Page 38 of Can't Bite This Feeling
“She was meant to carry my legacy. The Church. The Empire.Order.” His voice rises, reverent and wrathful. “And instead, she defied me. Embraced darkness. Gave herself toyou.”
I take a step closer, careful not to breach the edge of the circle. Blood magic like this can explode with the wrong pressure. “You didn’t want a daughter,” I say coldly. “You wanted a puppet. Someone to inherit your power without questioning your rules.”
Cassian’s voice turns venomous. “She wasmine.My creation. My heir. Until you twisted her.”
“No,” I growl, voice low. “She was never yours. You controlled her, beat her, but in the end, she chose herself.”
Cassian lifts the blade higher. “Then she dies by her own choice,” he says almost peacefully. “Burned clean. Forgotten. And I will save her soul by destroying it.”
The words are so twisted with self-righteousness that they almost sound merciful. Almost.
“You’re not saving anything,” I snarl. “You’re just trying to erase the part of her you couldn’t control.”
A flicker of something crosses his face—rage, maybe. Or the shame of a man who’s gone too far to recognize himself.
I take another step, claws bared. “You don’t cleanse things by burning them alive.”
“You do,” he says flatly, “when they’re already damned.”
He looks at Drusilla like a relic left to rot. Not a daughter. A failure. A mark he’s desperate to erase.
“I will burn her soul until there is nothing left,” he snarls. “No ghost. No whisper. Nothing for you to cling to. I will salt the earth where she once stood. I will make hernever have been.” The sword pulses red in his hands. “And when she’s gone, my legacy will be pure again.”
“No!” I lunge at him as he swings the sword toward Drusilla.
I don’t even see it coming. Cassian turns at the last second and drives his sword through my chest. The blood runes etched into the steel do their job as the blade carves straight through my ribs. One second, I’m moving, talons ready to rip him to shreds, and the next, fire lances through my chest, hot and final.
I hit the ground hard. Cold stone. Cold blood. Mine. I can’t move. My limbs are ice. My vision swims.
Drusilla’s scream reaches me from a distance, like she’s calling to me through water or from another world.
Darkness creeps in.
Is this how it ends? Not in redemption. Not in rage. But infailure?
I palm the locket that still hangs around my neck. A symbol of our enduring love. I forgot for a little while, lured by the addiction of reaping souls for Lucifer. Ironic how everything is so incredibly clear when you’re on the brink of death.
“You thought yourlovewould save you?” Cassian snarls, his eyes gleaming with madness as he looks at Drusilla. “But I will end you so thoroughly that no god, no demon, no curse will ever bring you back.”
He chants in a language so old, even time has forgotten it. Drusilla screams, and her body arches. Pain rips through her as the ritual pulls at her soul, trying to unmake her. On and on, her scream echoes through the night air, becoming hoarse and broken until it finally becomes a whimper and dies.
Her head hangs forward, her ebony hair concealing her features.
Silence reigns.
What’s left of my soul writhes in agony. I sense it. The absence of her heartbeat. Dying now seems like a blessing because I’ve lost her again. My Drusilla. My butterfly.
Then…something pulses. Something ancient. Familiar.
A shudder ripples through the temple.
Her stalled heart... starts again. Ifeelit.
A beat. Another. And another.
Drusilla lifts her head.
And smiles.
