I protect my nest.
Freya and Dove don’t appear to be impressed by severed heads. I don’t know why. Will the deaths of those who would assassinate them, however, earn the forgiveness of my nest mates?
I hear the crunch of bone and Nebet’s desperate gurgling as she chokes on her own blood. When I push my claws further into her neck, she scrabbles at me.
Her ribbons whip furiously at my cheeks.
“What are you doing?” Ruin’s voice behind me is high with panic.
“Sayingthank you.” I drive Nebet back over the shrine, flooded with vicious joy. “And offering the spirits ofmyancestorsmy sacrifice.”
I stare down at Nebet.
I still can’t see her eyes. I never have.
If they are the windows to the soul, however, then I am glad that I haven’t because her soul must be even darker than mine is.
I give a final twist of my nails.
Nebet’s body jerks and then becomes as lax as a broken doll. The ribbons still as well, before blood drips down them, as if they also have torn open.
Blood spurts up like a fountain from Nebet’s throat over the shrine.
I watch in dark delight.
“You have unbalanced and desecrated this place.” Ruin stares in panic at the shadows that are creeping from the walls and shrouding the walls. The floors are shaking and groaning. “How dare you shed the blood of the High Priestess in her own Inner Sanctum?”
“I am the last Shadow Vampire of the House of Sin.The King.” I pull off my blood-soaked gloves and hurl them on top of the shrine in triumph, freeing my hands. I am never covering them again. “You should fear what I dare.”
Suddenly, a roaring abyss howls through my mind.
I scream, dropping to my knees.
Overwhelmed, I slam my hands over my ears.
“Lanlin Sin,” a voice that sounds like it’s made up of an infinity of voices but oozes with temptation and the faint rumble of something older than language, rasps directly into my mind. The pain of something from another plane breaking through to speak to me is like being cracked in two. I writhe on the floor, as tears of agony trail down my cheeks. “Why do you suffer for these creatures who do not recognize your uniqueness as we do? Resist…rebel…allow us through the Void…allow your petty world that has done nothing but hurt you to be devoured and destroyed, then you will reign at our side.”
I shake my head.
Each word holds an intoxicating promise:I will guide you to the edge of a cliff, but if you throw yourself off into the abyss with me, you will fly and not fall.
It’s a lie.
The ultimate betrayal.
They are the same temptations that have haunted me in my dreams for the last three years that I was forced to take over the role of Void Vampire, since my twin went missing.
Since Lazarus was kidnapped, I’m sure. I simply don’t know who by.
The Void Devils grow more insistent, the closer it comes to the day that I am meant to stop them breaking into the Shadow Kingdoms.
Once, I was tempted.
But now, I have a nest to protect with my life.
I haven’t been able to tell Freya and Dove; I’m bound by a Blood Oath to keep the secret. And I wished to experience…just for a short while…the happiness that I have seen others find in love without it being overhung with sadness.
“We would wipe away your pain; wipe away everything into the Void.” The Void Devils raise their voice, and I scream again, tightening my hold over my ears like I can somehow keep them out when they are already inside me. “What have you known but betrayal, fighting, and suffering? An outcast? Orphan? What are these Shadow Kingdoms to you, really? Look at your own court. Are these emotions of your realms so much worthier than ours? Hate? Greed? Thirst for power? Sorrow? Loneliness? Lust? What is worth saving?”
