Page 42 of The Vampire's Lament
Only, that wasn’t true. Without the sun’s killing caress, I’d recover from this orange fire.
I pushed my arm deeper, the magic reaching the bone. Heat poured into the marrow, filling me with a lava-like burst of repulsive power. It moved through me quickly, attacking every inch, every organ, apart from the Heart of All, circumventing it, unable to penetrate its walls.
How did Aidan kill Lucius? What made my brother vulnerable in his final moments as king?
My skin burned off my hand, then my arm, leaving behind nothing but bone up to my charred elbow. But my fingers still reached for him, about to touch his beard.
I heard Vaughn, I heard Medusa, I heard so many voices calling my name, begging me to stop. But I wouldn’t, not until I got what I wanted.
“Get away from me!” Hal cried, as the tops of my bony digits brushed his beard.
The acrid stench of him pissing himself reached my nostrils.
Yes…
This is what I wanted. To elicit fear, not to be seen as a weak or merciful king. To be a monster. To be aggressive and violent, to stop being the wretched doormat.
I moved deeper, my face about to dive into the magic.
“No!” Hal screamed. “Please!”
There. The crack I’d been looking for. The magic weakened, giving me a clear opening. The light flickering, dimming, cooling.
“Please don’t hurt me!”
There was the coward again, the dreadful man who only cared about his own life.
The light burst into wispy clouds of useless fog, curling up toward the ceiling.
I shot forward, grabbing him by the throat.
He wailed, trying to kick me.
I lifted him off the ground, my head tilting to the side. “You came into my house and harmed my people.”
He attempted another kick, his desperation as rank to me as a sweaty onion. Pulling, hitting, struggling.
“P-please,” he croaked.
“One of yours killed one of mine,” I continued, engulfed by a colder rage, my bloodthirst wickedly vicious. “Murderer. Fool.”
He protested with a series of grunts, rasping something about the losses of the war.
“Life always takes away so much, doesn’t it?” I said, seeing the bone dust of my brother on his throne, Aidan’s laughter bouncing off the walls of the throne room.
I’d been too late. Arriving just in time to see my lover drive the stake of cherry tree wood infused with silver into Lucius’s chest. Which was the same combination of materials used to kill us here in Quintrealm.
I had no idea why these things killed us, only that word seemed to spread between here and Selene Haven in an ironic twist of fate.
Magic appeared in the hands of the mage again, bringing me out of my thinking.
What was his intent this time?
I didn’t give him a chance to attack. With speed to turn his stomach, I brought him to me, plunging my fangs into his neck.
And drank.
I drank his cowardly blood until barely a drop remained. The flavor was bitter with the hint of urine, rancidly oozing down my throat.
