Page 104 of A Study of Blood and Ichor

I wasn’t going to stop until I could feel the life leave Ghen’s body. Until I’d drained him of everything that he was and there was nothing left of him to be able to hurt us—any of us—anymore.

The archdemon’s eyelids fluttered, his body spasming beneath ours in one final shudder of life. And then a punch rocked through me, barreling straight into my chest which stole all the air from my lungs.

I gasped, but the sound was sharp and rattled softly in my chest. Every breath sounded wrong. Rasping and wet.

I peered down to see Ghen’s fist connecting to the middle of my chest, the golden hilt of a knife protruding from his grip. And then I realized that the blade was inside me. That cold realization struck me with such an intensity that only then did I register the hot searing pain that radiated from that point in my chest and shot outward to every nerve in my system until it felt as if my entire body was screaming with pain.

When I looked back to Ghen’s face, he wore a vicious smile, and not an ounce of weakness graced his striking features. The wounds I’d inflicted on his neck were sealing themselves before my eyes, every scrap of skin, every tendon and muscle reforming anew.

Ghen ripped the blade from my chest, and I screamed. Pain seared through me like a wave of white-hot fire. The archdemon threw me off his chest and I landed facedown on the ground.

My muscles groaned when I lifted my head. Standing over me, Ghen wiped his ichor and my blood off his coat with a few quick flicks of his wrist.

Ava was screaming from somewhere. I couldn’t move anymore to see. Everything was too heavy—too cold. Glacial rivers plotted an unrelenting course through my body, and the chill of icy claws raking their way up my spine left my bones shivering.

“Human vessels are so messy, aren’t they?” Ghen said, tossing me a look of mild amusement before he turned back toward Ava.

I gathered what little energy I had left to brace myself up on my forearms. Nesera and Alastair were still trapped within the confines of Ghen’s demonic flames, the fire singeing them as they watched on through horrified and helpless looks.

Ghen stood over Ava and lifted her up by her hair like she was a doll. She looked so small in his grasp. She had nothing left to give to fight him…and neither did I.

Vain…

You will heal, he said quickly, already trying to dismiss my thought before I could finish it.

I shook my head—or tried to at least. You and I both know it won’t be quick enough.

Rory. The pain in his voice was evident. He knew what had to be done as much as I did. But the bastard was hesitating when we didn’t have the time. You’re sure? he asked.

I caught Ava’s gaze, lifting my head with every bit of strength I had, determined to look into her eyes with my own and have her see me one last time. Her chin wobbled and she mouthed “no”. And then she was yelling it, screaming as much as she could scream with an archdemon’s hands closing around her neck.

If she means half as much to you as she does to me, then you get the hell out right now. Do you understand me?

My face was hot with the tears I hadn’t even registered until they ran in tracks stinging down my cheeks.

Vain still hesitated. It was as if he were trying to memorize us in that exact moment. The last breath we would share, the last thoughts, the rhythm of my heartbeat or the warmth of my body. I could feel him struggling for something. Maybe the last words he wanted to say or trying to find a way to dull the pain I would feel.

But I was done waiting.

Get out! I yelled. NOW!

I roared and dug deep into myself, finding Vain in the dark corners, webbed in between the cracks in my soul. I clawed at them and tore him out myself. I tore him out until there was nothing left of me but the fractured and broken pieces of my own soul.

Ava’s screams echoed my own as the pain consumed me. All of the crevices left empty in the absence of him were nothing more than sunken, hollow pits, and that familiar darkness rushed in to fill the spaces. This time, the void came back to greet me with open arms, welcoming me into its punishing embrace.

My vision swam with the last sight of Ava, a scream tearing from her lips before she faded away from view entirely, and the last words I heard were Vain’s.

“Thank you.”

THIRTY

Vain

Nothing could have prepared me for the shock of re-emerging into my true form again. After seven years, which was a mere blink in my immortal existence, I’d forgotten what it felt like. The surge of power coursing through my own veins, amplified a hundred-fold, was exhilarating and freeing. I’d forgotten how steady my heartbeat was and how quiet my mind felt after years of sharing a body, a mind, a soul with another. There was a quiet relief that came with it, and yet that feeling was overshadowed by the most tortuous ache imaginable.

I could feel a warm wetness pooling at my bare feet, and registered that it was Rory’s blood, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. I wasn’t sure I could bear it. The only blood I wanted to see was the black of Ghen’s ichor seeping between my fingers until he lay in shreds beneath me. And I would rip him apart again and again, forever until the end of time, if it meant bringing him the same level of pain he’d inflicted on me.

Red-black flames sparked at my fingertips, twin to Ghen’s. They licked up my arms like a wildfire, like vengeance. I think I had missed the feeling of them most of all.

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