Claimed by the Prince of Darkness novel Chapter 226

Chapter 226: The Last Eye

The wolf’s howl had Ezekiel turn, staring at the dark trees with his one good eye narrowed.

Ruelle’s crushed wrist throbbed in time with her pulse, and for a moment that pain was the only thing she could think about. She lay there crumpled in the snow.

For a moment there was nothing, but the next moment a silver-black wolf shot out of the treeline.

When the wolf pounced square on Ezekiel’s chest, he finally let go of Ruelle’s crushed wrist. The impact of the creature was enough to drive the halfling away from her, and the wolf’s jaw opened, closing on his shoulder. It was enough to have him scream while he used one hand to push its jaw and the other moved to its chest, his fingers digging in deep.

Blinking back the tears Ruelle noticed the blood on the ground, not knowing if it belonged to Ezekiel or the wolf, she placed her good hand on the ground.

For a second, nothing happened and she exerted more force. It was as if her ability had begun to fade along with the strength of her body.

But she pushed harder and the next moment, vines moved underneath the frozen ground before they shot out of the surface. The vines curled around his ankles, dragging him in a swoop away from the wolf and hanging him in mid-air.

Ruelle scrambled to her feet, making her way to where Zhenya whimpered on the ground.

"I am not going to let you die...!" Ruelle whispered as she tried to cover the bleeding of the wolf.

Unable to reach the closest tree from where she sat, she looked back and forth, as her one hand was useless and she would have to push a wolf half her size. She looked from the wounded wolf to Ezekiel. An idea struck her.

Her fingers dug into the snow, and the vines obeyed, swinging the halfling towards them until his body dropped within reach.

"I knew you would understand eventually, Ruelle," Ezekiel said, almost pleased. "I knew you would come to your senses. You finally understand, don’t you? I am the only one who can protect you."

For one traitorous second, Ruelle wanted to stop. The physical and mental pain drowning her. But she immediately caught hold of his ankle with her good hand and said,

"It is only right that you pay for the damage."

Before Ezekiel could understand what she meant, a bright light appeared around them. She began to transfer the halfling’s life force into the wounded wolf, hearing the wolf whimper.

Just a little more, she thought with her eyes closed as she concentrated on tying the thread of light tighter.

"What—What are you doing—?!"

Ezekiel’s hand found her head and without hesitation, he slammed it into the ground.

"Ugh!" Ruelle groaned, the impact was harsh enough that for a moment she only saw white.

The snow pressing against her head softened the pain but she tasted the metal in her mouth. Her ears rang and her vision turned white. For one awful moment, Ruelle wondered whether it was possible to die from nothing more than having one’s head struck too many times.

"Fuck, it looks like you aren’t going to learn," Ruelle heard Ezekiel say. She felt him grab her ankle, where his fingers dug above her heel, pressing against the bone as she felt him pull her body across the ground and they moved past the wolf, who hadn’t moved.

Why wasn’t Zhenya healed? Came the dull question as Ezekiel continued to drag her out of there. Was it because her other hand had turned useless? But when her eyes moved to her hand, she noticed it was half healed. Instead of healing Zhenya, her ability had tried to fix her first, as if not a single drop of life force had touched the creature.

Having tried this only twice, and only once on Lucian, she was unaware of the rules of healing. She wished she had more time to learn and understand her abilities.

As desperation struck her, Ruelle tried to stop him.

Her hands scrabbled at the frozen ground, fingers hooking into grooves of ice and stone, trying to find an anchor for herself against the pull of his grip on her ankle. But the snow gave way beneath her. The dizziness in her head was getting worse, a slow, spinning pressure behind her eyes that turned the world into a tilted, swaying mess of dark and white and the dark shape of the man dragging her through it.

Then Ezekiel stopped. He turned to look in the direction they had come as if he could hear something moving closer. Dropping her leg, his hands found her shoulders and he hauled her up from the ground.

What was he planning next? Probably to flee with her, as that was what he knew best. No, thought Ruelle. She couldn’t let him and she had to borrow time.

