I want her so fucking much it hurts—an actual ache in my body, like an abyssal cavern burrowing its way through my insides.
When I couldn’t go to her after my return to Sangeries, held busy by the fucking troublesome vampiress that I should have never ever fucked to begin with—the same one that will now rot in my dungeons for all her unspeakable blunders against my little umbra—my shadows went utterly unhinged. Churning, pulling, writhing against my skin—fighting me overmy female.
She’s not really mine, though, is she? Neither is she theirs.
They’ve been quiet—the shadows—since we left for Dithrau the next morning. Actually, from the night before. They just gave me the nonliteral cold shoulder all of a sudden. I’ve never had my shadows pissed at me before, not once in my one thousand years. It doesn’t surprise me, though, that my obsession with the vexing female extends to my shadows as well.
I let out a heavy sigh, tired of waiting for this damn battle, tired of being worlds apart from my craving, tired of waging this relentless war.
“You’re thinking about her, aren’t you?” Blaise asks earnestly, sheathing his blades, one by one.
A gruff “Mmm” is my only answer, but it’s enough. A look of understanding passes between the two of us.
“What will you do when we finally find Aurora?” he asks in a quiet, serious tone, with no trace of his usual devil-may-care attitude in sight.
“What we’ve always planned,” I say, the words heavy on my tongue. “Wrahta comes first. The last time I was selfish about a female, this kingdom suffered five fucking hundred years of war.”
But Akaoridammit, how much I want to be selfish. To let it all burn for the sister that plagues my dreams, and my waking hours as well. The spunky, hard-headed, sharp-tongued Fae that has wormed her way through my soul—that I’m fal…
All of a sudden, a void of blackness swallows the horizon whole. My eyes focus on the snow-laced fields beyond the walls, the moonshine radiating a muted, subtle silver glimmer against the lands. I wait for an excruciating heartbeat, but there is no denying the relentless swarm of corruption, more vile than the devil itself, that covers the milky plains in a writhing stain.
“Toll the bell!” I shout, jumping to my feet. “Now!” Every damn second counts more than the last, as the roiling darkness swallows everything in sight.
They are getting impossibly closer now, hundreds—no, thousands—of glowing, numberless eyes swimming in my vision. No matter how many times we face these hellish creatures, once friends and fellow vampires, my trepidation never subsides. I can’t seem to harden myself against the total annihilation they represent. The obliteration of everything our race has achieved through tears and blood, war and sacrifice.
Blaise is gone in a second, shouting commands to our awaiting warriors. The time-worn bronze bell reverberates through the sleeping city like the mournful cry of a dying ancient being. Iimagine that’s the sound Akaori made before she drew her last breath, holding the limp body of her beloved Aeon in her arms.
The time for reckoning is upon us! We shall die here tonight, defending Dithrau, or the whole realm will perish under Morweena’s sinister claws.
An ear-shattering screech rises from the onpyr horde, not merely a shrill sound but a cataclysmic uproar. The shriek blasts through my eardrums, pounding on my brain ceaselessly, grinding the fucking bones inside my skull.
I draw out my faithful blades, Kadirah and Alnashar, family heirlooms from immemorial times. My shadows swirl around me rapidly, choosing to end the day’s long silent treatment. They form my shadow self before my eyes, from blood red mist and violence, all poised for attack. My trusted shadows have always been able to separate from me completely in battle, as we stand as two entities, one of flesh and one of crimson darkness.
“Give them hell!” I whisper before my shadow double launches itself at the oncoming hordes.
All around me, vampire warriors come running out from the city’s looming towers, hidden catacombs and military barracks, blades drawn, muscles taut.
Mayhem ignites like a deadly fire as the onpyrs surge closer, nearly upon us.
The fight determining Dithrau’s fate has reached a pinnacle—destruction all around.
Grotesque chimera statues, smashed and scorched, weep tears of stone as they crumble to the ground.
Dark smog cleaves through the cobblestone streets like the rotten, foul smell of decaying flesh, thickening with billowy smoke and the pungent scent of spilled carnage.
Vampires and onpyrs clash relentlessly in a cursed dance of death and decay.
The monsters’ gaze glows like smoldering charcoal remains set in rotting eye sockets, the shade of unadulterated insanity and depravity staining their vacant scarlet eyes. They sprint up the stone walls with feral movements, like a blight with fangs and claws.
“Hold the line, warriors!” I bellow towards my brothers in arms. “They will feel our wrath, even if they feel nothing else! Death will come for all of them at the end of our blades!”
The vampire soldiers shout in response, a guttural cry of war and despair, as several chants in Akaori’s praise surge skywards. Our vampire goddess shall bestow her cunning and strength upon us. She won’t let her children perish at the hands of the enemy.
All at once, the vampire army advances on the onpyrs, bones crushing, enemy blood spilling.
The deafening sounds of steel and bone churn in my ears to the point of madness.
I drive Alnashar down into the nearest onpyr, cleaving my faithful blade through bone and marrow in a perfect, bloodthirsty arc. The creature’s head falls with a squelching thud, rolling to my feet, eyes turning back to a dull color.
