14. Ashes to Ashes, Lust to Dust

“Get off,” she said, bucking and twisting under his heavy weight.

He thought about torturing her with another bawdy joke, force her to shove him off, but another plan came to mind. His earlier research into her past now swimming across his mind’s eye.

He lifted his head from her neck, smirking at her as he licked her blood off his lips. The wounds she’d inflicted stung pleasantly. She glared back, kiss swollen, mouth marked with him.

He feigned a long-suffering sigh and rolled off her, laying on his back as she tugged at the high collar covering her chest. His skin throbbed, cold to touch, warm somehow, too. His flat pulse didn’t seem so hollow anymore.

How long would that last? Her scent was unreadable. Her aura was... worried for a brief moment, as her claws tore through the sleek black leather.

Then it switched back to fury as she rubbed her human hand over her collarbone. He raised his eyebrows, adrenaline still flowing as she blew out a breath and turned to spit something at him.

He beat her to it. “Most women would be grateful after I made them scream like that. Not tear up their clothes. What’s wrong? Is one round not enough?”

She laughed, hollow. “Fuck you.”

He snorted, glass cutting into his side as he turned to face her. “You did. Wait five minutes and you can have another go.”

She sighed loudly, sitting up. Still, he saw the turmoil in her. Her eyes swirled with amber and violet, a patch of freckles phasing in and out on her cheek before her glamor snapped back into place.

The freckles were the same as the artist’s rendition of her human self in that old broadsheet he’d unearthed. He stared at her tense back as she tidied her hair, fixing the pins he’d knocked loose.

In that faded image, her braids had hung soft and loose around her face. Here, they coiled like snakes around her head.

Her smile and features had still been gentled with mortal hope—hope for life she hadn’t got to live.

Elora, the priestess. And the arsonist. Betrayed for daring to love.

He wanted to know every sordid detail she’d had a cryptomancer erase. Wanted to know what it took for her to love. If she were even capable of it.

He bit his curiosity back, swallowing it. That would come later. She’d bolt and return with a legion of hunters if he interrogated her now.

But he had another weapon at his disposable, already locked and loaded. That human name. It sharpened into a blade. Ready to autopsy and expose her secrets to his eyes.

“I’ll scour you from my veins, leech. This changes nothing.”

A day ago, he might’ve believed her. Too late for that anymore.

Now, his mind whirled, say it while her voice still quakes.

“You know what’s funny, Red? Fire doesn’t destroy shit. Not really.”

He tapped his collarbone as she met his eye. The VII on hers was invisible, but he knew it was there. “It just... rearranges. Turns priestesses into demons. Virgins into killers.” He let the words hang, a weighted pause, deadly as a cocked hammer. “ Elora.”

He went very still, mouth drying out, incapable of tearing his attention from her. Her brand flashed at the name. Molten gold burned through the ripped leather, pulsing in sync with the scars on his chest.

They were a matched heartbeat that died faster than it had lived.

Her scent shifted from the infusion of his bergamot and her pomegranate to the acrid taint of linen sizzling in a blaze. Her chest heaved, eyes wide, and mouth torn between a snarl and a wobbling frown.

Oh, the demon panicked. Then it turned to ash. She blinked rapidly as she stared through him, and her pulse skipped over itself. He just held her eye, mind cataloging everything as her fear washed over him. She suffocated it all fast.

He missed nothing, hungry eyes tracking her movements, mind attempting to decode them. Her shadows shrieked like a sound of rusted nails dragged across glass. Her talons seized his throat, but the tremor in them betrayed her.

More dark fluid spilled where they pierced him, but she didn’t squeeze. She couldn’t after this.

His scent was thick on her breath, she said, “How. Dare. You.”

The words were ground bone. Her eyes transformed into a kaleidoscope of amber, purple, and obsidian. He licked his bottom lip, arching a brow in challenge. The room’s temperature plummeted.

But she couldn’t hide the flicker of the girl who’d once believed in romance and prayers from him.He laughed. Cold, calculated, and bright, even as his blood dripped out of his neck.

“Don’t worry. Your precious Red’s still here.” He swiped his bloodied thumb over her bottom lip, smearing it there. “I’ll take ‘Elora’ to my grave. You’re more fun when you’re feral.”

Her grip constricted, her tone a fuse he’d gleefully lit.

“Elora’s prayers went unanswered. Yours will too... but I’ll listen.”

