Page 80 of Midnight Queen

“Silas—”

I will never be able to confirm if my name was a plea for me to have mercy or if it was the beginning of another taunt. The shard of glass I shove through her neck silences her. It slices through her pristine ivory skin and rips through her jugular, severing her vocal cords.

It’s not a life-threatening injury, but it does create the access I need. I tear the severed bottle from her throat and drop it to the glass and alcohol–covered ground.

Before she can try and run from me again, my fingers plunge into the gaping wound I’d created in her neck. With my free hand on her shoulder for leverage, I begin to rip her head from her body.

It’s brutal and it’s messy, but it feels so fucking good. She earned each agonizing second of this. My only wish is that I could have prolonged it further. The bloodthirsty beast inside of me purrs as her blood coats my fingers.

Her mouth opens in a strangled scream as her skin tears, and her vertebrae come apart. With one final tug, I sever her skull completely from her shoulders.

I release her head and it falls into the piles of glass. It lands facedown in the mess with the strands of her red hair splayed out around it. I don’t think Rowena Morgan has ever looked better than she does now. It’s like a work of art.

“Quincey…Q! No, you have to keep your eyes open!” Lucy’s hoarse pleas fill the now quiet space. “Look at me, Quincey.”

In a flash, I’m over the bar, and kneeling on the blood-soaked floor next to Quincey.

The sight of her causes frigid tendrils of terror to snake around my throat until they suffocate me.

Her skin that’s usually golden from spending days reading in the sunshine has turned a ghastly gray, and her wobbling lips have a blue tinge to them.

Her head rests in Lucy’s lap and as tears fall from her friend’s eyes, they land on Quincey’s face. They streak through the smears of blood on her cheekbones.

Lucy’s fingers press against the wound, but the blood pools over her fingers. “I can’t get it to stop,” she chokes out as she fights a sob. “It won't stop. Fuck, Q, what were you thinking? Why did you do that?”

“It’s okay,” Quincey manages to whisper. With each passing second, her breathing is becoming more labored. She has to fight for each breath she pulls into her lungs. “It doesn’t hurt.”

Lucy turns her head and wipes her tears off on her shoulder. “Okay, that’s good,” she manages to say. Her jaw trembles so hard, I’m surprised she can speak at all. “That’s really good, Q. Everything is going to be okay.”

Swallowing down my own emotion, I reach for Quincey. Lucy looks at me and shakes her head. “No, I have to keep pressure on the wound.”

“Not anymore, Lucy,” I tell her. “It’s not helping.”

I suspect the knife nicked an artery in Quincey’s chest. No amount of pressure is going to stop the bleeding now.

This time when I try to gather Quincey in my arms, Lucy reluctantly lets me.

Her skin feels cool to the touch, and I can feel the way her muscles tremble from the shock. “Quincey,” I murmur against her temple.

Her heavy eyes follow the sound of my voice, and when they connect with mine, there’s an excruciating pain in my chest. The light that has always shone so brightly in those powder-blue orbs is fading. Just like the life inside of her.

Her lips twitch, but she doesn’t have the strength to fully smile at me. “Silas.” My name on her lips doesn’t sound like a lullaby this time, instead, it sounds like a somber goodbye.

She promised me she would always be mine and now she’s trying to leave me.

“You’re always finding me,” she stammers, the same words she told me the last time I found her in this club.

“Always and forever,Mon Soleil.” Always will I catch her, always will I find her, and always will I love her. “That was my vow to you.”

Her eyes flutter closed, forcing the tears that were forming to drip down her face. My thumbs wipe them away.

“Kiss me,” she pleads in a soft whisper. “Kiss me one more time.”

Dipping my head, I do as she asks. Her lips feel cold against mine and when she breathes out, it's barely a whisper across my skin. “That wasn’t the last time I’ll kiss you, my love,” I say lowly close to her ear. “I told you I want to spend lifetimes with you, this is not where we end, Quincey Page.”

She can’t respond and I can only hope that she can still hear me.

I asked for six more years, but that plan vanished the second the dagger pierced her chest. Our timeline may have been forcibly altered, but that doesn’t change what I already know.

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