Page 42 of Battle for the Shadow Prince (A Bargain with the Shadow Prince #2)

42

The End of Everything

DAMIEN

T he sound of my mate’s neck snapping is a gong that drowns out every other noise in the room. Eloise drops like a sandbag, her beautiful green eyes staring sightlessly in my direction. A few strands of her hair have come free from her ponytail, and the bright red curls stick to the sweat on her fair skin. Her hair is the color of blood, although I’m spared the sight and scent of the actual thing. Valeska broke her neck. She’s otherwise intact.

All color and life drains from the world. I drop to my knees. “Eloise! My little dragon. My fallen bird.” I sob openly, not caring about the shame it brings me as a warrior. Not caring about anything but the shattering of my soul as I stare at my fallen mate. My hands beat against the barrier between us, morphing from enormous, black-taloned paws to my polite form, the form that fits with hers, the form in which I will die.

Through the deep, wrenching agony of our severing bond, our time together flashes through my mind. The night she summoned me. Her smile. Her laugh. The way she held herself like she was larger than a grizzly bear when she was feeling brave. I see her in the tiny dress she wore to Bad Witches’ Club that brought me to my knees. I see her kneeling on her grandmother’s grave. I see her trembling, covered in her assailant’s blood. This woman was my goddess, my lighthouse, my freedom, my sanctuary. I cannot bear a world without her in it.

I glance toward Lazarus, who is beside me now, hand on my shoulder. “Do it. You must do it,” I tell him. He knows what I want. We spoke of it for hours before this night.

My pleas are swallowed by the roar of the crowd. Some are chanting Valeska’s name. Others are wailing at the loss of their wagers. Still others, like Marabella, who appears at the edge of my vision, stand in silent vigil to the death of my mate.

“Now Lazarus. You must decapitate me before Valeska can reach me.” I grab the scribe’s hand and beg. It is no bother. I am already on my knees.

“She hasn’t been declared the winner,” Lazarus hisses. “The mirror remains occluded.”

I raise my eyes to find Valeska still struggling to grasp my mother’s crown. My little dragon has gutted her, and without blood to heal herself, she’s weakening. She bares her fangs and leaps, but her fingers just miss the gold edge. A small thrill goes through me as I watch her struggle.

But then my gaze drops to Eloise again. A fly lands on her face, crawls across her open eye. Any pleasure I’ve gained that the crown remains out of Valeska’s reach is dashed at the sight of Eloise’s motionless body.

Valeska will win.

There can be no other outcome.

Eloise is dead.

I turn toward Lazarus. “You must do it. I cannot go on without her, old friend. Please.”

The scribe draws the Stygian-steel dagger I gave him from the folds of his robes.

I lower my face closer to Eloise’s, nothing but the barrier between us. I bare the back of my neck to Lazarus. It will be easier if he severs my spine with one quick blow.

“Don’t be a fool,” Marabella says, suddenly beside us.

I glance up to find her hand on Lazarus’s wrist, keeping him from delivering the killing blow.

“Have mercy,” I say to her. “I cannot bear to live without her.”

But Marabella’s eyes are focused on Eloise, her slightly open mouth set within a drawn face as if she’s bet on a horse she believes is about to break from the pack and cross the finish. I can’t make sense of the expression. Marabella is no fool.

“What secrets have you kept from me?” I grit out.

Her gaze drops to mine. “Do you think we’d leave the future of Night Haven in the hands of a human?”

I do a double take when I swear I see one of Eloise’s fingers twitch.

“What have you done?” I pound on the dome again, terrified that Eloise is dead. Terrified that she’s not.

Valeska continues to leap for the crown, now using the wall of the dome to help her.

She’s distracted.

She does not see Eloise’s leg straighten or her arm bend or her eyes blink.

She does not see her fingers slip around the hilt of her dagger.

She does not see my mate sit up.

“All she needed was a vampire to kill her to complete the turning,” Marabella whispers.

Eloise’s lips peel back from her fangs.