As She Fades

"A century of open arms that shield the light.
This battle scar is healing.
Cast all the pain to the tourniquet that binds me.
We are home now.
The sun won't hurt you anymore.

Fell in love with an angel (a heart that isn't cold)
Say goodnight; we are dying (just hold on)
Blessed these shadows and tasted every one.
They can't steal our love tonight.

Love has given me a reason to live,
And love has given me a reason to die."
- I Am Ghost

Her heart hurt. There was no other way to describe it. A tightness in her chest that threatened to end her, a torrid mingling of self-loathing and hatred that topped any emotion she'd ever felt before, Skylar's weak, trembling voice as he said those words…

She slammed on the gas pedal as if it would help to ease her pain and tripled the posted speed limit yet again. "God damn it," she all but growled. "How could I do that to him? How could I have ignored him like that? He could be dead now — because of me. Because of what I would rather do than save his life, apparently."

"I'm sorry," Antony said quietly from the passenger's seat, and she could feel his eyes on her. She only slammed on the accelerator harder. "It's my fault. I should've let you answer it instead of…" He trailed off, keeping his heavy gaze focused on her, but she shook her head once and remained silent. What could she say to him? If she'd wanted to get up, she would have. But she hadn't. She'd been selfish and stupid and…

She took a corner sharply, jerking her sideways in her seat and slamming Antony against the door, and immediately returned to her illegal speed. "I don't spend enough time as a passenger with you. You're a lot more reckless than I thought you could be," he remarked coolly, but whether he was actually okay with being repeatedly flung about in his seat or not remained a mystery.

"I learned it from you, remember?" she pointed out, and he chuckled briefly before falling silent once more.

"So," he began after a moment, "just what is it you plan to do here?"

The silhouette of the Lord's humble abode appeared against the dark navy of the sky, and she narrowed her eyes. "Well, for starters, I plan to turn the Big Five into the Big fucking Four real fast," she said darkly, then slammed on the brakes and threw the car into park in the middle of the street, barely remembering to shut it off before popping the trunk and leaping out the door.

"So you don't really have a game plan," he said wryly, already waiting for her beside the trunk when she arrived to throw it open. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him cringe against the scent of old blood and gore that rose with the trunk's lid, but his impassive expression fell into place a split second later as if he hadn't experienced even the slightest discomfort.

"This is a good enough game plan, isn't it?" she asked with a cruel smile as she lifted a dagger and held its long, curved blade in front of his face. "Might as well go back to the basics since nothing else has worked out," she added, then slammed the trunk shut and headed over the curb and down the pathway toward that towering specter of a home. "Just try to keep up, all right?"

"Ma'am, yes, ma'am," he said, the rumble of a low chuckle coloring his words, and she barely suppressed a shiver and an intrigued smirk as she threw open the Lord's front door and stormed across his threshold.

It was time to put her game face on. For Skylar.

"Whoa," a man said, leaping in front of her with his fangs flashing in the low light, situating his massive bulk between her and the stairs. "Where do you think you're—" A backhand that left her knuckles stinging sent him to the floor with a groan of pain, and she stepped over him without hesitation, her eyes on the stairwell. She could feel the others crowding around, the fanged men and women filling the hallway and the doorways to either side of it, but they seemed hesitant, keeping their distance. Even the vampire she'd struck merely sat up and watched her from the floor, gingerly rubbing his stinging cheek, and she spared him only a glance — a glare, really — as she started up the stairs, holding her dagger menacingly in a tight grip.

The door to the Lord's study stood open, and the vampire smiled pleasantly at the sight of her, perched upon his usual armchair as nonchalantly as ever. "Ah, Torryn. I've been expecting you. Come, dear. Come in." But she looked to him for only the barest of moments, her eyes flicking to the bloody lump on the floor that she instantly recognized as —

"Skylar!" she cried, every ounce of her badass exterior vanishing as she rushed to his side — but the Lord was suddenly before her in a blur of pale flesh and dark, luxurious silk, his lips curving in the kindest smile. She leaned to peer around him, though she managed to catch only a glimpse of Skylar's red-coated form, lying motionless beside the Lord's armchair, his beautiful blue eyes only half open and vacant — oh, God. Was he even breathing?! — before the vampire stepped into her line of sight again with a low chuckle.

"I'm glad you got the poor boy's message," he said, his wicked smile growing as she looked up into his eyes. "I'd like to speak to you, if you've got a moment."