Before he could throw her over his shoulder, Ruelle let her body sway towards him instead of pulling away. Her face came close to his, so close that her lips nearly brushed his cheek and Ezekiel froze.

For a flicker, Ezekiel looked suspicious, and he was right to do so. But the doubt was slow with her lips close to him.

Ruelle locked her arms around his neck. And she kicked his leg. The impact buckled him forward and they fell on the ground with him on top of her. She felt every part of her body scream with the way it had been battered in the last twelve hours.

"Fine. If you aren’t going to be mine..." came Ezekiel’s voice through gritted teeth. His hands shot to her neck, wrapping it before he began to squeeze it. "...no one else can have you!"

Ruelle’s hands were already on his shoulders.

She felt the faint, flickering strand of life force and she tried to hold on to it. But it wasn’t fast enough. She could feel the difference between how quickly life was leaving her and how little she managed to draw back. Her vision began to contract. The moonlight had begun to shrink in a circle as her lungs burned.

She was going to die here...

She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to leave Lucian behind when she could only imagine his corruption going out of control.

Ruelle started to feel numb as she saw a small dot of light before it turned dark.

Ezekiel looked angry even though he was the one who had been squeezing her neck. But in a blink of an eye, his body flew away from her and crashed right into the bark of the tree. The halfling growled, his head snapping up and catching sight of the pureblooded vampire standing between him and Ruelle.

Ezekiel laughed, blood dripping from the corner of his lips. "You are late, Lucian Slater. I am taking Ruelle with me!"

The corruption diffused out of Lucian like smoke blown from a fire that had been burning for hours.

Dark and thick tendrils rolled from his shoulders and his arms, curling as they reached for the ground where Ruelle lay. It wrapped around her body in layer after layer, settling over her in a shroud that held all the warmth of a winter grave. In the faint, flickering glow of the moonlight, she looked less like a woman lying in the snow and more like something being guarded by the dark itself.

"You will never have her." Lucian’s eyes remained on Ruelle, watching the shallow rise of her chest. He finally turned his darkened eyes to where Ezekiel sneered at him.

One moment they were ten feet apart and the next the distance simply ceased to exist.

Ezekiel moved first. He lunged with the wild, graceless charge of something that had stopped caring about strategy and started caring only about destruction. His claws were out and his mouth was open.

Lucian met the halfling with a collision of two stones sparking. His hand came up and closed around Ezekiel’s throat before smashing him on the ground, which had the snow-covered ground crack.

Ezekiel’s claws raked down Lucian’s arm. The fabric of his shirt ripped open, and beneath it the skin split too. Finding the pureblooded vampire’s chest, he tried to dig in to pull out the heart. He screamed,

"She was mine! She was mine before you! She said she would—"

Lucian’s fist connected with Ezekiel’s jaw. The sound of the crack of bone on bone was clean.

Ezekiel tried to swing but Lucian’s head rocked sideways. The pureblooded vampire’s knee drove up into Ezekiel’s stomach and the halfling’s body folded around the impact, a thin spray of blood tearing from his lips.

Within a blink of an eye, Lucian moved with speed to attack the halfling, who swung his dagger.

"The only person who needs to die here is you," Lucian responded as he blocked Ezekiel’s hand before it could get to him and twisted the halfling’s arm.

Lucian headbutted with force, and his skull met Ezekiel’s with a crack that echoed. Ezekiel’s spine bowed backward and a streak of blood fanned from the halfling’s eyebrow. He lost enough of his senses that he didn’t see the moment when his hand was gripped—

And then the next second, Lucian tore his arm, which had been holding the dagger, removing it from its socket with a violence so full it seemed unhurried. The joint gave way with a wet, grinding tear, and the pureblooded vampire tossed it aside.

"Arghhhh!" Ezekiel’s scream tore through the trees, raw and long, his own choking sounds on the blood filling his throat. He placed his good hand to stop the bleeding.

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