Page 43

A Really Bad Day

T he tables were flipped on their sides, papers were everywhere, and the blood.

By the Sands, the blood. It was everywhere Nikhail looked. He shuddered. Death had visited them, indeed.

With a soldier’s eye, Nikhail assessed the two vampires he’d killed. His first attacker was nothing but an ashy corpse now. Black cobwebs covered his dark skin, and his mouth was open in a never-ending scream.

The second vampire had been a woman, judging by her long brown hair, curves, and makeup decorating her now-grey face. The stake was buried in her chest, and unseeing black eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.

He searched his heart for remorse, but he didn’t find any. They’d attacked them, pure and simple. It had been his life or theirs, and they’d clearly had no regard for him.

A gurgle came from behind him, yanking him from his thoughts. “It… hurts.”

Isobel.

Nikhail spun around to find the human on the ground in a growing crimson pool.

Wide, fear-filled eyes met his. Jayson was crouched beside her, crimson threads of magic swarming around him as he pressed a hand against Isobel’s neck.

A laceration scored the length of the Death Elf’s back, but he didn’t seem to notice it.

“Fuck,” Nikhail breathed.

He forgot about his own injuries—the bite on his neck would heal on its own, and his arm could wait—as he dropped to his knees on Isobel’s other side. Her breath stuttered, and even before Nikhail dragged his eyes up to Jayson’s, he knew this wasn’t good.

He crossed the room and took Isobel’s hand in his good one, his heart sinking. Gods, she was frail. Small, like River. Her skin was far too cold, and his gut contorted.

Nikhail had been in death’s presence enough times to know that there would be no coming back from an injury like this. Not for a mortal, not even if they got her to a hospital. She had lost too much blood, and her neck was a mangled mess beneath Jayson’s hands.

Fresh, hot anger burned in Nikhail’s stomach. The rebels did this. The ambush and the attack were their fault. The Representatives were problematic, but the Black Night wasn’t going about things the right way. Violence only begot violence, and death only led to more death.

This was no way to bring about change. There had to be another solution, another way to make things better, but he wasn’t sure what that would be.

“Did we win?” Isobel whispered, her brown eyes slowly rising to meet his. “Can I go home and see Carlos now?”

Nikhail sucked in a sharp breath, her words daggers burying themselves in his heart. It was worse, knowing that she had someone waiting for her at home. Worse, knowing that she’d never make it back to them. She was so young, and she didn’t deserve any of this.

Shame curdled his stomach. He knew so little about Isobel, even though they’d worked together all week. They’d been so focused on their tasks; they’d barely spoken about their lives outside of work.

Until this moment, he hadn’t even known she had a partner. He wasn’t usually like this, but he’d just been so preoccupied with getting back to River.

And now, it was too late.

Footsteps pounded on the ground outside, and Nikhail glanced up as their backup finally arrived. Guns drawn, the soldiers stared wide-eyed at the bloody scene.

Too little, too late.

Ignoring the other soldiers, Nikhail held his teammate’s gaze. “We won, Isobel.”

“We did?”

He forced his lips to curve into a small smile. It felt wrong. “We did. You did such a good job finding this place.”

Isobel’s bottom lip wobbled, and her eyes were glassy. Her breaths were ragged. Time was running out.

As a young fae, Nikhail had never seen death. It wasn’t until he joined the military that he witnessed someone losing their life for the first time. He thought he’d gotten used to it after having served for nearly two decades, but apparently, he was wrong.

“Do you… think… so?” Isobel whispered hoarsely.

Her blood poured over Jayson’s hand, coating him in crimson, and the soldier met Nikhail’s gaze, frowning. She didn’t have much time left, and they both knew it.

The air was somber as the other soldiers pressed their backs against the walls, giving Isobel a modicum of privacy as her life drained away.

“I know so,” Nikhail assured her.

Even with all the death in this room, they were surrounded by mountains of paper that had been guarded by a horde of vampires. Surely, they’d been here for a reason. He was almost positive they’d find something in these passages that would help them in their fight against the Black Night.

He said as much to Isobel and added, “You served your country well.”

It was what he’d want to hear if he were in her position.

She exhaled softly, her eyes fluttering shut as peace fell across her face. “Good.” Her chest rose. “That’s… good.”

Her chest never fell.

Endless seconds seemed to pass as Nikhail stared at Isobel’s face. He reached over, drawing her eyes closed with two fingers.

“She’s gone.” His words seemed to echo all around him.

