Lukain Pierken moves from the first vampire he torched with his silver saber to the next one in line. This assassin is getting second thoughts when he watches his comrade go up like a dry wreath. Hesitating, he finally charges at Lukain.
The dhampir reels back on his heels, sliding out of range, and rams forward with the tip of his silver sword. It glistens radiantly in the night, not touching flesh but rending through clothes.
Lukain tries again—
Shadowy tendrils wrap around the assassin’s legs and pitches him forward. Keffa is there first, making her job easy on the prone bastard. Jinneth is next, slamming her foot against the vampire’s neck in an enraged battle-cry.
Lukain comes last, elbowing the two older ladies aside to plunge his saber into the vampire’s chest before he can get up. The assassin spurts blood from his mouth, reaches up, and then becomes covered in orange-blue flames that snap and smolder across his entire frame, burning his clothes before razing his insides.
There’s suddenly only two assassins left, and they turn to flee to fight another day.
Shadows catch them both as Skar’s arms flurry and wave, dragging the shadows from me, the Chained Sisters closest, and any other living thing he can manage.
He pins them, though one of the assassins has a hand free. He reaches into his mouth just as Lukain gets there and bats his hand away. Froth fills the assassin’s mouth and he convulses before collapsing to the ground, twitching, not moving—and then bursting into flames.
Lukain is too late. The assassin chomped on his poisoned, silvered tooth, just like the one in the window who attacked me and Vallan at Tymon’s countryside manor.
The last vampire isn’t so lucky.
Skar gets to him first, keeping the shadows held on his body. My graceful mate dashes across the road, pins the vampire’s arms with a great struggle, and headbutts the assassin over and over again, until blood spills from both of them. Nauseous and wobbly where he stands, the assassin looks dumbstruck.
“Who sent you, fiend?” Skartovius demands, baring his fangs.
The assassin spits on his face, a bloody wad. “Suck cocks in hell, nobleblood wretch!”
These vampires have no markings on their cloaks, like Alacine’s assassins did. They wear no broad-brimmed hats like the judgemen do.
Skar roars and bites into the assassin’s neck. He strikes an artery and blood sprays—it’s not a comely bite like when he effortlessly sips on my Loreblood, careful not to break anymore of my flesh than is needed. No, this is a ragged tear, the sound of ripping flesh ringing out in the night.
The assassin wails. “No! Stop it, barbaric scum!”
“I’ll drain you fucking dry,” Skar promises through bubbling blood in his mouth. “I’ll turn you into my bloodless fucking slave just so I can drink from you every night, for eternity. You will sufferforeveras my bloodthrall.”
He looks nothing like the regal nobleblood I know, completely losing his composure.
All I can do is stand there, breathless, speechless. My feet can barely hold me up. The Chained Sisters begin to emerge from their hideouts. The audience of commoners in the streets watch everything that’s happening, from the corners, the overturned barrels, the windows, the doors.
Skartovius’ thick auburn mane blows in the heavy breeze. Blood gets in it—blood gets all over him.
The assassin drains before our eyes, his gaunt cheeks getting sunken, his red eyes dimming. He blinks, shaking his head as Skar pulls back for a moment to swallow his essence with blood-drenched lips that spills down his chin. The assassin’s throat is a ragged mess of spurting arterial gore.
“Well?” Skar asks.
“A . . . Aramastun,” the vampire wheezes, knowing it’s the only chance he has of getting Skartovius to stop the insanely seductive mortal wound from continuing. It’s a pleasureful experience that leads to death, and then turning, and it seemsthe outcome, in this assassin’s mind, is a fate muchworsethan death.
Skar nods. “As I suspected.” He steps back to survey the assassin—surely to kill him in the next heartbeat.
But he doesn’t get the chance.
Because as Skartovius tilts his head curiously at the assassin and begins to ask another question, the restrained vampire’s left side separates from his right side. A great ripping and crunching sound tears the fabric of space and grotesquely cleaves through cartilage and bone and muscle all at once, dismembering the vampire and turning him into two half-vampires.
The tidal wave of blood that explodes from the space between his two vertical halves is like nothing I’ve ever seen, fully drenching Skartovius in an ocean of red pulpy matter.
On the other side of the annihilated assassin stands Vallan Stellos with his axe stuck in the ground where he cleaved through the vampire from head to groin and split him in half in one go. “Fuck,” he grunts, showered in as much gore from the back-blow as Skar is. “I’m late, aren’t I?”
Skar swipes blood from his eyes, sighing. “Yes, you’re fucking late, mypropheticbrother.Again.”
I let out a huff that’s a mangled mix of hysterical laugh and traumatic groan, unable to summon any other words or thoughts.