Aurora desperately kept blocking him. He was bleeding from several cuts on his bare torso and his arms, but none of them was as deep as the gash in his side. In the exact same spot as the wound on her body. A wound created by the heavenly sword of her master. It was proof that their lives were linked and it scared her.
“I didn’t do this,” she shouted over the din of battle and he snarled at her, exposing bloodied fangs.
He had been drinking from the angels, keeping his strength up so he could continue to fight despite his wounds.
His crimson eyes pinned her with a deadly glare, his elliptical pupils little more than thin slits in the centre of his irises. She could feel his pain and the turbulent emotions that ruled him, and she ached to make him see that he was wrong about her. She hadn’t turned against him and those he loved.
She would never do such a thing to him. She loved him too much to ever hurt him.
“I cannot believe I trusted you.” Snow stalked away from her, his shoulders hunched and tight, speaking of his agitation. She went to follow him, desperate to explain and make him see reason, and he turned on her with a dark snarl, his pale blade nothing more than a blur as it cut through the air in her direction.
Aurora leaped backwards, using a fast beat of her wings to help her barely avoid his attack, and brought her sword up, knocking his away from her.
“Please, Snow.” She tried again, not only to save herself from his wrath now. She had to ease his hurt somehow. She knew how hard he found it to trust people because he didn’t trust himself, and she wanted him to know that he hadn’t been wrong to trust her. She hadn’t betrayed him.
He stormed away from her, attacking any angel who foolishly placed themselves in his path, slaughtering them in the midst of his rage.
Antoine and another male vampire fought closer to the double doors at the side of the theatre, doing their best to defeat the angels attacking them and protecting Sera at the same time.
Aurora couldn’t allow Snow to reach his brother. Antoine would surely attack her and she wasn’t strong enough to withstand a full strength attack.
Snow was mad at her but he was pulling his punches too, not putting all of his power into each blow.
It had to mean he still felt something for her and it gave her hope that she could get through to him and make him listen.
“I would have accepted death to defend you and give you the happiness and life you deserved, Aurora, and you did this!” He turned and attacked her again, forcing her backwards towards a group of vampires and angels where they battled behind her.
She defended as best she could, afraid that one of his blows would make it past her sword and cut her down. If that happened, he might die too. She didn’t know whose sword he possessed and she didn’t want him to die, so she fought harder, desperate to live so he would too.
His face contorted in anger and agony. “This I will not accept. I cannot accept! I will never allow harm to come to those I love… to my family… to innocent children!”
Aurora reeled from the verbal blow. How low he thought her. He truly believed she had ordered this. He believed she would send angels to kill the babies and those he loved.
Snow leaped up onto the black stage, grabbed an angel by his throat, and hurled him at Aurora.
The blond male hit her and knocked her down, and she cried out when the pain in her side worsened, stealing her breath, and her wings ended up twisted at awkward angles beneath her.
Snow glanced back at her, a flicker of remorse in his eyes before he turned away and attacked another angel, dealing vicious blows with his sword, cutting a path across the stage.
He was heading for Callum and Kristina at the back of the stage, fighting to reach them so he could shield their babies. The werewolf was in her animal form, snarling savagely at the angels as she attacked them, protecting her young.
The witch was with her, together with the young incubus. Payne formed an impenetrable wall with Kristina, fighting to protect his female and the boy.
Aurora grasped her blade in both hands, rolled the male angel off her and plunged it into his heart, killing him. She shoved to her feet and gave one powerful beat of her aching wings, flying up onto the black stage, unwilling to give up her fight to make Snow see the truth.
She swung hard and cut down another injured angel, doing her best to give him a painless death, feeling remorse over how things had turned out. She had never wanted this. She had dragged these angels into her master’s personal vendetta because she had wanted to save Snow.
She had wanted to be with the man she loved.
That man turned on her, wild and savage, an immense warrior with only violence in his dark heart.
Aurora swiftly blocked his sword and had to use her other hand to cradle the flat of her blade as he pressed down on it, forcing his closer to her. Her bare feet slipped on a slick patch of blood-drenched black floorboards and she almost lost her footing. She shoved with all of her might and rolled to one side as he struck again, coming to her feet further away from him.
Her side burned from the action and she pressed her hand to it, her other one trembling, barely able to keep hold of the grip of the sword. The point of her blade hit the black wooden stage floor and she leaned on the weapon, using it to support her shaking body and keep her upright.
“This is not my doing, Snow. I swear it.” She breathed hard through the pain, trying to subdue it. Snow decapitated another angel, sending the female’s head toppling to the ground. Aurora looked at the pandemonium surrounding her, a battle between life and death. Her superiors would keep sending more angels to their deaths, an endless wave of them, intent on killing everyone here, including her. They couldn’t win this. “They kept me waiting. I never passed judgement on you!”
That got Snow’s attention. His head whipped around, the bloodied threads of his overlong white hair spraying outwards before coming to settle around his noble features. Red eyes held hers, intense and penetrating, looking straight through her for a sign she was lying.
