Page 17 of Treasured

“I don’t know,” I eventually said.

His fingers landed on my jaw, making me look away from the dead Fledgling. “I do,” he said seriously. “There is nothing wrong with choosing life.” He brushed his lips over mine. “You always choose life, Luna. No matter what.”

To say it was one thing. To live it was another.

“I just…” My words trailed off as I got a good look at Sebastian. I’d been so caught in my thoughts about murder that I had barely looked at him.

What a horrible, horrible wife I was turning out to be.

My eyes widened, and I raised a hand as though to touch his cheek before thinking better of it.

Red claw marks ran down Sebastian’s face, but they weren’t healing as they should have. Instead, they oozed a black liquid tinged with red.

“She scratched you,” I snarled. The viciousness of my voice surprised me. “She hurt you.” Suddenly, it didn’t matter that she was dead because that Fledgling had dared inflict injury upon my prince. “Why isn’t it healing?”

Sebastian touched the wounds and winced. He drew his hand away, staring at the mess on his fingers. “I don’t know.” He frowned. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Fine, like, ‘I’ll actually be fine,’ or ‘I’m hiding things from you, Luna, so you don’t worry about me?’”

He grimaced, leading me to believe it was the second option. “Just… fine.”

I glared at him. “Sebastian—”

Wiping his hand on the snow, he stood and pulled me away from the body. “Come on, Luna. Let’s go.”

Should I fight him on this? Should I push? I didn’t know. In the end, I decided that getting to our destination was our best bet.

“Should we bury her?” I asked, glancing back at the body. I felt so bad leaving her here.

“We can’t,” he said. “The ground is frozen. It would take hours that we don’t have.”

The truth of his words settled in.

“I’m sorry,” I said to the nameless, dead vampire as I adjusted my satchel on my shoulder. “So sorry.”

The words were wholly inadequate, but Sebastian was right. We couldn’t stay here.

Who knew what else roamed these woods?

Sanctuary

SEBASTIAN

Tall, imposing iron gates and a looming white wall protected the abbey from intruders. We were so close.

Every single step hurt. There were so many points of pain radiating through me I didn’t know which one was worse. The aching, searing scratch on my face almost overshadowed the constant throbbing, piercing of the queen’s call. The Fledgling’s nails must have had poison in them.

I’d heard of this phenomenon, of Fledglings going so rabid that their entire body became a weapon against humans and vampires alike, but I’d never had the displeasure of witnessing it firsthand.

Fire burned in the cut, and flames coursed through my body.

Everything was fuzzy. I could barely lift my feet, let alone summon my shadows or wings. With each step, I berated myself for not hearing the Fledgling approach until she was practically on top of us. The pain in my head was so bad I could barely hear anything at all. It was my fault the vampire had surprised us, my fault Luna was attacked, and my fault that Luna now bore the weight of taking a life on her soul.

Anger was a raging fire of blame, burning me from the inside out. I was failing her.

She didn’t know how much pain I was in. At least I was protecting her from that truth. I hid it as best I could, forcing the deep, throbbing pain of the summons to remain within me. She trudged silently beside me, and I didn’t tell her I was on the verge of passing out.

Everything I had was focused on getting us to safety. Once I got Luna inside those abbey walls, we could rest.

---