Fear made Roksana clumsy, however. And the passage of time was not what it should be. She lunged to her feet, but her boot slid back in the snow and down she went, her scream still echoing in the forest. A split second before she hit the ground again, she saw clearly one last time, the only option shining down on her like a beacon from the night sky.
Repaying Elias’s sacrifice.
It was the only way.
“I love you,” she whispered.
With the impact of landing on her back reverberating through her limbs, Roksana lifted the stake as high as she could—and plunged it into her own stomach.
A slice of cold was followed by unimaginable pain tearing through her nervous system. Not the pain of a beating or battered muscles, with which she was familiar.
This was pain that wrought death.
For a split second, she wondered if her own agony had turned the sky to billowing red fire. Or if her terror had set the surrounding trees aflame. But Elias’s earsplitting roar—proof that he was alive and hadn’t sacrificed himself—told Roksana her mate was responsible. Meaning he was alive. And she slumped under a bludgeoning of relief, even as blood burbled from her lips.
His face came into view above her, contorted in horror. “No. No! Roksana, no.” He tore at his hair, her clothes, his eyes glowing so bright they nearly blinded her. Or maybe she was already going toward the light. “What the fuck did you do?”
If she could have spoken around the blood filling her mouth, she would have joked that she’d hit an artery, but he probably wouldn’t have laughed. Thank God she could keep her good humor, even in death, da?
“Oh Jesus, I can’t stop the bleeding. I can’t stop it!” Elias raged, the sky exploding with great mushroom clouds of ash and flame, sparks raining down around them with sizzling landings in the snow. “Roksana, please. God, please. Why did you do this? Why?”
She reached for Elias’s hand where he’d wrapped it around the stake in her belly, bellowing his misery, visibly trying to psych himself up to pull it out. When their hands touched, he looked down at Roksana. Her beloved immortal was outlined by fire. Her eyes filled with tears, blurring his image, but based on the tortured sound he made, she knew he interpreted the message correctly. That her love for him was soul deep and enduring as time. That everything would be okay. That her love would be just as substantial this time tomorrow.
You know what to do, she tried to communicate with her eyes.
There was a good chance Silencing her wouldn’t work. Her injury was self-inflicted and the blood flowed from her like a river. Too fast? So fast.
Elias would need to give her his venom, but there was never a guarantee one would wake up immortal. The ritual was flawed and had to be done carefully to have a chance to success. There was nothing careful about this, but what choice did she have? Seeing him die after the repeated sacrifices he’d already made on her behalf would have hurt worse.
Roksana turned her head and coughed up a mouthful of blood and the pain started to ebb. She curled in on herself, clutching at the snow, following the line of her mother’s footsteps in the snow to where the woman fled at a dead run, arms thrown up to shield her from the overhead destruction, the red envelope clutched in her hand. And Roksana had enough pride left in her dying body to feel satisfaction that her final actions as a human being were of her own making. Not her mother’s. That she’d acted out of love, not poisonous vengeance or in the name of seeking approval.
Black seeped in at the edges of her vision and she squeezed Elias’s hand tight, only noting vaguely that he’d removed the stake from her belly. It was probably for the best.
Although having staked herself as a human and a vampire would give her serious bragging rights.
Roksana knew she was trying to bury her fear, but with the life literally draining out of her, a whimper snuck out of her and anxiety of the unknown held her captive. Ginny had been required to drink from Jonas’s vein to complete the Silencing ritual, but her throat was full of her own blood. She’d never be able to get it down.
Come on, come on. Don’t let this be the end.
She would never regret stopping Elias from killing himself. Not when she was the reason he’d been turned into a vampire in the first place, but she wanted her lifetime with him. They hadn’t even been married a full twenty-four hours yet.
Pressure at her back signaled Elias lying down in the snow behind her, his arms and legs wrapping around, his big body rocking her. “Don’t you fucking leave me, havoc wreaker. I love you. Don’t you leave me like this!”