Look at you. Covered in blood.
Like a fucking monster.
She still didn’t move. He braced himself for her to pull away. To recoil – see him for what he was. But he said nothing. Met her gaze and waited.
Say something. Say it’s okay.
But no words came out.
Then her jaw set. She squeezed his hand tight and stepped over the first body. Then the next. Didn’t look back. She was still with him.
I guess I’m a better option than the flames.
They moved in silence now. Kara a step behind. Was she afraid to walk beside him? She’d seen only a glimpse of what he could do. This was what he was capable of, when he wasn’t bound and caged. When he was fighting for her.
They would’ve done worse, he reminded himself.Cade would have had her. Burnt her alive.
The corridor narrowed and they climbed a set of winding stairs. His tunic was soaked through with blood now, his hand slick on the hilt of his sword. Every step screamed. Not that it mattered.
Pain was nothing next to failure.
And if he failed her now–
No.
He wouldn’t.
He wouldn’t lose her. Not after what happened in that cell. What she’d said. They rounded the final corner and there it was – the vault.Obsidian walls. An iron-set door. Two guards posted. Heavily armoured and alert. Blades already out.
“Stay back,” he growled at her.
When they saw him, they didn’t hesitate. The first lunged.
Sebastian didn’t think – he moved. Muscle memory, instinct, rage. His blade met the man’s mid-air and crimson sparks flew from both of them. Sebastian ducked low, parried, sliced with his blade. The steel clang echoed down the corridor.
Kara was behind him.
He had to keep her behind him.
The second guard struck fast, catching his already broken ribs – pain ripping through his chest. The shock dropped him to one knee as black spots burst in his vision. He heard Kara shout his name – desperate, terrified – and it dragged him back. He gritted his teeth, crimson magic flaring wildly across his arms, and forced himself upright, driving his elbow into the guard’s throat. The man hit the floor gasping. Sebastian finished him with a clean, vicious strike.
The first tried to regroup. Outflank him.
No, you don’t.
He pivoted, his magic sparking red-hot now – not from anger, but desperation. The sword moved like it knew what he needed. His blade was faster than theirs – it always had been. He slashed across the guard’s neck in one fluid motion – he crashed to the ground.
Then – silence.
His chest heaved as he looked down at the bodies. Blood dripped to the floor, his or theirs, he couldn’t tell. His legs trembled, but he stayed upright. He looked back at Kara. She was standing very still.
“You alright?” he asked hoarsely.
She nodded.
But he wasn’t.
Because she’d seen him at his most dangerous. The carnage. The blood.
