Page 89 of The Royal Street Witch
“I know.” She smiles through closed teeth and my heart is racing. How she stays so calm, so together, is an attribute I always envied, something I wish I had right in this moment. Because it feels off, but killing a vampire should always feel off. But then I remember the pain Franklin experienced at my hand, the anger he felt, and he is so cool right now, not worried. Not concerned.
“Hit it,” my mother says. I stand in the middle of Jade and Chantal, raising my hands toward Franklin, shooting him with everything I have. The power fills my body with heat and air and my vision quakes in pops of vibrant color. I push out all the electricity and pain, but instead of becoming incapacitated by my power, he grabs my mother’s legs and yanks them up. She falls off him, her head slamming into the ground.
“Fuuuck,” Jade whispers and I step back right as Franklin rises, delivering a hard kick to my mother’s stomach and I scream, pushing more power into him but it makes no difference. I stumble back as he approaches me, the power that once left him screaming on the ground not inflicting a shred of pain.
“He has some kinda protection spell on him. He’s got a goddamn witch in his pocket,” Jade announces, her voice shaking.
All of the breath leaves my body as he inches closer and closer, and I can’t out run him. Without my power, the ball is in his court.
“Aster,” Chantal whispers, fighting to keep Amerie and the other vampires pinned against the wall with Jade. And now I have to think, because my mother is on the floor, and I can’t even see her face through her hair to check if she’s conscious.
“You think I’d be that dumb? Just let you and your bitch coven come after me? Like some sitting duck, waiting on you to come kill me?”
He’s getting closer and I grab the chair and hurl it at him as hard as I can, but all he does is lift his arm and the chair shoots right back at me. I duck, but the leg still knocks into my lips, pain exploding across my face. My legs weaken from the blow as the warm, coppery blood fills my mouth. He yanks me by the hair and I shriek, convinced he’s ripping every strand from my head. Slamming my back against the wall, I’m forced to look in his soulless eyes, as he wraps a hand around my neck. Think fast, think fast, I tell myself and my eyes float to Jade.
Look at me, Jade, I think and her eyes float to mine.Don’t let them go. I’ll figure out something.
She nods and holds on tight, but I can see the strain in her and Chantal’s arms and I cough, the blood spilling from the corner of my mouth. I don’t have magic on my side. I have to get creative.
“Thought you could just seduce one of my own and get away with it?” Franklin looks at Amerie and the men against the wall then looks me in the eye. “Tell your girls to let them go now, ya hear, cher?” But I won’t do that. Franklin will kill me regardless and hopefully they can get out alive. It comes to me quick, an idea that could work. I shake my head in resistance.
“Let em go, or she dies,” he yells to my girls.
Don’t. He’ll kill me either way, I instruct Jade and she shakes her head at Chantal.
His fingers close in on my throat, his thumb and index finger pushing up into my jaw so hard it feels like he’s carving into my bone. That face getting closer to mine, his image flashing in black and white. The pain in my mouth deepens and soon I’ll choke or be strangled.
“Bastian was weak. I’m glad he’s gone—so easily seduced by a fucking whore from the longest line of whores in America. I may not be able to taste you, but I will cut you open—”
Now.
Sliding my head back against the wall, I close my throat, collecting every drop of blood I’ve been saving, and with everything I have, project it out of my mouth.
It spatters across his face, most of it landing right where I aimed for—his open mouth—and I’m going out, I can’t feel my feet, I can’t breathe. I hear my name being screamed but it’s like I’m at the end of a tunnel, everything seems miles away.
The grip on my neck loosens, and I inhale air like I haven’t breathed in years. A sound escapes Franklin, close to a screech, and a gulp as the poison from my blood seeps into his tongue. It rises and swells, turning a putrid green, the toxins doing its job. It’s probably not enough poison to kill, but enough to incapacitate him, and he stumbles back and I fight to keep my legs stiff, but I lost so much air and my body is so weary that I slide against the wall, my legs like noodles under me.
We need to stake him, I think to Jade and just as I gather the strength to rise, his eyes bulge as if they are being inflated from behind. They go out of focus, his mouth closing and then opening with blood spewing violently like an opened floodgate, like a fountain.
With a thud, he drops to the ground right in front of me, his body liquifying before my eyes, a wooden stake in his gooey back. I look up to Nicola standing over him as Cassius stares in astonishment at the scene before him.
I lie there, stunned, eyes meeting Nicola’s, her body breathless because she just killed the Vampire King. And then it all starts to quake. My jaw locks and I can’t catch my breath. Mother is somewhere and I need to get up but I can’t find the strength. The sounds mute as I go in and out, eyes floating to the vampires on the wall, to Nicola taking a stake from Mother’s bag and piercing it through Franklin’s lover’s heart with Curtis next. They scream and groan, their bodies turning to piles of red goo, and is Nicola doing this for us?
The shock permeates the room, as the realization of what just happened grips all of us. A vampire has committed treason. The Vampire King is dead.
Cassius approaches me, a wonder in his face as Chantal yells my name. He kneels, placing his palm over my chest and Chantal screams. “Don’t touch her!”
Ignoring her, his mouth splits open and I put up my hand, hoping that tells her to stop. Because this awe in his eyes, this concern that radiates from him washes over me, and suddenly I’m just as concerned about something I don’t even understand.
“Two,” he whispers, sliding on the floor next to me, eyes wide as the sun, and he takes a deep relieved breath.
“Two what?” I ask, a fear gathering in my throat.
His temples quake, frantic eyes finding a sudden calm. “Heartbeats.”
Epilogue
DEAR BASTIAN,
