Vail held his breath as the Wynter stumbled and Victoria turned around to shoot him. If she struck him in the heart, he would die on the spot. Unfortunately, she was still new enough with a crossbow—and likely still nerve wracked from being chased—that the bolt pierced the other vampire in the throat instead. A blow like that still would have slowed another of his kind down, but this Wynter just seemed to have been enraged by the arrow protruding from his neck. He only staggered for a moment before he moved to continue pursuing his target.

Straining to catch up, Vail reached out to grab hold of the other man’s jacket before he could take off again, but he wasn’t quite fast enough. He cursed as the Wynter slipped just beyond his fingertips. It felt impossible to keep up with him, and he wondered just how much of the Crest heiress’s blood he’d ingested. After all, he’d fed from her many times before, but he’d never experienced a rush of power like this vampire was now. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to keep up with him, he reluctantly fell behind in the hopes that Gerald would be of more help to Victoria from atop his horse than he currently was on the ground.

As he altered his goals, he arced his course to the right, attempting to take the Wynter by surprise by coming at him from a new direction. In doing so he also avoided the pieces of silver armor that Victoria had begun shedding from her body. When Gerald fired his shot gun, the Hygrace heir watched from a distance, hoping that the other vampire would drop to the ground, but he didn’t. In the chaos of the fight, the Wynter had managed to get his hands on the jewel he’d been after: Victoria.

Vail stared in horror as the vampire picked her up as if she was a trophy. He could smell the odor of her blood in the air as his sharpened nails broke her fair skin. Hastening his pace, he sprinted toward them as fast as he could to intervene, only change course one more time when the Wynter threw her at a lamppost like a ragdoll. While Gerald kept their enemy distracted, the Hygrace heir wasted no time sweeping her broken body into his arms and carrying her the rest of the way to the nearby manor. The armor that she hadn’t had time to remove burned his skin through the thin fabric of his coat, but he ignored it, determined to get her to safety while they still had a chance.

Swiftly, he rushed past the last line of Saints and Moncouriers waiting to fight the Wynters and threw open the front door. He didn’t bother taking her up to her room. He’d heard her bones break upon impact with the metal pole with which they’d collided. As soon as they were inside the foyer, he dropped to his knees and set her down on the marble floor, tearing at the remaining silver plates to get them off her lithe frame. With the obstructions out of the way, he pulled up her shirt just enough to take a look at the damage. The sight that greeted him made him blanch.

Beneath her fair skin, he could see dark splotches of color forming, a telltale sign of internal bleeding. Even though he wasn’t a trained doctor, he could tell some of her organs had ruptured. For a moment, he sat motionlessly, unsure what to do. To a vampire, an injury like this would be excruciating but survivable. He doubted a human would be able to recover at all though.

“Victoria, stay with me,” he murmured, taking her hand in his. Outside, he could hear the sounds of battle, and he knew they didn’t have much time. “I’m sorry. I should have stayed closer to you, and—” he started and then stopped with a shake of his head. As frustrated as he was with himself for making the wrong decision, he wasn’t sure it would have made a difference if he hadn’t left her side. The Wynter they’d faced was too strong. “I love you,” he finished instead, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead as his heart felt like it was splintering inside his chest.