The raven soars into the rafters, raining bloody plumage. It tilts its head back as if it’s going to speak. As though it would wake the whole fortress with one mighty caw. But instead a sharp voice strikes me right between the temples, causing my head to throb.
You will pay in blood, like the rest of your forsaken kind. I will have the throne I earned, and my vengeance for Loretta.
Its cryptic message given, the bird flies into a far corner—a vent shaft, as far as I can tell—and disappears.
CHAPTER34
Pay in blood.Throne. Vengeance.
Loretta.
The words echo in my mind, felt more than heard. Their sound fills me with raw hatred that bubbles up like a scream waiting to be unleashed. It fills me with a craze like the one from the elixir I drank on the night of the Blood Moon. An endless need for more. More hurt. More blood. More…
Power.
“Floriane, Floriane.” Ventos shakes me. I blink several times and return to reality, retreating from the daze that infernal winged beast put me in. “We have to leave,now.”
“What happened?” I ask, looking from Ventos to Drew. He is as still as death. My heart seizes. “What—”
“There’s no time now, but we’re not safe here. We have to—”
“Of course we’re not safe here!” We continue interrupting each other, taking turns. “We knew that from the moment we—”
“We are not safe because there is another vampir here!” Ventos finally gets in the last word.
“What?” The world has tilted and I’m flooded with the same sensation as when I first arrived at the world of the vampir. None of this is real. It can’t be.
“That bird was a vampir taking the shape of an animal.”
“Vampir can do that?”
“Of course we can. We don’t because we have a bit of respect for ourselves. Stealing the face of humans is one thing, but beasts? We’re not lykin.” He scoffs a bit. But his expression quickly turns serious once more. “Now that it knows we’re here, we have to go.” Ventos thrusts out his hand.
I look between it, my brother, and the cask on the altar.
“Not yet.”
“Flori—”
“We came all this way for the elixir, we’re not leaving without it.” Leaving my brother is like physically ripping off a limb. I can almost hear a tearing noise as I leave him on the ground and move for the altar. But his heart is strong under my fingertips, and work must be done. To the right of the cask on the altar is a rack of obsidian vials, the same as what I’ve seen the vampir use, and identical to what Drew gave me on the night of the Blood Moon—too close to be chance.
Sliding the opening of the vial to the side, I place it underneath the tap. A thick, inky liquid drips into the vial with large, wetplops. Five drops is all it takes to fill one to the brim. I hand it out to Ventos. “Here.”
“We should go.” He takes it despite his objection and doesn’t stop me from filling a second vial.
“We need to get as much as we can.” I hand the second vial to him, going for a third. I’d take the whole cask if it weren’t bolted and chained down. Freeing it, at this point, would take far too long and risk the integrity of the overall cask.
The echo of a door slamming open far above rumbles through my chest. There’s shouting and the stomping of many footsteps. I’m only on my third vial. Ruvan is going to need more. The elixir wore off on me so fast. He’ll need much more than three to sustain himself and this is our only chance. Callos asked for some too, maybe he can make more if I take enough?
The racing of my mind is interrupted by Ventos grabbing me. The blood continues to plop onto the floor from the open tap of the cask. I shut the third vial, pocketing it.
“We’re leaving.”
I rip my arm from his grasp as magic ripples around him. “Not without my brother.”
“What?”
“We can’t go back with—”