She released him, uncoiling to her feet, fluid as a dancer as her leathers reforged around her body. Veiling her from his gaze as she prowled away.

His stomach sank. He bit his tongue to stop himself from demanding she stay and listen to him.

Her shadows pulsed through the gutted church, a wave of magic that blasted through every remaining piece of glass and turned tapestries back to forlorn strands of tangled thread.

Wooden pews transformed into matchsticks. His breath caught in chest, mouth parting, and hands flexing and relaxing, as he bore witness to her meltdown. A maelstrom of ripped bibles and blackened Latin hymn sheets whirling around the space.

Some remained attached to him, reweaving his tattered clothing until she severed them with a growl. Instead of joining the others going wild around her form, it pooled black at her feet, whispering something that sounded an awful lot like his name.

He tried to catch a hint of memory or thought, like he had earlier. Nothing came through. She was too busy destroying the place.

Ash admired her hasty, magic cloaked retreat, head tilted, as he absorbed every magnificent detail to obsess over later. He called out just as she reached the massive oak doors.

“Run all you want, Liora. You’ll crave me by sundown.”

She paused, claws flexing at her sides as she shook her head. He held his breath.

His muscles tensed, fight or fuck kicking in, and she did not seem likely to choose the latter—yet. He expected another threat. A daggered stare, at the least.

Nothing came. Grey daylight poured inside the open entrance. He swallowed a groan. She dissolved into dark mist, the church doors slamming shut with a calamitous bang.

But he caught it, vampiric sight coming in handy again. Her shadows scratched at her own throat, frantic and panicked and volatile, as if they could scrub the old name from her vocal cords.

He slumped on his back, joking to himself as he ruminated on Liora’s last threat. She’d listen to his prayers? In pleasure or torment?

Either option worked. He quite liked her form of torment. Still, his gut twisted as he considered what she might do to prove him wrong.

How long she’d run before realizing it was all for nought. They’d both have to learn the hard way. No matter, he had time. He glanced around the place of worship they’d desecrated.

Huh.

AaronHH was right. A first for a hunter. Not even God knew what sins he and Liora had committed here.

Or how many more would come after this now their feeding loop had sealed. He gave a deep, gratifying sigh, whistling as rose to his feet, and he prepared to leave. Knowing he needed a decent sleep before round three came clawing back.

“The games rigged, Red. You just don’t know it yet.”

Ashton’s smirk stayed welded to his face, but he pocketed that shard of stained glass. He stroked his thumb over its cutting edge as he left the scene.

He hardly felt it as a drop of black blood beaded, Caesar’s glassy eyes watched on, eternally accusatory.

Every betrayal begins with trust, he thought.

His chest ached where her claws had pierced him, a throbbing melody only he could harmonize.

Power, survival, control, he chanted in his head, almost believing it.

Almost, he didn’t entertain the thought. Something in him told him he was going the wrong way, she wasn’t near where he needed to be. He rubbed his hand across his stubbled chin, expression pinching. One thing settled his caustic emotions.

The hunters would turn their sights on Liora after this. They’d assume she would grow tired of him, give him up.

It wouldn’t last, but he’d make the most of the time he had. His leisurely stroll down a suburban street went unhindered by anything or anyone.

He hummed, unhurried. Careless for once in his second life. It wasn’t until he reached the forest he noticed why.

Too busy reliving every moment of the recent past to realize. The sun poked tiny rays through the shroud of grey cloud, its feeble warmth ghosting his cheekbones.

And Ash didn’t burn.

The sunlight tingled against his skin, faint and a pale imitation of the pulsating, roasting blisters it used to leave. It was more like fading embers.

It was a lingering warmth from her venom. He glanced at his palm, faint gold veins spider-webbed beneath his frost-pale skin before dissolving. He loosed a breath, gaping at his hand, and a rush of dazzling euphoric energy lit him up inside. Shit.

It was a borrowed shield. It lasted until he hunted down the stash he’d buried in the forest on the outskirts of the city. And didn’t wane until he’d carted it all back.

He settled into the suite, laptop humming on her coffee table, ready for a long wait for Liora’s return.

Dawn had bled out to afternoon, then to dusk. The city’s pulse quickened. Somewhere, a demon discovered a liar spoke truth.

In said demon’s own shower, the vampire smiled under the stream of hot water. Her venom still warm in his veins.