She gasped, her eyes growing wide. "You did this on purpose," she said, aghast, as she took a step back, away from him. She could feel Antony at her back, but the boy didn't touch her, didn't speak, didn't do a damn thing. Of course, what could he do? What in God's name could he do other than stand there numbly just as she did? "You did this to lure me here! You hurt Skylar just for this!"

"Yes, yes," he said, nodding solemnly, though his smile didn't fade even a bit. "I'm sorry to say that I used poor Skylar to coax you back into my lovely home. I assumed that simply asking you wouldn't work quite so easily in my favor." He turned from her then, clasping his hands behind his back as he stared down at Skylar, breathing a slow, sad sigh. "You see, Torryn, Emmeline has contacted me. She's interested in obtaining a few Progeny of her own, it seems, and demanding mine was her chosen course of action. No matter how many times I explain to her that my Progeny are gone — freed at your hand, as I'm sure you'll recall — she continues to demand that I find a few to spare for her. I believe she's under the impression that I have some contact in the slave trade, but though I wish it were so, I do not." He glanced back at her, the cruel curve of his lips contrasting with the forced solemnity of his eyes, and went on. "There isn't much of a slave trade at all in this part of the country, and there certainly aren't many Progeny to be found. I tried telling her that a trip to Florida would produce more satisfying results, but still, she persists. So, Torryn, my dearest Progeny, I'm going to need my own slaves back — including you, of course, to ease the tension with Emmeline. I'm sure you'll understand."

She went rigid, her eyes widening even further, and she rocked back a startled step. He wanted her? He wanted the others? And Skylar lay there, dying, maybe already dead.

Oh, God. What could she do?

-?-

Without thinking, Antony lurched forward, his fist already clenched and heading toward the Lord's face. Pain exploded in his knuckles as he landed the surprisingly powerful blow, the Lord sailing far across the room, tangling briefly in a set of thick, dark curtains before falling through the glass with a crash.

"He's got a pulse," Antony said as he turned to Torryn, looking into her wide gray eyes as he rubbed his aching knuckles. His voice was gruff, his vision red-tinged, and he honestly couldn't believe the rage that so readily flooded him at the Lord's mere mention of taking Torryn from him. "It's faint, but it's there."

Without another word to him, she turned and ran to Skylar, dropping heavily to her knees at his side. He watched as she took the boy by his shoulders and shook him violently, desperation a wailing edge to her voice as she begged him to wake up, and as tears welled in her eyes, Antony felt a pang of jealousy clamping down on his heart, a stab of guilt quick on its heels.

What kind of monster was he, standing here hoping for a man to die when his only crime was existing within five feet of his girl?

He forced his attention from the pair when he sensed a presence in the hall, turning to find a mass of vampires filling the doorway in dead silence. They didn't look particularly vicious, no threat to their onlooking eyes, but there were more of them than Antony had ever remembered seeing here. Way more. He tensed until his shoulders were painfully tight, some reflex drawing his lips back from his rapidly lengthening fangs.

The Lord had hired more muscle. The son of a bitch had come prepared this time.

A creak of the floorboards alerted him to Torryn's approach, and he turned from the gathering army to find her standing before him with tears streaking her pale cheeks, obvious beneath the flickering of the fireplace's dying flame, and she held Skylar in her arms. Arms too thin to hold such weight. She was just a girl. Just a girl…

Saying nothing, she thrust the unconscious boy toward him, but he refused to offer his arms, startled and undeniably angry at her intent. What? Did she really expect him to whisk her other boyfriend off to safety?

The overjoyed cackling that could come only from a vampire filled the room suddenly, the sound of cracking wood lost beneath it as the Lord landed on the sill of the broken window, and Antony could only imagine the leap it had taken to bring the man two stories up. Impossible. Yet here he stood, and here Torryn stood, a little girl with a grown man in her skinny little arms…

"If you really love me," she burst out, panicked sobs adding damning little hiccups to her desperate words, "you'll take him to Raphael for me. You'll get him out of here and let me do what I need to do."

Another pang tightened his chest. She was just a girl. Just a girl…

Softly, he said, "If you love me, and if you love him, you'll take him yourself, and you'll leave me here to do what I need to do." Keep her safe. Kill her enemies. Protect her from harm past, present, and future.

He needed it, even if she never did.

A small smile took him by surprise as it quirked his lips, and he added gently, "You don't always get to be the hero, Torryn." Some emotion crossed her tear-stained face — awe? Fear? Confusion? — and he nearly lost himself in those beautiful gray eyes of hers as they cycled through feelings with such ease, an ease he would never share again.

