But Kole raised his sword and swung. No hesitation. No mercy. The Imperial Warrior’s blade sliced right through my uncle’s arm.
Arnel’s scream wrenched from his bloody mouth just as his hand fell limply to the floor.
My eyes widened, but the dark rage coasting from Kole into me along our bond told me my mate wasn’t done.
“This is for slapping her.” Kole picked up Arnel’s intact arm and swung his blade in a blur.
A new howl came from my uncle, his body pale and shaking, just as his other hand fell to land with athumpby the first severed limb.
“And this is for turning her into a vampire. For turning heragainst her will.” Kole’s sword fell and cut Arnel’s leg off at the thigh.
A pitiful cry rose from my uncle, and I knew he was close to losing consciousness. Blood was flowing from him in rivers.
“And this is for commanding her and terrifying her, for making her believe all hope was lost.” He sliced off Arnel’s other leg until his body was only a stump.
“And this is for thinking you owned my mate. Nobody owns her. She answers to no one but herself.” His sword swung through the air in a blur of metal and grace.
A sickeningthunkwas all that came when Arnel’s head rolled onto the debris behind him, falling down the wreckage to land near the wall.
His dead eyes gazed toward the ceiling, lifeless and dim.
But Kole didn’t stop there. He sliced into Arnel’s decapitated body again and again, massacring him, flaying him, destroying him completely until all that was left was bloody clumps of flesh.
I stared at my mate, unable to move. Bloodlust consumed Kole along our bond, yet the fire continued to rage around us.
“Kole,” I said softly. I pushed a surge of love toward him along our bond, and slowly, the haze from his bloodlust began to lift. “We need to stop this fire. Arnel’s dead. He’ll never hurt me again.”
But as Nicholas had promised, I could still feel my uncle’s commands anchored inside me. If anyone learned that I was a vampire, apart from my mate, I knew that his Maker magic would continue to rise.
My chest tightened, and any hope I’d harbored that his death would stop his control of me faded, but I didn’t regret his murder. It was a fitting end for my uncle. Violent and filled with rage. Exactly as he deserved for everything he’d done to me and countless others.
I lifted my chin and reminded myself it could have been so much worse. I was free of him now. No further commands. No more late-night visits to his estate to be forced to enact another vile demand.
Relief poured through me, but so did the reality of what we were facing. My uncle’s estate would go up entirely in flames, taking with it any evidence of what he’d done to me and his God of Night followers if we didn’t stop it soon.
“Kole?” I reached for him, and my eyes alighted on the blood coating his armor. “Oh Gods, you’re bleeding!”
My vampire speed and strength kicked in. With a blurred move, I picked Kole up and carried him into the hall. When I set him down, away from the burning room in a quiet corridor, Kole’s eyebrows rose, and a dark smile spread across his lips. “So strong you’ve become, my love.”
“Kole, I’m serious.” I frantically tore at his armor, lifting it to search for his wounds, and when a patch of burned skin appeared beneath it, the armor’s metal sizzling into his flesh, I froze. “Kole, you’re burned quite badly.”
He winced slightly, the only indication that he was in any pain. “I might be, but it’ll heal.”
“Will it?” Images of my sister’s ruined arm flooded my mind.
“Yes.” He caressed his finger along my jaw, tilting my head up. “Have you already forgotten of my Solis affinities, my love?”
No sooner had he uttered the words than his skin began to knit itself together and regenerate. The bloody, charred flesh that had filled my view turned into healthy, new tissue.
My jaw dropped as something I’d never realized before hit me. “That’s why you don’t have any scars. Your affinity heals you before scars can form.”
“Indeed.” Kole inspected his flesh, but it was entirely smooth. “See, my love? Nothing to worry about.”
“But what about the vamfeers? Did any of them hurt you? Scratch you? Bite you?”
“No, that’s what my armor’s for, but we should cleanse, just to be safe.” His magic rose before I could respond and whisked everything from the battle away.
Following that, he quickly sheathed his gleaming blades, his daggers concealed once more as his huge sword’s pommel rose from his back. Behind us, the growing fire crackled and warmed my back. Already, it was creeping into the hall I’d blurred us into.
