Page 53 of Vampire Runner
“I should never have left you,” I say, bringing his hand to my lips and pressing a kiss against his swollen fingers.
He growls, and I meet his fierce golden eyes. “I didn’t want you to stay. I could endure it, knowing you were safe.” Then those eyes soften, love and understanding replaces the determination. “I get it now, Cassandra. I know why you made the bargain.”
I bite back the tears, giving him a wobbly smile that is more painful than humorous. “And I understand just how badly I hurt you. Goddess, what you had to go through for a hundred and fifty years. I only had to endure the pain for hours. I don’t understand how you don’t hate me.”
Ashe chuckles before cutting off with a grunt as Josephine presses a sterile pad over a slice on his bicep. He shrugs her off, to her exasperation, but she primly sets the bandages down and leaves us to join the rest of the Nightshades.
“I could never hate you, not truly,” he assures me, gathering me close. “I hated the choice you made. Because I was selfish. I only thought about my pain. Not what you’d have to endure watching me suffer before dying.”
He brings my arm up to his lips, running them over my inner wrist and kissing my racing pulse. I press my wrist closer. “Feed, my love,” I urge. “You need it.”
It’s a testament to his injuries that Ashe doesn’t hesitate. He pulls his lips back, sinking his elongated fangs into my flesh with a tear-inducing tenderness. As he takes my blood, I reach for him through our bond. No longer am I met with a solid wall, but with his own soul reaching for mine. I take him into me even as he takes my blood into himself.
It’s bliss, a kind of love that is impossible to understand, only experience.
He pulls away after only a few swallows, licking once against the puncture wounds. The sight of his tongue traveling along my skin sets me on fire. He meets my eyes, his own pupils blown wide with matching desire.
“Later,” he promises me, beating my insistence that he drink more. We both know he needs more to heal. He eases me back, standing on his feet more easily than he had minutes before. His vitality is already returning. “We need to help Eris, if we can.”
I slide my hand around his back, satisfying my own need to support and embrace him. He drapes his arm over my shoulders, holding me tight. He’s steady as we walk to the line of vampires.
Malachi twists towards us; he’d found the time to clean his face of blood, the facial wound already healed.
A crash of unnatural thunder implodes the barn in front of us. I turn, hiding my face in Ashe’s chest as he bends over me, arm up to block potential debris from slamming into his face. Many of the other vampires have jolted backwards, crouching from the unexpected blast. The air is full of dust when we straighten.
Ambrose and Kasar had not flinched away, though they lower their arms to see better. I can’t see through the thick haze, the only light now coming from the partial moon above us and one SUV’s headlights.
I want to ask Ashe what he sees, but a moment later I don’t need to.
“Holy shit,” Ashe breathes, and I follow his gaze upwards, staring in awe at the figures rising above the destruction. “When did Eris get wings?”
To my shock, she does have wings. Blacker than the night sky beyond her, black whip-like tendrils have spawned from her back and undulate in the air. She’s larger than before, a deep red aura surrounding her. My hindbrain, the part of every living soul, recognizes the absolute danger she is, urging me to flee, hide, and hope she never sets sight on me.
Aeternaphiel is her opposite, wings of prismatic white feathers beat behind him. The golden sword he wields is almost too blinding to look at.
He bears down on Eris, aiming for her neck, but she parries his strike with her arm, the tip slicing deeply.
I can’t tear my eyes away. Fear builds in my chest. Not of the two celestial beings, but for her.
“Eris was holding back on us,” Malachi mutters, almost in awe.
A shudder goes through me as I picture Eris using this power while possessing my body.
“If she’s devoured his soul,” Lan begins, drawing my attention. He’s still watching the two fighting, a puzzled expression on his face. “How does she expect to kill him? Wouldn’t she need to return the soul to his body first?”
I blink, confused, and turn my attention back to them. My mind races, working through everything I knew about demons before I was possessed and what I learned from Eris.
“A demon in possession of a mortal’s soul binds them together,” I say in a measured tone, trying to work out what will happen. “If the demon dies, so do any mortals bound to them. If the mortal dies, they’re sent to the underworld.”
“So, another angel in hell?” Kasar asks, looking at me. I shrug.
“He wasn’t mortal, originally,” I remind him. “I have no idea what will happen if Eris kills him.”
The figures clash against one another, the crack of lightning rending the sky. Each blow sends a gust of wind towards us, buffeting us with dust.
“She’s losing,” Ashe states, voice urgent. “Look at her.”
I do, and I realize he’s right. Eris is slower, her strikes weaker. She’s taken multiple blows from Aeternaphiel’s celestial weapon, slices and cuts marring her arms and torso.