The Lord's voice rose in a cheerfully rough shout, snapping him from his dreamy state, and Antony spun to face the horde of vampires as their thunderous footsteps sounded on the hardwood, the whole lot of them swarming the pair. In no time at all, he'd thrown himself between Torryn and the approaching crowd, launching himself into the cloud of enemies and throwing punches and kicks faster than he knew he was capable of. A right hook knocked one man back, a simultaneous kick to the stomach tossing back another, and he swung into a roundhouse to take out another trio of vampires — all in a matter of seconds.

Blows rained down upon him, return fire, but he dodged most and barely felt the ones that reached him, adrenaline flooding him to eliminate every sensation except for the vampires around him and his own position among them, his contracting muscles and precisely placed blows, Torryn's place at his back, ever present in his consciousness. Instinct drove him into a crouch to snatch Torryn's dagger from where it had fallen when she'd rushed to Skylar's aid, and he squarely faced the flood of vampires that surged toward him anew.

"Go," he snapped a moment later, beheading one man, another, and another with an ease that disgusted even himself. He'd just started toward the small army, only now actively entering the swarm, when Torryn was suddenly before him, her lips so warm and soft and inviting against his own that he nearly forgot where he was, but she pulled away long before he could let himself drift away.

"Do me proud, Antony," she said, so serious, and the last thing he saw before she took off through the disorganized forces of the Lord's personal military was the determined look in those gray eyes, the hard set of her jaw. Even as he threw himself at the vampires, wildly swinging his borrowed blade, being the best distraction he could be, he watched her back as she fled, the tangled strands of her hair flaring as she rounded the door frame and disappeared from view, and he realized with a surge of pride that she would be all right.

The little girl he'd thrown into this world when he'd barely known her name, the half-human who he was never sure would stand a chance in his world…

She didn't need him nearly as much as he insisted she did.

But she needed him now. And Skylar needed him now.

And as he threw himself into the fight harder and faster than before, wailing on these strange men even as they countered with their own strong blows and bites, he let out a wordless war cry — his vow to do whatever he could for her.

His vow to help her get out of this alive.

Because even if she didn't need him, he sure as hell needed her.

-?-

Without the use of her arms, she should've been helpless — and back before this, all of this, all of these monsters and these blood-seeking beasts, all of these harrowing battles, she might've been. But with Skylar in her arms and the blood of dozens of vampires on her hands, she didn't hesitate to wade through the horde of vampires that awaited her in the hallway using nothing but her legs — and in some cases, her head.

A man's stocky body stepped into her path, and she rammed her foot into his stomach hard enough to slam him into the nearest wall. A woman bolted into her path, close enough to bite and, judging by her bared fangs, fully intending to, and Torryn tipped her head back and whipped it forward hard enough to drop the woman instantly. She could feel blood dripping down her own forehead from the poor choice of counterattack, but without pause, she leapt over the unconscious woman and continued on her merry way down the hall.

As she slammed the sole of her foot into a man's knee, eliciting a sickening crack and a pained cry, she vaguely considered the obvious notion of throwing Skylar over her shoulder and continuing on with the use of at least one of her arms, but no, she couldn't. Some paranoid part of her was sure that something would happen to him if he wasn't directly in her sight, and she wasn't willing to risk it, not just for the use of an extra arm.

Blood rolled down her forehead to drip into her lashes, effectively removing the use of one eye from the equation as she squeezed it shut, and she felt a vampire's knuckles drill into her side, shoving her into the wall she currently skirted with quick, desperate steps. She grunted but barely faltered, spinning to drive her foot between his legs and square into his junk, waiting only until he let out her favorite pathetic groan of the day before she turned and resumed her journey.

It was a cheap shot, but she had to do what she had to do, and she had to get Skylar to safety.

She shivered as a bloodcurdling roar suddenly reached her ears from down the hall, and it took her a moment to realize that it was Antony. Her heart sank even as it skipped a beat, terror on his behalf tightening her throat even as pride and awe raised goosebumps along her arms. That was Antony, her Antony. And he was heading into a battle that he had only a slim chance of winning.

She reached the stairs and leapt back to avoid a blow before lashing out with her foot, knocking the two women gathered there down the stairs, and she stepped onto the first step — and she faltered.

God, what the hell was she doing? How could she just leave Antony like this? How could she leave one freshly undead teenager to the fate of dozens of undead with decades of experience? How could she leave the man she loved behind to die again?

