“P-Please,” I gasp.
He doesn’t release. He doesn’t relent. There is nothing in his eyes to make me believe that the Ruvan I shared a bed with mere hours ago, is still in there. All I see is hatred and the curse, running rampant.
I tighten my grip on the dagger.
If you’re ever face-to-face with a vampire, fight!Drew shouts from the recesses of my memories.Fight with everything you have. Fight like your life depends on it.
I draw the dagger across my leg. Red light flares, illuminating Ruvan’s emotionless expression. It makes his usually ethereal face all the more sinister.
Don’t throw your life away. Mother now.
I can see the Lost moving in my periphery. It’s approaching both of us. It’s going to have Ruvan fully fall to the curse, kill me, and then they both will feast on me at their monstrous leisure. At all costs, we were to kill the Lost.
The dagger shakes in my hand. I can’t let Ruvan succumb to the Lost and the curse. I won’t let him turn into one of these monsters. If I have to kill him then so be it.
This is the destiny I stole from Drew that night—to kill the vampire lord. The destiny I thought I’d escaped coming back to haunt me in a way I never expected.
Forge your own destiny, Ruvan’s voice, louder than the rest, echoes.
I pull back the dagger. I press my eyes closed. To my surprise, my hand moves. This is unlike before; there are no invisible hands holding me back. No barrier stopping me. Ruvan is no longer the man that I am bloodsworn to. I could stab him. But I stop short.
He’s still in there.
My dagger clatters to the ground. My hands go limp at my sides. I can’t do it. I can’t hurt him. Not because of the bloodsworn… but because I can’t. I stare at Ruvan through tunnel vision that grows thicker by the second.
“You’re still in there,” I rasp. “I know you are.”
His grip tightens further. I continue to stare. I don’t fight.
“Ruvan, come back to me.” If Drew could break through the hold the Raven Man had on him, then Ruvan can beat this. The creature is drawing close. I lift a hand and gently rest it on Ruvan’s cheek. Even this simple motion is hard, my muscles are screaming for air. “You swore—you swore to me that you would never hurt me. Not just because of our bloodsworn. But because you never would want to.”
Words are harder by the second. His hand around my throat begins to quiver. I can’t tell if it’s from the strain of slowly choking me, or if it’s a result of my words actually getting through to him.
It’s then that I notice tears streaming down his cheeks. Even though his eyes have no emotion, even though he’s still very far away. He’s fighting.
“I’m…sorry,” I rasp. I wasn’t enough. Whatever we were, or were becoming, wasn’t enough to break him free. I press my eyes closed. The pain is leaving my body. Cold is setting in. “The truth is I—I love—”
His hand tightens further. I choke as no more air can make it through. Everything tilts. I can only see his eyes now, fading, farther and farther away from me.
A distant roar accompanies the edge of reality speeding back. There’s a blur behind us that isn’t from the Lost. A flash of silver in a wide arc; Ventos’s broadsword lodges into the monster’s chest. The humming stops.
Ruvan releases me instantly. I sink to the floor trembling, coughing. I almost feel sick but I stop myself. Retching would be the worst thing possible right now. I need the elixir’s strength to heal my wounds and give me strength.
“You will pay!” Ruvan shouts from the very pit of his stomach. The castle shudders with his rage. He balls his hands into fists and throws his head back. The elixir pulls up from the floor in droplets, as if the world has been turned upside down and the ceiling is now the floor. It begins to swirl around Ruvan, faster and faster, a tempest of blood lore.
Winny and Lavenzia speed into the room, screeching to a halt just inside the door. They look on in shock. Ventos stumbles back.
The Lost rises to its feet—to the challenge Ruvan presents. But the fight is already over. The elixir coats the monster as Ruvan magically commands it, sinking into its flesh. It screeches and wails. There is a vortex of death and when the noise stops the Lost is on the ground, unmoving.
Ruvan collapses.
Even though every muscle is on fire, I crawl over to him. I pull Ruvan from the wet ground and into my arms. His head dips back. But his skin is gnarled, wrinkled. His breathing is shallow and his skin still hasn’t regained its luster.
The curse has him now.
CHAPTER41
“We have to end this,”Lavenzia looks between her sword and Ruvan. “Before he becomes one of them.”
