Andre’s mouth opened, but no words came out. He touched the wooden blade that impaled him and knew he’d indeed been tricked. Only, it wasn’t Gabrielle who would die, and it wasn’t him that would be forced to watch.
The devil clutched him close. “Feel that, vampire? That is death.” He pulled the sword out, the blade making a wet, slick sound. “It won’t be fast, but it will give you enough time to think about what exactly waits for you on the other side.”
Gabrielle
I dropped my sword after the second demon dissipated into smoke and ash. My breaths came in great heaves. The clash of swords grew louder, until it was right above me.
I scrambled through the debris, searching for the quill. Before I came upon it, I heard a familiar voice.
“… to do better than that.”
“Andre?” I called.
Another sinisterly familiar presence tugged at my heart. The devil had already consumed so much of it that I hadn’t noticed that throb of his closeness. He was right up there with Andre.
I couldn’t think about that.
I began turning over the ruins of the coffee table and tossing aside scattered books, my heart pattering like rain on a rooftop.
There.
It shimmered amongst the debris, not a single vane of the feather out of place. It had survived the fight.
Just as my fingers closed in on it, my back arched and pain seized my heart. I clasped the skin over it, gasping for breath. My first thought was that it was my body’s reaction to touching a holy object. Then I heard the devil’s voice and the slick slide of a blade leaving flesh.
My pulse pounded in my ears.
I smelled the blood before I saw it.
Borrowed blood.
Oh God, no.
A moment later a body tumbled down the spiral staircase that led into the library. My knees weakened. “Andre.” I ran, stumbling over my own feet in my haste to get to him.
“Soulmate,” he said. I’d heard that voice say many things in anger, in love, in sadness, in agony. Never had I heard it so weak.
I wound an arm underneath his shoulders. He clutched his chest as I dragged him to the couch. Blood sluggishly seeped between his fingers.
“Why isn’t it healing?” I asked, my voice rising with panic. I had his torso propped on my lap.
“Love.” The endearment was little more than a whisper. In that one word was an explanation, one I didn’t want to hear.
Nononononononono—no.
“Why, Andre?”
His head lulled against my breast. “Staked. The sword … was wood.”
“No.” There were only a few ways you could kill a vampire; a wooden stake through the heart was one of them.
I didn’t realize I was crying until my tears hit his cheek.
“Don’t cry, my life,” he breathed.
“Andre, don’t leave me. Please.”
He gave a slight shake of his head. “Never.” His hand groped for mine. I helped him, slipping my hand into his. His skin had never been this cold.
I couldn’t breathe. Heaven above, this was what loss felt like.
Only one way left to save him. I still clutched the quill. My grip tightened.
This ends now.
Desperation fueled me. My eyes frantically searched the room. A leather-bound book rested below the coffee table. I grabbed it and ripped out the first page.
I wrapped Andre’s hand around the quill. “We’re doing this together.”
“No—please, soulmate. It’s yours.”
I ignored his plea, bringing our joined hands to the paper. Belatedly I realized that I didn’t have any ink for it.
Fuck.
My eyes searched the room. I could fumble through all the odds and ends in Andre’s private library, but he could be dead by then.
You know this can’t possibly save him anyway. I pushed the thought away. I would save him. That was what soulmates did; they saved each other. And fate be damned, he was my soulmate.
Only, it was looking like there was no ink to transcribe this.
And then a horrible, macabre idea entered my mind when my gaze returned to Andre.
Blood. I could use his blood.
A sob slipped out. I pinched my eyes shut as I dipped the quill into a pool of Andre’s spilled blood.
What mischief is my little queen up to now?
The devil was suddenly, staggeringly present. I could feel him like a swift wind brushing past me. The question he asked was irrelevant. He knew what I was doing, what I had. I realized then that he’d been watching from the shadows, waiting for me to come this far only to snatch victory from my grasp.
I had seconds—if that—to finish this.
The devil began to coalesce in the room.
“Leave, soulmate,” Andre pleaded with me.
“Never,” I said, throwing his words back at him.
I began writing, dragging Andre’s hand along with mine, glancing up at the shadows as I did so.
S-A-V-E
The letters were a mess. Blood was poor ink, and my normal difficulties with quills were only exacerbated by the unwilling vampire who kept trying to pull his hand away.
U-S
Smoke wrapped around me, souls screaming.