Because he's not the only man you love, a small voice answered for her, and she dropped her gaze to Skylar, to his still but pained face, to his chest as it barely rose with each shallow breath.

Fuck. What was she doing hesitating? Antony would make it, but Skylar…

She stretched her foot toward the next step, but a hand tangled in her hair to jerk her backward, and she let out a sharp cry as her back met the wall. Five vampires surrounded her instantly, and without thinking, she charged directly at the two closest to the stairs. An angry roar left her as she barreled between their arms, their broad, muscled bodies giving way with surprising ease beneath the onslaught of her own small form, leaving her free to continue on sprinting down the stairs.

She could hear their footsteps thundering down the stairs behind her, but that only urged her on. The two women she'd thrown down the stairs were waiting for her at the bottom, smirking smugly, as if they could see her demise already on the horizon, but she never reached them. Adrenaline urged her to jump, and she did. Her feet met the thick wooden banister that lined the stairway for only the barest of moments before her body told her to leap again, and she did. She landed and barreled on, running straight through the few vampires that blocked her way to the front door and even knocking a few to the floor in her haste. She slipped a hand only briefly from where she'd begun tightly clutching Skylar's clothes to grip the knob and jerk the door open, her heart pounding as heavy footsteps grew ever closer, and she immediately returned her grip to Skylar's blood-stained jeans and burst through the door the moment she could feel the chilly air upon her skin, the promise of night dancing through her in the stale scent of cold.

She jumped the stairs and hurtled down the sidewalk, her painfully tight grip leaving Skylar once more as she jerked the back door of her car open. Footfalls were still too close for comfort and growing forever closer, and she nearly tossed the human into the backseat before she slammed the door shut and spun.

A fist met her face before she'd even fully turned, the metallic taste of blood flooding her mouth, and blind rage gripped her, the blessed instinct she'd relied upon for so many weeks now taking hold of her every muscle. She knocked a man out with one perfect blow to the face, but a woman drove her fangs into her wrist before she could pull back. A left hook sent her sprawling, however, and as another man reached for her, she dipped beneath his hands to grab him by the back of the head and rammed his face straight into the roof of the car. Before she'd even let go of the guy's hair, she lashed out with a foot and caught another man in the stomach hard enough to stagger him, then she leaped into the air and spun, landing a roundhouse kick to finish the job.

She barely felt the pain as a set of knuckles suddenly dug into her back, and without bothering to look behind her, she threw her elbow back in a sharp jab. The all-too-familiar sound of a nose breaking met her ears, and she spun to promptly take hold of a woman's throat, and, barely noticing the blood that dripped onto her hand from the vampire's gushing nose, she whipped around and threw her onto the grass several yards away.

The dull ache of the blows she'd taken over the past minute slowly ebbed back into her along with her awareness, and she blinked dumbly as she looked around at the many bodies sprawled on the ground. A few of the vampires were recovering, others groaning as consciousness returned, and her eyes snapped to the front door when the sound of thundering footsteps met her ears. A fresh group of bloodsuckers sprinted toward her, and they didn't look happy.

Her eyes flicked to the second floor of the house, her gut clenching as she searched for any sign of Antony, any movement in the windows, any sounds upon the air — but there was nothing.

But she knew she didn't have time to hesitate, and she ran around to the driver's side door, jerking it open before she slid inside. She turned the key in the ignition and spared one final glance at the house.

Come on, Antony, she thought, her eyes not leaving the house even as she shifted gears and sped off down the street, watching its fading form until she couldn't see it anymore.

I know you can come out of this alive. Don't let me down.

-?-

In his adrenaline-filled state, with every sense peaked to full alertness, Antony had no trouble at all catching the sound of Torryn's car door slamming shut and the squealing of tires that followed suit only a split second later — and with nearly thirty vampires lying unconscious on the floor all around him, he likely wouldn't have had any trouble hearing it, anyway, even without his escalated senses. The floor creaked as a man leapt over a groaning woman and charged straight at Antony, and though weakness had dropped a fifty-pound weight onto his every muscle, though an agonizing exhaustion had begun to effectively undermine his adrenaline, Antony didn't hesitate to lift his arm to block an impressively fast blow — well, impressive for a living vampire.

The Lord had hired a back-up force of sunlight-bearing bloodsuckers. He hadn't even bothered to pay the price for quality protection, and he was about to pay for it.

Antony looked toward the old vampire as he thrust his fist into the oncoming man's stomach hard enough to make him abruptly vomit — and disgustingly enough, that wasn't even the grossest substance to cover his sneakers over the course of this minutes-long battle. He grabbed the man's shoulder and shoved him aside with enough force to crack the drywall when his front met it, and Antony's eyes never left the Lord.

