Marius had known death was a possibility, but it had been a foreign concept. He’d never truly considered that it might visit either of them. Vampires were immortal, for the gods’ sake. Creatures of the night weren’t supposed to die. They were supposed to live forever.Shewas supposed to live forever.
He’d been a gods-damned fool.
And now, Vivienne was…
She was…
This was…
Marius inhaled… or at least, he tried to.
In reality, a fist compressed his lungs. Air was a distant memory.
“Get up,” he whispered, salty tears streaming down his cheeks. He did nothing to stop them. “Get. Up. Yell at me. Tell me how much I attract trouble. Be angry with me. Just… please.” His voice cracked, and the words barely made it out of his throat. “Wake up.”
She didn’t do as he asked.
Of course not.
A hand touched his shoulder.
“She’s gone,” Sebastian said. The king’s voice was uncharacteristically soft, filled with the gentleness he usually reserved for his wife.
That made things so much worse.
“No.” Marius shook his head, unwilling and unable to accept what he was seeing. What he was hearing. This had to be a trick. A joke. This couldn’t be real. “She can’t be dead.”
Death was so final. So cold.
And Vivienne was so full of life.
Fabric rustled on his other side, and Luna pried his hand from his bodyguard.
“I’m sorry, Marius,” she whispered, clasping his fingers between hers.
No.
This couldn’t be happening. He refused to believe it.
He didn’t realize that he’d shaken off his sister’s hold until he held Vivienne’s clammy hands between his once again.
“Wake up,” he whispered, repeating his earlier plea. “You have to wake up.”
He didn’t want to go back to Castle Sanguis without her. He didn’t want to go on any adventures without her. He didn’t want to doanythingwithout her.
“Marius—”
“No.”
Luna meant well, but he couldn’t talk to his sister right now. He couldn’t look at her. He brought Vivienne’s hand to his lips, uncaring that it was bloody. What was blood when he’d failed her?
He kissed the inside of her palm, his heart breaking at the coldness of her flesh.
“I’m so sorry, Viv,” he murmured brokenly against her skin. “I?—”
His eyes widened, and he replaced his lips with his thumb. He didn’t dare move, let alone breathe, in case he missed it. In case it wasn’t real. In case she was really, truly dead.
Seconds that seemed like lifetimes passed before he felt it again.