A heavy weight settled on him. One by one, each of the soldiers came and pressed a hand to Isobel’s shoulder. An act of solidarity and grief as they acknowledged her death. Some murmured prayers, while others offered words of encouragement for her passage from this life to the next.

She didn’t need to die. If they’d done things differently, she could’ve still been alive.

The weight of Isobel’s passing remained with Nikhail for the rest of the day and long into the night.

He couldn’t get her lifeless brown eyes out of his head.

Not as they cleared the rest of the castle—as a group, this time.

Not when they found another horde of vampires and managed to capture one alive.

Not even as they stayed at Castle Sanguis well into the next day, collecting every scrap of evidence they uncovered.

No. Those brown eyes, so eerily similar to River’s, that he had to remind himself several times that his water fae was nowhere near the vampires’ fortress, followed him even after he left Castle Sanguis.

When Nikhail finally reached his accommodations and wearily climbed into the shower, he scrubbed his skin raw. The water ran red, then brown, and he only stopped when it was clear and all traces of death were gone. He dried himself off, pulling on a pair of sweats and climbing into bed.

His eyes were heavy, and exhaustion was pulling at him, but he wasn’t ready to sleep yet. Plugging in his phone, Nikhail navigated to his contacts and dialed the only person who would bring him peace.

“Hello?” River’s voice was soft on the other end of the line.

The sound of her voice, and the storm contained within it, was a balm to his turbulent soul. The part of him that had been desperate for River since the day they met relaxed, and his eyes eased shut. This was exactly what he’d needed—they’d texted, but he hadn’t spoken to her since the solarium.

“Hi, princess. It’s good to hear your voice.”

There was a pause, and then River mentioned to someone that she would take this call. Her voice was muffled as a door shut behind her. “It’s good to hear yours, too.”

She sounded… surprised by that. Or maybe it was just his exhaustion talking.

“I needed to talk to you,” he told her. “I miss you.”

He’d never missed anyone this much, not even his mother and sisters. It was as if he’d left part of his heart back in the solarium with River.

“Are you still on the job?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah.” Those lifeless eyes flashed through his mind again, and he scrubbed a hand over his face, his head falling back on the pillow. “I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be here. Two weeks, maybe a bit longer.”

So much for returning to Lakewater soon.

River hitched a breath. “What about Ryker and Brynleigh’s bonding ceremony? Will you be able to make it?”

“Of course. I’d never miss it.”

He hadn’t been surprised when Ryker had pulled him aside after the meeting at the Hub and shared about the bonding.

Although fae mating bonds weren’t often enacted between their kind and other species, it wasn’t unheard of.

Folklore from before the Great Migration spoke of mating bonds between fae and humans.

If they could bond with a human, why not a vampire?

Besides, if anyone in Nikhail’s life was ready for such a monumental occasion, it was Ryker and Brynleigh. The pair were meant to be together. Anyone who spent more than a few minutes with the couple could see that their connection ran deeper than their wedding vows.

The mating bond would just be an outward symbol of what they already knew.

“Oh, good.” River paused, and he sensed that she was about to hang up and get back to work. He wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet, wasn’t ready to stop hearing her voice.

“I had a bad day, River,” he admitted quietly, thinking back to his stint in the hospital when he’d told her that being shot was merely the day going sideways. “A really bad day.”

It had been a long time since he’d had such a horrible one. Not since he got the scars on his chest. There was just something so appalling about humans dying young. Their lives were already so short. So fleeting.

“Are you hurt, Nik?”

“No, River. I’m fine. But…”

He couldn’t seem to find the words, but it turned out he didn’t need to. River understood what he was trying to say.

“Someone else got hurt?”

“Yeah. A human.” His voice was rough. “She died.”

“Gods above. I’m sorry, Nik.”

He rubbed his temples as visions of Isobel’s body flashed through his eyes. They’d brought her out of the castle, and she would have a full military funeral at the end of the week.

“Me, too.” He sucked in a ragged breath. “I needed to hear your voice.” He needed to remember that there was something good waiting for him at home.

She exhaled softly. “It means a lot that you thought of me.”

“I think about you every single day,” he replied immediately. There wasn’t an hour that passed when she wasn’t on his mind.

River’s breath hitched, and it sounded like she had something she wanted to say, before an urgent beeping came from the other end of the phone. “Damn. I have to go, Nik. I… I’ll see you at the bonding. I have something I want to talk to you about.”

“Sure thing, little storm. We can talk about whatever you want. I can’t wait to see you.”

If there was anything Isobel’s death had taught him, it was that life was short. No one was guaranteed another day, let alone another minute.

He wouldn’t miss the bonding for the world.