Page 158 of Red Ruin

As I stroke him to sleep, I can’t help flashing back through his violent deaths.

In all those short lives, I never saw the Azrids hold a funeral.

Remy’s past is a fucked up carousel.

He reawakens in a coffin, confused and blinking wet, red eyes in a child-sized body. As soon as he recovers enough bulk and energy to hold a sword, some dehydrated older vampire always appears to boot him back to war.

He grows tall and strong and stoic—a straight-faced general, nothing like the eldritch creature that the empire cut loose as soon as the vampire won and Remington Azrid lost his use.

Every time he dies, the cycle restarts.

My throat pinches.

Does anyone ever saythank you?

Or are we all just using each other until we’re all used up?

I can’t live like that.

I have to keep caring, even when it hurts.

“Thank you,” I whisper. “If you hadn’t fought, I wouldn’t have been born.”

That’s how many battles rage behind Remy’s shadows.

That’s how much difference one stubborn soul can make.

Enough to turn the tide of our world.

Eventually, his silks relax.

As Remy drifts to sleep, his thoughts pull together just enough to sigh a full sentence. “Then it was worth it.”

Vhex grabs my hips from behind and snuggles me closer.

“Firefly,” he mumbles.

I’d shiver, but their souls wrap me even tighter when they sleep.

Vhex’s leg hooks between mine. Remy’s heart beats against my skin. I manage their energy flows by habit, soothing them deeper and deeper into the kind of rest they probably haven’t had in years.

I can’t bring myself to push them away.

Now, they’re comforting me as much as I’m comforting them.

My head throbs.

We have to fight that thing.

Even with Vhex and Remy at full strength and Simms forced to join the war, three S-classes aren’t enough to guarantee that the lich king stays buried underground.

I can’t lie here doing nothing.

Well, it’s not totally nothing.

Vhex and Remy rub against me every time they breathe. If I let myself stay between them, it’ll turn intosomethingreally soon.

I let them rest a while before I carefully disentangle and pad across the room.

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