Jin heard a roar of anguish, only to realize it had come from him, from some dark part of his soul. He tore through the shocked masses and dropped to his knees in front of Flick, in front ofthe Ram, but he didn’t care. His meadow was dying, sunshine fading, sunflowers wilting.
But just as he touched her, she began to rise, her eyes wide.
She was uninjured.
“Jin! I—”
She was alive, rubbing her head but alive. A bullet hole scorched the wood inches away from her. The Ram raised her revolver again, aiming for the Council this time. Jin threw himself forward, knocking into her arm as she fired, killing one of the Council members instantly. Shegrowled and slammed the revolver into Jin’s jaw, knocking him to the ground with a force he didn’t know someone as old as her could possess.
Old?He stared at her. She didn’t look a day past twenty-seven. He could have sworn she’d looked older before. No, he’d never seen the Ram without her mask before.
He struggled to rise. His head was spinning. People were screaming, running from the Ram’s men. Outside of Sidharth’s vampires, only a handful of guests were armed, for no one thought to bring a weapon to a party.
And there, in the midst of the mayhem, Lady Linden’s tiny revolver fell to the floor. She froze as someone held a stake to her heart.
Arthie.
Her eyes were empty, hollow. Her cheeks were stained with tears, and she moved as if she could barely find the will to do it.
“I should snap this in two,” Arthie said, her voice deathly still. “It would hurt a lot more going in, you crooked wretch.”
A stake?Jin’s brow furrowed. Beside him, Flick looked as if she suddenly carried a heavy weight on her shoulders.
Lady Linden threw up her arms. Arthie reached into the woman’s pocket, pulled out Calibore and fired at the ceiling.
The silence was immediate.
It settled like a blanket over the guests and black-clad men alike as they turned to watch her. Arthie tossed the stake to the floor, where it clattered in the hushed silence. Arthie circled behind Lady Linden, giving the Council, the vampires, and the rest of the attendees a perfect view.
Arthie pressed Calibore to the back of Lady Linden’s skull, and Jin heard the tap of her finger on the trigger. Her voice was quiet, barely audible to even Jin’s ears.
“Might I remind you, Lady Linden, that Calibore kills vampires?”
59ARTHIE
At some point between putting a bullet in Matteo’s chest and now, Arthie had made room in her heart for him. She didn’t know why. She didn’t know when. Only that he had swept in and taken it, nestling into her veins even as she taunted and groused and pushed him away.
And now he was gone.
She knew, now, why the Ram had devised this night. Arthie should have seen it—the fact that Lady Linden had turned Matteo so many years ago, having known about vampires when few others did. The desire to own Calibore. The ease with which she decided to wipe out the entirety of high society and the Council.
Her actions would have dismantled an entire system that had been in place for more than a century. High society wasn’t easily replaceable. The Council aside, it would take years for a new line of wealthy, influential people to take the place of the current lot. Decades, even.
Only a vampire had that much time on their hands.
But it was her hatred of vampires that should have given Arthie the clarity she needed. Lady Linden had no real reason to hate them, especially not to the extent she had taken her hatred—from fearmongering to weaponizing them.
Lady Linden was the thing she hated: a vampire.
And so, Arthie pressed Calibore’s barrel into the back of her skull. For her parents, for Ceylan, for the colonies.
For Matteo.
She exhaled, nudging the barrel deeper into the blond strands of her hair. Her finger wavered on the trigger, the bullet poised to give the Ram what she desperately deserved.
And Arthie—Arthie couldn’t do it. She could not kill her. It would be easy. Pull the trigger and watch her bleed to death. The lords and ladies would not be opposed.
But Arthie was not the Ram, and in that moment, she remembered she could do far worse. As Matteo had said she could, for she was a weapon as worthy as Calibore. She would make Lady Linden wish for death, as Arthie had once. As Matteo had too.
