I force myself upright using Coral's lowered neck for leverage. My hands are covered in something. Blood and black ichor.
I look around to find hundreds of bodies.
They're not elven or even fae. These are demons from Hel itself, the Hellspawn. Their savagely torn bodies lie in heaps around me. They're milky white now in death, but I can imagine how they must have looked in life. Burning with Hel's fire and hungry for mortal flesh.
Their corrosive blood pools beneath them, steaming and eating into the earth. My claws are still extended and dripping with it. Some of the demons are shredded to fucking pieces. No surprise there. Wendy is always hungry.
I walk through the field of corpses, Coral limping beside me. My throat tastes like blood. My hands are caked in it.
What the fuck did I do?
The evidence is written in the carnage all around me. Whatever emerged from the patchwork of monsters that comprises my being, it was thorough and merciless.
Coral nudges me again. She's looking past the demons toward a spot where the bodies are piled highest.
My heart splinters.
Rhianelle lies crumpled among the demon corpses, half-buried by them. She's not moving. Not even the slight rise and fall of breathing.
"No." The word comes out strangled. "No, no, no."
I'm moving before I realize it, stumbling over demon bodies in my haste. I drop to my knees beside her and my hands hover over her body. Her skin has taken on a translucent quality and her lips are colorless.
"Rhianelle!" Her name tears from my throat. "Please wake up. Open your eyes. Look at me."
Nothing.
There's no sign that she hears me at all. No flutter of eyelids, no twitch of fingers. Nothing.
I press two trembling fingers against her throat, searching for a pulse.
Please. Please be there. Please.
For a moment there's nothing. There's only my own heartbeat thundering in my ears, drowning out everything else.
Then I feel it.
A butterfly-wing faint beat beneath my fingertips.
She's alive.
There are smaller cuts and bruises all over her body. But it's the blood that terrifies me most. There's too much of it. It's everywhere. Soaking her clothes, pooling on the ground, staining my hands as I hold her.
Did I do this?
"I never meant to hurt you." I gather her into my arms with infinite care, but her head falls against my shoulder. "Rhianelle, stay with me."
I bite her neck without thinking. My fangs sink into the soft flesh where her pulse flutters weakly. Venom floods from my fangs into her bloodstream. I've seen it work countless times. The vampire's healing kiss. One of the few gifts in my arsenal of curses.
I pull back and watch desperately for any sign that it's working.
The venom should be mending her but the wounds aren't closing.
I bite her again, injecting more venom. Deeper this time. "Please, Rhianelle. Please don't leave me."
Even the bite marks I just made won't seal. My venom has healed her before. Why isn't it working?
Her breathing grows shallower. Each breath is a tiny, labored thing that barely moves her chest. I can hear fluid in her lungs.
