Page 73 of The Curse of Eternity
At the same moment Drake tried to pull him away from me, Mihai grasped Drake’s broken arm, and yanked hard. My vampire stumbled, bringing all three of us down in his attempt to keep Mihai’s snapping teeth from tearing into my throat. The vampire leader’s free hand gripped my arm, and I screamed, the sound strangled and frustrated while I tried to get my feet out from under me. Abandoning my blade, despite everything inside me demanding I hold on, I flung my arm out instinctively to push Mihai away.
Mihai grabbed my blade, and tossed it aside like the weapon meant nothing. Then the monster was on top of me. My head hit the carpet hard, terror jumbling my thoughts while Mihai forced my forearm down to the floor beside my throbbing skull. The arm I held between us felt thin and fragile when he pressed in, but any triumph in his eyes was overshadowed by violent hunger.
Chills racked my spine. I inhaled a sharp breath. Drake appeared behind Mihai, my machete in his grip. In one swift slice, Mihai’s head slid from atop his shoulders. Cold grimy liquid splashed down my front, and I sputtered when rivulets ofblood hit my mouth. Drake flung Mihai’s decapitated body off me, and quickly knelt on the floor beside me to haul me up into his arms.
With a ragged gasp, I wrapped my shaking arms around him and buried my face against his chest. Iron and decay hung thick in the air, freezing my thoughts until Drake pulled back just enough to stare into my eyes, his gaze shifting to look me over from head to toe.
“Are you alright?” He rocked back on his heels, and I sat straighter.
“The rings,” I blurted, frowning at Drake with my machete in his grasp. He handed it back before standing in a blur that left me woozy to watch. When he offered his hand next, I fit my equally bloody palm against his before he pulled me upright.
“We have them.” He dropped back to crouch beside Mihai’s body, and rifled through the vampire’s vest pocket without even a glance at the severed head several feet away. After straightening up, his figure blurred to my side, quickly ushering us toward the doors. “We must go, while we still can.”
“I’m right behind you.”
Without looking back, we fled the room’s destruction, pausing only long enough to close the double doors behind us.
By the time we reached the winding staircase, Drake had taken my free hand. He hurried my descent, until I was jumping two or three steps at a time. Whatever noise I made didn’t seem to matter anymore. Drake urged me on like we were running on borrowed time. Fatigue slowed me down, no matter how hard I fought to keep my breaths even and footfalls sure.
Goosebumps rose along my arms in spite of the cold sweat beading my forehead, trickling down my temples and making my scalp itch. Too soon, a chorus of clamoring bells echoed through the halls. Reverberating peals of the high alarm mademe squint, my eyes watering, and I struggled not to clap my hands over my ears.
If I wasn’t breathless from sprinting, I would have asked Drake what it meant, but I could already guess. We’d left just as bloody of a mess in the throne room as we had in Mihai’s quarters. It was only a matter of time before our escape was discovered. Our turns began to look familiar, which meant Drake was dragging me back the way we came.
“But the guards—” I managed to choke out, but Drake shook his head.
“Our only route is the way we have come. They will have blockaded all other paths to the exit.”
How many more guards could I face before my body gave out? I stumbled over my own footfalls, trying to keep my momentum going. Another bend, and the hallway widened, the ceiling slanting higher. The silhouette of the gargoyles guarding the throne room came into view.
Just as we reached the open space, and Drake pulled me around like he was about to pick me up and carry me, the hammering sound I thought was my racing heart turned out to be gettingcloser. We both paused, listening while the stomping of metal boots across the stone floors was joined by distant snarls.
The lycans had transformed. I looked to Drake, who glanced up and down the hall with such uncertainty behind his dark eyes that I could easily read the truth on his face. When his gaze found mine, understanding passed between us.
We wouldn’t be able to fight the next horde and win.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, glued to the center of the space while the enemy closed in. Drake shook his head, his expression vehement as he took my left hand between his.
“Not now. Do not lose your hope, after everything—”
“Drake…” My grip on my machete loosened, my right arm lowering until my weapon hung limp at my side. I raised my left hand to trace the sharp plane of his cheekbone. From the corner of my eye, the first row of guards came into view, their silhouettes becoming solid out of the darkness. Frenzied waist-high shapes sprinted across the marble from beneath swaying metal arms, claws skittering to echo alongside the lycans’ growls.
Tears stung the backs of my eyes, and one finally escaped down my cheek despite my best efforts to hold it in.
I didn’t want to die—not like this, when we were so close… Rooted to the spot, I raked in a shuddering sob as Drake’s cold hand placed something in mine. Looking down through my blurry vision, I found the smaller of the two rings in my palm.
The larger was already placed on Drake’s left ring finger, and when I didn’t make a move, he slid mine on for me. A flash of light circled the golden band, illuminating our faces in the darkness for one brief second. Solidarity seemed to spread between us when he turned his back to mine, never letting go of my hand.
I inhaled deep and raised my machete. Figures blurred behind the advancing mob of brainwashed lycans. Our execution would have an audience, and it sickened me. Pain mingled with rage at the injustice of our imminent death. Because my family would never know where my final resting place would be.
Even if I did go down swinging, in fabricated glory like Grandpa had always aggrandized, I would never see Johann again. Never again feel the comfort of his big bear hugs, and his rough-hewn pride in me that even my dumbest decisions couldn’t expunge from his enormous heart. There was emotional distance between us, but we were always held together by the glue of our family surrounding us.
Uncle Alaric, Aunt Susan, and my cousins, who were more like my own siblings, having grown up in the same church. Theirlove meant everything, the only reason why I survived not only Mom’s death, but the mistakes I’d made last year. If it wasn’t for them, and Everly, Caleb—all the Tsosies, as much my family as the people I was related to by blood—I wouldn’t be who I was today.
Maybe if I’d been more like Linda, Elias’s oldest, and ignored the calling to hunt monsters altogether, I could’ve survived this legacy. Except, with Drake at my back and ready to fight to our death, the choice to battle for what I believed in or stick to the sidelines had always been obvious. Because that was all it came down to, even if it meant abandoning the warm Albuquerque sunshine for the dark catacombs of this ancient magick fortress.
Saliva flecked to the marble floor as the nearest transformed werewolves ran toward us at full bore, their eerie too-human eyes focused on mine with no hesitation to make the kill. If I could help it, I wanted my last thoughts to be of home. How the heat would beat down, mercilessly drying out the earth until only the toughest of flora learned to survive the desert. I’d taken it for granted.
This time, I wanted to do more than survive—I wanted tolive.
