“How about more power then?” The question alone feels more dangerous than whatever is coming toward me. He tempts me with forbidden magic. “Even if you’re unafraid, the fight would be easier with it.”
“What?” I meet his eyes, noses almost touching. His gaze is intense and threatens to consume me. I can almost see the umbra around him coming to life as the aforementioned magic radiates off of his shoulders.
He tilts his head slightly. “You should take it, I think. It might be the only way someone like you survives here.”
Someone like me… A human? Or were my fears right? Does he know the truth from my forging and clumsy assessment of battle? Perhaps he’s known since I hesitated with Quinn at that icy path.
“Well?” There’s urgency in the word.We’re running out of time, it almost seems to say.
Do I want his power? Do I want hisblood? That’s what he’s really asking. I’m disgusted by my initial thought.
Yes.
I hadn’t wanted it until now. But his magic is already in me, and terror tastes like desperation. I won’t die here. Not now. Not after all I’ve been through and how close I am to getting to this door of his and freeing myself.
But what will Mother, Drew, my town think of me for this?
They don’t have to know, a new voice whispers from the back of my mind. A flush rises up my chest. My breath hitches.
They don’t have to know.
There’s no one here to judge me for what I’m about to do. No hunters. No town. There’s only monsters in the darkness and a man made of moonlight offering me salvation. There’s a growing need, wrenching, deep within me. Wanting to be set free again. Wanting him to both make and unmake me. Wanting to, for one blessed moment, be my own woman. To be triumphant. To win over death and fear for just once in my life.
“Give me power,” I beg and refuse to allow myself to feel ashamed.
He raises his thumb to his mouth and bites it lightly. The small dribble of blood down to the heel of his palm has me salivating. Any disgust at my body’s reaction pales in comparison to my need.
I need it. Give it to me. More, a voice within urges louder by the second.
Ruvan’s fingertips slide along my cheek, curling around my jaw. His thumb rests on my lower lip. “Just a touch. Just enough to get you through.”
My lips part. His thumb slides between them. Slick with blood. I run my tongue along the cut on instinct and swallow.
Magic surges from him to me as though I am a vessel that his essence is eager to fill. I inhale sharply. Ruvan pulls his hand away as my worries begin to dull and my senses heighten. A frown tugs on his lips, but I don’t ask why. I don’t want to know what causes his displeasure when this feels so…deliciouslygood.
I didn’t know what to expect with the elixir Drew gave me. The oath happened in a blur. But now, I’ve accepted power with both eyes open. I am ready as it crashes upon me and I use its force as momentum. I spin and lunge into the darkness while I have the courage and strength to do so, chasing the noise of battle.
Ventos and the others are a blur. I cut through the first fiend effortlessly with my right sickle as my left catches the wrist of a second. They both fall with a brief cry of agony, dead from the silver that punctured their skin. Another monster swings for me; I duck and dodge around to his back, slicing up his spine as two more lunge.
Surprisingly, Winny is the first to catch up to me. The lithe little creature is a whirlwind of blades and daggers. She throws two. Stabs another as she retrieves the first dagger. Two more fall by her blades as she reaches for the second.
I keep my focus ahead. There’s groaning rising from the depths—a stirring of something mighty and fearsome.More are on their way. I can sense them. Many, many more. I split my attention between those around me and the ones that are coming, working to the back of the pack and the front of the next wave.
There’s a moment to catch my breath between one body hitting the floor and the next five crashing into me. They come all at once, a clawed hand grazing the armor of my shoulder as I eliminate two more. Five, ten,twenty, these mindless fiends aren’t going to be what takes me down.
If the vampire lord himself was an even match for me, nothing less than him will stop me. Not like this. Not with his power.
Ruvan. I can feel him moving behind me. I know him as well as I know my own flesh and blood. I leech his power shamelessly to continue pushing ahead, springboarding off a body to get leverage over two, using my sickles in their shoulders to vault farther down the hall.
A smirk cuts my lips. This…this fight nowfeels…almost pleasurable. I am too strong for these monsters to stop me. Their blood is warm on my face and hands. I lick my lips, feeling its sting across my tongue. Their blood is sour compared to Ruvan’s. But it fuels me nonetheless. A cheaper, dirtier magic. Still powerful, though. It’ll do.
More, the voice in me screams, the same voice brought to life by the elixir the night of the Blood Moon,give me more!
I spin, swinging, taking four down at once. It barely registers that the rest of my party is behind me. Too slow. They’re missing all the fun ahead. But I suppose I will thin out the pack for them. That way they don’t have to worry or struggle much.
The hallway ends in a T. My chest heaves. My breaths are so rough and ragged that they hurt. It’s almost as if I am inhaling glass and not air. Yet I gulp it down anyway, muscles screaming, lungs aching. I almost want my body to break.
Break so it can be rebuilt stronger with this magic. I want more—tobemore.
