Unleash (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series Book 6) (34 page)

“I have seen the good in him.” Aurora stepped forwards, gathering her courage, intent on issuing the verdict she had come here to give them. “He is capable of redeeming himself given time. My verdict is that Snow can be saved and he is not a threat to humankind.”

The black-haired male closest to her folded his arms across his chest, his handsome face turning pensive. “Then we have a problem. Your master believes you said otherwise.”

She knew why the bastard was doing it too. “I admit that he had an altercation with the vampire, but Snow only sought to avenge acts committed by my master that he believed were wrong. It has to be the reason my master came to you and lied about my decision.”

Aurora drew in a shaky breath to steady herself. Everything rested on her keeping her head and convincing these angels to assist her. She could save everyone at Vampirerotique if she could make them listen to reason.

“Please. Call off the team.”

They exchanged another look and the blond male spoke. “We will consider it.”

Aurora growled in frustration, her temper and fear getting the better of her. Consider it? How dare they. She needed to get to Snow before it was too late and her master killed him.

“Why has he done this?” She turned on the black-haired one again.

It was the silver-haired one who responded. “I admit… it is a clever trick. I had not anticipated he would find this loophole.”

“Loophole?” She didn’t know what the hell they were talking about and she didn’t have time for them to send her in circles.

“We shall have to congratulate him upon his return,” the brunet said, his deep voice laced with amusement.

It dawned on her that they were stalling her.

They had no intention of calling off the team. They wanted Snow to die and her master to succeed.

“Damn you all to—” Aurora cried out as sharp white-hot pain blazed across her side.

She pressed her hand to it, struggling for air, the unexpected pain making stars wink across her vision. Her hand became wet and she pulled it away from her body and shook at the sight of the blood coating her fingers.

Her head shot up and she stared at the males.

“What is this?” she gasped, her side burning and blood saturating her dress, sticking the white material to her skin.

The blond at the back smiled coldly and viciously. “You are bound to the loathsome creature. Your master’s sword will carry out the duty given to him millennia ago.”

Aurora swallowed reflexively, her ears ringing again as those words swam around her mind, cutting through the debilitating pain.

She was bound in more than one way to Snow. Not only destined to bear his sins.

If he died, she would too.

She couldn’t believe it.

The black-haired angel leaned his backside against the edge of the white desk, his golden wings curling around his shoulders, the tips of them grazing his boots. “You should have died the night you allowed the vampire to live. You were supposed to take his place as an equivalent exchange to maintain the balance.”

What the hell?

She stared at him in disbelief.

The silver-haired male behind him folded his arms across his chest, his expression turning stern and dark. “We tasked your master with carrying out your execution, but we did not give him a deadline, and he abused that.”

“And now he has found a loophole.” The blond smirked.

She hated them all. Her master and these males. Her master had wanted her to judge Snow as beyond salvation, sentencing Snow to the death he so desperately sought, unaware that she would also die. Why?

She was damn well going to beat the reason out of him.

She wouldn’t let Snow die.

“If you don’t call off your men, I will kill them all,” she snarled and disappeared, willing herself back to the London theatre.

Aurora appeared in the thick of the battle between the angels and the residents of Vampirerotique.

She grabbed one of the fallen white blades and shoved her way through the fight, defending herself against any vampire who tried to harm her and attacking any angel who dared to get in her way. Her side blazed, stealing her focus as her blood continued to leak from the vicious wound, slowly weakening her. She had to find Snow.

An unholy roar shook the theatre and a wave of anger swept over her.

Snow.

She fought to reach him and broke through the throng of angels and vampires, into an open space on the strip of red carpet between the stalls and the stage. She immediately wished she hadn’t.

Snow slashed at her with the sword clenched in his hand and she fumbled with her own, blocking his strike. His blade hit hers with force that sent her stumbling backwards into another vampire.

