Chapter 11: She Bleeds Out.

Cassian

The silence after the fight was really loud.

It was louder than the guns that had gone off in the ruined chapel.

Smoke was coming in through the broken beams in streams. Moonlight was shining through the roof in white streaks, catching the dust and ash that was floating down like the remains of a prayer. The smell of burned incense was still in the air mixed with the smell of blood and the smell of explosives.

I stood in the middle of the wreckage and listened in the silence.

There were no footsteps coming from the hidden corridors. There were no whispered commands from the hunters who were hiding behind the walls. There were no breaths from the people who were dying. There was no heartbeat except for my slow one.

The trap had been really clever.

They had put charges under the stone floor with silver. They had carved symbols under the pews with consecrated sigil. They had hidden marksmen in the walls. They had used rumors to lure me in and they had used certainty to lure her in.

Now everyone who had mattered was dead. Had run away.

At the center of it all Selene was lying still among the broken wood and the shattered marble.

I walked towards her, across the nave.

Some part of me was expecting her to be faking it. I was expecting her to grab a hidden knife soon as I knelt down. I was expecting one of her eyes to snap open with that murderous look that she wore like a second skin.

There was only silence.

The explosion had thrown her hard. One of her shoulders was bent at an angle that no living person could tolerate. Blood had pooled under her ribs in a fan across the cracked floor. Her gun was lying inches from her hand, close enough to mock her.

For the first time since I had met her, she was not a threat.

This realization hit me harder than any punch she had ever thrown.

I knelt down beside her before I even realized I was doing it.

I put two fingers on her throat.

There was nothing.

I put my fingers on her wrist.

Still, there was nothing.

I leaned in close that her blood was all over the air I was breathing in my lungs, and I listened to her chest.

There was no heartbeat. There was no breath. There was no refusal to give up.

There was nothing.

I pulled my hand back fast.

Her skin had not burned me. The feeling was coming from elsewhere.

A support pillar beside me cracked before I even realized I had hit it and the stone splintered under my palm. The sound rolled through the chapel like thunder.

I picked up a silver chain from the debris and threw it. It went into the far wall so deep that only the last few links were still visible.

This was not winning.

This was stealing.

The hunters had wanted both of us. If they could not kill me they would kill what was hunting me. If they could not kill her they would use her to hurt me.

They were cowards.

My anger was clean and familiar.

What was underneath it was not.

I looked back at her and memories started coming

The first time she had adjusted her fighting style after I had broken her stance learning my rhythm in a few seconds.

The contempt in her stare whenever I spoke as if I understood her.

The tremor in her hand after she had killed one of her people who had begged for mercy.

The rare furious moments she had chosen to show mercy and had hated the weakness she thought it showed.

She had become interesting.

She had become a threat.

She had become alive.

That word stuck unpleasantly.

I turned towards the doorway.

Let the dead bury their dead.

I owed her nothing.

I took three steps towards the threshold.

On the fourth step, I stopped.

Her blood scent was still warm in the air.

Even as it cooled, it was still noticeable. It was sharp and vivid and stubborn and I hated that I had noticed.

I stood with my back to her. Let logic take over.

Turning a hunter into one of us would go against everything she believed in.

My people would call it a sin.

Her people would call it proof that they had always been right.

It would be a move.

It would be personally disastrous.

She would wake up hating me.

She would try to kill me.

She might not survive the change and I would be left with a corpse that was a mockery of what she used to be.

Yet.

If she lived everything would change.

If she died the night would be smaller.

I did not like that truth.

I turned around fast and walked back towards her as if I was punishing the floor for existing.

When I knelt down beside her again I was visibly irritated.

"You are unbearable " I muttered.

The words came out quieter than I had intended.

I slid one arm under her shoulders and lifted her carefully.

She was lighter than she looked. She was all muscle and bone and fury.

Her head lolled against my wrist. A strand of hair clung to her cheek.

I looked at her wound.

There was a piece of metal stuck near her heart. Her rib was punctured. She had already lost much blood. Human medicine would not be able to help her.

I could still walk away.

I did not.

I bared one of my fangs. Tore open the inside of my wrist.

Pain radiated hot and then settled into a burn. My dark blood rushed up, thick and shiny catching the moonlight with a pulse of its own.

I raised her head into the crook of my arm and brought my wrist to her mouth.

Then I stopped.

This was not saving her.

This was taking over her life.

This was binding her future to a choice she had not made.

For centuries I had acted without hesitation when I had to. Kingdoms had fallen while I remained certain. Lovers had begged while I remained cold. Enemies had burned while I remained untouched.

Here in a ruined chapel with a dead hunter in my arms, my hand shook once.

I stared at her parted lips.

"You will hate me " I said softly.

There was no answer.

The wind tore through the stained glass carrying the scent of dawn which was still far away but coming.

My reason started to take over.

I moved before it could speak.

I pressed my bleeding wrist to her mouth. Forced a few drops past her lips. They slid over her tongue and disappeared into silence.

Then I put my palm over the wound on her side, sealing the flesh with pressure, lowered my head to her throat and bit deep.

Ancient power answered away.

It surged from me like fire being dragged through chains flooding the exchange racing into ruined veins that had already chosen death.

Her body jerked once violently that I almost lost my grip on her.

Then it stilled again.

I released her throat and watched my blood mix with hers in dark lines across her pale skin.

I carried her carefully to the altar stones and laid her there.

The irony was crude enough to amuse me another night.

Now I just watched.

Her skin paled more then seemed to catch a faint glow under the moonlight as if stone had learned to shine.

There was no breath coming back.

There was no heartbeat stirring.

Only the long terrible stillness, between death and becoming.

I stayed beside the grave I had made.

Outside the horizon was thinning towards dawn.

If she woke up nothing would be simple again.

If she did not I had damned myself for nothing.

I fixed my gaze on her face.

Then against all sense I waited