“If I had been able to voice my verdict about you… it would have been to say that you did not deserve death… that I had never met anyone so selfless and loving, so protective and strong… so beautiful.” Aurora wavered, the pain becoming too great to bear, and came close to collapse. Darkness encroached and then drifted away, and when she could focus on Snow again, he was closer to her, confusion and concern in his dazzling crimson eyes.
He frowned at her side. Blood pumped from between her fingers and she winced, fighting to retain consciousness.
“What is this?” he whispered and darkness threatened to drag her under again. His hand caught her wrist, steadying her.
Tears filled her eyes but she blinked them away, feeling stronger as he held her, both in body and in soul. “I did want the happiness and life I deserved, and that was why I came back. I came back to tell you that I love you, and I was giving up my wings to be with you. You are my happiness.”
Snow’s frown hardened and he gathered her closer, shielding her in his arms as he weathered an attack by another angel. Antoine appeared from nowhere, assisting him. Aurora clung to Snow, fighting the darkness, glad to be back in his arms and hoping he believed her now and wouldn’t turn on her again.
Snow shifted his attention back to her. “What happened to you?”
She smiled sadly. “You are not the only one who feels betrayed… but I am the only one who has been betrayed. I am bound to you in more ways than one. My life is bound to yours.”
She raised her bloodstained hand and his eyes darkened, flooded with the rage she could feel burning inside him.
“You also bear the wound your master dealt me.” Snow slipped one arm around her back to support her. His handsome bloodstained face blackened into a scowl. “Your master meant for you to judge me poorly… he sought to end your life too.”
Aurora nodded weakly, anger over her master’s actions rushing through her, giving her the strength to stand and fight.
She had trusted everyone she had grown up with, everyone she had spent thousands of years with, and this was how they repaid her? Had this been her master’s intention all this time?
He had wanted her to suffer Snow’s sins and pay for the pain he caused, and then die with him as punishment for everything Snow had done and everything she had unleashed on the world by saving him that night.
Snow roared, his rage pouring over her, anger that she knew was directed towards her master.
“Antoine,” Snow said and his younger brother finished the angel and returned to him.
There were multiple lacerations in his clothing, blood staining it and his face in places. Everyone was suffering because of what she had done and her wretched master. She wanted him to pay for hurting these vampires and their loved ones. She wanted him to pay for hurting Snow.
And for hurting her.
Antoine cast her a dark look that promised pain. Snow gathered her closer, his thickly muscled arms banding around her like a shield.
“She is not to be harmed,” Snow growled.
“She did this.” Antoine glared at her.
“No, it was her master’s doing. Aurora’s life is bound to mine.”
The darkness evaporated from Antoine’s expression, replaced by shock. “You mean if she dies…”
Snow nodded. “We must protect her and find her master. He will pay for this.”
A vampire behind Antoine cried out, the tip of a sword appearing in the centre of his chest. The body fell and revealed her master, and Aurora straightened in Snow’s arms, glaring at him. Antoine whirled on the spot to face him, his sword at the ready.
Aurora pushed free of Snow’s arms and picked up the blade she had dropped at some point, too weak to hold it then. She found the strength to wield it in the face of death, determined not to succumb to her master’s plan for her and Snow.
Snow readied his own blade, standing beside her.
Payne, Kristina, and Elissa continued to fight off to their right, battling to protect Callum and their young.
Sera, the male vampire, and Javier and Lilah fought below them on the red carpet. Across the room, Chica and Andreu fought bravely, the female succubus whizzing between the angels, sucking out their energy through deadly kisses, weakening them for her male to finish.
Aurora faced her master.
“Why did you do this? Because you knew I had gone to judge Snow well, giving him a chance to redeem himself? Because you blamed him for all the suffering and darkness that would consume me if my faith in him was proven wrong?”
He smiled darkly and preened a few unruly strands of his long black hair from his amethyst eyes. “You have too much faith in me. I came here to kill the vampire because he deserves to die… and so do you.”
Snow growled at him, exposing his fangs at the same time. It warmed her heart. He wanted to protect her from the angels and save her from her master. He still loved her.
Antoine shifted beside them, engaging a brunette female angel who dared to step into the firing line between them and her master. Another vampire joined in, battling beside him to bring the female down, tearing through her wings with claw and blade before decapitating her.
Aurora stared coldly at her master. He showed no sign of remorse or any flicker of emotion as the angel fell, exhaling her last breath. He didn’t care how many died here tonight and it sickened Aurora.
“They ordered you to execute me but gave you no deadline… so you drew it out as long as you could. You’re exploiting a loophole.” She wasn’t sure what that meant exactly but if she pretended that she did, she might get him to reveal the truth about it to her. “Our superiors are amused by that. I am not.”
His smile gained a proud edge.
“You were ordered to kill me with your own sword but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. I hate you for that. I hate you for trying to trick me into committing suicide in order to spare yourself.” Aurora spat the words at him and took a step forwards, only for Snow to catch her arm and hold her back.
She looked over her shoulder at him and he shook his head. She knew that fighting her master would be committing the suicide she just spoke of, but she wanted to drive her sword right through his black dead heart.
