CHAPTER 22
KADE
Two Hundred Years Ago — Goreon Kingdom
AS HUNTERS DIE, so does my soul.
My magic wails at me, and agony pelts, chipping away at me like an axe. The loss of our Master is a weight I don’t know how to hold.
I didn’t know it would hurt like this.
This sorrow is the worst I’ve ever felt. And an understanding flashes: The choice my father made to save his Hunters all those years ago. I don’t think I can blame him so harshly now as my losses threaten my sanity.
We need to end this before we lose anyone else.
This is no longer a mission to kill the king; we need to get out. We’ve saved hundreds from the dungeon, and Sam is in our grasp. It’s time to leave. I won’t be foolish enough to go for a glory that wastes more lives.
Brachett races up the dais toward Master Hull.
“Work your way toward the exits! We’re leaving!” I command, backing up toward Rhett and Grace to help them with Sam.
Master Hull is slumped next to the throne, eyes vacant, and Brachett hoists him onto his back while I stake through five vampires, my speed untraceable as they attempt to take me down by overwhelming me with their numbers.
Not a fucking chance.
Longton lifts Ned onto his back, his burly legs carrying Ned’s weight with ease as he rises, eyes on fire, and his magic ricocheting against mine in mourning.
Vampires will come to their senses within the hour, and I need my people close to safety. Close to daylight.
Riot fights further down the aisle, maintaining a wide berth near the antechamber doorway in a brilliant display of Hunter technique and power, his magic whirring and vibrant, his body honed, and his honor threading along his skin as he defends our pathway.
Grace and I force our way down the dais, blood running down the steps as Hunter and vampire life force blend in death for the first time since the Great Divide War. Brachett, Longton, and Rhett carry our people behind us.
My focus darts to the antechamber as I sense the magic of Hunters beyond the door pulse and respond to a vampiric presence.
Dawn breaks, the faintest light funneling in through the entrance hall beyond the antechamber, and vampires begin to come to their senses.
A breath from Riot, the queen snaps into the throne room; she snarls, but he doesn’t hesitate to attack. Her fighting skill is decent, holding him off and snapping around his blade. Riot lunges with his broadsword again, but she jumps back, avoiding him with a devilish smile.
Grace and I hurdle over bodies, trying to get to him.
Riot ditches his sword and draws two stakes from his belt in a blink, his Hunter form vibrating with his magic, throwing everything he has into this moment in a flurry of jabs.
As she snaps around him, one of Riot’s stakes finally hits home into the queen’s heart, and the vampire sputters into eternal death.
He spins to find me, a prideful grin plastered wide as I gaze upon his victory and smile back.
One step closer to ending this rule, one throne down. We’ll take that win today.
Taking the head off a vampire in front of me, we continue to fight our way toward Riot as vampire numbers dwindle around us, either fleeing from us or bending over in pain their bodies wouldn’t allow them to experience in dreamwalk.
I hurtle down the aisle, almost to Riot, gripping a stake in each hand, and jab them out to my sides, taking two vampires attacking my flanks. My magic twirls, and I stab stake after stake, with Grace in my wake.
Suddenly, everyone freezes in place, and the magic of the Hunters surrounding me screams so loud I choke on my own breath in pain.
I spin around to my worst nightmare.
The king of Goreon has snapped into the hall, and his large hand is clasped around Gracie’s delicate neck, pinning her in place. Pale Hunters and hissing vampires focus on the king.
Her face is etched with terror, and gold threads morph into pitch black within me—panic, warning, despair.
My magic’s fear is potent and harrowing as the king clutches the Heir, his sneer aimed at her throat.
“She’s unbitten. I beg you,” I snarl, and my soul prays to the gods.
“I’m so glad you’re still here,” the king drawls. “I was afraid I’d wake up to a mess to clean, but what a pleasant surprise this is.” His red eyes flick to mine, and the yards between us are maddening.
“I can’t believe you brought a human warrior with you,” he continues into her neck, lips grazing my wife, and I want to rip his fucking head off watching him touch her. “Such a sweet-smelling one at that,” he says, fingers trailing down Grace’s neck.
I take a step toward them, furious, and on the edge of releasing every dark, merciless part of me.
Rhett is behind them, the same distance as I am, with Sam’s arm slung over his shoulders. Eyes clear and mind lucid, Sam’s focus is now on his sister, his magic pushing him to protect the Heir, just like all of us.
