Page 157 of The Golden Rose Of Valenul

“Open his mouth.” Revelie ripped into her wrist with her fangs. “This is all we have left.”

She knelt beside Emillie and pressed her wrist to Madan’s mouth, held open with tender care by Azriel. Ariadne covered her mouth as, once again, Madan responded. He drew the blood offered, and slowly, oh so slowly, the gash in his gut began to seal.

Chapter 34

Azriel looked away for one minute. One minute and Ariadne disappeared. At first, he figured she had absconded with Emillie and Camilla to find Revelie, perhaps in a sitting room as she so often did at these events. Nothing new.

Until he saw her sister tucked in a corner with her two friends. Ariadne’s notable absence and their tense expressions told him enough. His heart sank like a rock. Lord Moone’s voice faded into the background as a high-pitched ringing took up in his head.

“Excuse me,” he said to the Councilman and pushed through the crowd to the Caersan women. They turned round eyes up to him at his approach. He couldn’t breathe. “Where is she?”

“I do not know,” Emillie admitted. She bit her lip, glanced at her friends, then said, “She went to find Madan.”

As if he could feel any worse. Azriel demanded she explain everything, and Emillie divulged all she knew. She barely finished speaking before he moved, mind whirling at what he needed to do: find her—find them both—and protect them at all costs. At the Gards’? They would be in trouble. “Stay here.”

But none of them listened. As he took off out the front door, they followed close behind. Then he smelled the blood. Ariadne’s blood. Madan’s blood—so, so much blood from his brother. Too much.

His mind went blank at the sight of them. Ariadne soaked in crimson and Madan unable to stand alone. She had found him, found their brother, and—based on the sheer volume of another vampire’s blood coating her—she’d fought her way out. The pride which swelled in him vanished as fast as it grew when the guards converged on them, and his brother fell.

“Madan!” He ripped the sword from its sheath on his back, and everything went dark.

It wasn’t the first time he’d hacked his way through vampires to help his brother. The way his mind shut out what he did, what he saw, had saved him from centuries of torment. No matter how much he tried to forget it, though, it always came back to remind him at the worst of times.

But the state of his brother at the end of it all tore through him like an explosion. He never would’ve been in such a position if Azriel hadn’t made him leave. None of it would be happening.

Only Revelie’s quick thinking stemmed the flow of blood and dragged Madan’s pure Caersan immortality back from the brink. But only for some of the wounds.

As he took another, more urgent pull from her arm, the state of Madan’s hand didn’t change. The decaying flesh remained. His bones continued to protrude from the blackened skin.

“Enough.” Azriel pulled Revelie’s arm away. “He’ll drain you if you aren’t careful.”

“I can help.” Camilla’s voice, quieter than he’d ever heard it before, drifted down to him.

But he shook his head. “We need to leave.”

He clutched Madan to his chest and rose to his feet, mindful of the injuries still very much present across his brother’s body. The leg, which he had not noticed before, hung at a bad angle. It’d need to be rebroken and reset now the healing had begun.

“Go back to the manor,” he said to the Caersan women. “Say nothing about any of this. No one can know.”

Emillie gaped at him. “But the General—“

“The General will pay for this,” he assured her, a fire stoking in his chest at the thought. “I’ll make sure of it. For now, you need to return to the ball and clean yourselves up. Let no one know you were here.”

After a beat, she nodded and took Revelie’s hand. The Caersan seamstress held her wrist to her chest and stared at Madan for a long moment. “Will he survive?”

Azriel’s brows pinched, and his heart throbbed. “I don’t know.”

“Ari.” Emillie held out her other hand.

But Ariadne didn’t move. She merely stared at Madan, then lifted her eyes to him and shook her head as she answered her sister, “If anyone asks, we went home early.”

Relief flooded through him. He hadn’t realized how much he needed to know she’d remain by his side. If not for him, then for Madan.

Camilla took the outstretched hand, and they hurried away. He turned to look at the mess across the lawn. Guards lay in pieces around them, their life source fodder for the grass. Hiding such a disaster forever would be impossible. Come daylight, when the Rusan guards took their positions, there’d be no hiding the red stains.

“I have an idea.” Ariadne grabbed the nearest guard by the hands and dragged him to the guard house. Azriel followed to watch her push the body down the steps to a cellar. “It will take them a while for anyone to figure out what happened.”

Azriel grunted in agreement and set Madan on a chair. His brother groaned, eyes flickering open for a moment before he rested his head on the wall beside him. A good sign, even if he wasn’t out of the woods yet.

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