Sienna
The click of the crossbow was the loudest thing I'd ever heard. It was the sound of a father disowning a daughter. The sound of nineteen years of training, of shared meals in the Thorne's mess hall, and of Marcus's rough hand on my shoulder, all evaporating into the rain.
I closed my eyes, waiting for the silver to tear through my heart.
Instead, a roar ripped through the alley—a sound so primal, so ancient, it didn't belong to a man or even a vampire. It was the sound of the abyss waking up.
I opened my eyes just as a wall of solid shadow slammed into Marcus. The bolt he had fired deflected off a shield of shimmering black energy, skittering uselessly across the wet cobblestones.
"Stay. Away. From. Her."
The voice didn't come from the man I knew. It came from the creature rising from the doorway.
Julian was no longer slumped. He was standing, though his skin was still deathly pale and the black veins of the Vampire's Bane were pulsing against his jaw. His eyes weren't gray or even crimson—they were pits of endless, swirling void. The rain didn't touch him; it turned to steam inches from his skin.
"Julian?" I gasped, my voice lost in the downpour.
He didn't look at me. He moved.
He wasn't running; he was folding space. One second he was ten feet away, the next he was standing in the center of the trio of hunters who had attacked me. He didn't use a blade. He used his hands.
It was a butcher's dance. A blur of black silk and snapping bone. One hunter was thrown through a brick wall with enough force to collapse the structure. Another was decapitated by a single swipe of Julian's claws. The alley was suddenly painted in the hot, copper scent of human blood.
"Julian, stop!" I screamed, scrambling to my feet. "They're down! It's over!"
But he wasn't listening. The Prince was gone. Only the Fury remained.
~★~
Julian
The poison was still screaming in my veins, but the sight of Marcus leveling that crossbow at Sienna had done something to my biology. It had snapped the lock on the darkest part of my soul—the part I had kept chained since Clara died.
I felt every drop of blood hitting the pavement. I felt the terror of the men around me. It tasted like wine.
I turned my gaze to Marcus.
The veteran hunter was already reloading, his fingers remarkably steady despite the carnage around him. He looked at me with that one obsidian eye, a mask of cold, professional hatred.
"You're a dead man, Vane," Marcus spat, raising the heavy bow again. "That poison is eating your heart. You're just a walking corpse."
"Then I shall take you into the grave with me," I growled.
I lunged. Marcus fired. I felt the bolt graze my shoulder, the silver searing my skin, but I didn't stop. I slammed into him, pinning him against the damp stone of the alley wall. My hand closed around his throat, the metal gorget of his armor crushing under my grip.
"Julian, no!" Sienna's voice reached me through the fog of rage. She was running toward us, her hands outstretched. "Don't do it! Don't be the monster he says you are!"
I looked at Marcus. Up close, I could see the truth in his eye. He wasn't afraid. He was satisfied. He wanted me to kill him. He wanted to be the martyr that finally turned Sienna against me for good.
"You think she'll forgive you for this?" Marcus wheezed, a bloody grin stretching across his scarred face. "You kill me, and you kill the last piece of her humanity. Go on. Do it, King of Sin."
I felt Sienna's hand on my arm. Her touch was warm, a stark contrast to the freezing void inside me. "Julian, look at me. Please. Drop him. We can go. We can just leave."
I looked at her. Her violet eyes were swimming with tears, her face smudged with ash and blood. She was pleading for the life of a man who had just tried to execute her.
"He tried to kill you, Sienna," I whispered, my voice a jagged rasp. "He would have watched you die without blinking."
"I know," she sobbed. "But if you kill him like this... there's no coming back. For either of us."
I looked back at Marcus. The man who had raised her. The man who had filled her head with lies and her hands with silver.
My grip tightened.
"You're right, Marcus," I said softly. "I am a dead man. But a dead man has nothing left to lose."
I didn't use my fangs. I simply closed my fist.
There was a sickening crunch of vertebrae. Marcus's obsidian eye went dull. His body went limp in my arms, and I let him slide to the ground, a discarded pile of leather and hate.
The silence that followed was heavier than the rain.
~★~
Sienna
I stared at the body at Julian's feet.
Marcus. The man who taught me how to tie my boots. The man who gave me my first wooden training sword. He was gone. And he was gone because the man I was "bound" to had ended him.
"Sienna..." Julian reached out, his hand stained with Marcus's blood.
I backed away, my heart feeling like a lead weight in my chest. The bridge was gone. The Thorne, my life, my history—it had all burned in the apothecary, and Julian had just scattered the ashes.
"You killed him," I whispered.
"I protected you," he countered, though the black veins were spreading further up his neck now. He staggered, his shadows receding, his eyes flickering back to gray. "I did... what had to be done."
"Was there no other way?" I cried out, the rain washing the salt of my tears into my mouth. "Did you have to break him like that?"
"In our world, Sienna, there are no 'other ways,'" Julian said, his voice growing faint. He leaned against the wall, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "There is only the hunter and the prey. I chose... to keep you from being the latter."
I looked at him, and for a second, my anger flickered. He was dying. The Vampire's Bane was finally winning. He had used the last of his strength to protect me, even if it meant becoming the devil I feared.
"Julian, we have to move," I said, my voice shaking as I stepped toward him. "The squads... they'll be here any second."
"It's too late," he murmured, looking up at the rooftops.
I followed his gaze. High above the alley, silhouetted against the moon, was a single figure. It wasn't a Thorne hunter. This person wore long, flowing robes of deep crimson—the uniform of the High Council's executioners.
The figure didn't have a crossbow. They held a long, slender rifle, the barrel glowing with a terrifying, golden light.
"Sunlight-treated iron," Julian breathed, a look of genuine horror crossing his face. "Viktor... he didn't send the Thorne. He sent the Inquisitors."
"Julian, get down!"
I lunged for him, but I was too slow.
A crack of thunder echoed through the alley, but it didn't come from the sky. A streak of golden light hissed through the rain, trailing a wake of steam. It struck Julian squarely in the chest.
He didn't fly back. He didn't scream.
He just froze.
I watched in silent horror as the spot where the bolt had entered began to smoke. A dull, ashen gray color began to spread from the wound, moving like a rot across his skin. His eyes didn't just dim; they turned to stone.
"No," I whispered, catching him as his knees gave way.
He fell into my arms, his body feeling heavier and colder than I had ever thought possible. The grayness was moving fast, turning his powerful limbs into something brittle and lifeless.
"Sienna..." he croaked, his fingers clutching at my gown. His touch didn't feel like skin anymore; it felt like dry parchment.
"I'm here! I'm right here!" I pulled him closer, my heart screaming through the bond. But the bond was flickering. It was growing cold, like a candle being snuffed out. "Julian, stay with me! Don't you dare leave me here!"
He looked up at me, a single gray tear tracking through the ash on his cheek.
"The Shadowless..." he whispered, his voice a dry rattle. "Watch... the shadows..."
His head fell back. The grayness reached his face, carving deep lines of exhaustion and death into his features. His eyes closed, the stony lids sealing shut.
The golden light on the rooftops vanished. The rain continued to fall, washing the blood from the cobblestones, but it couldn't wash away the silence of the man in my arms.
I looked up at the empty bridge, at the burning ruins of my past, and then back at the cold, gray statue that used to be a Prince.
If the King of Sin is turned to stone, who is left to hold back the dark, and why does the bond in my chest still feel like it's burning with a fire that shouldn't exist?