The silence stretched between them, thick with tension and the promise of violence. I could feel Gunnar's authority crumbling like sand, and the taste of victory was sweet on my lips.
I lunged forward with everything I had. Gunnar met me full force—two predators colliding like freight trains. The impactsent shockwaves through my bones, but I pressed my advantage. My fangs bared, I sank them deep into his shoulder, tasting his blood as it flooded my mouth. Hot, metallic, with an underlying current of something darker.
For a split second, I thought I had him. Victory surged through me as my fangs tore his flesh.
Then Gunnar's hands clamped down on my arms, and everything changed.
My power began to ebb away like water through a broken dam. The strength I'd always counted on—the supernatural speed, the enhanced reflexes—all of it started draining from my body in steady, terrifying waves. My fangs loosened their grip on his shoulder as weakness flooded my limbs.
What the fuck was happening to me?
Sharp nails dug into my flesh, and I realized with growing horror that it wasn't just his touch—those razor-sharp talons were piercing my skin, creating direct contact points where he could siphon my very essence. Each puncture wound felt like a straw he was using to drink my life force.
Gunnar’s smile was thick with satisfaction. “Not so tough now, are you, enforcer?"
I tried to pull away, but my muscles wouldn't respond properly. The world started to blur at the edges as my vampire strength continued to hemorrhage out of me. I was being drained—not of blood, but of something far more fundamental. Something that made me what I was.
And there wasn't a damn thing I could do to stop it.
Black dots swam around my eyes like a swarm of angry wasps, multiplying with each heartbeat until they began to merge into larger patches of darkness. My breath slowed to shallow, ragged gasps that barely filled my lungs. Each inhale was like trying to breathe through wet concrete, the air thick and useless in my chest.
The cacophony of battle—the clash of steel, the screams of demons, the shouts of my allies—all began to fade as if someone was slowly turning down the volume on the world. The sounds grew muffled and distant, like hearing voices underwater. Even my own heartbeat, which had been thundering in my ears moments before, became a sluggish, irregular thump that seemed to echo from somewhere far away.
My limbs were impossibly heavy, as if they were made of lead instead of flesh and bone. The connection between my brain and my body was severing, strand by strand, leaving me trapped inside a shell I could no longer control.
My head tilted backward against my will, the muscles in my neck no longer strong enough to hold it upright. Through the growing haze, I found myself staring up at the star-scattered sky above the cathedral. The ancient constellations that had watched over countless battles throughout history now bore witness to my defeat.
The stars themselves began to dim and blur, their cold light fading like dying embers. One by one, they winked out of existence until only darkness remained. My eyelids grew unbearably heavy, weighted down by an exhaustion that went deeper than physical fatigue—it was the weariness of a soul being drained away.
As my eyes fluttered shut for what might be the last time, one thought cut through the fog of approaching unconsciousness: I had failed Joy.
