Page 55 of Claimed In Darkness

55

ZEPHIRAN

T he scent of her blood reaches me first.

It stops me cold.

Thick. Coppery. Wrong.

I see her, collapsed on the stone.

A pool of red spreading beneath her.

Nairahands are shaking, lips parted in a silent gasp and her eyes are glassy.

She’s so close to death and something inside me snaps.

I don’t feel my own legs move.

Don’t hear the sound of my own ragged breath.

Don’t process anything except the sight of her slipping away.

My knees hit the ground beside her.

"Naira."

Her fingers twitch.

Her body is so fucking cold.

"Stay with me,” I beg, clutching her desperately. I rock her body, willing heat into it.

She tries to blink up at me, but her gaze is unfocused.

I am so afraid. This is not something I can fight nor something I can kill.

This is her life, draining out of her and I have no idea how to stop it.

"Touching, truly.” A voice too familiar, one that haunts me even in my sleep, interrupts me.

I freeze. Slowly, he steps out of the shadows.

Lord Zeran Zacria.

Waiting.

For this exact moment.

"Look at you," he muses. "Brought to your knees over a human."

My vision blurs with red. My hand tightens around my sword.

He’s here to witness me breaking. A trap, and I walked straight into it.

Maybe if I killed him sooner, this wouldn’t happen. This is his final move.

And I know exactly what he wants from me.

He wants me to lose control.

To lash out. To become exactly what he made me to be.

And maybe, just this once, I will.

"You think this will break me?" I breathe.

Zeran raises his head.

"I know it will."

I laugh.

Low. Rough. Deadly.

He’s wrong. I am becoming something else entirely.

Something monstrous.

Something he will not survive.

He has given me permission to end him. And I am about to destroy everything to do it.

I rise.

Slow. Unshaking.

My sword still dripping with the blood of men who thought they could take me down.

My vision locked on the man who should have died years ago.

"You always said I was your greatest mistake,” I say, my voice dripping with deadly precision.

I take a step forward. Then another.

"Let me prove you right."