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The Other Morningstar

EMILIA

T he vampire’s crimson glare burned into me, so vicious that I faltered. Not that I had a distinct plan, but I’d intended to do something . Instead, I was trapped in the depths of her hatred, unable to breathe.

She growled and grabbed me by the throat, yanking me forward like a ragdoll. “I’m so fucking tired of you little Morningstar bitches!” she spat as she thrust me to the ground.

The pavement assaulted my spine and my vision blew white.

“I don’t understand what all the fuss is about. So your ancestors rode dragons once upon a time. Who fucking cares .”

A boot to my ribs forced the most ungodly sound to rip from my throat. My tongue tasted like metal. “Now, you’ve wrecked our car. We’re going to have to run, and I plan on making this as painful as possible for you.”

“Now, now, Varian,” a male voice purred. “Rashira wants her unharmed.”

“I don’t give a fuck what Rashira wants! She insisted this one wouldn’t put up a fight!”

“She doesn’t look like she’s fighting to me.”

“She destroyed our fucking car. That counts as a fight, Luc.”

“You bring her back all busted up, and Rashira will be cross. I’d hate to see you spend more time in the tank.”

As the vampires bickered, I blinked rapidly until my vision stabilized and then started scouring my surroundings. A dark road flanked by tall, bony trees. It didn’t seem to be residential. There weren’t even any street lights.

My ears were still ringing with the remnants of the siren song that had lured me into this mess.

The back of my head and the entirety of my spine were burning with agony but I forced myself to my feet anyway.

“ Fuck! ” the female hissed.

I whirled in time to see her charging me. My hands shot out instinctively, a hailstorm of ice shards shooting at her. She screamed and ducked, her hands flying protectively over her face.

I turned and ran, getting an impressive seven feet away before she tackled me, her nails sharp as daggers in my arms. We hit the ground rolling together, screams flying from me and snarls from her.

My heart was having a fit behind my ribs. I couldn’t form a coherent thought to help me fight. She pinned me to the ground, her hand latched around my throat again, squeezing hard enough to crush my larynx. The absence of breath was agonizing, but what was worse was the way she laughed as she looked down at me. Like I was disgusting and pathetic. Her red eyes glowed with malice, her fangs dripping saliva that burned my skin.

Not saliva. Venom .

Her hand around my throat relented, but there was no reprieve in sight. Her head dove down and then the worst burning pain I’d ever felt in my life tore through me. I couldn’t scream or thrash or react—I was immobilized by the pain. Her jaw was latched around my neck, her vile tongue lapping my blood as it rushed from my jugular.

The stars in the sky twinkled, as beautiful as ever. Oblivious to—or maybe even entertained by—my torment.

With each passing second I felt myself drain away. My blood, my strength, my will to fucking live.

The vampire drank and drank, moaning as if I were a delicacy.

My arms were splayed wide and lifeless, my palms facing the heartless sky. I watched the stars reform against the dark velvet abyss like curious fireflies. I knew my time was coming to an end because of course stars don’t move. But they did for me. They danced and jiggled, assembling into new constellations.

Death and a show.

A blazing comet scorched across the sky, leaving a trail of light. The trail of light morphed into a dragon. A shimmering white dragon with glowing lilac eyes, a furry mane, and a snake’s body. She reared her head back and roared, shaking the entire galaxy with her might. I felt it in my chest, in my heart.

She lowered her head from the sky, which had crystallized like a sheet of ice around her.

My guardian angel , I thought dreamily. Here to guide me to the Otherside.

She slithered down, her body moving as if the sky was made of water. The pain in my neck and the horror of my blood leaving my body melted away. I watched the dragon, my soul brimming with awe as she made her way down to me. I had never seen anything more stunning or mythic. Her scales shimmered in the moonlight, a light mist forming around her, the air chiming with heavenly bells in her presence.

Her eyes held the wisdom of a thousand lives.

She was close. So close.

