Page 131 of Bite The Terror That Feeds

“Larisa.” I kneeled down beside her and propped up her head with my hand. “Sweetheart?”

Her eyes were closed, and she was absolutely still.

I unlocked her armor and put my hand to her chest, feeling her small breaths. “She’s alive.” Relief rushed through me with the power of a windstorm. My heart clenched with a new jolt of life.

“Barely.” The medic moved to her other side and assessed her wound. Impaled right in the stomach, her entrails exposed, it was an injury so gruesome it made me sick. He used gauze to slow the bleeding and grabbed antiseptic to stop the infection. “I’ll need to stitch this, but I don’t think it will change anything.”

I closed my eyes because it was too much.

“I’m sorry, Kingsnake.”

“You’re going to try anyway.” I kept my voice steady even though I was in the greatest agony of my life. My eyes opened to look at the medic.

He looked like he wanted to argue, but thought better of it. He opened his kit and got to work, closing up her body and stopping the bleeding.

Her breaths had grown weaker. So did her pulse.

“Kingsnake.” Viper crouched down beside me.

“You’re king now. I’m incapacitated.”

“She won’t survive this—”

“Fuck.You.” I gave him a furious stare mixed with tears.

“You know it’s true. And you know you can save her.”

The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. In my shock and grief, I was paralyzed.

“But you have to do it now. Before it’s too late.”

I looked at Larisa again.

The medic had finished and walked away.

“Kingsnake—”

“I—I can’t make that decision for her.”

“You have to.”

We’d declared our love for each other, but she still hadn’t agreed to join me in immortality. “I can’t…”

“If you don’t, she’ll die.”

And die with her soul.

“Kingsnake—”

“I don’t know if this is what she wants.”

“Then I’ll fucking do it.” He moved to the other side of her and slit his wrist. He grabbed her jaw and forced her mouth open.

“No.” I grabbed his wrist and shoved him away. “I’ll do it.”

“Then hurry.”

I didn’t feel good about my actions, but I felt worse letting her die. If she were able to speak for herself, she might look me in the eye and refuse to let me go. On the precipice of her departure, she might want something more. So I grabbed my dagger, slit my wrist, and poured the blood into her mouth.

“It’s better this way.”

I looked at my brother.

“Instead of having to make a choice, the choice was made for her.”

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