“Unhand her,” Sam growls, and the king’s attention swivels.
“You are supposed to be mine. I sent a note and everything,” he says haughtily.
This vampire is fucking insane.
The king sighs, rolling out his neck as he drags Grace to his front, wrapping an arm around her chest.
“No matter, you were about used up, weren’t you?” the king says, eyeing Sam.
In the next blink, Sam is on the ground, throat slashed and eyes empty, and the king grips Grace by the neck again, her body bent over in front of him.
My rage burns, and everything hurts under the weight of death and desperation. I can’t shift my focus from Sam, locked in disbelief, heart—empty.
His life just … gone.
Chaos brims like a raging monster gnawing through the chains that hold it.
Grace whimpers as she stares at her dead brother, gasping in shock.
Rhett drops to his knees, shaking his best friend.
And I force myself to focus on the one thing I have left.
My Gracie.
I won’t risk her life with bloodshed against a king who’s faster than I can track or a negotiation with anything less than what she’s worth. I drop my stakes, splaying my hands wide. “Spare her, and you can kill me,” I growl, my soul and magic spinning with desperation. “A life for a life.”
“No!” Grace screams, trying to wrench away from the king. “This was my choice, Kade!”
I catch her eyes with mine, pouring every ounce of adoration I possess into my look. “There are no conditions to my love, Grace. Including death.”
“Ah, I see,” the king says through a grin, then tsks at me. “But your life, Hunter? For your woman?” He scoffs, tipping Grace’s head back and assessing her like a prized mare. “Not very becoming of a Hunter to choose his woman over his sworn duty.”
My eyes narrow. This king has no idea who Grace Hull is.
“I agree to your terms, Hunter. With one amendment.” The Goreon King points a taunting smile at me, and my muscles tremble with restraint.
But instead of speaking, the bastard sinks his fangs into Gracie’s perfect skin.
Her scream slices through me like a blade.
Every fiber of my being wills me to move, to act, to protect what’s mine, but my magic freezes me in place, preventing rash action that could result in her untimely death.
The king rips his fangs from Grace’s skin, and my soul spears with her pain. Her eyes fill with sorrow, knowing her choices now.
There are only two—death or vampire.
Grace’s blood drips down his chin, and she fights his grip, only to be greeted by the king’s hiss, red droplets spraying on her face.
Her eyes search mine, yearning and fearful.
A tear slides down my cheek. My jaw is crushing in on itself as my destiny is rewritten before my eyes.
My wife is lost.
My life is lost.
And that hard line I’ve drawn my entire life between human and vampire is blurring before me. She can’t die. She’s too wonderful, she’s too precious to this world. She’s the fucking Heir!
She deserves a future.
“How about a gut wound so you bleed out slow enough to watch your female turn?” the king jeers.
A sword stabs through my belly from behind, and the king’s general snaps away with a cackle before I can do anything about it.
The pain is brutal, but I’m so numb at this point, I savor the way it snaps me to attention and races adrenaline through me anew. “Curse you,” I spit at the king, gripping my stomach.
“I’ll leave you to your goodbyes. It’s been so fun this time around,” the king says and shoves Grace toward me before snapping into nothingness.
“Get into the daylight!” I yell to my Hunters as Grace stumbles, clutching her neck with wild eyes.
Disbelief dances between Grace and me as Rhett tries to revive Sam.
“He’s gone, Rhett,” I tell him, my gut burning and my soul pining for Sam’s magic.
“Fuck!” Rhett screams, shaking Sam’s shoulders again like he might wake up. “We were supposed to be stationmates until our beards were gray,” he cries as Grace kneels beside him and brushes the hair from her brother’s eyes.
“Get him outside with us,” I say as Riot hoists my arm over his shoulder and Hunters kill the remaining vampires with a death wish.
Rhett lifts Sam onto his back, and we race for the castle doors, Grace beside us.
We sprint into the moment before sunrise, when the horizon still holds a faint light. I sense my Hunters filtering out of the castle, almost safe in the comfort of streaming sunshine, their magic calling to mine in a mournful lullaby.
Uncle Brachett barrels ahead, Master Hull on his back. I have no son, so my Captainhood will fall to my closest relative, Brachett.