It’s almost over.

The dragon of mist and starlight turned into a waterfall and poured into me.

My body lit up with an icy rush that made my eyes fly wide. Every inch of me vibrated with cosmic energy, a wild gasp sailing from my lips. My waning power swelled and spiked into a tornado that blundered through my veins, pooling in my chest and hands.

My fingers wrapped around something cool and smooth, and without even looking, I knew what I’d conjured.

I gripped the dagger of ice and thrust it into the vampire’s neck.

Her scream echoed through the darkness.

The sky had gone back to normal.

The vampire veered back, her hand on her spewing neck, the wail still blaring from her bloody lips.

I rolled away, lunging back to my feet. My throat and chest were wet, my head spinning, muted pain throbbing through me. But all I could think of was the starry dragon as I released a furious battle cry and kicked the vampire in the chest. She hit the pavement hard, cursing me with every breath.

She was on her feet in less than a second, yanking my blade from her throat. She snarled with vengeance and smashed it on the asphalt. The dagger became a mess of glittering shards. Her fists clenched at her sides, her fangs bared as she stared at me with her chest heaving.

“So you do have a fight in you,” she growled, eyeing me up and down.

I was looking at her through new eyes, processing the situation with a new brain. I’d never tried drugs before but I imagined this was what felt like to be high. The foreign, limitless confidence had me grinning, my icy fingers flexing with a silent dare for her to come at me again. She narrowed her eyes at me, suspicious of my shifted energy.

“Luc…” Her tone was apprehensive. She waited for a response but wouldn’t look around for her partner. She wouldn’t take her eyes off me.

Luc didn’t respond, because Luc wasn’t here.

It was just me and her on the dark road under the stars which had chosen me .

She tried to mask the horror of being abandoned, but I saw it. Smelled it.

“What did you do, you little witch ?” she hissed.

I smiled innocently at her.

It triggered a rage she couldn’t control. Her lips tore over her fangs as she charged for me, and my magic was all too ready to spar this time.

My response was instinctual. My arms curled inward to hug myself and then shot out in unison like I was throwing two Frisbees. A blinding beam of icy power assailed her and she stopped in her tracks, her eyes wide with shock. It was gone in a flash.

The night fell still, not a single rustle in the trees.

The high in my brain immediately started to fade after my burst of power. I was a thousand pounds lighter. Finally free of a burden I hadn’t even realized I’d been carrying.

But I didn’t understand what I’d done. Didn’t understand why she was just staring at me, her mouth gaping open all weird and slanted. The line of blackish-red across her throat oozed. Why wasn’t she moving? Why was she just standing there with her head at an impossible angle, like it was sliding off her neck? Her body was uneven, her chest protruding one way, her hips another. What—

Her head fell to the ground, the wet fleshy thud making me flinch.

Her body stayed standing but her chest was slipping forward. I stared at the exposed tendon and bone in her neck. Stared as her legs finally gave out and her body collapsed like a house of cards. In pieces on the ground.

Her eyes were still open. Staring vacantly at the night sky that had damned her.

I thought there must have been a train going by or something, the way the world was vibrating and my ears were full of this terrible roaring sound.

But it was just me—my body shaking like a dead tree, my heart pumping blood fierce enough that I could hear it.

The high was gone, replaced by cold, heavy dread.

Nausea coated my stomach and throat but I could not pry my eyes away. The violence was so bleak, so raw, so irreversible—and it was all me .

Just me.

Alone with a dead body in the middle of who the fuck knew. The isolation was wrong. I felt blinded, like a hundred flashing cameras were pointed in my face, a cacophony of voices shouting at me, about what I had done.

I looked down at my trembling hands. They were coated in thick, shimmering ice.

My magic, shimmering .

On the brink of hyperventilating, I searched my surroundings, finding nothing but—

Ice.

Everywhere.

