Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
I reach the horde just a fraction before Paul, morph back into my vampire body, and start tearing at my scions. Ryet is still conscious, still trying to fight, but he’s weak. There is a lot of blood on the ground, not to mention inside the bellies of my beasts, and the few minutes that Paul wasted bantering with me will cost Ryet.
Maybe his life.
But I don’t count on it. I am the geneticist who created Ryet, but Paul has been dipping his fingers into my magic the whole time. A little pudding here, a little vial of blood there.
Paul, no longer the black cloud of Darkness, crashes into me. I let go of Ryet, content to let my scions continue to feed while I end Paul’s quest once and for all.
I swipe a claw across his throat. He opens up my ribcage from shoulder to groin. I twist in the air, pulling the wings in, then extending them out so I can fly. I bring Paul with me, dragging him through the air like a doll.
He spins, breaks free, and then we are facing each other.
I grin. Because no matter what, I’ve won. His Little Baby is dying at the fangs of the scions made, in part, by his own hand.
The irony is more than satisfying, it’s nourishing.
Still, he smirks at me. Fake. Not even the Vampire Paul can pull off indifference at this point. “Smile all you want,” I snarl. “It’s over for Ryet.” We’re hovering in the air, teeth bared, claws out, bleeding like the sacrifices we are. “And I have to admit, I’m a little bit disappointed.” I pause here to smile. “I overestimated you, Paul.”
He lowers his head and has the nerve to check his fingernails. “How so?” But then his eyes slide upward, meeting my gaze. A sly look that in no way implies submission. It’s a threat.
I’ve missed something. Something important. But my voice stays deep and confident. “The hedge. Against them.” I nod to the scions below us. Ryet is on the ground now, dying as they feed. “The leftovers. I thought you’d wanted them to keep for yourself. Your own little army.”
“Like your own Little Baby?” My face must betray my surprise because he chuckles. “Come on, Josep. How predictable. Why do you think I chose her in the first place? Why do you think she was waiting for you when you came up from the bunker?” His head is no longer bowed, his gaze is directed right at me. “Tell me, how did she turn out? To your liking?”
Paul pans his hands wide, as if he is the actual king of this earthly realm and he has just bestowed on me a gift. “You’re welcome. Enjoy it while you can because she won’t be keeping you company in the infinite emptiness. You’re going to live in the eternal darkness alone, Josep. Because she’s down there in your cave plotting against you right now. She has the power of the Coyrah. That water in your cave? How it keeps everything so cool? That nice lavender mist you’ve been enjoying since my heir built that place for you? Did you think… what, that I had Ryet out in your cave there for your comfort? You thought… what? That I had no idea who and what you were?” Paul laughs. “Fantasy.”
No.
“Oh, it’s true, blood brother. How many times have you looked into that water to gaze upon your fair face? Hundreds? Thousands?” He cackles now. “It’s a mirror, you idiot. And who, exactly, controls the nightmare in the mirror?” There’s a pause here, like I might actually answer him. But he doesn’t wait. “The Coyrah controls the other side of reality. You, of all people, know this. And yet you didn’t see it coming.”
His smirk fills me with rage, but I control it. Because no matter what he did, Ryet is mine and the blood mother is mine as well. I live inside Syrsee. She is carrying me.
Echo was but a dream. A substitute I never needed in the first place. She is but a halfbreed revenant. Nothing but a toy.
“You’re forgetting something,” I say, my voice calm. “Your man down there, the one you pinned all your hopes on, invited me inside him. We shared the drink. And then, when it was over, he put me inside her. The little Black witch is eating her own tail as we speak. Water, mist, mirror—none of that matters now. The baby will be born and I will take Heaven just as I took Earth.”
Paul winks at me and whispers, “Fantasy.”
We clash.
We clash like titans fighting for the sky.
Swirling clouds of Darkness one moment, twisted bodies of demons the next.
And all the while Ryet is dying.
Paul knows this. He knows he can’t kill me. He knows he can’t save Ryet now. He knows—