Twenty-four hours after the disaster in the church, Liora’s skin prickled with a frost she couldn’t blame on the weather’s chill.

Every part of her went on high alert. She sensed it when someone’s eyes locked on her back as she walked down a calm city street.

Unfamiliar and unwanted eyes. Her shadows subtly slithered off in all directions. She didn’t miss a stride as she cut off into an alley. A scent creeped through her nose as she inhaled deeper.

Gun oil, the freshly washed brightness of a young man always seeking a bed warmer, and a cloying cologne he must’ve found in a toxic waste dump.

He’s no older than twenty-five, her magic guards whispered.

They sent a runt?

Good luck.

She smirked, pulse drumming in her neck as she turned down another close. Walking through air thick with exhaust, mold, and the bravado of fools following demons alone. Her stride slowed to a saunter.

Her heels echoed like bullets ricocheting off the brick, hugging her on either side. Her talons sheathed.

Glass crunched as she walked over it. Shattered storefronts, windows, broken mirrors glinting like fangs in the dark. A sliver of her reflection caught the sunlight.

Her braids had begun unraveling. Eyes hyper-feral after another night of no sleep as her mind tortured her with thoughts of corpses who talked too much. Her throat tightened to the point of pain.

Her shadows struck out, smothering the shard before she could blink.

I am hunger made flesh, she silently chanted.

The words were vacuous. Her hunger had stopped slicing her.

It had stopped screaming; it murmured now. She hadn’t reached fullness, but she veered too close to it for her liking. Perilously close—all of her magic seemed, not stronger, but easier to manipulate.

Bad tidings, bad timings. Her heart palpitated, breath catching, heat washing up her neck. Eyes swivelling, pupils on wheels as she scanned her surroundings. A dead end lay straight ahead.

She came to a stuttering halt before the chain-link fence ringed with barbed wire. Her face smoothed, shoulders slumping, adopting a victim’s posture.

Heavy, steel-toed boots clomped toward her. Eyes flaring with amber for a split second.

They returned to bottomless abysses as she turned to face the hunter, pointing a gun at her. He was a scarless apprentice. His sheared hair bristling like a threatened hedgehog.

How quaint. How forgettable, her demon mocked.

Indeed, he was. His finger settled over the trigger. Grey gaze like days old dishwater as he aimed for her heart. Her pulse steadied, breathing easier than she had in days. Oh, these newbies.

They always went for the swiftest weapon at first. Bullets, knives, and grenades were mere toys.

They didn’t yet know they had to mean it. Their silver-tipped bullets were a splinter compared to the mastery his forebears created to end her kind.

She’d know. Liora possessed the only weapon able to destroy her. Sealed away in a vault only she had access to. The fine nine-pointed scar on her temple sizzled cold as polished obsidian.

Burning with the weight of the monstrous birthright she kept locked down. The youngling’s trigger finger quivered. Gunmetal glinted. It was a loaded ego complex with the safety still on.

“We just want the vampire. Give him up and you can run.”

His voice, too thin to carry any weight, caused her brow to arch. Just what had the glacial bastard gotten himself tangled up in that they wanted him this desperately?

She would beat it out of him herself, but it had to be something dastardly. What an idiot. This hunter wouldn’t know. His mind was empty when she listened for any hint of attraction she could abuse.

“And why should I comply? You deem us chattel for slaughter.” She said, fingers curling into her palm.

The man’s arm wavered as his face twisted and he said, “You either comply or face his same fate.”

Liora scoffed. The weight of her braids ached, her skin itched with dried sweat, and the smell of blood, venom, and bergamot clung to her, a ghost she couldn’t exorcise. She wanted a bath.

She wanted to scrub the last few days off her body and replace it with something that didn’t remind her of past failures. She sighed as the rookie hunter made no move to leave and shook her head.

A bloodbath, it was then.

“His end is mine to orchestrate. You have no business with me. Leave, child.”

Her shadows surged. Ribbons of them shot forward and sniffed the young man. They jerked away, muttering their revulsion to his scent in foreign tongues.

The hunter couldn’t see them, but he sensed something grazing his clothing before Liora hauled them back. His hand shook, but his weapon aimed at the center of her chest.

His finger wrapped around the trigger, and a tremor ran through it. She smiled internally as his expression hardened. Harsh features solidified into a mask of malevolent emotion, and his back stiffened.

Once, she might have considered him handsome. Today?

He’d look more appealing with his throat torn out.

