Page 90 of Fated to the Vampire Prince
BASTIEN
I’d always been a man of few words. They mattered little to me. Instead, I cared about actions. No matter what my mate may have believed about me or my kind in the past, I knew from this moment on that she was mine. Our bond ran deeper than forbidden kisses or carnal desire. We were willing to die for each other.
I intended to spend the rest of my life ensuring that she would never be put in that position again.
She was my new Blood Treaty. Her body my sacred land. Her breath my oath. Every inch of her mine to protect. To worship. Which meant there was only one thing left to do: kill Hera and take Claire away from here. Everything else would have to be figured out after she was safe.
I locked eyes with her and opened our connection. I tried to convey how sorry I was that she was about to witness the ruthlessness inside me as my fangs lengthened. My thirst for blood was almost too much to ignore, but I had to. I had to protect her.To save her.
“Your Grace,” called a faint voice. Reluctantly, I tore my gaze away from Claire to find the witch who had come to our aid whispering from behind a gravestone. “I’ll bind the ones holding Claire. Then you attack.”
I would’ve offered her my thanks, but I didn’t have it in me to thank anyone. I was too thirsty to think of anything else but my vengeance.
With one quick movement, I leapt to my feet and clamped my hands around the back of the nearest witch’s throat.
After that, the monster in me took control. Killing one after another. As I moved from body to body, time slowed, or perhaps it sped up. I wasn’t sure as the blood coated my chin and stained my clothes.
I wasn’t biting to drink, but to kill, and the taste of vengeance was sweet. And before long, the witches whose bodies had once filled the graveyard with music and song now lay in a puddle of their own blood or had run for their lives.
All except the woman who was shoved against the same statue Claire had been bound to. As I stared into Hera’s eyes, I trembled with rage. An unhinged monster. I wanted to rip her throat out as I’d done to the others, but this one wouldn’t get a quick death.
She was going to burn.
“Go ahead, Bastien, make me a martyr,” hissed the witch. “Kill me, and it will start the very war you swore you’d prevent. It goes against the sacred oath you took as part of the Blood Treaty.”
I glared back at her, barring my teeth. “It’s a good thing you revoked my protection.”
My reminder stilled her tongue, and I went back to work tightening her binds. Once she was secured, I began piling sticks at her feet, stealing them from the bundles that had been neatly stacked beside the bubbling cauldrons.
“Kill me, and other covens will rebel!”
Grabbing a nearby lantern, I walked over to the pyre and tossed it on. Watching as the flames caught. Her threats were nothing to me. They quickly turned to screams as the flames rose higher.
My job was done.
“Bastien!” Claire shouted, and the sound of her sweet voice did something to me that I couldn’t explain.
I turned to find her running toward me with her arms spread open wide. There was nothing more beautiful in the world. Nothing that I ever wanted more.
She jumped into my arms, and I squeezed her around the waist, holding her against me as I lifted her off the ground. There were no words to describe how good it felt to hold her, to know she was all right, to feel her reassuring heartbeat thud against my chest.
“I was so worried,” she whispered. “You’re covered in blood.”
“I’m fine,” I reassured her, rubbing her back in circles as I held her in my arms. “Does the sight of me like this make you ill?”
“The sight of you alive and standing is the only thing I’m focused on right now.”
I carefully set her on her feet long enough to take a red handkerchief from inside my pocket and wipe the worst of the blood off my face, then tended to the cut on her head. Dabbing away the sticky red trails.
“Better?” I asked, wrapping my arms around her waist again.
Claire grinned up at me. “A little.”
For a brief second, I forgot about everything else except the pull of her warm brown eyes and the way the rising sun made her copper hair shine.
Our reunion was interrupted when Cora appeared beside us, and I managed to tear my attention away from Claire for a moment to thank her. She saved me against her family’s wishes. And for that, I was in her debt.
“What will you do now?” Claire asked. “Where will you go?”