Her master preened his white bloodstained feathers in the way she had witnessed him do a million times and something dawned on her.
“You shallow bastard!” She hurled herself forwards, raising her sword at the same time, but Snow held her firm, refusing to let her attack her master. Aurora tried to break free but Snow pulled her back to him, his grip on her unrelenting. “You would have been following orders if you had struck me down that day but you also would have gained a single black feather for the sin of killing a fellow angel.”
A look of sheer disgust crossed her master’s face. “I had kept them perfect for thousands of years before you were dumped on me as my ward. In only a handful of years, you threatened to undo all of my hard work.”
Aurora spluttered, unable to believe what she was hearing. He valued the purity of his feathers over her life and the life of these people around her.
“Our superiors felt it was what I deserved for not teaching you well enough as a child and allowing you to commit your first sin the night you saved this despicable creature.” Her master tossed Snow a black look and Antoine snarled beside her, his back tensing as his fingers flexed around the hilt of his bloodied white sword.
Snow moved forwards, angling his body slightly in front of hers, shielding her again. It irked her this time. She wanted to be the one to end her master. She wanted to make him pay for what he had done to her.
“You wanted me to suffer,” she said, enraged by that and the thought that he had masqueraded as her companion for all these years, pretending to care about her when really he had been biding his time, waiting for Snow to commit enough sins. “You watched me as I bore Snow’s sins, my feathers turning black one by one, and then Snow went two centuries without committing another. Oh, how that must have annoyed you!”
Her master scowled at her, and she hated him more than ever. She had thought he had been happy when Snow had stopped sinning, driven into isolation by his bloodlust, taken away from the world by his brother. In reality, it had annoyed her master, forcing him to bide his time, waiting for Snow to sin again.
And when that had failed, and Snow hadn’t sinned, he had changed his plans.
“You waited until I gave in to the temptation to visit Snow again, knowing that when I did you could punish me, turning my final feather black. You could make me judge him.” Aurora readied her sword. “You son of a bitch!”
She broke free of Snow’s grasp and attacked her master, catching him unawares with a direct strike across his upper arm, slicing deep into his white armour. Her sword came away bloodied and her master’s purple eyes flashed with fury.
He attacked but Snow was there, blocking his blade, driving it away from her. Antoine joined forces with the other vampires, keeping the other angels at bay, out of their fight with her master.
If she could kill her master, then it would send a message to her superiors, a warning that she would come good on her threat to destroy every angel they sent to Vampirerotique if they didn’t withdraw the troops. She was sure they would choose the sensible course of action and recall them, and she would have spared Snow and his friends.
If only.
Her master was ancient, almost as old as their superiors were and almost as powerful. No one had defeated him or even come close, and he had battled the strongest demons in the realms of Hell, surviving each battle without a single wound.
She had wounded him though, and he couldn’t kill her directly without committing the sin of killing a fellow angel. He needed to kill Snow and have her die because of her link to him, leaving him untainted because he had only killed a demon. She could take advantage of that if Snow would only let her. The trouble was, she knew he wouldn’t want her to fight her master alone. He would
fight to protect her, placing himself between her and her master, even when it made sense for her to be the one to fight him.
Aurora timed her attacks with Snow’s, slashing at her master whenever he blocked Snow’s blade, leaving himself open.
The angel was too fast.
He easily countered her, quickly switching between blocking Snow and blocking her. She tried to come around behind him but he shifted, nimbly moving so he continued to face them both.
An angel broke through the ranks to help him, forcing her to break away to attack him instead. Her master lured Snow further away and, although Snow fought viciously, he landed blows, slicing Snow’s arms and his chest. Each cut on his body appeared on hers and she grew weaker, the pain stealing her strength and her focus.
It was her master’s sword that could give them simultaneous injuries, and possibly that weapon alone. If she could get it away from him, she could perhaps give them a chance to defeat him.
Antoine came up behind the angel attacking her, savagely slicing down his back, scoring his white armour and bloodying his wings. She used it as a chance to attack the angel.
Her sword cut through his middle, spilling his entrails across his front. Antoine was gone in a flash, moving so swiftly she could barely keep up, and someone cried out behind her.
She wheeled around to face them and found Antoine there, his sword buried deep in the gut of a female angel who stood with her sword still raised above her head, ready to strike Aurora down.
Aurora’s heart skipped a beat at the thought she might not have sensed the attack before it was too late. Even though she was sure Antoine had only saved her because the blow may have killed his brother too, she still thanked him with a brief smile before launching herself back into the fight.
Snow and her master had moved further away, a swath of angels blocking her path to them now. Snow had landed several blows but the cuts on her body said that he had taken more.
Crimson soaked her dress, turning it almost completely red, but she wouldn’t stop fighting.
She struggled to battle her way through the angels with Antoine’s assistance and her head spun when her master slammed his fist and the hilt of his sword into Snow’s temple. She staggered backwards at the same time as Snow and then screamed in agony when a sharp pain pierced her shoulder, echoing Snow’s bellow as the sword stabbed into his flesh.
Unleash (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series Book 6) Page 27
