Page 7 of Eternal Ruin
Three artifacts—the Sun, Water, and Death artifacts rumored to free vampires from all restrictions.
Thunder crossed over Susenyos’s features. The paneled walls near him were no longer burning with violent fire, they were rippling, becoming soft as curtains. Traces of concern entered his mind. Those artifacts held power over him. They would always be his utmost priority. Her throat went dry.
“Don’t listen to him,” Kidan said, breathing fast.
“You… would waste… another century… looking for them.” Samson struggled to form words, half weakened, half furious. “And if… Lusidio discovers them before you, what then?”
It was a bunch of babble that didn’t interest Kidan. “Enough of this.”
Yet Susenyos had gone entirely still at the name. Black, twisting tendrils of what could only be terror ensnared his feet, a manifestation of an emotion visible only to them. They extinguished Kidan’s fire and darted toward her like eels. Wrapped around her ankles and burned like fire ants. Panic bloomed inside Kidan’s chest. She waited for Susenyos to speak, to instruct her like before when the housemagnified their emotions too much. But he was frozen. Barely seeing her. She’d seen him tortured in the observatory, in the visions of his past, but this wasmore. Frightening because he wasn’t fighting back.
He always fought back.
“Yos,” Kidan called, hoping to wake him.
He didn’t answer.
Kidan tightened her hold on the gun, calling forth her rage by drawing a triangle on Samson. A cloak of red fire descended from the roof and she welcomed it, letting it fill her lungs. Extinguish the reaching shadow fingers.
Susenyos exhaled and stared at the fading black tendrils in surprise.
Samson’s shoulders struggled to move despite their pinned position.
It was now or never.
“See you in hell,” Kidan said.
She pulled the trigger at the same time as a force collided into her side. Both her arms were knocked off course painfully. The bullet found the leg of a chair and the entire thing exploded on one side. Her gun flew out of her grip and scraped the floor, spinning before going still. She scrambled for it just as a figure flipped her onto her back and pinned her to the floor.
Susenyos… hovered above her, face severe.
“What the hell are you doing?” she shouted, the flames whirling into a tornado around them.
His face was grim, shooting a loathing look to where Samson lay. Still alive.
“He’s right. I need the blade artifact first.”
He was not serious.
Kidan writhed under him, cursing so loud her lungs bled. “We have to kill himnow. This is our chance! I swear to God, Yos, I’ll kill you if you let him go. He will kill GK!”
Susenyos stared back with a resigned yet determined look. Her fight slowed as cruel disappointment took root. They’d finally reached an understanding, to work and kill together. He couldn’t abandon her now.
“Don’t do this,” she whispered, hating the way her tone softened.
His eyes dropped for a moment, but his voice betrayed no emotion. “This is the closest we’ve come to putting all the artifacts together.”
She screamed at him then, but he didn’t ease his grip. After a while, he slowlylet go. Confused at his sudden surrender, Kidan remained still for a second before crawling to where the gun was.
Someone else picked it up.
A large man nearly double Kidan’s height loomed over her. He had tree-trunk-like arms and a face of terror. They called him Warde, one of Samson’s followers.
Kidan scrambled to her feet quickly.
Behind him, shyly entering, was June.
Kidan’s vision pulsed.
