Page 146 of Eternal Ruin

I wonder if she found her.

GK tried to squander the thought just as quickly. Kidan did not need his worry, she needed his anger.

Yet she haunted him in the complete darkness. Glimpses of her face. Those dark eyes promising ruin. And the danger circling her, enemies crowding in on her. His finger bone chain would tremble in warning and he’d jerk awake, itching to warn her, speaking into his cell like a madman—Death is near you, Kidan. Don’t go home. You’re not safe.All a pitiful attempt to save her life. But why? He was no longer a Mot Zebeya, a Guard of Death, but a beast, an abomination.

They had killed, then revived him in their selfish pursuit to fix what they had broken and robbed him of peace too. Now he belonged nowhere.

Neither a devout Mot Zebeya nor a well-adjusted vampire.

Those revived after death like him were ravenous, killing anyone they fed on, so GK refused to feed. Day after day, he hurt in every molecule of his body and wondered when it would end.

The door opened and faint footsteps echoed. It was dark, so dark he had forgotten the sun was a thing.

The bulb from the hallway flickered on and he hissed, shutting his eyes. It was still an effort to mute these heightened senses of his.

He could hear the voices upstairs before, the sounds of laughter and hundreds of footsteps roaming. Slowly, he had trained his body to focus on a single sound—the dripping inside the walls. He latched on to it, counting, counting, and losing himself.

“Drink,” a girl’s soft voice said, setting something down on the floor. Despite its gentle tone, her voice sent a piercing pain through his skull. His senses were overstimulated.

Far more horrifying than that, GK could hear the blood inside her veins, the rushing of it like a wild river. She was human. Cramping hunger overwhelmed him.

What was she doing here? Had the Nefrasi kidnapped her too?

He pulled himself deeper into a corner of the cell.

“It’s not blood,” the girl said, causing him to clamp his ears with his hands. “It’s medicine. It will help with your hunger.”

Slowly, GK lowered his hands and stared at the outline of the bottle before gently reaching for it. Medicine…

He was not ill, though. As a vampire, could he still be ill?

His new nose could smell through walls, and one whiff of this concoction had him coughing. It was putrid.

The girl gave a soft laugh. “Medicine isn’t supposed to taste good. Drink, please. It will help.”

He winced with each of her words, so damn loud. Through the headache, he could make out long curling braids and her fingers knitted before her. GK reached for the foul liquid. Anything to stop bleeding from his ears. He tasted every particle of the medicine, herbs mixed with a burning effect. It enflamed his esophagus and he wretched, hurting his throat even more.

After a few seconds, though, his body had the sensation of finally finding water after decades of walking in the desert. GK leaned back and shut his eyes. He hadn’t wanted to feel this—relief and ease. It would be more difficult to return to his self-consumption now.

But perhaps he could steal a few minutes of serenity.

The girl had not left still. Her heart pounded, and he felt as though his head was inside her body from how loud it rung.

“My sister cares about you,” the girl said, taking a seat across from him on the floor.

He angled his head to glimpse a pair of honey-brown eyes, and a soft, round face.

Kidan.

“Who…?” He couldn’t finish asking the question. Speaking was no different from swallowing needles.

GK’s body tensed, a new pain like he’d never known racking him.

Kidan, the girl he once thought needed his help, his protection, had killed her own foster mother. She had locked him in that crypt and allowed Yusef and Slen to kill him. And this was… her sister.

“Leave.” He forced out the word, feeling perspiration at his temple.

This girl… he searched his mind for his conversations with Kidan. Her name must be June. Had Kidan finally found her, then? Any trace of happiness GK couldhave felt was rotted by Kidan’s nature. How had he not seen what they all were? All those months studying with them, unaware.