“I couldn’t save them,” I rasp, my throat closing around my words. “I couldn’t save Nathan.” I look up at the tall, coldly beautiful man before me, pleading with everything in me. “But you can save me. You can keep me from doing any more harm. Please, Bastian—don’t let me be both of our worst nightmares.”
There’s a hint of pain in the prince’s eyes as he comes a little closer. He’s hesitant, tentative, almost like he’s afraid of me. I want to throw myself at him, want to scream and cry and force him to do what I ask. But I swallow it all back. I can see him thinking, can feel his resolve weakening. A sharp pain slices through my gums, traveling up to my eyes, and I cry out.
“Not long now,” I choke out, pressing my palm over my mouth. “Please. Please. Kill me. Quickly, before I forget why I need to die.”
He hesitates for a moment longer, just out of reach. His eyes hold storms in them, and although his body isn’t moving at all, there’s nothing still about him. Then, finally, he sighs and nods, stepping toward me.
I brace myself for attack, my survival instinct flaring despite what I just begged him to do. I hope it’s quick, whatever it is. A snapped neck would be good. Bleeding out wasn’t too bad, but I don’t know if it will work now that I have Tyresius’s vampiric blood in my system. The bruises on my arms are already fading.
But Bastian doesn’t grab me or strike. He doesn’t twist my neck or crush my skull. Instead, he puts a small flask up to my lips.
“Drink,” he murmurs hoarsely. “This will end it.”
I do. I clutch at his arm and drink greedily, clinging to him as I tilt my head up to reach the flask better.
The liquid is bitter and pungent, thick enough to feel like wool in my mouth, but I force it all down. It tastes like death, which makes sense. I open my eyes after I empty the flask, and the edges of my vision have already gone dark. Bastian’s warm, sad eyes are all I can focus on.
He pulls me into his arms, cradling me close and stroking my hair. His touch is tender, even though his chiseled features are still set in a mask.
“Thank you,” I whisper quietly as the feeling runs out of my fingers and toes.
I rub my face against his shirt, breathing in his scent. He doesn’t ask what I’m thanking him for, and I’m glad. Even now, at the end, I have too much pride to tell someone that I’m grateful they took pity on me. I always thought I’d go out stronger than that.
“For death,” I say instead, pushing the words past my lips even as my lungs begin to give out. “For letting me go. Thank you for… proving me wrong about you.”
He kisses the top of my head, ignoring the fact that the strands must be crusted and tangled with blood and sweat. I tilt my head back so I can look into his beautiful storm-gray eyes one last time. With numb hands, I reach up to pull him down to me, threading my fingers through the silky hair at the back of his head.
I don’t know why I do it, exactly.
I’m grateful, but that isn’t the whole of it.
All I know for sure is that the last thing I want to do before I die is kiss Bastian.
His lips meet mine, and he kisses me back with more feeling than I expected. It feels like a goodbye kiss, just like Rome’s did, full of unsaid words that neither of us will ever get to say now.
His arms crush me close, but soon, I stop feeling them. I stop feeling anything except his mouth, then I stop feeling that too.
My eyelids fall shut as the world goes black.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I’ve never been dead before, but I’m surprised it feels like this.
My skin is cool. I’m pressed against something rough, and it takes me a moment to realize that I’m lying on my back.
It takes me even longer to realize that I’m… breathing.
Every movie I’ve ever seen where someone is buried alive rushes through my head all at once, and I panic, breaking out in a cold sweat. I force my eyes open, expecting to see the inside of a coffin a few inches from my face. Instead, there’s just the rebar-crossed concrete ceiling of the lowest level.
I’m in the same dark, dingy dungeon cell. Someone took the time to lay me on the flimsy cot in the corner, but I’m definitely still here.
I sit up and close my mouth, which has been hanging open. I instantly regret it as I bite my lip. I don’t bite it hard, but even so, blood wells up around my teeth. I lick my lip, then lick it again. The blood tastes… good.
It tastes like blood, but it’s making me salivate.
Confused, I lick my lip again.
This time, I scrape my tongue against the offending teeth—newcomers in my mouth, sharp and vicious and unwieldy.
Fangs.
No.
No, no, no. Please, no.
“That son of a bitch,” I growl. My voice is hoarse, giving out before I even finish the words, but I don’t know if that’s because my throat is still ragged from all the screaming I did earlier, or because I can’t seem to find my breath.
I can’t breathe. A kind of horror is washing through me that I’ve never experienced before, something that seems to creep into my bones and chill them from the inside out. I’ve only felt like this once before, and it was the day I watched helplessly as my parents died.
I should’ve died today.
This should’ve been over.
“Goddammit,” I whisper brokenly.
I want to be furious at Bastian for betraying me, I really do, and I will be… as soon as I’m done being heartbroken over it. I really thought