“I’m not a child. More of us are coming. Give him up and I’ll let you go.”

Liora tossed her head back and laughed. Death threats used to mean something. This was such a sad attempt. The whelp would learn. His finger moved as if in slow motion.

She moved before he finished pulling the trigger. Vanishing in a whirl of darkness. The bullet cracked uselessly off the fence behind where she once stood. She reformed behind him.

He never had a chance to turn. Her shadows lashed around his body, trapping him. Slicing his clothing and flesh to sanguine strands.

Iron, piss, and decay stained the air, her darkness avoided it, she clenched her jaw. He fought her.

Gun hand swinging for her head as her tendrils cuffed him. One gave him a shadow-scorch. Courtesy of the black heat from the wildfire that lived beneath her skin. He yelped and the useless piece of metal clattered to the concrete.

Her magic howled in reproach as she prepared to drain him. She silenced it with a hiss. She pounced before he could open his mouth and give life to the scream brewing in his pale eyes. And she saw herself in them.

She didn’t see the demon. It was the girl who’d once cowered in a witch’s glass prison. Her heart seemed to cease beating. Only to run rampant and make her dizzy a moment later. She yanked the hunter’s head back with a guttural snarl.

Her fangs sank through his vein like a hot knife through fat, and she drained him dry in seconds.Her shadows recoiled from it, writhing like worms exposed to light. They derided her in a sibilant tone.

No, not him. Not him. Not him. Please, never do this again.

She ignored them, blood freezing in her veins. And soon paid the price as the man’s flavour saturated her tongue. His blood was rotten, tainted by something chemical.

It turned to ash in her throat. He tasted like battery acid and bubblegum. Artificial sweetness masking the decay, the toxicity underneath. The taste was worse than Byron’s poetic lies.

Fouler than the witch’s poisons, too. At least she’d expected those. Ashton’s corruption burned cleaner than that somehow.

No he’s v ile, wrong, she lied to herself—he wasn’t even alive.

Liora gagged, spitting a mouthful of venom onto the concrete as it flooded her mouth. Hot and cold flashes burst over her skin, a quake rolling through her limbs as her eyes watered.

Her stomach churned, jaw trembling. She took a single step back before doubling over. Crimson vomit turned to claret sludge as it splattered off the concrete and against the walls.

Within seconds, she expelled nearly every drop in a fountain of useless gore. Her fervent heartbeat hammered in her ears.

She coughed until nothing but clear ichor came out. Choking on it. Her retches reflected off the alley walls.

It was a wet, animal noise that startled even the rats. Acid roasted her throat, smoldering with the memory of his fangs buried there.

Sharp as a scalpel, sweet as subterfuge. Her shadows cocooned her, hiding her and the body while she heaved. The shudders in her tired muscles vibrated as she coughed the tainted blood back up.

As soon as it was all gone, it eased. Liora inhaled through her gritted teeth, exhaling slowly as cold sweat beaded her face. She repeated that action until the shaking stopped and her lungs stopped squeezing the air out.

She knelt there, ashen bile slicking her lips, shadows cradling her like a child. The iron tang pulling her back to Versailles’ perfumed dungeons. Saccharine florals disguising the rot. Her claws unsheathed.

Weakness was a luxury only the dead could afford. What had he done?

Why hadn’t it settled?

You know why, her arteries full of demons crooned.

Her VII pulsed twice, as if in confirmation. Her face paled to a sickly-gray as her stomach hardened, time stretching out as it were meaningless.

No, not again, not like this.

She couldn’t do it again. It was a language of flayed skin and locked vaults, that brand. The pyre she’d walked too many times, rewriting herself in the ashes, and ensuring she never forgot it. She’d made an art of it.

She could almost feel the warmth of every betrayers heart she’d ripped from their chests, still thumping its last beat, cupped between her hot palms. She refused to do it again for a corpse who didn’t know how to die quietly.

But his face flashed across her racing mind’s eye."

Run the script, Liora."

More of his claims followed, stones pelting her brain bloody as she grimaced and felt every internal bruise they left behind."

Your venom is the forge... My blood’s the flame."

“Elora, Elora, Elora.”

That forsaken name. She’d never expected him to find it. Never mind use it. She’d paid a fortune in looted gold.

Paid with pieces herself, now holes in her mind that sent a piercing pain through her skull whenever she tried to see what used to be there. She’d paid a thousand times over to cremate that name.

