Page 138 of Eternal Devotion

Iulian was on Ensley in a flash, knocking Cristofer off his feet when he tried to intervene. He snagged Ensley’s ankle—he was partway up the ladder—and flung him to the ground.

Ensley landed in a heap and rolled, scrambling to his feet in a desperate attempt to run back toward the chamber, but he wasn’t fast enough. Iulian grabbed him and pinned him down. The misty coating of garlic on Ensley’s clothes didn’t seem to affect the old vampire, and I suspected the pain of a burn was nothing compared to the voracious hunger eating him from the inside out.

As Cristofer stumbled to his feet farther down the tunnel, I tried to hold Iulian back, but he lashed out, sending me crashing to the ground once again.

Then it happened.

I saw the moment in slow motion, helpless and heartsick.

Knotting his fingers into Ensley’s hair, Iulian wrenched his head back and moved to plunge his sharp fangs into his vulnerable carotid artery. Iulian would bleed him dry in seconds if I didn’t stop him.

But before Iulian connected, before his teeth broke skin, he shrieked with another piercing wail and shriveled away as though stung.

The shimmering silver chain around Ensley’s neck caught my eye. The necklace he’d had blessed by a priest. The religious symbol that had prevented me from taking that final kiss only moments ago.

Iulian tried again but was repulsed by its energy. Another deafening cry filled the chamber.

He would soon find another access point.

I launched at him, and Cristofer joined me. We grabbed him, but the old vampire fought, twisting, turning, and battling us both as Ensley tried to crawl away. We lost control, no match for a starved elder, and Iulian lunged.

It happened in seconds. Instead of biting, he slashed Ensley’s legs with fingernails that had grown to razors during his slumber. Ensley screamed and toppled to his stomach. Iulian slashed at him a second time, scoring his back and shredding his clothes. When Ensley rolled, Iulian got him a third time and a fourth. Once across the face and the final time across the throat.

As he attacked my lover, Cristofer screamed for me to open a vein. “You have to stop the frenzy. He’ll kill him.”

I used my teeth to break the skin on my wrist and lunged for my uncle, wrapping my bleeding arm around Iulian’s head. Iulian thrashed, trying to throw me off.

“Help me hold him,” I shouted at Cristofer. “Don’t let go.”

I positioned the wound over my uncle’s mouth, forcing him to accept the offering. The instant he ingested the sluggish black fluid that inhabited me, his rage calmed. The elder seemed to collapse under its influence, the fight gone out of him. Cristofer and I supported him as he drank enough to calm his brain and revive his senses.

It took several minutes.

In that time, Ensley grew quiet.

I kept my wrist in place only long enough to ensure the elder wasn’t going to continue his rage, then I tore free and ran to my lover.

“Ensley.” My voice cracked as I fell to my knees. He lay in a pool of blood that flowed ceaselessly from his neck and several abrasions on his face.

He scrabbled at the religious chain and tugged it off, throwing it aside as he mouthed words I didn’t comprehend.

With the necklace gone, I used my hand to staunch the flow, but it was useless. Iulian had hit his mark.

The light in Ensley’s eyes grew dim as he searched my face.

“No. No, my love. You can’t leave me. Not yet. It’s too soon. We’ll get you help. Cristofer, get help. Now!”

“They won’t open the door.”

“Make them,” I bellowed.

Ensley tried to speak again, but the words didn’t come. His lips, an ugly shade of blue, were coated with blood. I cradled his head and spoke softly in his ear. “Stay with me. Please, Ensley. Don’t go. I love you. It wasn’t supposed to end like this.”

But not all stories end the way they are meant to.

Some have endings we despise.

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