Page 12 of Betrayed In Crimson
My soul shatters.
The cloaked figure drags their bodies together and, with a flick of their hand, the candles flare violently. Flames erupt. Fire devours them.
The smell of burning flesh fills the room.
Released, I collapse to the floor.
“No, no, no…” I crawl toward them, sobbing uncontrollably. The flames roar higher, devouring everything. I reach for them anyway. Fire scorches my hands, blistering my skin, but I don’t care. Desperate cries tear from my throat as I try to reach them through the inferno.
Suddenly, pain explodes across my scalp. My head is wrenched backwards by my hair.
“A love,” a deep, unfamiliar voice whispers behind me, trembling with reverence. “A sacrifice.”
Cold metal touches my throat.
“An undying devotion.”
The blade slides across my neck.
“Servitude… for eternity.”
Agony rips through me. I try to scream, but only choking gargles escape as blood floods my throat. Warmth pours down my chest, pooling beneath me. My strength ebbs. The world tilts and blurs.
My final sight is the inferno consuming my family, their bodies turning to ash.
“Lilith!” a voice cries somewhere far away. Strong arms lift me. Hold me.
Morbius?
I drift in and out of consciousness, my life fading with each gurgled breath. A sudden, excruciating pain pierces the side of my neck, sharp and violent.
Then darkness swallows everything.
My last thought drifts through the void.
Please… let me join my family on the other side.
CHAPTER FIVE
SILAS
PRESENT DAY
Sitting alone on the roof,I drink under the eerie wash of moonlight over the forest, that silver glow turning the trees into something out of a ghost story. I bring the bottle to my lips and take a long pull, grateful to whoever this blood belonged to before it was bottled. They’d clearly drunk enough alcohol to sedate a horse.
“They say it’s a slippery slope to depression when you drink alone,” Evelynn says softly as she approaches.
Her dark hair is pulled to one side, her pale skin like satin in the moonlight.
Being a vampire looks good on her.
I offer her the bottle. “Then join me, and we can be depressed together.”
She smirks, takes the bottle and takes a sip. Her face scrunches, and she coughs hard.
“Is there any blood in that? It’s just pure alcohol,” she winces.
“Just how I like it,” I mutter, reclaiming the bottle and taking another pull.
