Chapter 136 Her Essence
☽ Bastian ☽
My neck muscles corded as I slowly turned around.
Why in hell did vampires have the unfair advantage of tracing? Nikolai could decide to leave the vicinity or trace circles around me without engaging.
Meanwhile, what I needed was a proper face-off.
The fighting in the cave chamber had trickled to a stop. The ferals vanquished by the Veilmoor vampires.
At the moment, they stood in a semicircle at the exit, blocking us inside. Swords still drawn, they pinned me with cold, blood-red eyes.
I was the last outsider. The lone wolf.
“Fight me, coward.” I spat at Nikolai, bristling.
The situation was bizarre, my mission moot.
My mate wasn’t here, and I hadn’t expected such a crowd. Much less the band of ferals.
The vampire that had traced her hadn’t looked like one of them.
My head throbbed to think of what that might mean.
Nikolai didn’t say a word. Didn’t even look at me. He stared at a spot on the ground, fists clenched, skin paler than bleached parchment.
My rage boiled hotter.
I sprang for him, claws stabbing. This time, he didn’t run.
His gaze flicked in my direction, body twisting to dodge my strike.
My blood heated with the satisfaction of a worthy challenge and the powers of a Crimson. So much so that when he drew his sword with a speed that should be impossible, I grabbed his wrist.
His bones crunched in my fist. I bared my fangs in his face, grinding with every ounce of strength.
His own expression morphed into something deadly, and the fight blurred from there.
Dimly, I heard someone demand we stop.
But nothing could impede this chance I had. I would take Nikolai’s head and question the rest of them about my mate after.
Vision tunneled red, I blocked sword strikes with my claws and allowed a few to hack my flesh. With every step, I drew closer until I connected a right hook to his temple.
Something caved, and Nikolai flew from me, striking the wall with a wet crunch.
Not enough.
I stalked toward him, chest heaving with anticipation.
He had to be ripped apart. Pummeled to a pulp. For every day he kept my mate from me, I would take a body part to beat that smug grin out of him.
Mere steps from him, another vampire cut me off.
“That’s enough,” she hissed.
Her daring caught me off guard. I paused to regard her.
Heavily pregnant, covered in blood, she stood between me and my target with a blood-red dagger in her hand.
When I met her gaze, a slight resemblance to Maeve struck me as odd.
I brushed it off, lips pulling back in a snarl. “Get out of my way, leech.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Maeve has been taken,” she snapped back. “You will cease this at once. There are more important things at hand.”
“In case I hadn’t noticed?” My voice was deathly low.
Five months I’d been separated from my mate. Weeks locked up right under her nose, only to watch her get snatched from me from mere feet away. And this vampire dared to goad me?
Nikolai rose to his feet behind her, bones popping back into place. “You waste your words, Drusilla. It’s rabid, with no sense.”
I sidestepped this Drusilla, aiming to rip the tongue from his mouth—
She backhanded me.
“I said, stop.” Her eyes blazed like fire.
She spun to face Nikolai. Her hand flying to his throat, she knocked him into the wall so forcefully, the vampire winced.
“Where were you?”
“Seeking an antidote for the curse,” Nikolai muttered. “What happened here?”
My brows furrowed. Had he just asked what happened? Was he faking ignorance?
“Where is Vladis?” I demanded.
If anyone could answer my questions on where my mate was, it was him.
They all went silent, gazing at me with curious expressions.
Then a woman—one I recognized from when she’d accompanied Nikolai to the pack—silently fell to her knees.
A younger-looking girl standing beside her lurched to catch her.
“Lady Lilith!” the young girl shrieked.
Lilith’s arm had been torn off at the shoulder, her entire right side clotted with a copious amount of blood.
Drusilla released Nikolai, tracing the short distance to Lilith.
The softness and care they displayed toward the injured one shocked me.
Drusilla sank low to cup Lilith’s face and whispered soothingly. Then she ordered the girl,
“Trace her to her chambers, Tammy. And summon the healers at once.”
As Tammy hugged the quickly fading Lilith to her chest, Drusilla stood up.
Tammy and Lilith disappeared into thin air. My lips curved with disdain. Tracing.
I parted my lips to demand my mate’s whereabouts, but Drusilla beat me to it.
“It’s disappointing how both of you are clueless to the circumstances—”
“I’ve been apart from her and locked up! Now tell me what in seven hells is going on and how it concerns my mate!”
My skin buzzed with urgency, tendrils of my mate’s scent teasing me into a frenzy.
I’d seen her face. I’d been so close—
“Maverick Graves has her,” Drusilla said.
