Chapter 62 The Price of Love
ARIA'S POV
"Sebastian!"
His name tore from my throat as Nyx's shadow-claws erupted from his back, black and dripping with void-essence. He'd thrown himself between us, taken the killing blow meant for me.
"No, no, no—" I caught him as he fell, his blood—so much blood—coating my hands. Without my healing power, I was useless. I couldn't save him.
"How sweet," Nyx purred through Mary's stolen body. "The great Lord Sebastian, dying to protect a powerless human. How pathetic you've—"
Elena swung the iron candlestick she'd grabbed, smashing it into Mary's head.
The possessed bride stumbled, and Nyx's control flickered. For just a moment, I saw Mary's real eyes—terrified, pleading.
"Help me," she whimpered. "Please, it's eating me from inside—"
Then Nyx took control again, and Mary's face twisted into something inhuman.
"Enough!" Sebastian's hand shot out despite his wound, gripping Nyx-Mary's throat. His eyes blazed with ancient power. "You want to possess someone? Try me."
"Sebastian, don't—" I started.
Too late.
He yanked Nyx's essence out of Mary's body and into himself.
The girl collapsed, free but unconscious. And Sebastian—Sebastian screamed as Nyx's darkness flooded into him through the wound she'd made.
"Yes!" Nyx's voice came from Sebastian's mouth now, twisted and wrong. "A vampire lord's body. So much stronger than a human girl's. This will do nicely."
Sebastian's body convulsed, fighting for control. Through our severed bond, I felt nothing—but I could see the battle playing out on his face. His eyes flickered between ice-blue and void-black.
"Sebastian, fight her!" I grabbed his face, forcing him to look at me. "You've survived eight hundred years. Don't you dare give up now!"
"Can't—" His voice was his own for a moment. "She's too strong. Aria, run. While I can still—"
His eyes went completely black.
He grabbed my throat with inhuman strength, lifting me off the ground.
"Finally," Nyx laughed through him. "No more interruptions. No more clever escapes. Just you, me, and—"
A blade erupted through Sebastian's chest from behind.
Kieran stood there, tears streaming down his face, his sword piercing his oldest friend's heart. "Forgive me, old friend. But I won't let her use you."
Nyx shrieked, her control over Sebastian faltering as his body began to die.
"You can't kill a vampire lord that easily!" she snarled.
"No," Kieran agreed. "But I can slow you down."
He twisted the blade—blessed silver, I realized, the one thing that could truly hurt an ancient vampire.
Sebastian's body collapsed, and Nyx's essence poured out like black smoke, formless and furious.
"This isn't over!" her voice echoed. "I'll find another host. I'll—"
A flash of golden light cut through the darkness.
I blinked in shock. That light—I recognized it. Sanguine power.
But I didn't have that anymore.
Through the smoke, a figure emerged. A teenage girl with dark hair and Sebastian's ice-blue eyes, her hands blazing with the same golden light I'd lost.
"Hi!" she said cheerfully, even as her power trapped Nyx's essence in a cage of light. "I'm Roslyn Thorne. And you must be the ancient void entity trying to destroy my family. Bad move."
She clapped her hands together, and the light cage collapsed inward, compressing Nyx's essence into a single point.
"What—how—" Nyx's voice was panicked now. "You can't be Sanguine-blessed! The bloodline was—"
"Diluted but not destroyed," Roslyn finished with a grin. "My mom was half-Sanguine. Which makes me quarter-Sanguine. Not powerful enough to bond with vampires, but—" she squeezed her hands tighter, and Nyx screamed, "—powerful enough to trap incorporeal entities."
The void-essence shrunk smaller and smaller until it was just a black pearl hovering between Roslyn's palms.
"Got you," she whispered.
Then she pulled out a small crystal vial and trapped Nyx's essence inside, sealing it with a cork that glowed with binding runes.
Silence fell.
Elena stared. Mary groaned, waking up. And I—I crawled to Sebastian's body, pressing my powerless hands to his chest wound.
"Please," I whispered, even though I knew it was useless. "Please don't die."
"He won't." Roslyn knelt beside me, her young face suddenly serious. "Not if you let me help."
"I don't have healing power anymore—"
"But I do." She took my hand and placed it over Sebastian's wound. "And you're still bonded to him, Aria. The Sanguine essence severed your conscious connection, but bonds that deep don't just disappear. They go dormant."
"That's impossible," Kieran said hoarsely. "I saw the bond break—"
"You saw it hide." Roslyn's hands glowed brighter. "Love that strong doesn't just die because you drink some magic potion. It adapts. It waits. It survives."
She pressed our joined hands deeper into Sebastian's wound.
"Now," she commanded. "Call to him. Through the bond you think is gone. Call him back."
"I don't know how—"
"Yes, you do. You've done it before, every time you healed someone. You reached for their life force and pulled them back from death. Sebastian's just further away this time."
I closed my eyes, reaching for something I could no longer feel. The bond. The warmth. The connection.
Nothing.
"Aria." Roslyn's voice was gentle but firm. "Do you love him?"
"Yes," I whispered.
"Then that's enough. Love is the bond. Try again."
I tried. Reaching into the darkness where Sebastian should be. Calling his name not with my voice but with my heart.
Come back. Please come back. I need you. I love you. Come back.
For a long moment, nothing.
Then—
A flicker. Faint and fragile, like a candle in the wind.
The bond. Not broken. Not severed.
Sleeping.
I grabbed onto it with everything I had, pouring all my love and desperation into that tiny connection.
Live. Please, Sebastian. Live.
His eyes opened—ice-blue and clear.
"Aria?" he rasped.
Then he coughed up blood, and I saw the wound wasn't healing.
"Roslyn, why isn't your power working?" I demanded.
The girl's face was pale. "Because Nyx's essence poisoned him. I can trap her, but I'm not strong enough to purge her corruption. He needs—" she looked at me with something like awe and terror, "—he needs a fully bonded Sanguine healer. One willing to share her life force completely."
"But the essence severed my power—"
"It severed your bloodline connection," Roslyn corrected. "But if you complete the bond with Sebastian—truly complete it, souls merged, no separation—it'll reconnect you to the Sanguine source through him. You'll get your power back."
"And give Nyx exactly what she wanted," Kieran said grimly, pointing at the trapped essence. "A doorway between life and death."
"She's contained," Roslyn argued. "In the vial, she can't—"
The crystal vial in her hand cracked.
Just a hairline fracture.
But through it, Nyx's voice whispered: "Merge, little healer. Save your vampire lord. And set me free."
We all stared at the cracking vial.
Sebastian was dying. I could save him by completing our bond. But doing so might give Nyx the power to escape and destroy everything.
"Aria." Sebastian's hand found mine, weak but warm. "Don't. Let me go. It's not worth the risk."
I looked at him. At this man who'd spent eight hundred years alone, who'd finally learned to hope again because of me.
At the girl—Roslyn, his niece—who'd risked everything to save us.
At Elena and Mary and Kieran, all watching with terrified hope.
The vial cracked wider.
And I made my choice.