Four more vampires were suddenly on their feet and sprinting toward him, but without acknowledging the dull ache of his bruised and scraped knuckles, he met the uprising halfway and danced with them just as he'd danced with all the others: quickly, brutally, and without fail. A woman hit the floor first, then a man, and a third vampire fell headfirst into the fireplace and promptly caught fire, but a sudden pang of agony from his broken collarbone — fuck, when had he broken it?! — distracted him before he could finish the fourth, and when she charged toward him, blur-quick, and threw a hard jab, he could only throw up a hand to catch her fist before it caught his face. The explosion of pain was instant and overwhelming, the crack of his wrist as it fractured loud even with the sound of the woman's panting and the Lord's cackling filling the room all around them, and he let out a low groan of pain.

"Fuck," he swore lowly, fangs bared in a way meant to intimidate but that likely only shared his pain, and he clamped his fingers tightly around her small hand and flung her into the fireplace to join the ashes of her comrade. Her shriek rose as she caught fire, then fell as undeath overtook her and the flames abruptly turned her to dust, and now the only noise to be heard was the Lord's amused laughter.

"You've done well — for a Warren, I mean," he said once his cackling had faded, a smirk quirking the corners of his thin lips.

Antony faced him squarely, gingerly rubbing his fractured wrist and wearing a sneer that suggested that nothing hurt more than staring at the Lord's gaunt face. "If you're attempting to hurt my poor little feelings by taking a stab at my dearly departed father, just know that you've failed, and you always will fail with that approach. I hated him. I'm nothing like him. And if the unconscious vampires covering your hardwood convince you of nothing else, at least let it convince you of that." But those vampires were groaning and stirring, some slowly pushing themselves to their feet, even as he spoke, and though he never let that arrogant set of his jaw sag even a hair, he knew that he was in some serious shit right now.

"Of course, Antony. Of course," the Lord said, his tone completely serious though his smirk only grew, and he took a slow step forward, leaving the safety of the doorway and stepping right onto the battlefield.

Doubt filled Antony as he met the man's eyes, the weakness in his heavy limbs growing all the more noticeable when a chill like the coldest winter took hold of his heart and froze his very hope away. He was nothing. He was unlike his father, but only because his father was strong enough to do what Antony could not.

God, would he ever truly deserve the title of "master vampire"?

Torryn deserved better than someone so weak — than someone so monstrous all over but so worthless where it counted. He'd murdered three women in cold blood because he'd been too weak to accept her rejection. He'd paid so little attention to her that he'd completely missed all of the obvious signs that pointed clearly to her foolish endeavors. He'd always wanted to protect her, but he could never be bothered to try. Not when she wasn't returning to his bed at the end of every day.

Fuck. She deserved so much better.

And he'd killed his own mother — to protect his precious Torryn, but surely there'd been another way to solve the problem. Surely.

And he'd died at the hands of his own father — his father, the powerful monster Antony had never been, could never be…

He would never have made it in college, even if he'd had the chance to go. He would never have had a future.

Mother dead. Father dead. Future gone. Torryn in love with another man. Torryn deserving someone stronger.

He was no master.

He was no master.

He returned to himself with a start, the barest jolt of surprise making it through the heavy haze of despair that had him clenching his fists, and he was on the floor at the Lord's feet, curled into a pathetic ball on his side — pathetic, pathetic, pathetic. All he'd ever been, and all he'd ever be.

Would he ever be able to do right by anyone as an undead?

No. Never. And definitely not her.

"My, my, Antony," the Lord said, a dark chuckle adding a sultry edge to his tone, and his smirk had yet to fade. Antony glanced past the man to the small clump of vampires standing a few feet back, separated from them by a sea of unconscious men and women, but he soon returned his attention to the Lord's smug face. "There's quite a bit in that mind of yours, isn't there? The human had some issues, but you…You're on an entirely different level."

Antony physically drew back at the onslaught of rejection that blurred his sight and held his every muscle taut now, and he felt his shoulders hunch as he curled tighter into himself, but soon, he knew nothing but the despondence that pummeled him.

How many times had he nearly lost Torryn? How many times had he actually lost her? She'd always preferred the human to him. She'd loved Skylar from the very beginning. Why would she stop?

