Page 95 of Red Queen

“A reign built upon the ashes of our enemies,” I hiss over the clash of steel.

My sword moves in a rhythm that seeks the final, decisive blow. The air feels hot as a forge with the intensity of our combat, and it sparks with ambition and survival.

Alexandru laughs, a sound as sharp as the edge of his sword. “And what a glorious reign it shall be.”

I lunge, spinning, taking out another foe. And then Alexandru’s eyes meet mine for an instant, the bloodlust of battle passing between us—a decree to paint these halls red with the blood of those who dare stand against us.

“Glorious indeed,” I murmur, my lips curving into a cold smile. “But first, we must finish what we started.”

With a vampiric grace that belies the ferocity of my actions, I spin again, my blade a whirling instrument of viciousness. It finds its mark, again and again, each stroke a masterpiece of brutality. The ravens circle overhead, their cries a haunting melody that spurs me onward, their red eyes gleaming with an unholy light.

“My beloved, you are breathtaking in red,” Alexandru says, his voice a velvet caress against my skin.

I flash him a feral grin, my fangs bared. “And you, my love, are a vision of destruction.”

We move as one, our bodies attuned to the primal rhythm of the fight. Each step is a declaration of our power, each blow a testament to our strength. Our foes diminish—one by one, they fall to our relentless onslaught. We are the night’s fury, made flesh, the embodiment of vampiric wrath, as our enemies lay at her feet. All of them dead.

We’ve won this fight, and I like the feeling.

Catarina appears farther along the corridor, but she has a clear view of the room that once held her talisman.

“Look at you now, Catarina, a queen without a heart,” I say.

Catarina’s hard stare clashes with mine, hers burning with raw, untamed outrage. Her keening yell echoes through the decimated hall, like a descent into desperation.

“I hate you, Eleanna!” Catarina’s voice is laced with fury, but there’s a tremor in it, the fracture of her once brash confidence.

I step over the debris and fallen vampires, the soles of my boots sticking momentarily in the pooling blood as I stalk closer, savoring the acrid stench of Catarina’s fear. It’s a bouquet I could become drunk on.

“Without your precious talisman, you’re nothing,” I say. “Just a husk of a vampire, clinging to delusions of grandeur.”

Catarina’s lips peel back, revealing fangs stained with the blood of her own folly. “You think this is the end? I’ll tear you apart with my bare hands!”

She lunges, a blur of desperate fury. But I’m faster, stronger, forged in the crucible of my own suffering. I reach out, fingers coiling around her throat, squeezing until her windpipe gives beneath my grip.

I sneer. “Pathetic. You thought you could best me, but you’re just a pale imitation, a cheap facsimile of true power.”

I lean in close, my breath ghosting across her cheek. Catarina squirms in my grasp, her nails scrabbling uselessly against my skin. Panic widens her eyes, the first inklings of true fear seeping in.

“Please...” she gasps, the word a broken whisper. “Mercy...”

A harsh laugh scrapes my throat raw. “Mercy? You, who have shown none, dare to beg for it now?”

I tighten my fingers around Catarina’s slender throat, her pulse fluttering frantically against my palm like a terrified bird desperate to take flight. In this moment, I hold her life in the vise of my grip, and the temptation to snuff it out—to crush it as easily as extinguishing a candle’s flame—sings through my veins like a siren’s call to violence.

But a voice, cool and commanding, cuts through the haze of bloodlust clouding my senses. “Eleanna.”

Alexandru. My darling. My anchor in the tempest of my rage.

“Don’t become that which you hate most. We’ll return for justice. The right way.”

I turn and meet his unwavering gaze. In the fathomless depths of his eyes, I see my own reflection—wild, feral, teetering precariously on the precipice of something I can never come back from, a point of no return where the last vestiges of my humanity will be consumed by the all-consuming darkness.

In that crystalline moment, Alexandru’s words resonate through my mind, piercing the veil of wrath that momentarily blinded me. Once the blinding haze dissipates, I’m reminded of the very core of my being—a being forged not by the insatiable thirst for vengeance but by an unwavering consciousness of justice and honor.

Catarina’s transgressions are grave, her army a formidable force that has sown chaos and despair in its wake. But to strike her down now, in cold blood, would be to surrender the moral high ground on which I stand. It would tarnish the principles that have guided me through centuries of turmoil, reducing me to the very monster I have sworn to vanquish.

No, justice must be served, but through the proper channels—a reckoning that upholds the sanctity of our laws and traditions. If I were to take her life in this moment, I would be no better than the merciless tyrants who have plagued our kind forever. I’d be perpetuating a cycle of violence, one that must be broken.

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