Mary hastened away and watched over her shoulder as the wall of the manor crumbled down on Hadrian, wind pouring in and turning the great hall into a riotous gale. Hadrian pushed out of the rubble, his face a mask of hatred, eyes promising retribution.
The stone floor separated and pushed up jagged.
More of the windows turned to shards, raining down on the great hall.
Hadrian extended a hand to the right and a blade appeared, as if summoned, and he hurled it end over end at Tucker. It caught her vampire in the shoulder, burying deep, and he gritted his teeth, stumbling back. “No!” Mary shouted, his pain undoing her.
But her shout, it seemed to trigger something in Tucker and he ripped out the embedded blade, storming forward, visibly fighting through a force field that continually shoved him back, like two-hundred-mile-an-hour winds, until finally he reached Hadrian and they fought with fists.
Their blows were not that of ordinary men, though. They packed far more power, more force and they were delivered much faster. Hadrian was landing more punches and with one near-knockout, he stepped back and started to chant low under his breath, smoke and light gathering in the palms of his hands. Tucker staggered in front of him, his radiance waning.
If Hadrian launched a final attack, Tucker would fall.
He’d be defeated—and she couldn’t let that happen.
Mary picked up a tall candle stand, raised it over her head and lunged, intending to bring the heavy object down over Hadrian’s head, but he turned at the last moment and reared back. She braced for the pain, but it never came.
One moment, Hadrian was the picture of hatred, teeming with power, and the next, he was pale and bug-eyed, his hand grasping at his chest.
The amulet that was no longer there.
Tucker stood behind Hadrian holding it in his fist.
Mary could only reel in horror as Tucker’s hair turned gray, his legs collapsing beneath him.
The amulet.
The amulet.
It was sucking the strength from Tucker’s body. Was it cursed?
She’d suspected it gave Hadrian strength. Did it steal the same from others?
“Oh God. No.” Mary tripped toward Tucker, her insides being razed by sheer terror. By the time she got closer, his eyes had sunken in slightly, his beautiful beloved face leaching of color. Mary dropped into a kneel in front of him, afraid to touch and hasten his decline. Jesus, he was dying! He was here, but he was dying! Tears sprang forth from her eyes and she fell against him, holding on, as if she could keep him from expiring. “No. No. No.”
The sound of a battle reached her ears from outside the hall, dark versus light, but she was only partially aware of it. How could she think of anything else when the vampire she loved was withering and dying in front of her and she could do nothing to stop it? Her heart was being crushed inside her chest, her lungs were shrinking by the second.
Yells and screeches bounced off the walls of the hall and vaguely she registered that another side was present. Vampires…and humans? Fighting the red-cloaked vampires, whom Tucker had been hiding among. In yet another noble act, he’d disabled Hadrian. She only scanned the melee long enough to recognize the vampire king, Jonas, fighting alongside Roksana and Elias. It seemed like years since they’d all sat in her mother’s office together. Had any of them known it would come to this? That they would lose the best person among them?
Still holding the amulet in a white-knuckled grip, Tucker made a terrible wheezing noise and Mary stroked his face, watched the light go out of his eyes. No, no, no. Please, no. Agony branded her insides. Any moment now, he would be gone. Out of her reach forever.
Unless…
Unless the power of the amulet could be withstood by two beings.
Without giving it another thought, Mary clapped her hand down on the amulet, working her fingers as much as possible beneath Tucker’s, though he used what remained of his strength to try and wrest it away.
“No,” Tucker ground out.
Mary wasn’t budging, though. She wouldn’t let him die if there was a chance she could stop it—
Pain blared through her, sucking out her remaining breath.
Her bones rattled and snapped, ripping a scream from her very depths.
And Hadrian being incapacitated must have rendered the brand on her throat useless, because the scream she set loose was loud enough to bring down another one of the manor’s walls, collapsing part of the ceiling. It was enough to drop soldiers writhing to the ground, useless hands clapped over their ears, debris falling down on top of them.
As she stared at her near-lifeless beloved, every ounce of her misery and denial went into the piercing bellow, growing louder with each break of her bones, her skin thinning to paper, her hair turning the color of snow.