SWNOVELS Ruthless Heir: Chapter 36
Bianca is in no shape for this.
Shit. Neither am I.
But how could I refuse?
The savage glint in her eye when she talked about wanting to taste Krol’s blood…
Fuck.
It made me hard.
I’m still erect now, even as we follow the slimy serpent’s trail away from the battle and deeper into the tunnels.
“Do you hear that?”
Ahead, from somewhere in the darkness, a high pitch wheeze echoes out.
“It’s him,” Bianca sneers.
She takes an angry step forward. But that’s one step too far. I have to lunge forward to keep her from hitting the ground.
She’s been through so much. Too much.
But even as she wobbles in my arms, there’s no way Bianca is going to stay put. Pinching the bridge of her bloody nose, she straightens against my grip.
“Let me handle him,” I tell her. “I’ll make sure it’s safe. Then you can come in for the kill.”
“No. I… I need to do this myself.”
“You don’t do anything by yourself anymore,” I remind her. “We do everything together. Including killing people. Alright?”
I can hear the nausea building in her every breath. We’ve been moving too fast. She’s pushing herself too hard.
Blood drips from the gash in her arm.
The sight makes me fucking sick.
And endlessly furious.
Still, I stay focused. For her sake.
Leaning forward, I plant a soft kiss against the welt on her forehead.
No one needs to tell me who gave it to her.
I already know.
Fuck. Bianca is right, Krol needs to pay. I’d do it myself, but there’s no way I’m leaving her again.
Still, if we’re going to do this as a team, she’s going to have to let me protect her—at least, a little bit.
“Alright,” my bloody queen sighs. “You go ahead. I’ll follow behind. But don’t you dare kill the bastard without giving me a chance to cut him open first.”
“I promise.”
The wheezing ahead grows fainter by the second. There’s no time to lose.
Grabbing Bianca’s hand, I lead her forward.
The battle raging behind us fades into the background as we’re engulfed by the darkness.
There’s little light down here—at least, there isn’t until we spot a faint flicker ahead.
The wheezing returns. It’s joined by a cough and a curse.
“Glupi dranie!”
I’d recognize that voice anywhere.
“Stay alert, myszko. And be quiet.”
But my own feet are already starting to drag. No matter how softly I try to move, each step echoes like thunder around the black tunnel walls.
The adrenaline high that led me through the initial chaos is dying down. I’m bleeding like crazy.
This needs to end soon, or else I might make a mistake.
“Is that him?”
Bianca’s voice snaps my attention over to a twisted figure crouching against the tunnel wall ahead.
The mangled silhouette heaves beneath a single flickering florescent light.
It’s the source of the wheezing.
It’s Krol.
“It’s over,” I call out, pointing my gun in his direction.
But something feels off—like we’re slowly nearing the edge of an endless spit. I approach with great caution. I’ve never been to this part of these tunnels before.
The air feels colder here. More ancient.
My aching body flexes. I make sure I’m shielding Bianca. Krol needs to die. But nothing is important as her safety.
“… It’s over…” the hunchbacked silhouette croaks. “For me, maybe. But not for you. Drago escaped. You’re nothing without him.”
“No,” I snarl. “He’s nothing without me.”
The closer I get to the cloaked figure, the clearer he becomes. Krol’s gun is on the ground by his feet. An empty clip hangs half out of the magazine.
“You’re out of ammo,” I note, not daring to ease up.
“And out of time,” Krol admits. “But that doesn’t mean you’ve won.”
“Don’t you dare fucking move,” I warn him, tensing as he unfurls himself.
But even I’m forced to pause when I see what’s become of his face.
The horror.
Krol’s eyeball has been melted out of its socket. It hangs on by a single thinning thread, drooping down against his charred cheek like a wilted flower. Purple and red veins bulge out from the blackened burn mark.
“Looks like you’re not the only one that bitch has burned now,” Krol chuckles. His laugh is wet and sickly and absolutely unhinged.
