Page 154 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

The vampire was moving at a speed just short of a run, her face grim. I began to sign in the basic version of the priests’ tongue, but she stepped aside, not even looking me in the face.

“Not now, my Lady,” she said curtly, and strode past, leaving me staring after her.

She vanished around the corner, and a tinge of disquiet settled in me. Visca had never brushed me off, not once.

Which meant something had happened.

My stomach knotted several times over, the ice in my veins freezing me to the marrow. What else, on top of the carnage in Tristone? What else could they have done, with all the legions watching and waiting?

I wasted no time in entering the Tower of Winter, my heart pounding painfully against my ribs, and stopped. Listening.

Bane’s roar came from overhead, his voice distorted and deep. Furious.

I took the stairs slowly, barely managing to stop myself from flinching as a feminine shriek echoed down the stairs. The stifled sound of sobbing and another roar echoed down to me.

I didn’t want to know, and yet I had to know.

I swallowed hard, and crept across the landing to the open door, my knees going loose at the sight before me.

Bane gripped Ellena around the throat, holding her up so her toes barely brushed the floor, and there was nothing of the fiend I knew in his face.

His features were twisted, lips pulled back to bare the full rack of his fangs, pupils so narrow the gold almost glowed, but with a predator’s light. A hunting glow, the nightshine of turning around in the dark and seeing something watching you.

He squeezed, the muscles of his arms shaking, and with a bestial grunt he plunged his splayed claws through her chest.

The rip of tearing flesh, the crack of shattered bones, the soft drip of her blood puddling on the floor… I was frozen, breathless, unable to look away and too afraid to watch.

With terrible clarity, as Bane crushed Ellena’s heart in his hand, I remembered Miro whispering in my ear:There is no difference between your husband and what he hunts.

He tore the organ from her chest with unfeigned pleasure, his mouth spreading in a terrible grin as he held it up, digging his claws tight into her heart, squeezing out a stream of blackened blood.

He dropped her, and her neck twisted when she hit the floor. Her empty eyes, the whites now a brilliant red, seemed to stare directly at me.

Bane let out a low snarl, still glaring at her body, and I took a step back at that sound. It was like nothing I’d ever heard before. The sound of a hunting fiend, pure satisfaction and violence in it.

His eyes flicked to me, pupils wavering. That awful smile became a grimace.

What have you done?I asked, unable to tear my eyes from his hand, bloodied to the elbow. The same hand that had stroked me to sleep, the hand that touched me with such gentleness, wearing a wet red glove.

What had Ellena had done to deserve this? To be butchered like an animal?

I swallowed again, the stench of blood thick in my nose, and all I could think of was the pieces of people strewn around in Tristone, so much effluvia after a night of carnage.

Bane exhaled, his fingers still punched deep into her heart. He looked at it like he had no idea of what he held, but he slowly retracted his claws, letting it drop to the floor beside her.

The gaping wound in her chest was sickening. She no longer looked human.

When it comes down to it, he only sees you as meat, Kajarin whispered.

“She sold them,” he hissed. “She’s been selling information, passing it on to the Forians. What I did was no more than she deserved.”

I couldn’t help but shake my head, because I couldn’t see it. Ellena? Sell us out to the Forians?

I would never claim we’d been friends, but I couldn’t see it. She had been loyal to the Silver Sisters her entire life. She could’ve walked away at any time, but because the Eldest Sister had asked her to come, she’d obeyed.

“You tell me I’m wrong?” he rumbled. “I have proof!”

He held up a letter, leaving vivid streaks across the page.

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