Page 132 of Her Vampire, His Ruin

Her eyes widen with shock. “You’re alive. How?”

A sharp ache flares in my gums as my canines descend. “Take a wild guess,” I bite out.

“You drank his blood?”

“I did.”

“But you should be dead. He should be…” Her voice trails off as her eyes shift to Dorian. “I don’t understand. How is he still alive?”

A low groan escapes him, and I sense the air shift as Dorian pushes to his feet behind me.

“Edie?”

Relief crashes over me at the sound of his voice, nearly buckling my knees, but I hold firm. I can’t afford to turn around and face him. Instead, I glare at Sybil. “If I have to tear your head off, I will,” I growl. “Stay the fuck away from us.”

A pool of sunlight forms on the floor between us, its heat spilling into the room as dawn crests over the cliffs. Sybil stands on one side, Dorian and me on the other. Her face falls, her shoulders sagging.

“I never meant for this to happen. I only ever wanted to protect you. I love you, Dorian.”

“What you did isn’t love.” He groans, gripping my hip, and some of the tension drains from my shoulders. Still, I refuse to relax. We are not out of danger yet.

“I know that now. I’m sorry.”

“It’s too late for apologies. You drained Edie. She fucking died. You took her life,” he croaks.

“And you gave it back to her. Neither of you should be here. The curse…”

“Is broken,” Dorian says. “Somehow, someway, Edie’s love brought me back. It brought us both back.”

“Basilia won’t let you leave. She’ll kill you both.”

Dorian steps out from behind me, his hand slipping into mine. “You need to prevent her from returning to this room until nightfall, so we can leave. You owe us that much, Sybil.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because that is an act of love. If you do as I ask, you can live, Sybil. You have the chance to find someone else, someone who will light up your soul like Edie does mine.”

Tears well in Sybil’s eyes, spilling down her cheeks as she glances between us. “Please forgive me,” she whispers, then spins away, flinging open the door and fleeing.

“She’s going to tell Basilia,” I cry.

Dorian reaches for me, cupping my face. “I will not let either of them hurt you. I will kill them both before that happens. Stay here.”

“No,” I shake my head. “We face them together.”

“Edie,” he warns, his fingers curling into my cheeks. “I will not risk losing you again.”

“And I refuse to let you fight them alone. If you die, I die.”

A scream, raw with fury, lifts the hair on the back of my neck moments later. Dorian’s head snaps to the doorway. “Then we have to act now.”

Grabbing my hand, we race towards the sound. By the time we reach the foot of the stairs, Sybil clings to Basilia, blood gushing from the ruin of Basilia’s chin, her jaw and tongue dangling from torn sinew and ripped tendons. Sunlight streams through the open door behind them, and a wet gurgle bubbles from Basilia’s throat, her eyes going wide.

“It would seem that Basilia was telling the truth when she said that magic needs balance. You broke her curse, Edie, and in doing so she was stripped of some of the magic that made it. It weakened her enough for me to do this,” Sybil says, her laughter threaded with madness as she inches backward.

At that moment, her intentions become clear to me. A wave of sympathy surges up, dissolving the hatred I felt only moments ago. I see how her unrequited love for Dorian has warped her, just as it has Basilia, shaping her into someone cruel and wicked. Yet beneath that hardened surface is a wounded soul, a woman blind to her own worth. I understand that feeling; I became that person with Robert.

“Don’t, Sybil,” I whisper, taking a step forward. “You don’t have to do this.”