Page 52 of A Kingdom of Death & Darkness
I’m fucking stuck here in this maze of chaos that we built around ourselves, and I can’t...
“I can’t–I can’t feel her,” I whisper.
I swallow hard, and I look to the one person still putting up with my shit through all this. His dark eyes are monstrous. He’s a demented demon of a man.
But he’s unbothered too.
“I can,” he confesses, and those two simple words rip the air from my lungs.
“You can?” I search his gaze, and though the Prince of the Blood Kingdom is said to be a cruel lying bastard, I’ve never trusted a single soul as much as I do him in this moment.
“She’s alive,” he declares, and I believe him more than I believe my own heart right now.
Call it one man’s desperate delusion but . . .
I hope he’s right.
THIRTY-TWO
Thorn
There’sa franticness in that air that can’t be ignored as the five of us rush into the night. Carver had woken up first, gasping like a man possessed, clutching his chest and begging for us to do something for her. I’d felt that panic in my own chest, our shared connection making it impossible to ignore. I could barely stand beneath the onslaught of it, but Carver? Carver rose and rushed out into the darkness, desperate to find her.
The Blood Prince had been right on his heels, his calm and collected exterior forgotten at the panic Carver felt. As much as it pains me to say it, the Blood Prince has figured out a lot in the little time he’s been here.
Carver never panics. For him to be panicking now, it’s bad.
But none of that matters in this moment, because worse than the panic I’d felt from Carver that nearly stole my strength, worse than realizing the vampires seem to have found their place here, is the realization that Crymson is gone.
We’d all fallen asleep nestled together after the frenzy of dinner. I’d sensed her warmth wrapped between me and the Blood Prince, and I’d let my guard down. Because of the thrall of that dinner, no one had woken as she left. No one had?—
“Crymson!” Seven shouts, his eyes wide with panic as we all filter into the night.
I’ve lost sight of Carver and the Blood Prince, but that’s not what stops me cold. The ash of the Dead rarely floats into the Thorn Kingdom. As I spoke before, the Dead are not our curse. They’re the Blood King’s. I didn’t realize that one of them had visited Carver when he was a child. There’s so much I’ve neglected to pay attention to with Carver, and it pains me to realize how I might have failed him.
And now, I might have failed the only woman I’ve ever truly loved.
“Crymson!” Rorrick shouts right beside Seven, both of them searching through the ash and smoke.
It shouldn’t look like this. This isn’t how the Thorn Kingdom should look. I don’t understand why the ash seems to be here.
“Yelling isn’t going to help,” I say, squinting my eyes to see better. But that isn’t what tells me we’re not alone. It’s not my sight that notices them. It’s my awareness.
“Crymson!” Seven yells again, ignoring my words. But he straightens a moment later, noticing the same thing I have, his senses superior now to his brother’s.
Rorrick is the last to realize, his eyes frantically searching the smoke for our mate, only to land on a pair of red eyes. He straightens and steps back, closer to the two of us.
“They’re surrounding us,” he rasps, his fangs sharpening in readiness. “They’re here.”
“They must have Crymson,” Seven hisses.
I don’t speak, mostly because I know the very real danger we’re in. The Dead are brutal, terrible creatures, haunted by thelives stolen from them. Not dead, not living, but something in between, a husk of the person they once were before the Blood King got to them. They’re long past saving, no matter how much I wish it were possible. All that remains inside them is anger, rightfully so, and they lash out at any creature with the audacity to still be living when they never got the chance. They’re powerful in their rage and savage in their hunger. One bite from them and most would die.
Not me. But most.
Of the three of us standing here, Rorrick is the most vulnerable. Seven has already suffered this fate and come out the other side. I don’t know if Rorrick can handle the same. I don’t plan on Crymson going through that again once we find her.
“Watch your back,” I whisper low. “They’ll look for weakness. We keep our backs together.”
