My maker backhanded me savagely enough that black dots filled my vision, and for a moment I couldn’t feel my body.
I staggered, disoriented.
Thierry lunged again in a blur of speed. I couldn’t follow what happened next—Magnus was faster than anything I’d ever seen—but Thierry went flying past me, landing in a heap.
Blinking through the haze, I scrambled for my fallen stake—but it was gone.
“Enough!” Magnus roared, picking Eli up by the neck with one hand. My mate hung limp in his grip, still blank-faced, his expression glazed. Magnus didn’t see the stake clutched in his hand.
Nicolas, if this doesn’t work—forgive me,Eli whispered through the bond.I’ll find you again.
“You think you can trick me?” Magnus’s fangs dropped, and he yanked Eli close.
His silver eyes, filled with triumph, met mine over Eli’s shoulder as he bit down, causing Eli to let out a very real-sounding cry of pain. My mate’s agony sliced into me like a blade between my ribs. Magnus had made it hurt.
Eli’s determination and fury flickered through the bond.
“Yes, I do,” Eli choked out, making a sharp movement to jam the wooden stake upward, under Magnus’s rib cage.
The triumph fled from my maker’s eyes. Instead, they went wide and disbelieving.
He let out a surprised cry and dropped Eli, who fell to the ground in a heap.
The ancient vampire staggered backward, looking down in horror at the wooden stake protruding from his body.
“You missed the heart,” he breathed, black blood bubbling up between his lips, his skin already beginning to desiccate as the vitality drained away from it. His expression filled with dawning horror as he realized that Eli hadn’t missed at all.
But of course he hadn’t. My mate was a doctor with intimate knowledge of anatomy. He would have been able to find the heart, first try.
“No! I can’t die. I can’t—” Then his gaze dropped to Eli, who was on the ground, backing away from him, his hand pressed to his throat. Blood poured through his fingers. Magnus’s expression contorted with rage. “You! I’ll kill you!”
He took a lurching step toward my mate. I leapt to my feet and darted forward, prepared to throw myself in front of Eli to protect him.
But before I could reach him, even moving at vampiric speed, a blur swept into the room. An instant later, I heard the whistle of a blade through the air, followed by a wet sound that turned my stomach.
Godric appeared behind Magnus, a bloody axe clutched in his hands, a savage look on his face.
Magnus blinked once, his lips forming a perfect “O” of surprise. Then his head went in one direction and his body another as it collapsed to the ground.
“I think not,” Godric said coldly, glaring down at Magnus’s body. “This was for everyone I could not save.”
He spat onto the ground, his normally remote expression twisted with hatred and revulsion as he watched the remains of our maker shrivel into a mummified skeleton.
I scrambled for Eli, my fangs already out. I gathered him into my arms and bit into my wrist, not even feeling the pain. Black blood welled up in the wound.
Eli blinked up at me, his expression becoming glazed for real this time. Blood still streamed out from between his fingers. His skin was becoming ashen. His words sounded raspier than they should have. “He’s dead? It’s over?”
“Yes. He’s gone,” I gasped out, pressing my wrist to his lips. My mate was losing blood far too quickly from Magnus’s bite. He only had seconds left. “Eli, please drink!”
Eli went slack in my arms, his eyes drifting shut.
I kept my wrist steady, dripping blood between his lips, tears stinging in my eyes, praying to any god that would listen to spare him, that he would swallow so that my blood could heal him.
I would have traded everything for him if I could only be allowed to do so. I would have given up my newfound humanity, my soul, all that I was. So long as he was safe and well, it would be worth anything, any price.
Please, Eli,I begged, gazing down at his perfectly still, pale face.Don’t leave. Please—
And then my mate swallowed.