“Tell me where Drago is going,” I demand, ignoring the monster’s taunt.
“Only Drago knows that,” Krol wheezes. “All I know for sure is that I’m heading straight to hell. And so are you!”
I’m just distracted enough by his mutilated face that I don’t immediately react to the knife that flashes from his hand.
The blade cuts through the air like lightening… before plunging directly into my chest.
“Gabriel!”
Bianca’s cry is shrill and bone-chilling, yet it sounds like it’s a million miles away.
I’m in shock.
And then, I’m infuriated.
The pain is delayed. For a split-second, all I can feel is pure, unadulterated rage. It gives me enough strength to aim my gun back towards Krol.
“You fucking bastard!”
My finger pulls down on the trigger. The muzzle flashes. My knees hit the ground.
The bullet shreds through Krol’s throat.
But it hardly registers.
I’m numb. Everything is muted. Sound. Pain. Sight. It all turns grey… until a shadow flickers over me, and everything blasts back into color.
Bianca’s battle cry roars through the tunnel as she races towards Krol. Her gun is raised. Her muzzle flashes over and over again. Her bullets thrash through the mutilated serpent.
“Come get me, princess,” Krol gargles, blood spilling from his ruptured throat.
Even as he’s filled with lead, the bastard somehow manages to open up his arms, like he’s welcoming her into a deathly embrace… or a trap.
“Bianca!”
She’s in danger.
A debilitating agony is already starting to pulse through my chest as I grab the handle of the knife. But I don’t have a choice. Not if I want to save my girl.
I don’t even try to brace myself. I just rip the fucking blade out.
The pain is so powerful I nearly keel over. Blood immediately starts to gush from the wound. The world spins.
I try to steady it by latching onto my queen.
I call out to her again.
But she doesn’t hear me.
Bianca’s gone deaf with rage. Blind with blood-lust.
She continues to run straight at Krol, even as his body is eviscerated by her gunfire.
My heart drops as she gets close. Too close.
And then Krol falls.
His mangled body drop backwards—but instead of hitting the ground with a thud, he’s just swallowed up by the darkness.
Shit.
A hole.
There’s a giant fucking hole in the ground.
That’s what I felt earlier.
But Bianca doesn’t seem to sense it. She’s still racing blindly ahead, ready to tear Krol’s fallen corpse apart with her fucking teeth.
My mind goes blank.
The blood. The pain. The heartache. The fear. It all vanishes.
When the world comes rushing back, I’m tackling Bianca to the ground.
The gun drops from her hand.
We can only watch as it skids across the ground, until it too slips over the pit’s edge, disappearing into the darkness below.
We never hear it hit the ground.
“Gabriel! Are you alright?”
Bianca almost immediately seems to snap out of her violent trance.
“I’m fine,” I lie, nearly choking on the blood building in my lungs. “Everything will be fine. You’re safe.”
“Don’t leave me.” Bianca’s tears run down my chest as she shoves her cheek into my fresh wound. She’s quickly covered in my blood. But neither of us flinch away.
Instead, I just wrap her up in my arms. I force myself to feel her—even if it means feeling all of the pain and heartache that comes with it.
“I love you,” I whisper into her ear. “I love you so fucking much.”
My vision flickers as Bianca squeezes me tight.
“I love you too,” she rasps. “I love you. I love you. I love you…”
Her sweet, desperate voice echoes around my skull as I begin to fade.
My heart shrivels. Her tight embrace loosens.
We’ve both lost so much blood.
Somewhere behind us, I can hear people shouting. Footsteps echo through the endless tunnels. But I’m too far gone to make out if they’re friendly or not.
It doesn’t matter. They can’t help me.
But they might be able to help her.
Calling on my last bits of life, I find Bianca’s lips.
If this is it, I want it to end it just like it started. With a kiss. A desperate attempt to wake up my sleeping beauty before we’re both engulfed by the darkness.
I might never know if it works.
The heat of her lips give me one last flash of beautiful pain before I fall into the void.
“I love you.”