Page 26 of Until the Heart Stops (The Oylen City #1)

E very drop of blood in my body rebelled as I guided Lilith back into the ballroom.

When I pressed my lips to her palm, I wanted to linger further.

No, goddess , I wanted to drain her to the point of death and replace that blood with my own.

Never in over eight hundred years had I ever felt the urge to turn another and yet here I was, grappling with the effort not to do so in this room full of witnesses.

Lilith curtsied with her eyes trained on mine as we both straightened.

Over her shoulder, Seth watched us with a protective eye.

I’d drunk from him almost every night since that first in the woods and I hadn’t been wrong when I’d thought there was a bond forming between us.

It was similar to the one I had with Mael and yet it was softer… kinder.

Take care of her, please , I silently begged.

Seth nodded once, supplying nothing through our connection other than the protective wave I felt every time he looked at me, but now focused on Lilith.

Before I could do something to ruin everything we’d worked toward, I vanished from the ballroom, moving with unfathomable speed until I appeared in the gardens.

“Breathe.” Mateo’s rumble was soft in the dark, his hand on my back a comforting weight.

But I could not breathe, not with this new distance between me and Lilith.

I clutched my chest, practically clawed at my heart as if I could rip it from my breast before my brother grabbed my wrists, tugging them to him.

Another hand stroked the back of my head.

Henry’s scent curled around me but it did nothing to burn away Lilith’s on my tongue, my skin, my fucking soul.

“This cannot continue,” I rasped, looking back and forth between Mateo’s eyes as if between them I might find the answer to our maker’s destruction. “I cannot bear it.”

He nodded with such solemnity it made my eyes burn and my vision haze. “I know, Callum, but we’re close.”

And yet so far. Seth had been raised from his grave, but he urged us to wait until the time was right to strike. But the immortal I now trusted as much as my brothers, as much as Eamon, would not say when that time would be. I shook my head, blood tears splattering onto my shirt.

Henry did not speak and I didn’t begrudge him.

Almost a millennium together and I knew he struggled in these moments.

Instead, he gripped the back of my neck, pressing his brow against my temple and breathing slowly until I mimicked the rhythm.

Steps crunched across the gravel and we turned as Seth appeared, his face troubled.

He reached his hands out to me as if to receive a child, but I went willingly as he cupped my face in his hands. “She is in the coach and safely on her way to Oylen.”

“You did not accompany her?” I failed to keep the accusation out of my tone .

Seth shook his head. “I know better than to press myself upon powerful women who prefer to be alone.”

There was another reason, though, and he allowed me to feel the intuition he had through our connection. The second night he’d come to stay at Eamon’s, he’d spoken of his maker and the secrets she whispered in his ear. Knowledge he could put no voice to and never betrayed. This was the same.

I often struggled to remember his maker was not another immortal, but Amayah herself, whispering to him from the night around us.

“Dawn approaches, ahnak makayna ,” he murmured, the lost language of the ancients rippling through the air like an incantation.

My child . It was the best translation he could offer, but it was more than that.

Deeper than merely a person viewed as precious, or in need of protection.

It spoke of a connection, a duty, a bond between two souls that, just like his communication with his maker, could not be truly put into modern language.

Mateo and Henry flanked me on either side, nodding their agreement. Seth hadn’t yet offered his blood to them, but I knew it was a possibility mostly because he knew it as well. He brushed his lips across my brow and both my cheeks before stepping back.

“Come to me when you wake, all of you, and you will receive my gift,” he promised, holding Mateo’s and Henry’s gaze for a beat.

Well then, the possibility was now a certainty.

We bowed respectfully before shooting into the air and making our way back to Mael’s palace.

The three of us exchanged a long look as we slipped through the open window of our sitting room.

Gabrielle’s door was still shut. We had not seen her in nights, though her scent was strong enough that we were sure she was in her coffin.

“I’m done,” Henry rumbled, appearing in front of her door in two long strides. “We have respected her privacy enough.”

Mateo muttered something about patience, but I agreed with Henry.

We tried to stay out of each other’s resting places after our first hundred years of this new life and the torment Mael would cause by wrenching open our coffins before the sun had set.

After that, our resting places had become secrets we only trusted each other with.

But there was no hiding it from our maker, so we had agreed to never encroach upon each other’s space—that way if someone did, we would know it was safe to strike.

Henry pushed through her door with a bit too much force, the handle lodging into the opposite wall with a crash.

The bedroom was empty, but that was not surprising—our beds were an indulgence but not the place we slept.

He took a sharp turn to the right, threw open another door and drew back the thick velvet curtain hiding her coffin.

As he did, panic seized my chest and I stumbled.

My hand flew out to steady myself, but there was nothing near me.

Before my knees could crack against the floor, Mateo had an arm under my shoulders, but I was gasping.

