I tear my gaze from Azul’s, one hand remaining pressed to the tunnel wall, the other clamped around my throat as I push myself to move toward the tunnel’s exit.
One blurred step in front of the other.
Even if I’m moving toward my end.
A terrible death waits for me within the darkness outside this corridor.
Already, the vampyrs are closing in around the distant opening, edging into it, crying for blood.
“Blood.”
“It comes to us!”
“We will feast.”
Their gleeful laughter skitters through the air.
They’ll tear every exposed part of my body from me. My right arm, my left hand, my head. It won’t matter that Lethian silver covers the rest of me—the vampyrs will hollow me out from within this silver armor.
It would be easier to stop walking. To die by Antony’s hand.
But if there’s any part of him that still exists…
Killing me will destroy any sliver of his soul that might still survive.
And perhaps the vampyrs will make it quick. Not like the long, torturous draining from Antony’s fangs in my neck.
A horrifying choice, but better to be torn apart by mindless creatures than destroyed by a man who might have loved me.
A lifetime of remaining heartbeats thump through my chest while my feet meet the tunnel floor over and over, and the dark night yawns up ahead.
One final step brings me close to the tunnel’s mouth, where the swarm of undead rushes forward once more, a ripple of movement surgingtoward me.
The silence behind me is confusing. I’m not sure how I made it this far, but I can’t look back now.
I sway at the edge of a sheer cliff face. Barely a ledge.
Another step and I’ll plummet into endless night.
I doubt I’ll hit the ground before the vampyrs tear me apart.
Cries of anticipation cascade through them, their fleshy mouths wide open and yellowed fangs bared. “Fresh blood!”
Before they reach me, wind rushes around me from behind, and a form flies past me on my right and out of the tunnel, into the air opposite me.
“Get the fuck back!”
My heart leaps as Antony levitates in front of me, his body like a shield.
Then he turns his head, his commanding form casting me into renewed darkness, and whatever bitter hope was rising within me shatters again.
His irises are too black.
With a sinking heart, I realize I must have imagined the moment when I thought his eyes had turned green again. A hallucination from shock and fear.
He’s naked to the waist, every muscle gleaming, wearing only black pants that perfectly match his inky hair, the jagged strands clumped with sweat and blood.
New cuts rake across his bare chest, slashes that can only be from Azul’s talons, but—my forehead creases—they don’t appear to be bleeding…
