Bloodspell (The Cruentus Curse, #1)(105)

"I didn't know if it would work, but it did. I controlled the blood magic. I did it this time." She was overwhelmed at the power that lived within her, and the magnitude of what she'd done. Christian had been on the verge of death one second and now he was completely rejuvenated in a matter of minutes after consuming barely an ounce of her blood.

The same poisonous blood that could kill and destroy everything in its path, she had magically commanded to save him. And now he was awake, and alive. Victoria touched his face, emotion clogging her throat, and noticed that his once clear silver eyes were now rimmed in black, startling and unique ... a part of her now part of him.

A sudden crash from the room next door had them all on their feet. Enhard had just leapt off the wall to smash into the marble floor just where Gabriel's head had been, and there was a hole in the floor where his foot had crushed through the marble. They were circling each other again, and Gabriel was repeating something over and over in a monotonous chant. It was very dark magic. Victoria knew it as certainly as she knew herself—she could feel it sucking the energy from the air around them. She raced into the middle of the room.

"Enhard, get down!" she said, blasting a stunning spell toward Gabriel, which his shield spell easily deflected. In the split second before Gabriel's spell left his fingers, Victoria noticed something crouching in the shadows ... Lucian. He met her eyes and stood.

"Incendo maleficus," Gabriel shouted.

A low warning scream tore from her throat, just as Gabriel released the yellow-rimmed black fire that had formed between his hands at the exact same moment Enhard looked toward the doorway, drawn by the movement there. Lucian stood there like a statue, silent and detached, his white face calculating. That millisecond of distraction was Enhard's undoing.

The black fireball hit Enhard squarely in the middle of his chest and engulfed his body in black demonic flames. He didn't even flinch even though the dark spell would have been excruciating. Instead, he looked across at Christian, linking eyes with his and bowed. Then he looked at Victoria and did the same. She bit her lip watching impotently as he closed his eyes and was incinerated within seconds.

"NO!!!" The agonized roar was from Christian, a blur of movement as he grabbed Gabriel in a choke-hold, crushing his windpipe until his face went gray. With colossal strength, he flung Gabriel's body as if it were made of air against the wall, the sound of wetly crunching bone echoing in the cavernous room.

Gabriel fell to the ground gasping nonsensically, his splintered bones irreparable. Blood seeped into the floor beneath him and he gurgled helplessly. Christian fell to the ground where the only remnant of Enhard was a black smear on the marble floor, and touched a closed fist to his forehead in reverence to the man who had been like a father to him.

Christian rose after several minutes, suddenly cognizant of the newfound fluidity of his movements. He could sense the old hunger in him but it did not bother him at all; in fact, he was strangely oblivious to it. He stared at his hands, flexing them and feeling their new tensile strength, the extraordinary blood flowing in his veins from the tips of his fingers along his arms through his chest and throughout his entire body. His insides felt like they were gilded with light, Le Sang Noir tracing a fiery phosphorescent path everywhere it touched inside him, transforming, metamorphosing. Powerful.

He looked incredulously at Victoria. Christian didn't know how she had done it, but from sheer force of will, her deadly blood had fed him and saved him when it should have killed him. It was impossible.

Victoria remained silent, her eyes glued to his. She knew that if by some horrific chance, the blood turned him into something worse, she would be the only one who could kill him.





"WELL DONE, BROTHER," Lucian said, pulling up from his slouch and walking into the room clapping loudly. "You have saved the day as always!" The sarcastic amusement in his tone was evident. Christian looked merely curious that Lucian was even there, and Victoria stared at him with wary distaste. Lucian's saccharine tone irked her. She knew why he was here; he had come to finish his brother off, and he had also come in search of her ... to fulfill the prophecy that haunted him.

She watched in slow motion as he walked over to Gabriel's inert body and pressed his booted foot to his throat. He was still breathing. Locking eyes with Victoria, his face was cruel as he stepped with all his weight, breaking Gabriel's neck in seconds. The wet sound of crushed flesh and bone echoed in the room. Gabriel did not move. Lucian smiled with savage pleasure.

"No!" Victoria shouted. "You are sick! You really are a monster!"

"He attacked my brother."

"Strange that you weren't worried about your brother when I came to see you in Paris," Victoria said. "I warned you, Lucian."

"Warned me not to help my brother? You forget yourself," he said. Victoria looked at him with distaste.

"I can hardly forget that you were the one saying that if your brother was meant to die, then so be it. I also can't forget that you tried to kill me," she said, watching Christian's reaction out of the corner of her eye. She was not disappointed. He whirled in a fluid twist, his silver eyes like diamond chips and Lucian involuntarily backed up a step.

"What's this?" Christian asked, carelessly, like he was asking about the weather, but a muscle began its familiar movement in his jaw.

"Do you know what she is, brother?" Lucian said. "Of course you do, you played me for a fool and I listened to your song and dance about the prophecy not being about her, and that her blood was poison! You knew and you lied!"