It coated the trees in a thick glittering film, icicles dangling and catching the moonlight. The winding road was now identical to a frozen lake. Everywhere my eyes touched sparkled with my magic.

I’d turned the world to winter.

I was about to spiral into unreachable depths but then the male vampire appeared out of thin air. Standing just ten feet away in the middle of the frozen road, his white hair nearly glowing in the dark. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking down at the heap of dismembered body parts on the road.

How had I even…?

My heart was going to shoot out my throat.

His eyes, one crimson and one black, finally flicked up to me.

My chest tightened. To my surprise, though, I found no fury or grief upon his narrow face. He was looking at me the same way as he had at the beach house. His expression was wistful and, dare I say— intrigued .

“You did it,” he whispered.

The words were soft but I still jumped.

“You actually…you did it.” A wicked grin stretched across his pale lips. “The bitch is dead.”

He was tricking me. It was plain enough to tell that they had been partners of some kind. Not romantic, but… Their body language told a story of two creatures that had spent eons together.

My tongue felt like it had popped and turned to liquid lead in my mouth. I stared at the impossible manifestation of my magic, trying to understand what had come over me. The dragon in the stars, the altered senses that had taken over…

“You’re in shock.”

I glanced up at the vampire, who was eyeing me the way a toddler might eye someone with a horrific physical deformity.

My mouth moved but no words came out.

“But this isn’t your first kill, is it, Emilia Morningstar?” The male grinned, the sight wolfish. Casually, he strolled toward me.

His face was utterly confusing. Sharp, smooth, and hard, with no signs of aging yet he looked old. Or perhaps ancient was the word. Despite his perfect porcelain skin, nothing about him was youthful. “You don’t look like you’re in the right frame of mind to retain important information, but I fear I have no choice. Can you listen closely, darling?”

I just stared at him. My pulse throbbed in my temples and throat.

His gaze dropped to my open wound and his nostrils flared. My skin erupted with chills as I took an instinctive step back.

“Don’t worry, I ate before we came.” He winked. “Anyway, listen up. Rashira wants something your sister has. No, not your sister, forgive me. Her bats told her that ‘her mortal’ has it. Does that make sense? Does Nyx have a mortal? She must—the bats are never wrong. So, the mortal is in possession of something that my queen wants, but here’s the twist: I have no interest in helping her get it back.”

His expression darkened in a strange, theatrical way. “You killed Varian tonight. The mission went array; we gravely underestimated the other Morningstar. When I return without you, I’ll have hell to pay, but I can handle it.”

My face had crumpled halfway through his nonsensical speech.

“Get the demon blade. Get it to your sister, and soon . Any questions?”

“Who’s Rashira?” I blurted, shocked that I could even speak.

He gave me a wry grin. “You’ll know soon enough.” He stepped closer to me, making my breath hitch. The predatory energy wafting off him made my knees tremble. I was standing alone in the middle of nowhere with a deadly, ancient creature. A creature who was licking his lips, staring at my bloody throat.

“Your sister put on a good show,” he mused. “A true fighter. But we all expected that. With you… Well, we thought you were weak. What a brilliant surprise you are, girl. I have not seen this move in decades ! You shredded her to ribbons!”

He laughed, purely elated, motioning to the annihilated corpse. “I find myself more infatuated with your potential. Tell me, what did you see in the stars? I was up there—” He nodded toward the treetops, his mismatched eyes glimmering with mischief. “I watched the light burst back into your eyes just before you teetered off the precipice of certain death. What was it?”

My lips were open, my chest rising and falling. Eye contact with him felt like a warm caress. “A dragon,” I whispered.

Then I flinched, my cheeks heating. Why did I tell him that?

His brows jumped, a spark igniting in his leering gaze. Then he laughed. A sharp but melodic sound. “Fantastic. Times really are changing.” He tilted his head to admire the stars. When he looked back at me, my stomach swooped. “I look forward to seeing you again, Emilia Morningstar.”

With a whoosh , he was gone.