Winterly (Dark Creatures Book 1), стр. 132

He kissed her blue lips and then swiftly opened the vein in his wrist. It was all he could do to steady himself against the bile rising in his gut. “You’re supposed to die an old woman, Emma, surrounded by sons and daughters.” Not like this! Never like this! He emptied his wrist over her open chest—the quickest way to her heart—and brushed reverent fingers against her blood-spattered brow. Dark ichor rushed from his wrist onto her torn flesh. But there was a limit to what even his blood could repair; her wounds were fatal. It was too late to save her frail humanity—she was dying! She needed an infusion of venom.

Wretched with guilt, he thought of biting her despite what she would become—despite that she’d hate him forevermore if he made her the very thing she despised.

“God, help me!” It had been millennia since he’d invoked the mercy of his Father. But his pride was no match for the love he bore her—if she died, so too would he; his pride be damned! She was his whole heart. Without her, he knew he’d become nothing but a mindless beast; without her, all the good in him would be irrevocably and eternally obliterated.

Markus gripped Emma’s hand, mortally powerless for the first time, and pulled her fingers up to his lips. “Tell me to save you! Stay with me, my love!” And there upon her finger, as though in answer to his prayer, was his ring! It had somehow found its way to her from the cinders of his love letter. Markus lifted an incredulous gaze up to the heavens behind which, he knew, his Father watched. Answer enough.

Markus wasted not another plea or thought, but plunged his fangs into her neck where the largest vein was weakly emptying the last dregs of cold blood into her heart. With might and main, he’d now compassed all within his power to save her. It was not within his capacity, nor did it suit his nature, to wait and watch for the roll of a die—for fate to cut the life thread…or not. Action was required! Seething with hatred for his malefic brother, Markus turned away.

He was in desperate want of a diversion from this overwhelming pain. But when her heart suddenly hesitated, he staggered for a moment, overcome with new dread. Eternity was an unbearably long time to live without Emma. Better that he died as well. But her heart started up again and Markus allowed the tension in his lungs to escape on a long suspire.

As he counted her heartbeats, each blessed thud becoming stronger than the last, he finally allowed his gaze to range over the churchyard and the violence it encompassed. Markus had been so engrossed in Emma’s wellbeing—so arrested by the sight of her—that he had yet to consider Nick’s whereabouts. There, beneath the nodding willow, he lay with not a breath of life to fill his chest; he was a corpse robbed of its most vital organ. Markus snapped his eyes to, his body vibrating with a wrathful sorrow through which he could hardly draw breath enough to roar his agony. And when the roar did come it was not from his chest that it erupted but from William’s.

The black wolf appeared on silent feet. The sight of his brother was too much. He howled his anguish, blasted his fury to the four corners so that the clouds opened up and the wind wailed along with him. Never had Markus heard such a cry or felt such an agony evoked from so deep in his bones. And so soon after nearly losing his Emma.

He watched the wolf with blackening empathy, but kept his distance. William was powerful enough to do great harm, and not a little unhinged besides, and in his current state…not even Markus dared approach him. Not even to offer a hand of comfort. There was no comfort on earth capable of soothing even an atom of William’s suffering. He had lost his twin forever—his better half, some would say.

Markus’s glare scoured the wall beyond for any sign of trespassing eyes; he’d seen none when he’d landed and he saw none now, only the retreating fog. His ears and nose affirmed what he already knew. All was dead and quiet, save Emma and William. The witches had escaped. And yet there was a distinct reek of witch blood hereabout, so at least one of the little hags had been injured or slayed. The latter, he hoped, sweeping his glare over the carnage again.

The priory sat at an adequate distance from the village, and the encroaching twilight meant that his grim duty would go unobserved. Still and all, he kept vigilance with his keen hearing as he began removing each body from where it had lain haphazardly sprawled atop another. When the last body had been uncovered, he stood up, his brows pinched as he searched the yard for Milli’s body. “Where’s Milli?”

“Not here,” said William without glancing up from Nicholas, beside whom he was now kneeling in human form.

There was no sound save for the carrion birds hopping eagerly nearby as they waited for him to leave them to their feast. “Not tonight, foul pests,” Markus muttered, his eyes as black as theirs. One after the other, he lifted the bodies into his arms and carried them into the nave. The headless nun was relocated last, for he’d had to retrieve her head from the pond.

When he emerged again it was to see William standing with his brother cradled in his arms, their faces macabrely identical.

Markus’s brow fell, but he said nothing as William stalked past him and deposited his twin beside Emma’s fallen cousin.

After this was done, Markus ripped the boards from the wooden pews and piled the scraps of wood and kindling atop the bodies. With flint and steel, and one last look at William, he finally lit the pyre. Thereafter, they shut