Undying Hate~ Book Three
Chapter 31

The last remaining Vampires of Argyncia ran with Sylvie through the darkened halls, endless glass staircases, and empty streets. Hayes and his guards were nowhere to be seen.

“Do you think they escaped Argyncia now that the division is gone?” Sylvie asked Mila.

Mila squinted. “No. It’s not fully gone, I don’t think, but the veil is definitely way thinner, so they would still need a portal fae to achieve it, and there aren’t many nearby. Besides your kindred, of course.”

The new information didn’t give her much hope, as she hadn’t seen Kian since she pushed him out of the cell with Lazuli.

What if he was taken?

She stowed down the fear and followed Mila.

“But that other Vampire said it was gone.”

“I think everyone’s a bit delirious from hunger,” Mila said. “Something has changed, though. You can’t feel it?”

Sylvie just shrugged. She’d just murdered someone in cold blood. Besides shock, nothing else stood out to her.

“Everyone take what belongings you can travel with and meet back at the square in twenty minutes.”

The vampires all agreed and disappeared into their homes as Sylvie continued walking with Mila. The sky above them darkened as if a storm were on the horizon.

“Something doesn’t feel right,” Mila remarked, peering around.

“What is it?” Sylvie still couldn’t feel anything at all. The loss of the division didn’t even feel like anything. Maybe the vampires were wrong.

One thing was for sure, Sylvie wasn’t finished yet, and the Fates were not done with her.

“The sky. It’s getting too dark. If enough clouds block the sun, the Turned might venture out here and finish off the last of us.”

“Well, let’s hurry to the square then.”

Rubbing Kian’s mark over her heart, she prayed he would find them. He was her only hope; if he were gone, everything she had done would’ve been for nothing.

She would be back at the beginning again, about to be ripped apart by monster vampires.

They turned the last corner to the square when Mila stopped dead in her tracks. Sylvie looked where she was gazing and paused too, her face twisting into a scowl.

Hayes.

His grey skin and dull red eyes raked over her with such disdain she could almost feel his hate.

Kian wasn’t with him, though, so at least that was something.

From the dark alleys connecting the square to the streets, guards stalked into the dim light, their hunger obvious from their jittery movements. How did he still have guards? Couldn’t they see he was no leader? If they didn’t leave him, they would die. They had to know that.

“You don’t have to do this,” Sylvie said lowly. “You don’t have to follow him. Or die for him. You can come with us.”

“Shut your mouth, you pernicious witch. My guards will not turn.”

“They’re starving, Hayes. What can you offer them besides a prolonged death.”

He tilted his head to the side like a bird of prey, his eyes blinking as he took in her figure. “You, perhaps? Your blood is a fine delicacy, so I’ve heard.”

“So even without Lazuli’s influence, you are still a coward. And a bastard.”

“What did you do to her?” he asked.

It was her turn to smile, though it didn’t reach her eyes.

“She’s dead.”

As she approached the waiting vampires, the sky darkened further, and the screeches of turned rebounded through the square. Hayes clenched his fists and shook his head as if ridding his mind of the fate of Lazuli. Did they have a history? Or was it another trick from Lazuli’s demonic powers?

He seemed to regain his composure and looked towards the sounds of the Turned. “We don’t have much time before we’re overrun.” Hayes chuckled darkly and gestured to her. “You’ve lost. Why don’t you lie down and accept your fate?”

The guard’s heads twitched and searched towards the sounds of Turned and born vampires screaming as Sylvie clicked her tongue.

“Fuck you. Let’s end this.”

Mila reached for her, but she shrugged her off before running full pelt at Hayes. He had no weapons from what she could see, and she had a fair bit of training up her sleeve since the last time they saw each other.

She ducked below his quick hands and kicked his inner knee hard. A loud crack and scream brought a grin to her face as guards swarmed them, each knocking heads trying to bite her flesh.

Shit.

Mila tore a guard from her body that just about pierced her skin and broke the neck of another, giving Sylvie a chance to get up and attack again. Hayes had already recovered from his broken leg and stood with a knife clenched tightly in his fist.

She had to finish him, for herself, for Natalie and all the shifters that suffered by his hand.

Stalking closer, she raised her hands, circling him, searching for an opening. Other vampires had arrived with their belongings, all staring hungrily at the fight, their eyes turning more crazed as if they were Turned.

They were hungrier than Sylvie thought.

She might’ve been moments away from being torn apart by the vampires she was trying to save.

Fuck it.

She leapt, wrapping her hand around the blade and throwing her legs across his torso, dragging him down into an arm bar and breaking his arm from the elbow. He released the knife, and she threw it aside, wincing as her palm dripped blood all across the cobblestones and her clothes.

While the dried blood on her drew the gazes of the vampires, her fresh blood put them into a frenzy. The remaining guards worked on holding the horde back from Hayes as he and Sylvie rolled around the ground, striking and kicking each other, each looking for a weakness.

Despite Hayes sickly appearance from her bite, his strength was still almost overwhelming. Sylvie eventually had to untangle herself and roll away to stop his hands from getting a good grip on her throat. She might’ve been supernaturally strong, but she was still no match for strangulation.