Ashton had dug it up, anyway. It was all for nothing.

That lying, busybody demon... Barbatos had better hope his wards held.

Later, she promised herself.

Later, she’d hunt him down. It was high time he remembered his place. For now, she stared at the cadaver, its hollow eyes staring at her as if it knew her secrets.

You did this. You let him in; she scolded herself. The warlock’s face flickered in the pool of blood. There was a ghostly sting blooming across her chest at the memory.

Her first mistake, over four centuries ago. His binding hexes and knife scarring her ribs had been softer than Ashton’s smirk.

Softer than his taunts, too. A laugh bubbled up in her raw throat, eyes rolling so hard she swore she saw the back of her skull. The sound was broken, bitter, and battle-weary.

It cracked in her mouth like a threat she couldn’t follow through on. She was too damn old for this nonsense. Centuries of discipline, and now she was reduced to vomiting in alleys like some unversed amateur.

All because she’d let a human-turned-vampire split her open and plant his curse inside her. Even her mind wasn’t safe."

Run all you want, Liora. You’ll crave me by sundown..."

She jolted. His words hit her like slaps. She wanted to pull her hair out until her head stopped yelling at her. Out of sight, a car backfired. The noise was too close to the thunderous sound of the altar cracking under her.

And her favorite, the thing he’d said that she was ashamed to admit she liked, even to herself."

Fuck, Red. Are you always this tight?"

The tortured, abrasive texture of his voice had warmed her to her marrow, and intensified the need within her. She loathed how he’d unraveled her.

And it hadn’t been with claws, or knives, or teeth, she’d have welcomed that. It had come with the quiet violence of being known.

Something she couldn’t fight or force him to forget. She hated how easily he flipped the table on her, gaining the upper-hand, and leaving her wanting. That moment proved his jovial veneer was just a mask to hide how deeply she affected him, too.

It was the only proof she had that she wasn’t weak, something else was at play. She cleared her throat and wished for a drink of water or whisky to cut through the putrid iron.

Fucking Ashton that—that leech, that curse.

A curse with a vampire’s face. Another grave soon to be dug beneath her feet, hopefully.

This was all his fault. She muttered it to herself as she wiped a hand across her lips. She lifted her chin.

It was as if she were a raw nerve, even the rustle of her clothes against her skin stung. Her shadows scoured away her mess. Tucking the man inside their slicing tendrils, ripping and consuming, until nothing remained.

She straightened her spine, claws twitching, as a growl escaped her. This was his fault. Her mistake. She’d sullied herself irreparably. Got drunk on a fledglings cock.

It was worse than that. She’d enjoyed it. Craved it, even. Such a foolish mistake. She was smarter than this. Why him? Why now? Karma, it had to be.

Only karma could place a man with mirrors built on his face for her to stumble upon. Those silver eyes gleaming as they pinned her down, always ablaze, always defiant.

How could even the weight of his gaze hold her trapped?

Stop, he’ll pay for it.

Focus on the now. It was a mantra that helped nothing, like hope. Her inner diatribe and her own damn magic wouldn’t listen.

Her succubus whined and stomped her intangible foot. Her talons raked behind her sternum hard enough Liora tasted her own black essence.

Don’t you dare! He’s so delic— she cut the demon off before it could finish that statement. She called her darkness to her and instructed it to take her back.

Back to the hotel where he would be waiting. She knew he was. Smug, fed, and full of her venom. He’d learn, too. He had to. She was no one’s babysitter.

Ashton’s raw vampire strength needed honing. His arrogance had dulled it crudely. She would turn him into something precise, deadlier than those after him, or he’d get killed before she could sever this loop.

No, he didn’t get to title it. It was an infection.

Antibiotics were useless to her. But she’d find a way out of this. There had to be a path to follow that would set her free. He just had to survive, endure, and bleed for her until then.

The hotel’s red neon sign flickered in her head, the same bloodied scarlet that stained the leech’s laughter. Her claws sharpened. Her shadows reared, restless, already tasting the fight.

Liora disappeared from the alley as a herd of racing boots neared her. Their shadows stretched across the alley’s mouth before it all went dark. Her skin tingled, fire licking at her insides, knuckles aching to smash into his jaw.

She let her rage out of its cage. To take it out on the one who’d screwed everything up.

To kill him, she swore.

She’d wring him dry for this. And if her inky vipers purred at the thought? Well, they’d burn too.