Even his own father had never cared for him. His own father, his own flesh and blood. How many times had he looked down on Antony's endeavors and laughed? How many times had he belittled his own son — his fighting abilities, his intelligence, his academic performance, his relationships with women? How many times had he told Antony that he would never have a future worth living?

I was only a teenager! I could never have been what you wanted! He wanted to scream it, to let the whole world know, but he didn't even believe it himself.

He'd never even had long-term friends or steady girlfriends. He'd never had anyone — no one but a mother who could barely remember who he was half of the time and a father who never cared. He was worthless. No one had ever wanted him, and no one wanted him now.

But Torryn…She wants me. She does. She really does. They'd slept together not even an hour ago, for Christ's sake! Of course she wanted him!

Because you've never had sex with a girl you didn't love, a nagging voice at the back of his mind reminded him, a voice that held the deep, mocking laughter of the Lord. Because you've never considered someone worthless to you outside of the bedroom.

"But Torryn loves me," he found himself saying aloud, his words more snarl than speech, and even as his vision returned to him, he lurched to his feet and threw a punch, catching the Lord in the jaw with enough strength to send blood and spittle sailing through the air. But the Lord only laughed, cackled, mocked him. He landed a second punch to the vampire's stomach, forcing him to double over as he staggered back a step, but still, he laughed.

"It's too easy!" he cried jovially. "It's so sad! So pathetic!" An angry cry tore free of Antony's throat, and he landed a third punch, busting the vampire's lip, but before he even had the chance to watch the man's blood flow free, a new emotion rained down upon him, pelting him with the force of a hailstorm: guilt.

But this one wasn't so new to him. This one, he lived through every time he thought about Torryn.

What would her life had been like without him? Would she have ended up on such bad terms with Skylar? Would she have turned out a fighter? Would she have faced her own death time and time again? Would she have felt so much pain?

No. Her life would've been perfect, happy with Skylar, free of all of this danger and of these muddy emotions. She would've finished high school with perfect grades, headed on to get perfect grades in college, ended up with an amazing career and a white picket fence around a house shared with Skylar. They would've been happy. She would've been happy.

But I was selfish, a voice whispered inside of him, his own, and he swallowed, hard, as if that would help to sweep away his guilt. I thought she would make a great fighter. I thought she would make a great conquest. I thought she'd be fun.

And Skylar…

He deserved to be happy. He deserved to be with the girl he adored.

But I had to toy with her emotions. I had to fall in love with her.

And how many other women had he done this to? Too many to count. So many beautiful, smart, worthwhile girls — reduced to tears and a whole lot of agony at his hands. All in the name of fun. All in the name of a good time.

The friends he'd made, used, and lost. The people he'd physically harmed to get whatever he wanted at any given time. The people whose emotions he'd beaten half to death to reach whatever end he most desired.

How many people had he hurt? Manipulated? Ruined?

What had he done?

Vision slowly seeped back into him now, the barrage of feeling lifting to leave him lying on the floor in that pathetic ball, beaten and weak. Guilt-ridden. Hurt. Tired.

It took every ounce of strength he had left to turn his head and meet the Lord's smiling face. "What do you want from me?" he asked in a harsh rasp. "What are you going to do?"

"All I want is my Progeny," the Lord said lowly, a threat to his smile now that hadn't been there before, and he bent over to put his face above Antony's, a bit of blood from his busted lip dripping onto the boy's cheek. It was cold. He was cold. "Just tell me where to find them, and we can end this now. I'll forget about everything you've cost me, and I'll let you walk right out the front door with no problems at all. What do you say?"

The Progeny? Those were Torryn's Progeny. Those were Torryn's people. Freeing them had been Torryn's only wish.

Torryn…

"I say you should go to hell," he said, a growl hidden beneath the gravelly weakness of his voice, and he used the thought of her beautiful face to drive the weight from his limbs. He was on his feet in a heartbeat, snatching the dagger from the floor as he stood, and in a blur of motion, he lopped off the Lord's outstretched arms. That unnaturally cool blood rained down upon him in a crimson spray, and as the Lord's horrified cries rose upon the air, the horde of conscious vampires sprinted far too willingly into the shower and fell upon Antony with the same strength they'd had before.

Nothing like him.

Even the living vampires could stand above him now.

But he swung his blade and snarled, throwing kicks and punches and snapping with his inches-long fangs, and he never faltered, not even when the taste of his own blood filled his mouth anew, not even when pain exploded along his side as his own dagger was turned upon him, not even when his back met the bloody pool that covered the floor and his enemies followed him eagerly down.

He went down swinging…

But he went down.