“Give up,” Hayes roared, laughing darkly as the sky filled with black clouds. The Turned were coming. The earth under her body shuddered from their thundering footsteps.

“Fuck you!” She stood preparing for another round, but she was tired. She didn’t think she had much energy left.

He charged this time, aiming straight for her jaw, and she was too slow. She braced for impact, but it never came. When she lifted her gaze, she nearly burst into tears. Elias stood in front of her, his hand clasped tightly around his brother’s fist, the force shattering Hayes’s knuckles like popping candy.

“Sylvie!” Rowan’s voice yelled from her right, and she spun, falling into his embrace as he looked her over, careful not to jostle the new scars from Lazuli’s nails. “Fuck. What happened?”

“She’ll explain later,” Kian grunted. He cut his gaze to Elias, a fearful look crossing his face before he returned his focus to the portal again.

Shan and Brodi surrounded him as they coaxed the Vampires through the portal. They weren’t going, though. Instead, they just stayed glued to the spot, gazing hungrily at Sylvie. Behind them, rows and rows of Turned raced towards them.

They were all going to die.

“Get through the portal! Hurry. The Turned are coming!”

Shan dragged some people by the arms, followed by Brodi, but the rest wouldn’t follow. They looked hypnotised. Something wasn’t right.

“Let go, brother,” Hayes grunted, his teeth grinding so hard Sylvie thought they might turn to dust.

“You lose, Hayes. It’s over. You failed.”

“I am still King! My subjects will not go with you!”

“Release your influence.” Elias grabbed Hayes by the throat and pushed him back towards a platform beside an alleyway. A tall post stuck out from the middle of it, and Elias shoved him against it.

“Rope,” he requested, clenching Hayes’s throat tighter when he tried to fight.

Sylvie searched the ruined square, but Rowan found a length of jute rope from one of the broken stalls first and threw it to him. He made quick work of the knots and only let go of his grip when he was satisfied. Hayes’s face had long turned purple, and he briefly lost consciousness as the world around them grew noisy.

The Turned were almost upon them, and Sylvie ran to the vampires before Rowan wrenched her back. “What are you doing? They’ll kill you!”

“If we don’t get them through the portal, they’ll die. We have to hurry!”

Rowan’s jaw clenched, and he searched for something to help them as Elias walked over. His skin was damp and terribly pale as he spoke. “We’ll leave Hayes here for the Turned to finish off.”

“They’re gonna finish all of us off if we don’t snap them out of this blood rage,” Rowan shouted over the sounds of moans and screams.

Sylvie tried again, running towards the largest crowd and screaming at them. “Come into the portal! Please! There’s blood through the portal!”

“Sylvie!”

Rowan rushed forward to pull her back as three vampires surged forward, their crushing grips circling Rowan’s torso instead of hers and squeezing until his ribs crunched.

“Rowan!”

Sylvie slammed her fist into the face of the largest vampire and screamed as its grip tightened. Blood spurted from Rowan’s mouth when Kian shouted a warding, and the vampires flew back dozens of feet straight into the hungry mouths of the Turned.

They surged around the born vampires, and Sylvie averted her eyes as their screams turned to gurgles.

“Rowan? Rowan!” She was too scared to touch him. Her body completely froze up as someone brushed her aside.

“He’s alive,” Elias growled, leaning over to scoop him up. “We have to get him to Amira.”

“Take him. I’ll be there soon.”

Shouting with rage, Elias turned to Kian. “Open the portal.”

She could sense how desperately he didn’t want to leave her, but he had to. He had to protect Rowan.

“I’ll be okay. Just go!”

Elias ducked through the portal, and Sylvie could still see him as he ran towards Amira’s cabin, the portal more like a silky, seethrough curtain than a blank void. That must’ve been what the vampires were sensing with the division.

“You need to go through, Princess. I can’t hold this forever. It might be too late.”

“It can’t be.” She peered around the closing space. “It can’t be,” she whispered. “It’s not fair.”

“Get me off here!” Hayes screamed over the maelstrom in the square, his voice cutting through the noise like a gunshot.

“Fuck you,” she shouted back, flipping him off and spinning to face the vampires. She had to do something. How could she stall the Turned?

There had to be something...

She gasped as her abilities tugged at her consciousness, and she dropped to her knees. This had to work. Even if just for a few minutes. She palmed the ground, digging her fingernails into the dirt between the bricks and called to the trees. The ancient root systems groaned and creaked under the ground, their movements creating small earthquakes as she drew them to the surface.

“Come on!” she groaned under the pressure of the tonne tree roots, sending them skywards and around the square. “Faster, faster.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

She grinned at Hayes as the roots breached the bricks, sending rubble and Turned flying. She stood and splayed her fingers, forcing the roots to split into a wall of thorns, reminding her of a fairy tale she had read as a child.

The roots wove together, stopping the Turned in their tracks despite their fury, and the Born vampires peered around them in confusion.

“Push them through,” Sylvie croaked as her vision turned spotty. Damn. She’d overdone it. The distance from her kneecaps to the earth rattled her teeth in her skull, and she bit her tongue as she collapsed on the ground.

She blinked as the light faded, and a figure parted the crowds with a calculated swish of his cloak.

“Magnus?”

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