Page 54 of Born of Blood and Thorns

I saw them just a few hundred yards away across the courtyard, battling the undead bodies that crawled in pieces along the ground. It was horrifying to watch. It was then I saw, for the first time, a newcomer.

A woman with obsidian hair watched the carnage before turning to me. Our eyes collided, and I was held transfixed in her pitch-black depths. The stars shone back at me as I stared, unable to look away.

A slow, malicious grin spread across her lips, and with a flick of her wrist, a grating noise began. The growls of dozens of wolves who had just been howling from a distance seemed closer. Yet I was still unable to look away.

My feet worked on their own as they moved closer to her. The wolves began to scramble over the fence as if assisted. As if they merely walked in. Though I felt their nearness, I dared not look away from the nightmare gaze of the woman who forced my feet forward.

With horror, I realized this was the same goddess who had destroyed the Vampire Court. Only her hair was darker. The moon goddess, Nyx. She held me in her grasp, and vengeance sparkled in her gaze.

As I stared, I saw it all—more than one mere mortal should see. I saw her destroy the Vampire Court all over again, an act of fury as she toppled it to the ground, searching for something—no, for someone— for me.

"Hello, Isabella," she purred, her voice lyrical and sweet yet rich and decadent. "I'm glad you could make it to watch him meet his end."

She flicked her wrist at the wolves behind me, and Gideon and his pack descended on Lore, who was now panting. His sword was heavy in his hand, and he seemed barely able to lift it.

The wolves surrounded him, pacing, growling, and hunched, ready to strike. They didn't—not yet. They waited. They waited for orders from the goddess who controlled them. As she held me now, even I fell under her command because of my vampire blood.

Nyx pulled me forward with her as if I were held by a string. Try as I might, I couldn't stop or break free. I struggled against it.

"Let me go!" I demanded, panic in every thought and action. The panic increased as I looked at Lore. He'd fallen to his knees in the dirt, his sword gone.

"Look what I found," Nyx called out to Lore. "So close."

"Let her go and I will submit to the curse," Lore said, not taking his gaze from Nyx. Not sparing me one glance.

"It's not you submitting to the curse I want," Nyx sang in an odd tone that sounded too sweet and gleeful for the moment. "I want to see you die. And I want her to watch it."

Lore's gaze finally met mine. So much was conveyed in that one look, that one heartbeat of a fraction of time. The words he could never say before shone in his gaze, no longer hidden. It was love. The kind that burned so hot it could engulf me entirely. It was there, deep and unending, a chasm of emotion that turned bitterly into heartache as I watched the acceptance and resolve form.

With his lips pressed into a tight line, he nodded once.

"Any last words?" Nyx cooed to him. "Go ahead and say what we both know you want to say. Then I'll give you a gift—a chance to break the curse." Her lips twisted with cruelty as if she delighted in his pain, in his desperation. "I've waited a long time for this."

Lore said nothing as he tried to stand, to move toward me.

"You took what was most precious from me, Dragon Prince," she thundered, pointing an accusatory finger at Lore. "My beloved daughter, murdered by your savage, unprovoked attack." Hot, angry tears streamed down her pale cheeks. "An innocent child, paying the price for your bloodlust." The ground trembled with her rage and anguish.

"Your people, trapped forevermore between life and death, forgotten by time itself continuing on for eternity. Even after your death here today." Her voice dropped to a vicious whisper. "I have enjoyed watching you all these years, forced to watch helplessly as madness consumed you."

Lore ignored her and held my gaze. "I have only one regret in this life. That I could not love you longer." He lifted his sword high, ready to plunge it into his chest. Before he could, Nyx shrieked, and her magic erupted, slowing him and forcing him to push harder. Power shot from her fingertips like moonlit death tendrils reaching to stop him.

Everything froze, and in the blink of a second, so many emotions erupted from me: love, pain, regret, and resolve. I knew what I had to do and what I was meant to do. I'd lived in the pathetic world for long enough—alone, abused, and unloved. Lore was the first thing in my life that was good. The first time, my heart beat in a way that felt beyond words to describe. Loving him made me feel warm, complete, and safe. More than that, I recalled his dragon's words to me.

I stood paralyzed, my fate crystallizing before me with terrible clarity. This wasn't happening. This wasn't real.

Lore's eyes found mine across the battle-scarred courtyard, infinite anguish in their wintry depths. I saw the truth then—he had known all along what ghastly sacrifice the prophecy demanded. Yet he had spared me that terrible burden, determined to defy our cursed destiny.

He had tried to break the curse to save me from trying to break it.

My heart shattered, realizing the sacrifice he was willing to make for me, for his people. I could not let Lore meet such a cruel end. He deserved happiness, not eternal subjugation to a bitter goddess's curse.

I saw his darkness, and it did not scare me. I saw his darkness and gave it light as he took mine and did the same. I loved every part of him—the good, the bad, and all the ugly parts he tried to hide. I saw it, and I still loved him. No, I loved him even more because he was right: we were two puzzle pieces that were incomplete without the other.

He would burn the world for me, but I'd burn it for him. There was no life without him with me. This world was not done with him. I would always be his, and he would always be mine. I refused to live even a second without him in this world, the world of the living. So I decided right there, in that second, in that stilled moment. I acted.

A burst of energy erupted from me, and my feet moved faster than they had ever done—faster than if I had been a full-blooded vampire. It was me who met the tip of his blade at my back and the blast of power that erupted from Nyx.

I stared into his eyes one last time as the blast slammed through me, and the magic burned me from the inside out. I held his silvery blue gaze as the pain hit me in an instant.

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