Something was wrong. I cried out, reaching toward Lilith in the bond, pushing my magic to her.

Shadows danced through my mind, a dark alley swam in and out of view.

I realized my scream was not the only one ricocheting around the room. Henry roared, fisting his hands into his hair and falling beside Gabrielle’s coffin. Her open, empty coffin, filled with copious amounts of her blood—enough to trick us into thinking she rested within.

And as Henry broke the thick wooden coffin lid in two and Mateo moaned in distress, Lilith’s pain ripped through my veins, white hot and acidic, before winking out into blackness.

Lilith

An Hour Earlier

I returned to the apartment alone.

When Callum had deposited me back in the ballroom with a lingering kiss to my palm, I’d searched the dais and dance floor for Adrienne, but she was nowhere to be found.

Neither, it appeared, was Eamon. The strange, otherworldly immortal, however, had kindly offered to arrange a coach to return me to town, even going so far as to propose he accompany me to ensure I arrived safely.

I had accepted the coach but not his protection—though I couldn’t shake the overwhelming trust I had for the vampire.

Still, he’d walked me through the ballroom and to the coach, shutting the door and pressing his fist to his heart. It took almost half the ride back to Oylen to realize I hadn’t once asked for his name.

But the closer I got to the city, the deeper the dread sank its claws in.

Perhaps it was the distance between myself and Callum or the understanding it might be weeks or even months before we reunited.

He’d spoken as if there was a plan in motion but I couldn’t fan the ember of hope inside my chest.

Noah was out on patrol in the eastern quadrant of the city and so the apartment was empty.

I paused in the doorway, brows furrowing.

Nothing was out of place, no window left unlatched, and yet I could not shake the feeling something was terribly wrong.

Without a second thought I tugged the door shut, not even bothering to lock it when I whirled on the landing and all but flew down the steps and into the street.

My feet followed the familiar path to the Souzterain.

It might have been the full moon but I knew a few vendors still kept their shops open for the Vyenurs on duty or the humans who might be in need.

The river’s current slapped against the stones, louder than usual from the rain we’d gotten in the last few weeks.

Rain now starting to fall overhead and threatening to turn to snow and freeze on the wintry streets.

A pang hollowed out my stomach as I turned off the main street beside the river and the night market.

But the moment I stepped into the mouth of the alley, my feet stuttered to a stop.

It was empty—completely and utterly empty—and yet the darkness was oppressive, as if a great crowd of people had jammed themselves inside the space.

The air was thick with unfamiliar scents that did not belong within the Souzterain.

Earth. Pungent, nose-tickling spice. Sweetness like sugar.

I took one step back, drawing in the magic reserves I’d so lovingly honed closer to the surface.

A shadow flew out of nowhere, blinding white teeth flashing in the dark.

I would have sworn it was a venefica if not for the human-like growl it made.

My magic snapped out like a whip, thrusting the male to the side and bashing his head against the brick wall.

He hit hard enough that he stumbled, but another figure dashed from the dark, white hands curled into claws.

I lifted my elbow, catching the female in the chin and sending a jolt of magic out through the impact like a shock. She fell back, eyes wide as she scrambled on the ground in a gown much too opulent for this affair. But I could see clearly now what they were.

Vampires. The Covenant.

A third appeared like a lightning flash, hand twisting through my hair before I could shove them off.

The first took advantage, grabbing my waist where my generous skirts shielded him from my skin.

But I pushed outward, blowing against his face as flames appeared between my lips, scalding his skin and bubbling it into ash.

He screamed, letting go as he clutched his cheeks.

“Enough,” the one behind me rasped, but he sounded uncertain.

They had not planned on me fighting, or more accurately: they had not planned on me winning.

I couldn’t help my laugh echoing through the alley, even as the female found her footing and rushed forward.

My magic was waning, even with its newfound strengthening.

But I pushed through as she appeared in front of me, beautiful face pinched with rage, hands raised with needle-sharp nails.

“What is it like to be nothing but a dog?” I was wheezed out another laugh. “I’ll never understand why you were willing to give up everything for an immortal I hear is half mad and claims to speak with the gods.”

Rage hardened the woman’s features and a glittering, deadly smile pulled back her lips until her fangs flashed. But there was a brittleness behind her rage, as if it was only a mask. “I would rather bark at the feet of a master than beg in the streets for my dinner.”

Her hands cupped my face surprisingly gently and, though I sent all the magic I had left, her power cut through it like a knife through fat.

I screamed, pain ripping through my skin, down into my muscle, into my soul.

The vampire behind me released my hair and though they were speaking and the female had hefted me into her arms, all I knew was the acid tearing apart my body.

The flesh melted from my bones. There was no more air.

No more time. And the bond linking me to Callum screamed in tandem as the dawn rose behind my lids before blackness blotted out the light.