Roland reared back in shock. “He would never.”
“Oh, but I would.” Reyna took a deep breath. “This is my promise to you, Roland Batiste, if you do not leave here this minute, you will be hunted and cured. Forced to live your life as a human.”
Reyna felt the tension in his grip on her. Practically heard the indecision working through his mind. He hadn’t considered thatoption. Hadn’t ever considered being anything but a vampire. He was too proud to allow it to happen.
Roland bodily threw Reyna onto the ground, took one last look at her, and said, “Until next time, ma cherie.”
Then he bolted out of a side door. Reyna flopped on the ground, attempting to get up to follow him, but Katarina was already on her way. She fled through the same door and out of sight.
Reyna rolled onto her back and groaned. She pressed her hand to the wound, glad that the vamp venom was healing the wound so it wouldn’t continue to gush out her precious blood. She felt weak and weary. Completely and utterly spent.
That was the moment that Beckham barreled in, taking up the entire doorway with his massive body and surveying the glass room. His chest was heaving. His shirt ripped in innumerable places. Blood coated his body. She didn’t know if it was his or Bronwyn’s. He looked like a wild beast.
“Are you okay?” she squeaked out.
“You look like death and you ask of my well-being.” Beckham approached her cautiously, but when he got a look at her neck, he swore. “Who did this?”
“Roland.”
“That double-crossing bastard. I’ll kill him.”
Reyna reached out for him. “Don’t. Kat went after him. I need…heal me.”
Beckham frowned. “I can’t. I can barely sense you.”
Reyna’s eyes fluttered closed. “Okay. I’ll be okay. The blood will replenish quickly.”
Beckham swore again, violently, and helped her into a sitting position. “I’ll try.”
“No. Conserve your energy.”
She thread her fingers into his hair, bringing his lips down to hers.
“You cured me,” a voice rattled out.
Beckham sprang up, ready to defend Reyna with his life. When he saw Harrington slowly moving into a sitting position, his eyes widened in horror.
“He’s alive,” Beckham said.
“I used the cure,” Reyna said.
“But it was gone…”
“Genevieve had one more. She gave it to me before we left.”
“Why wouldn’t you tell me that?”
Reyna frowned. “I thought he deserved to pay for his crimes. That killing him would be too easy. That was why I had Jodie broadcasting everything he said to me. So he can’t come back and say he didn’t intend to do everything he said.”
Harrington was staring at his hands as if he’d never seen them before. “How could you do this?”
“I outsmarted you, old man,” Reyna said with a smug smile. “And now you’re a sickly human again.”
“Reyna, we cannot keep him alive,” Beckham said. “Do you know what people will do if they find out? You leave a deposed king alive, and you are risking him rallying support around him to put himself back on the throne.”
“He’s right,” Harrington said with a smile at Beckham.
“Stop it. He deserves this. He deserves to have to live out his days as the thing he abhors. Killing him would only make him a martyr in some absurd vampire cause.” Reyna pointed at Harrington with conviction. “Thisis justice, Becks.”
