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He sniffed the air and his stomach turned. The scent of fresh blood was strong, but as he bent to see if the darkness was truly the source of the smell it moved, leaping like a frog from the white flowers before him to a bunch of purple a few paces away.
The purple petals shook, and then all at once like a swarm of starlings, every shadow around him moved as one, leapfrogging away, gathering into large shapes in the distance.
Shapes as large as a werewolf. Then to prove his point each of the six shapes that began to circle him growled.
He tensed his muscles readying for their attack, but then their heads lifted as if called by something he couldn’t hear. They turned and then darted off in the night.
Erik frowned, utterly confused by the whole ordeal. What were those beasts? Who had summoned them?
Cold wind whipped around his shoulders, urging him in the direction they’d gone, and then cut back, slamming in the face with a familiar scent mixed in with the aroma of the flowers and blood.
Erik gasped. “Mina. No.”
The vampire king took off in a blur, his legs moving and pushing him as fast as he could possibly go. In the blink of an eye, he crested the hill beside him, and saw Mina’s dark hair in the distance. Her back was to him, and all six beasts were charging at her.
“Mina!” He shouted at the top of his lungs, leaping for the beast closest to him. “Mina, run.”
At the edge of his vision as his hand dipped through the shadows and hit fur, he saw her turn and rise, but she wasn’t running.
Grabbing a tight hold on the beast, he hefted its weight off the ground and threw it as hard as he could back the way he’d come.
The creature let out a violent yelp, and two of the others turned to launch themselves at him. He caught the first, feeling its claws scrape across his chest, and he hissed. The second bit down hard on his thigh, and his legs gave out.
“NO!” Mina’s voice rang out, and the air in his lungs charged with energy. He felt the dirt beneath him vibrate, and a storm roared across the sky.
“Mi-na,” he tried to call out to her, but the rest of the beasts converged, knocking the wind from him as they bit and tore at his flesh.
He managed to kill three of them. He knew that much at least, but between the blood and growls it felt like more and more creatures multiplied to replace them, desperate to swallow him whole.
Lightning cut across the sky, and as he tried to pivot his body around, great pieces of the ground shot up spearing the shadows, shattering them like glass.
His enemies disappeared one by one, and then he heard Mina once more, her voice deep with an emotion he couldn’t name. “He is mine.”
Erik turned to look at her standing in the distance, and sharp pain shot through his chest. His vision went white for a moment and as he looked down, the vision fading before him, he saw a shard of stone piercing right through his heart.
