Page 96 of Veradel
I catch Lucan’s eye from across the throne room. He’s already in the middle of a fight with the First and Eleventh Guardians, but the moment he turns toward me to make sure I’m okay, it gives him a disadvantage.
The First Guardian lunges for his back…
And I’m a blur as I race toward them, crashing into the vampire before he can sink his teeth intomyMonster.
The First Guardian flies backward, and Soren’s there to catch him by the throat.
You’re going to kill me with your antics one day, little nightmare,Lucan says, towering over me in his monstrous form as the slits of his amber eyes glimmer down at me.
Like I said, I’ll always choose my own blood,I tell him with a wink.And my blood is your blood. On your left, baby.
Lucan swings his head to throw off an incoming Guardian, then turns back to me.Yeah, I caught on eventually. But it still almost killed me, having to let you go for even a minute. Behind you.
I whirl around and swing my fist into the wall of lean muscle that charges at me. It’s the Eleventh Guardian again, Odette’s personal monster, and this time, I don’t plan on letting him go.
Together, Lucan and I unleash ourselves upon him. As the Eleventh Guardian rolls to his side and swipes at my ankles with nails that rip off chunks of my flesh and pull a shriek of agony from my throat, Lucan closes his jaws around his arm and flings him off me.
Gritting my teeth against the pain, I twirl and catch his other arm, pulling with all of my vampire strength.
The Eleventh Guardian screams, but Lucan and I don’t quit pulling him apart.
And with a sound like shattering glass, he cracks down the middle, from the top of his skull to the top of his legs, his innards spilling out until his shriveled lump of a heart flops onto the floor.
We need a fire,I pant, grabbing the heart before the Eleventh Guardian can stitch himself back up. I glance around the throne room, past the chaos of our pack members fighting against the remaining Guardians and sentries, and what I see on the other end makes my own heart freeze to a standstill.
Arad’s corpse has reached his head, his arms extending to plop it back on his shoulders. I can’t seem to do anything, think of anything, as I watch the sinews forge back together like mine did. Arad’s eyes roll in his head before he blinks rapidly and sets his sights back on me.
A grin inches up his mouth.
WE NEED FIRE!I repeat, screaming into the pack’s collective minds. We can tear these vampires apart all we want, but if we can’t burn their hearts…
Retreat,Lucan orders everyone.Try to draw them toward the Wall.
But nobody isableto retreat. Vivian’s trying to tear down all the sentries, ten to one, and she yelps as a rapier pierces her in the hind leg, another one in the front. Merrick howls in rage, but he can’t get to her as the Ninth and Twelfth Guardians converge on him, pinning him down. Soren’s still going head-to-head with the First Guardian, who’s fighting with more stealth than I could have ever imagined for such an ancient being, rolling and twisting, throwing him off again and again. And the others are struggling with the remaining Guardians, their movements too quick to make out.
We’ve killed three of them, torn another one in half, but we’re still outnumbered.
Still losing.
As if he knows it, Arad lunges for a discarded weapon on the floor. Lucan snarls and starts barreling across the room toward him, but Arad scoops up the dagger and brings back his arm. I scream Lucan’s name in warning, and that’s when Arad’s gaze snaps up to me.
He wants to kill me. I can see it in his eyes, the hunger to conquer me once and for all.
Lucan rams into him, knocking him to the ground, but the knife is already whistling through the air with more force and speed than any human could accomplish.
Toward my chest. My heart.
Before I can move aside, pain ricochets through my entire being, white-hot agony flaring across my vision. Connected to my mind, the entire pack yelps in unison, and Lucan roars.
But when I open my eyes and look down, it’s not to find the knife lodged inmyheart.
Instead, Gabriel stands in front of me, swaying on his two human feet, blood bubbling from the corner of his mouth as he gives me a look filled with nothing but sorrow and regret.
“I’m sorry,” he breathes out. “I thought you were… the Monster…” His eyes glaze over. “But I can see… I was wrong.” For a moment, his body seems to try to shift, fur sprouting in patches over his body, bones snapping, canines dropping.
But the wound is too great. The blade hit his heart perfectly. I hold out my arms on instinct when Gabriel tilts forward.
Catching him the moment he takes his last breath.
