Crimson Truth (Onyx Assassins 4)

Benedict dropped to the ground again, the purple energy ebbing as my mother’s body weakened in my arms with each pull I took. But that damn dagger of power still remained in his chest, so I sucked harder.

And I felt it, her infinite power, as it slid into my own veins, into my fucking soul as I drained her.

Instinct warned me to stop, some inner voice shouting at me that I couldn’t survive absorbing all her power…

But I didn’t care.

“You’re…” She choked out, her voice weak. “Killing yourself, you fool.”

I yanked on her harder, biting deeper.

I drank and drank. Until I felt sick with it.

I drank until my vision blurred and her heart stuttered to a stop.

The dagger of power disappeared from Benedict’s chest.

I dropped my mother’s lifeless body on the ground, and her power…I’d taken it all. It weighed me down like an anchor, dragging me to the bottom of the deepest ocean. My lungs filled with something I couldn’t breathe around, my chest threatening to crack from the pressure of it.

Benedict stirred, groaning as he managed to get to his knees.

His eyes met mine, flaring with panic as he crawled to me. He gripped my shoulders, and I smiled at him before coughing, choking on the power drowning me from the inside out.

Blood splattered his leathers, and I parted my lips to say sorry, but the anchor was too strong, too heavy.

It pulled me down, down, down.

Until everything went black.

21

Benedict

This was a special kind of hell.

I watched every breath Jocelyn took as her chest rose and fell, subtly moving the linens on our bed. Once Gabriel had confirmed that there was nothing he could do for her, I’d brought her here—to our chamber, but she hadn’t awakened. She’d only grown weaker, her heart speeding by small, but measurable degrees as time ticked by. It fluttered like the wings of a hummingbird, pumping at an incredible, unsustainable pace that I knew would inevitably take her from me if we couldn’t slow its rapid beat. The sun rose and the shutters closed. The sun set, and they opened again to reveal the now waning moon.

It had been almost twenty-four hours since the battle in lycan territory.

Twenty-four hours since we’d counted our dead, which included three trainees.

Twenty-four hours since the howls of the lycans grief had been heard throughout Edgemont. Luka was dead, the first to fall to Genevieve’s magic.

Genevieve… I ripped my hands over my hair. God, I wished I could kill her again myself. Instead, Jocelyn lay motionless in our bed, fighting a war I couldn’t even see.

You’re killing yourself, you fool.

Genevieve’s final words haunted me, playing over and over in my head as I sat by Jocelyn’s bedside, stroking my thumb over her flushed, heated hand. What the hell had the queen meant?

Vampires could go bloodmad with too much feeding—or not enough, but Jocelyn had been nowhere near that point when she’d taken her mother down. She’d simply drained the queen, and then gone terrifyingly limp, her temperature skyrocketing. Her hair was turning white in full strands, which told me it had something to do with her magic.

I barely registered the knock at the door before Alek walked in, looking as haggard as I felt.

“Any change?” he asked, handing over fresh ice packs.

“It’s getting worse.” I stood from the armchair I’d hauled to the side of the bed. “She’s gone up another half degree.” It only took a matter of seconds for me to replace the now-heated gel packs that lined her body with fresh, frozen ones. Fuck, how long had it taken her body to fry them? A half hour?

Alek’s jaw ticked. “The bond?”

“Still there, but…” I caressed the pounding beat of the pulse in her wrist as I searched for adequate words. “But it’s fraying, like a piece of elastic that’s been stretched too tight and is coming apart at the seams.” Everything was on overload. She was on overload.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“I don’t know what to do,” I whispered, the sound coming out broken. “The ice packs won’t keep her temperature down. Human medicine has no effect on witches. My blood can’t help.” I’d never felt so helpless in my entire life. “We’re going to be dead by dawn.”

“We’re not losing either of you.” Alek’s phone rang and he cursed briefly before answering it. “This had better be important.” His spine stiffened and his gaze swung to mine. “You’re going to have to say that again.” His eyes widened slightly. “We’re on our way.”

“What?” I asked, the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention.

“Luna is outside the barrier.”

“Are you serious? How the hell does she even know where we are?” I took Jocelyn’s lifeless, scalding hand in my own and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. Her temperature was rising even faster. She’d have brain damage soon.