.
Let them stew in their fear. She wanted them to see what could happen when they finally emerged.
What would happen if any of the filth dared to show their faces to her again.
She was a queen, but she’d be damned again before she claimed the Citadel as her kingdom.
She knelt and plucked up a dagger by her feet, slicing through the corset and robe, then shucking it off. Her flesh a ruin of red, rubbed raw and sliced deep, and a pool of gore at her feet, she stood naked and shivering amid the massacre.
Born anew.
Her gaze found the point off the stern where Gideon had disappeared. She ran toward it and dove into the icy water.
The shock of it disoriented her, the frigid salt searing agony over her open wounds, she seized, then flailed, unable to tell which way was up, everything a murky gray green.
A serpentine tail flashed past her, and then again, circling her.
A merwoman floated before her, brown hair streaked with emerald billowed out around her lithe form.
Her eyes were as black as the abyss, yet kind.