Page 144 of The Golden Rose Of Valenul

Azriel tucked his left arm down tight over the wound between his ribs, grateful both bolts hit the same side. He groaned but lifted his sword again. “Run back to your general and tell him you lost.”

The youth chuckled again. “General? Ehrun?”

“That ill-tempered bastard, yes.”

“Ill-tempered?” The woman clicked her tongue. “You sound like those fanged cunts.”

Azriel snorted. “Did he forget to tell you that I am one of them?”

She lifted the crossbow and took aim. “Not at all.”

He leapt closer to the youth to avoid the bolt and blocked a swing of the long knife. The huge dhemon’s fist came out of nowhere, slamming into Azriel’s face hard enough to shatter a human’s cheekbone. He stumbled, then fell to a knee.

His head spun. Spots clouded his vision. The night rang with a shrill sound that hadn’t been there before.

The dhemon swung again. Azriel, just present enough to see the flash of steel, rolled back over his shoulder and staggered to his feet. Another ungainly slash of the knife—had no one taught him how to use it before sending him into the field? Or had they anticipated using his brute strength to haul off a Caersan vampire?

They’d come for Ariadne.

No. Not again. The thought snapped Azriel back into focus. He did this for her. He’d kill anyone who tried to hurt her.

The youth moved forward again. With a lunge, twist, and jerk of his wrist, Azriel sent the knife tumbling to the ground. Another quick slash, and he removed the youth’s outstretched hand.

The resulting scream echoed off the trees.

Slapping a hand over the dhemon’s mouth, Azriel leaned in close and whispered, “You’re too young for this fight. I can help you.”

“Get away from him.” The woman pulled the next bolt into place and stepped closer. “Keep your fang-loving poison to yourself.”

“Please,” Azriel hissed. “Let me help.”

The youth clutched his bleeding stump of an arm to his chest and lifted his mouth away from Azriel’s hand to grind out, “Liar.”

Azriel moved at the sound of the next bolt’s release. He ducked behind the youth, shoving him onto the arbalist’s path and letting the huge dhemon take the bolt in the neck. Blood sprayed everywhere and drowned the dhemon’s cry of shock.

The woman yelled in dismay and stepped forward as though to help, then thought better of it. She set her jaw and dropped the crossbow. “I will bring your head to the king.”

Something ugly twisted in Azriel’s gut. “King.”

“Did he forget to tell you?” she mocked, and a wicked smirk spread across her face as she unsheathed two short swords. “Ehrun is king now.”

Azriel choked on a hollow laugh, straightening and squaring up with the woman. “My father hated that title anyway. All hail King Ehrun the Inept. King Ehrun the Traitor. King Ehrun the Murderer of Peace.”

“Peace,” she spat and circled closer. “Peace with these cursed rats?”

“Peace,” Azriel repeated. “Something Ehrun would never understand.”

Something his father had been speaking to Lord Governor Garth Caldwell about for months. The reason, Azriel suspected, for Ehrun’s coup. And the reason for Garth’s sudden death. Old age didn’t take Caersan vampires hundreds of years younger than their wives.

What caused his quick decline, however, remained an enigma.

“If you think peace will ever be an option,” she hissed and closed the distance between them in a flurry of movement. He barely had time to block the attack. “Then you’ve ignored the destruction they’ve caused.”

In an instant, Azriel was back to the night outside the Caldwell Estate as his mother had bled out before him. She’d turned her shimmering green eyes to him and whispered one final word: “Run.”

He hadn’t run fast enough.

Azriel lifted his sword to block the next attack. He grit his teeth against the jarring pain, unable to use both hands to leverage the blade.

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