Page 49 of Dissection of Immortal Hearts (Hospital for Immortal Creatures #3)

He met Diana’s gaze, silently pleading for her to stop digging her own grave.

He had expected the Queen to torture her to force his compliance.

What he hadn’t anticipated was how these games would affect him.

Not after the crushing disappointment her past days’ behaviour had caused.

She’d let him believe she was dead. She’d planned to trade him like a pawn.

She’d kissed him not out of desire, but to achieve an aim.

But as the whip strikes had surpassed the limits that justified leaving her to her fate, something inside him had fractured.

If he could go back to the moment he’d cracked under the sound of that cursed whip…

He’d break again. And again. He would tear the world apart to end the suffering of the woman who had bound him and conspired to trade his life away.

Damnation! Along with his skills, Mada must have stolen much of his common sense, because he was about to commit the most sentimental folly of his millennia-long existence.

Diana knelt, teeth clenched, enduring the unfolding scene with grim resolve. Another wave of fury swept through Constantine.

“Begin!” he growled.

***

Constantine

The Smoky Quartz rested like a treasure in the Queen’s outstretched palm, its energy so intense it made the air crackle with menace. Constantine was on the brink of reclaiming his abilities and ridding himself of Mada’s slow, obliterating curse. Yet, he felt nothing.

“Are you ready?” the Queen asked, her voice a silken blade.

Why not? He would remain in her thrall until the end of his days.

“I have a question,” he said. “How did you know where to find us?”

The black stone pulsed, tasting the power to come. The chamber’s air thickened with malevolence.

“Hmmm…” The Mother of Reptilians tapped her lips. “The credit goes to Kathrine.”

Constantine’s head snapped towards the reptilian, but her face was unreadable.

“ She recalled your reaction when you mentioned the death of a certain vampire,” the Queen continued. “One Kathrine failed to eliminate during the Al-Hatib Tournament because someone warned her. Swan, I assume. He’s always been close to Sevar.”

“Swan?” Constantine growled, glancing towards Diana. Swan... Of course. He’d been one of the fighters they’d observed to prepare for the tournament’s duels.

“Yes, Swan. He’s half-reptilian. Surprised?” The Queen’s voice oozed mockery. “Apparently, he grew fond of your little vampire and warned her about the impending attack on the tournament. It seems he was so taken with her that he shared secrets of Antambazi and our kind.”

“So he told you where we were?”

“There was no need,” she said coolly. “Once I realised the vampire who freed you was the same one from the tournament, the rest was obvious. She had help from Swan. I know his hiding spots. Especially those near our borders.”

Diana had led him to Swan’s hideout! And worse – his own outbursts had guided the reptilians straight to them. If he hadn’t lost control over Diana’s supposed death…

“Enough talk, necromancer. Time to act!” The Queen lifted the stone. “Or shall your vampire once again enjoy the playful sting of my whip?”

“You already have my agreement. Do it!” Fury brewed inside him. He wasn’t sure who deserved his wrath more – Diana, himself, the Queen, or Swan.

The Smoky Quartz flared brighter in the Queen’s hand. A paralysing current shot down Constantine’s spine. It was agonising, suffocating. A thousand times worse than being strangled.

Black wisps poured from his chest, drawn towards the quartz. They were pulled and consumed – pulled and consumed, over and over.

A guttural scream tore through the chamber. In the swirling smoke stretching like taut ropes between him and the stone, a woman’s face emerged, contorted in agony. She screamed and struggled against the stone’s relentless pull. Perhaps this was Mada, before magic had corrupted her?

Then, the face vanished. A surge of power overwhelmed him.

His power. It crawled across his skin in hot, burning streaks.

It surged through his bloodstream, flooding every cell with raw strength.

His ears filled with a low hum – primal, almost deafening – as though the energy itself had a voice, calling to him.

With a final tremor, the stone settled in the Queen’s hand. Constantine transformed as if he’d done so only yesterday, avoiding Diana’s gaze. He didn’t wish to see her reaction to what was about to unfold.

His clothes melted against his skin, burning from within.

In a fraction of a second, he stood naked in the throne room.

His flesh was next to vanish into the ether, revealing red sinews and glistening organs – a grotesque anatomy model brought to life.

A moment later, these too disappeared, leaving behind nothing but bones.

The living skeleton appeared – the necromancer in his most primal form. He had no senses but perceived the world better than any creature. He lacked a tongue and mouth but spoke in a guttural whisper. He wielded no weapon but could kill with his bare, skeletal hands.

“Magnificent!” The Queen’s eyes sparkled like diamonds. She was the first woman ever to deem his immortal form beautiful.

Constantine studied her with his necromancer’s sight.

He’d expected the face beneath her perfection to be dark and decayed, but what he saw now was entirely different.

The unseen depths of her being were as breathtaking as her exterior.

Threads of malice wove through her aura, but intertwined with white light and… gold.

“When you enter Hell, you’ll seek the ‘altar,’” the Queen repeated, commanding his full attention. “Every demon knows of it. Once you find it, you’ll ask for Belphegor.”

She ran her fingers across his skeletal chest, right where his heart would have been in his human form. No one had ever touched him in this state before. Not only did the Queen do so, but she seemed spellbound by the experience.

“If you don’t return within an hour, I’ll begin slicing your vampire into pieces – a piece every fifteen minutes.”

A second passed, and he remained motionless. At this moment, he wielded his full power, unrestrained. He could consume the Queen’s soul, inflict unimaginable pain, or even kill her outright.

He scanned the empty hall with his necromancer’s sight, expecting to see spirits or lesser entities lingering in the shadows.

There was nothing. No, not nothing – far above, tucked into a distant corner, a spirit from a lower dimension curled into itself.

Its posture and location suggested it wasn’t there by choice but had been trapped in some kind of spatial snare.

The lack of spirits revealed something much more alarming: even the dead were afraid of the presence that often visited this chamber. The being that claimed the throne…

Constantine couldn’t resist any longer. He turned towards Diana, needing to see her.

He gave her a moment to flinch, to contort her features in disgust, or at least to shudder in fear. Yet none of those reactions occurred. She stared back at him with an expression he couldn’t decipher, a complex emotion woven from threads he couldn’t understand.

Constantine delved beneath the surface of her visible face, peering into the most guarded corners of her soul.

And at last, he understood why he was drawn to her as darkness is to light.

Why he was torn apart by this desperate yearning to consume her.

And why, no matter how many times she might have disappointed him, he could never stand by and watch her suffer without sharing her pain.