A Heart of Ice and Shadow: A Paranormal Vampire Romance Novel (Shadows Eternal - Book 2) by Ashley Lockwood

Author:Ashley Lockwood [Lockwood, Ashley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lockwood Ventures LLC
Published: 2024-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Aldor had failed. Again. She’d escaped him. Again. Snatched by the vampire. Again.

He sat on a stool in the darkness, staring into his magick mirror; as he had for who knew how long. Days had passed. Weeks. Possibly months. He’d barely eaten or showered or anything besides stare into the mirror.

Aldor’s cursed mirrored eyes reflected back at him in the dim light. They were sunken and dark; his skin sallow; a dark beard with flecks of blond had begun to grow from neglect; and his hair was so long it obscured his vision. The clothes that were once tight on his broad body hung loose.

He’d always thought himself mad. Driven by a singular purpose to reunite with the soul stolen from him as a babe. That madness had fueled him. Now it threatened to pull him beneath the surface once and drown him.

Nestra thought he was away, hunting tirelessly for her prize and the vampire’s heart. She knew not that he wallowed in his failure on temple grounds. Near enough for her to storm in and strike him through the heart for his incompetence and for failing her. Again.

The vampire’s dried blood lingered on the black blade in his hand. He didn’t know how they’d escaped, nor how they’d managed to destroy the magick mirror they’d passed through, but at least Aldor had a taste of satisfaction knowing the vampire was dead. Even if it was bitter.

Gwendolyn Moore was shielded by magick. The mirrors had given him no clue as to where she hid, and though he’d lost scope of how much time had passed during his wallowing, Aldor felt the weight of it growing heavier and heavier. What time he did have was running out. He couldn’t hide forever, and if his mistress discovered his failure—he was as good as dead.

He’d considered running. A bag sat by his small bed, full of his few belongings. Aldor had stood with it in hand many times over the last week, his skeleton key lying over his chest as he debated where to go. There was nowhere.

If he ran, he would be exactly what he was at the start: an outcast with no hope of salvation—scraping to survive. There was no place for creatures like him in this world. For the cursed. There was no place for him to run. So he sat staring into the mirror. Debating.

The shadow fae trapped within the dark mirror would give him guidance, but Aldor feared the cost.

The last price he’d paid Xel’voth had been steep.

How he’d managed to get the book Xel desired from the king’s library, Aldor still didn’t know. Luck and the grace of the Light had kept him from being discovered.

Breaking into the tomb of the Dawn King had been easier than expected, but Aldor felt the weight of what he’d done even still. He’d prayed for forgiveness in the tomb for taking one of the King’s bones. He only hoped it would be granted.

The blade—the Dökk blade that had met flesh.

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