Page 159 of Claimed

Teeth grinding, I grip the blade protruding from my chest and pull it through my body.

Marek’s laughter falters as I rise with his weapon in my hand.

‘I kneel when I choose,’ I say. ‘For only one queen. Never for you.’

With a roar torn from a soul learning to live again, I drive the blade into Marek’s thigh, pinning him to the glass, then seize his throat. He snarls and claws at my arm. Selphine screams a spell that cracks the sky.

Morrighan finally moves, my Creator coming for me.

Her power slams into me with old blood and black fire. Every vein in my body burns. The mark at my throat ignites. The bond strains, bright and distant, a thread leading back to my bed, my Tower, Lyra’s still body.

Morrighan’s fingers touch my face. ‘My son,’ she whispers.

‘I am not yours,’ I snarl.

‘You will always be mine. Every hunger. Every kill. Every woman you have mistaken for salvation. I wrote the first red note in your blood.’

‘No.’ The word does not come from me.

It comes through me as the blood-glass plain flares gold.

Morrighan’s head turns.

Selphine goes still as Marek’s eyes widen.

And I watch Eira walk across Netheris barefoot, wearing the black shirt she fell asleep in, Widow’s Fang in her hand and hell in her eyes.

My heart, useless immortal thing, breaks open. ‘Little hunter.’

She looks at the wound in my chest, the blood at my mouth, the dead reaching from the river, then lifts one brow. ‘Honestly, vampire. I leave you unsupervised for five minutes.’

Laughter tears from me, savage and joyful.

Morrighan recoils as Eira steps onto the plain. The realm reacts to her differently. The dead hands withdraw from the shore, the red fissures beneath the glass brightening to silver.

And our beautiful bond? It stretches across the underworld and locks.

Mate. Not by prophecy but by choice.

Eira reaches my side. ‘Hey, vampire.’

‘You stopped breathing for far too long,’ I say.

‘I know. Rude of me.’

‘You came back.’

‘I’m working on it.’ Her gaze finds Marek. ‘But first, we kill the ambitious boyfriend.’

Selphine’s face twists. ‘You awful, ungrateful child.’

Eira turns that smile on her, sharp enough to draw blood from the air. ‘I upgraded from child. Try mate, hunter, or giant boil on your ass.’

Marek rips himself free of the blade and rushes us.

We move together. No plan or command because the bond translates intention faster than thought. I drive Marek right. Eira is already there, Widow’s Fang slicing across his chest. He recoils from the blade with a scream, and I understand at once: Rowan warded it before the ritual. Bond-blood, witch-ash, Five Blood residue. A weapon tuned to the new, magnificent goddess she has become.

Marek strikes at Eira. I catch his wrist and crush it. She steps inside his guard and buries Widow’s Fang beneath his ribs. ‘That is for Tezra.’