The words dropped heavily, echoing in the space.
Deep down, I’d known that it had been a feral that traced her. But having it confirmed was like a nail to my coffin.
I swallowed, heart hollowing. “Where is Vladis?”
“I’m sure he must have approached you and sown his seeds of discord, manipulated you somehow. Just know he’s the worst vampire you could have chosen to trust.”
“I didn’t trust him,” I said defensively, “but he’d given me my freedom. Had told me where to find my mate.”
“That’s because he’d planned to deliver her to Graves right here, and kill you,” she explained.
I pinched the bridge of my nose with dangerously sharp claws.
“I’m hearing a lot of things, but what I’m not hearing is how exactly this concerns Maeve. Why would Vladis deliver her? Why would Graves want her?” My voice rose on each word. “And how do I know you’re telling me the truth? Give me one reason why I shouldn’t end you right now!”
I trailed off when I noticed something astonishing. The red dagger she held was melting.
And instead of dripping to the ground, the glinting red liquid snaked up her arm and faded into her skin.
I looked on, baffled, as she spoke.
“Maeve is the queen of Veilmoor, the daughter of late Queen Lyssa, my sister. Vladis was the Crimson Warden, our brother. Graves took her based on some deal he’d had with Vladis,” she said dryly.
I glanced at Nikolai, who stood stiffly to the side. His eyes were unfocused as he tongued his fangs almost unconsciously.
Then I looked back at Drusilla.
Were they all mad?
“Where is Vladis?” I insisted.
Drusilla pointed a finger, her tone flat. “Maeve killed him.”
At that, even Nikolai turned his head to look.
A shriveled form lay on the ground, limbs twisted. If not for the clothing and jewelry, I would have doubted this claim. The scent also confirmed it.
My mind blanked, struggling to reconcile everything that had been presented.
Drusilla claimed Maeve was… her family? That Maeve, my soft, sensitive mate, had killed a Crimson vampire? Supposedly her uncle?
Drusilla suddenly traced, leaving me and Nikolai.
The other vampires, guards by their attire and posture, stood at attention in the same position as before.
Nikolai eyed me. Something sick in his gaze made me recoil.
I was still processing everything I’d heard.
Vladis had called Maeve queen that day in the dungeons, and now Drusilla was confirming it?
Nikolai hadn’t argued it either—
The air wavered in one spot with a soft whoosh.
Drusilla appeared once more.
In her hands was a brown parchment bag. She shoved it to me.
“That is the last surviving belonging of Maverick Graves in our possession. The others had been used in attempts to track him. By wolf, and by scrying witches.”
She turned to Nikolai, voice hard. “Set aside your petty differences and find her. Graves will bisect, experiment, and torture her for his own goals. The faster you get to her, the less scars she’ll carry.”
I tensed as Nikolai suddenly pushed toward her. He held her arm, eyes searching hers.
“You’re bleeding,” he said, voice thick.
I looked Drusilla over. She looked fine enough to me, and she had blood all over her body.
“That’s a non-issue. Find her, Nikolai. I can’t stress enough how much danger she’s in. He could kill her once he gets what he wants.”
My chest tightened. “What does he want?”
Eyes glassy, Drusilla said, “Her essence.”
That’s when I noticed it.
Blood ran in rivulets down her legs from between her thighs.
As a pregnant female, that didn’t bode well.
“There’s no time. Leave, now,” she snapped.
Without another word, she traced to the guards.
They immediately established contact with each other, and when she grabbed the arm of one, she traced them all.
Wind whistled into the cave chamber from outside, the scent of green and earth briefly ghosting over the thick smell of blood and death.
I looked at Nikolai. He stared right back, face blank.
When I glanced once more at the husk that was Vladis, Nikolai’s gaze never left me.
Something nagged at me. The way Drusilla had set us both on this mission as if Nikolai had a right to my mate.
Even if she sent him as extra muscle, I sensed the vampire wouldn’t strictly adhere to Drusilla’s order of setting aside our enmity to focus on Maeve.
In that case, he’d be deadweight.
My mission was clear.
Kill the leech. Rescue my mate.
I advanced, ready to end this.
But on my next step, the world tilted, spinning before my eyes.
I sank on one knee… then both, a palm to my chest as a razing force tore through my veins. All the while trying to keep the vampire in my sights.
“Ah!”
The pain was debilitating, and I soon found myself sprawled on the ground, writhing.
The dim lights blinked in and out. Right before my vision blanked, I saw Nikolai standing over my form with a blank expression.
A final twitch of my limbs, and all perception cut off.