Riot lowers me to the ground, snow crunching underneath me, and keeps pressure on my gushing wound. My magic wraps around my physical agony, softening the severity as Grace plasters herself to my side.
I cradle her face as she tries to promise me, “I won’t leave you.”
The love I have for her burns so painfully I can barely see straight. “You will. You need to leave before the sun takes you.”
She shakes her head at me, eyes pleading. “No, Kade. Not a chance in hell.”
I chuckle through gurgling blood. “You’re already in hell, my love.”
Her cries shudder into delirious laughter before misery contorts her face again. “It can’t be over. We need more time. I need more time with you,” she sobs.
I smile at the love of my life, the woman I can’t breathe without. “I know. Me too, Gracie.”
She nods at me, her tears running as her fingertips trail my jawline, and her grieving gaze buries me under a cruel desperation to change our circumstance.
“You have to keep going. You have to change Goreon, just like we’ve always dreamed. You’ve got all the time in the world now to do it.”
Her breath shudders; we only have a few more moments, and I force myself to find my voice again. “I want you to be happy. And you better fucking do it, Gracie.”
Her face crumples. “I don’t want a future without you.”
“Promise me you will finish this. Promise me.”
She nods at me through her tears.
The havoc Grace could wreak on this world unleashed as a vampire, to skillfully infiltrate them, to take them down from within—
Yes. This is better than her death. My magic simmers like a burning sun in agreement and I blanch, the path so clear before me and I never knew to listen to it.
A river of power pushes me toward this decision like a road laid in gold.
Grace Hull is the Hunter who will bring peace to Goreon. We were her way in, her destined protectors until fate threw us into a perfect storm that culminates with her rise.
“What will you call yourself?” I ask, desperate to know the vampire name that will live in our histories.
She buries her head in my neck, nuzzling into me while she considers. “The name we would’ve given our daughter,” she whispers into my skin.
“Veya,” I whisper back, tilting my head to hers, humming in approval as my eyes blur with tears. “Change the world, Veya. Make it right, rule the evil, become a queen. Take Goreon.”
Grace lifts her head from my neck and looks at me, her gaze flashing red and expression stern. A decision written in her eyes. “I will finish what we started, Kade. No matter how long it takes, Goreon will see peace. I swear it to you,” she snarls, and her promise wraps around my dying soul.
And then Gracie kisses me. Her tongue finds mine, and I savor every second before she pulls away.
“I’ll rule them kindly and give life to the people, Kade. I will find a way. With all that I am.”
I smile at her through my pain.
My love.
My darling.
My Gracie.
My Veya.
“I love you, my queen,” I whisper, lucky to be the first to utter the word she will hear someday from someone else.
I’m glad to know her name, the woman who will define the future and shape the world around her into our vision, flitting from threat to threat, slaughtering through eternity in her own brutal dance.
Her body steams under the rising sun.
“Go! You must go,” I urge as she clings to me, her fingers digging into my biceps with a dangerous bite.
Her fangs pop from between her lips, and her green eyes dart to mine, full of alarm and unimaginable sadness.
I yank the chain from my neck, pressing the Hunter crest in Gracie’s palm. “You are the bridge between worlds, you are the way this ends, my love. Be bold. Be brave.”
She pockets my necklace, nodding at me through her tears.
“I will always be with you, Grace,” I promise her. “Forever may you reign.”
“I love you, Kade. In this life and the one after that,” she cries.
“Bold and brave, Gracie,” I whisper, thumb-swiping a tear from her cheek.
She kisses me and then rips herself away before it’s too late.
Grace snatches our twin blades from the ground before she disappears from my sight for shelter, but the vision of her remains, brilliant and beautiful in my mind, and I hold onto everything we are.
Riot kneels next to me, his hand gripping mine.
The world spins as I try to focus on him. “Protect her. Help her. Finish what we started.”
“With my life, brother. I will be by her side—always,” he growls.
I nod. Knowing exactly what he means by that. Riot will turn, for her. For us. For the dream.
If I could join them, I would.
“Forever may you rest,” Riot says, and I give him the biggest smile I can manage.
Because Grace will end this. And I believe in her to do it right, to do it well. And most importantly, to fucking do it.
I slip into unconsciousness, love and hope shrouding me as I surrender to an early grave and leave our life behind and the future to Grace.
To Queen Veya.