“You,” Snow snarled and her eyes widened when she felt the pain in him and saw the hurt in his eyes.

He thought she had ordered this.

“Snow, wait,” she said but he struck again and she barely managed to block this time. Her side ached, the pain blistering her skin, stealing her strength and making her dizzy. She was no match for him when she was bleeding out.

Aurora desperately kept blocking him. He was bleeding from several cuts on his bare torso and his arms, but none of them was as deep as the gash in his side. In the exact same spot as the wound on her body. A wound created by the heavenly sword of her master. It was proof that their lives were linked and it scared her.

“I didn’t do this,” she shouted over the din of battle and he snarled at her, exposing bloodied fangs.

He had been drinking from the angels, keeping his strength up so he could continue to fight despite his wounds.

His crimson eyes pinned her with a deadly glare, his elliptical pupils little more than thin slits in the centre of his irises. She could feel his pain and the turbulent emotions that ruled him, and she ached to make him see that he was wrong about her. She hadn’t turned against him and those he loved.

She would never do such a thing to him. She loved him too much to ever hurt him.

“I cannot believe I trusted you.” Snow stalked away from her, his shoulders hunched and tight, speaking of his agitation. She went to follow him, desperate to explain and make him see reason, and he turned on her with a dark snarl, his pale blade nothing more than a blur as it cut through the air in her direction.

Aurora leaped backwards, using a fast beat of her wings to help her barely avoid his attack, and brought her sword up, knocking his away from her.

“Please, Snow.” She tried again, not only to save herself from his wrath now. She had to ease his hurt somehow. She knew how hard he found it to trust people because he didn’t trust himself, and she wanted him to know that he hadn’t been wrong to trust her. She hadn’t betrayed him.

He stormed away from her, attacking any angel who foolishly placed themselves in his path, slaughtering them in the midst of his rage.

Antoine and another male vampire fought closer to the double doors at the side of the theatre, doing their best to defeat the angels attacking them and protecting Sera at the same time.

Aurora couldn’t allow Snow to reach his brother. Antoine would surely attack her and she wasn’t strong enough to withstand a full strength attack.

Snow was mad at her but he was pulling his punches too, not putting all of his power into each blow.

It had to mean he still felt something for her and it gave her hope that she could get through to him and make him listen.

“I would have accepted death to defend you and give you the happiness and life you deserved, Aurora, and you did this!” He turned and attacked her again, forcing her backwards towards a group of vampires and angels where they battled behind her.

She defended as best she could, afraid that one of his blows would make it past her sword and cut her down. If that happened, he might die too. She didn’t know whose sword he possessed and she didn’t want him to die, so she fought harder, desperate to live so he would too.

His face contorted in anger and agony. “This I will not accept. I cannot accept! I will never allow harm to come to those I love… to my family… to innocent children!”

Aurora reeled from the verbal blow. How low he thought her. He truly believed she had ordered this. He believed she would send angels to kill the babies and those he loved.

Snow leaped up onto the black stage, grabbed an angel by his throat, and hurled him at Aurora.

The blond male hit her and knocked her down, and she cried out when the pain in her side worsened, stealing her breath, and her wings ended up twisted at awkward angles beneath her.

Snow glanced back at her, a flicker of remorse in his eyes before he turned away and attacked another angel, dealing vicious blows with his sword, cutting a path across the stage.

He was heading for Callum and Kristina at the back of the stage, fighting to reach them so he could shield their babies. The werewolf was in her animal form, snarling savagely at the angels as she attacked them, protecting her young.

The witch was with her, together with the young incubus. Payne formed an impenetrable wall with Kristina, fighting to protect his female and the boy.

Aurora grasped her blade in both hands, rolled the male angel off her and plunged it into his heart, killing him. She shoved to her feet and gave one powerful beat of her aching wings, flying up onto the black stage, unwilling to give up her fight to make Snow see the truth.

