Choosing to say out of the Alliance, the Cinders are isolated in their own conflicts, and when Helia Cinder reaches to the void for answers, she inadvertently draws a creature out. Expecting to be eaten alive, she is instead left with a man with no...
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To reach Pyre, Vice needed a distraction, and nothing grabbed attention better than the howl of the void. Stone called to his magic for the first time in centuries, and the screams of the damned sent Agni reeling. Twin swords formed in Stones hands, lit with undead flames that cut through the living like butter, melting their bodies and pulling them to their death. Few could tear their attention away frm Stone's magic once it spread through the air, and less so dhampirs who were more intimately connected the void. It was all the distraction Ghost needed to slip away.
Ghost dropped to his knees next to the Pyre and tried not to breathe too deeply of his blood. The wound to his shoulder was worse than Ghost had initially thought, leaking blood and hanging on by threads of tendons and perhaps half a bone. There was no way Pyre could move it, and he was only alive because he'd cauterized the flow of blood in the severed artery. Several flowed through the arm, and if this wasn't treated, he'd lose the limb.
Pyre was breathing, though he wasn't doing so well. Lifting his chest to fill his lungs caused him enough pain that he did so in short pants, and with his face hanging forward, Ghost couldn't tell if he was even conscious. The tie that kept his hair tight at the back of his neck had snapped, and long red strands fell over his face and into his lap.
"Pyre." Ghost's index finger barely grazed Pyre's face before a blade of light pressed to his chin. Muddied red eyes met Ghost's close enough that Pyre could easily spit on him, but with how unfocused they were, Ghost wasn't sure if Pyre could see him clearly. "Pyre, it's just me." Ghost hoped his voice would keep Pyre from piercing his skull.
"You have magic," Pyre growled the words, not for a moment dropping the hostility as he barely managed to roam Ghost's face. "Did you get your memories back, beast?" The word had Ghost cringing as he stared into the hatred clouded by pain in Pyre's eyes.
"Yes, Pyre," Ghost said, afraid that saying nothing might set the man off while he was making up his mind on whether to kill him.
"Good, then go. Leave me to die. I don't want to owe my life to a vampire." There was enough truth to the words that Ghost stayed. If he left, Pyre would die.
"I promised to keep you safe," Ghost insisted. If Pyre could scoff, he likely would. "But the dhampirs are quite strong. I need your blood."
"I will kill you." There was no waver in Pyre's tone as his lips pinched in and he lowered the blade in his hand to Ghost's chest to keep them apart.
"Please, Pyre. Helia would not want you to die." Ghost tried to shake reason into him, but it didn't do much to change his mind.
Even if Pyre didn't want to be saved, Ghost would do so anyway. It didn't take much work to bat Pyre's hand aside with the condition he was in, and Ghost closed the space between them. Taking blood without permission made Ghost sick, since he'd suffered such in the slave farm on numerous occasions, but it was that or watch Pyre die.