She swung hard and cut down another injured angel, doing her best to give him a painless death, feeling remorse over how things had turned out. She had never wanted this. She had dragged these angels into her master’s personal vendetta because she had wanted to save Snow.

She had wanted to be with the man she loved.

That man turned on her, wild and savage, an immense warrior with only violence in his dark heart.

Aurora swiftly blocked his sword and had to use her other hand to cradle the flat of her blade as he pressed down on it, forcing his closer to her. Her bare feet slipped on a slick patch of blood-drenched black floorboards and she almost lost her footing. She shoved with all of her might and rolled to one side as he struck again, coming to her feet further away from him.

Her side burned from the action and she pressed her hand to it, her other one trembling, barely able to keep hold of the grip of the sword. The point of her blade hit the black wooden stage floor and she leaned on the weapon, using it to support her shaking body and keep her upright.

“This is not my doing, Snow. I swear it.” She breathed hard through the pain, trying to subdue it. Snow decapitated another angel, sending the female’s head toppling to the ground. Aurora looked at the pandemonium surrounding her, a battle between life and death. Her superiors would keep sending more angels to their deaths, an endless wave of them, intent on killing everyone here, including her. They couldn’t win this. “They kept me waiting. I never passed judgement on you!”

That got Snow’s attention. His head whipped around, the bloodied threads of his overlong white hair spraying outwards before coming to settle around his noble features. Red eyes held hers, intense and penetrating, looking straight through her for a sign she was lying.

“If I had been able to voice my verdict about you… it would have been to say that you did not deserve death… that I had never met anyone so selfless and loving, so protective and strong… so beautiful.” Aurora wavered, the pain becoming too great to bear, and came close to collapse. Darkness encroached and then drifted away, and when she could focus on Snow again, he was closer to her, confusion and concern in his dazzling crimson eyes.

He frowned at her side. Blood pumped from between her fingers and she winced, fighting to retain consciousness.

“What is this?” he whispered and darkness threatened to drag her under again. His hand caught her wrist, steadying her.

Tears filled her eyes but she blinked them away, feeling stronger as he held her, both in body and in soul. “I did want the happiness and life I deserved, and that was why I came back. I came back to tell you that I love you, and I was giving up my wings to be with you. You are my happiness.”

Snow’s frown hardened and he gathered her closer, shielding her in his arms as he weathered an attack by another angel. Antoine appeared from nowhere, assisting him. Aurora clung to Snow, fighting the darkness, glad to be back in his arms and hoping he believed her now and wouldn’t turn on her again.

Snow shifted his attention back to her. “What happened to you?”

She smiled sadly. “You are not the only one who feels betrayed… but I am the only one who has been betrayed. I am bound to you in more ways than one. My life is bound to yours.”

She raised her bloodstained hand and his eyes darkened, flooded with the rage she could feel burning inside him.

“You also bear the wound your master dealt me.” Snow slipped one arm around her back to support her. His handsome bloodstained face blackened into a scowl. “Your master meant for you to judge me poorly… he sought to end your life too.”

Aurora nodded weakly, anger over her master’s actions rushing through her, giving her the strength to stand and fight.

She had trusted everyone she had grown up with, everyone she had spent thousands of years with, and this was how they repaid her? Had this been her master’s intention all this time?

He had wanted her to suffer Snow’s sins and pay for the pain he caused, and then die with him as punishment for everything Snow had done and everything she had unleashed on the world by saving him that night.

Snow roared, his rage pouring over her, anger that she knew was directed towards her master.

“Antoine,” Snow said and his younger brother finished the angel and returned to him.

There were multiple lacerations in his clothing, blood staining it and his face in places. Everyone was suffering because of what she had done and her wretched master. She wanted him to pay for hurting these vampires and their loved ones. She wanted him to pay for hurting Snow.

And for hurting her.

Antoine cast her a dark look that promised pain. Snow gathered her closer, his thickly muscled arms banding around her like a shield.