Once Betrayed Never Forgotten

Chapter 72: Angel of Death

Everything happens very quickly, in a flash of movement and action. One moment, I am up against the tree, surrounded by my captors. The next moment, I’m lunging forward, past them, towards the sparkling silver ring lying on the ground several feet away.

In one fluid motion, I grab Aleksandr’s silver and ruby ring, and slip it onto my finger. The guys have already reacted, springing on me and pinning me down to the ground with their fists raised, ready to beat me to a pulp but they’re too late.

1 feel a sharp pain for just a moment, where the cool metal of the ring meets my finger, as though tiny metal spikes have popped out and pierced my flesh. I feel the ring hook into me, fuse with me, and a cold but comforting, gentle calm flows through me.

“What the… WHAT THE F*CK IS THAT?!” One of the guys yells out, causing his friends who are pinning me down to look in his direction.

At Erst I

AL

I’m not sure what they’re freaking out about, and then I see it.

There’s a disturbance in the sky, a strange rippling through the air. Then there’s an awful sound, a soft of vibrating hiss that I feel deep down in every fibre of my being, like the fabric of the universe, space and time, ripping apart at the seams. It fills me with such primal dread that I want to scream, even though I’m the one who caused this

I can only watch in horror as three massive, ragged tears rip through the air, like the claw marks left by the talons of some enormous cosmic beast. The air itself is ripped open, scarred – and through the rips, I can see a starry night sky, snowy peaks..

Tendrils of darkness seep out from the wound in the sky, shadows pouring down and then a cacophony and small shrieks and the flapping of wings assaults my ears. Hundreds of bats spill from the portal, swirling together in a black mass, which sets my captors off big time.

All around me, there is screaming.

The black cloud of bats coalesces in mid air, morphing and shifting, and a familiar form takes shape. I gasp at the sight of him, the face I’ve longed for, and missed for all these months.

Aching handsome, that unmistakable strong jaw, sharp cheekbones, flawless skin that gleams like pale marble in the moonlight, and those piercing icy blue eyes that now alight one me.

“Aleksandr!!!” I shout his name, and in a flash he’s at my side, wrapping me up in his big strong arms.

“You’re safe now,” he whispers, holding me tightly in his embrace. The ice in his glacial blue eyes melts for just a moment, thawed by a gentle warmth.

*Jesus Christ, RUN! Let’s get out of here!” I hear someone shout from a few feet away. It sounds like Colton, the ringleader. He and the other guys start running through the forest, as fast as their legs will take them.

“Wait here while I deal with these would–be rapist pigs,” Aleksandr says, the icy fury returning to his eyes.

I nod, trembling as he disappears in a flash, reappearing just at the edge of the clearing, just a few feet in front of Colton. Colton stops in his tracks, paralysed with fear as Aleksandr lunges towards him.

“Please, bro, c’mon, it was just a bit of f—!” Colton is screaming desperately, but he never gets to finish his sentence.

All I see in that moment is a blur of black and red as Aleksandr descends on his prey, lifting him up a

up above his head. There’s the sickening crunch of bones as Aleksnadr crushes his target, followed by an agonising gurgling scream. Then, with a flick of his wrist, Aleksnadr rips Colton neatly in two halves, as easily as one might snap a twig. There’s an explosion of blood, more gore than I’ve ever seen in my life. Aleksandr hurls Colton’s torso across the clearing, and to my amazement, I realise that Colton is blinking, opening his mouth in a silent scream – despite the bottom half of his body lying twenty feet away on the forest floor. The bloodied torso twitches, and then he is still.

Then Aleksandr disappears again in a flash of shadows, and I hear screams from deep within the forest, followed by silence, then terrified screams further away.

He’s killing them one by one, ripping them to shreds.

like some

I begin to shiver, my skin crawling at the realisation that I came so close to being brutally gang raped and murdered, strung up from a tree li sick trophy.

A cool breeze whispers through the clearing, and I wrap my arms around my naked body. For the first time since my ordeal began, I feel the chill of the night air. My clothes are lying in a pile on the ground in tatters, pointless to even try to clothe myself

Chapter 22. Angel of Death

shivering until Alckmarade reappears.

He emerges from the shadows around the deering, gliding through the night towards me, and before I knew it I’m wrapped up in his big strong arms.

When I’m done, he gently wipes away my fears, slowly and patiently.

“I how?” I all I can manage to say, my that still wore and aching from screaming and crying

“He did I find you?” He asks, “thew I did get here?

bet explains, “is the key. Wherever I am in far world, I can open a portal within a few feet of it, but only so long as you are wearing it. When you slipped it onto your finger, it pierced your skin, and fatted your blood. We are already bonded, through the sharing of my lifes blood, which is how

vor in pain – laut it was the ring that allowed nor to instantly travel to your side,” NôvelDrama.Org (C) content.

Lifes blood? What the hell is he talking about?

That’s when it comes back to me. After I was lained at the stake in that smouli nightmarish village in Romania, Aleksandr saved me from the brink of death by feeding me his blood. And not just any ided it was his lifes‘ blood, the only remaining lood left in his undead, unbeating immortal heart.

lond

wound would never heal. He’ll be in pain until the day my own heart stops beating

Arya

he stabbed himself in the heart to get

He did that for me. Why?

1 place my hand against the cool fabric of his shirt, over his heart, feeling the coldness emanating from within.

“Does it buat?” I ask him, and the look in his eyes tells me all I need to know.

Why did you do that for

“Who fold pour?” He asks, and I shake my head. “It’s not important. But what I want to know… no, what I need to know, is why? Why did me, Aleksar?”

He’s silent for a moment, a range of emotions flickering across labumanly handsome face in quick succession – concern, uncertainty, apprehension, and then a steely resolve.

“Why?” He repeats the word, as fur brings a hard up to andtly cup my cheek. “Wiry, you silly, foodisti little mortal? Because… I love you. With my entire being, and every fiber in my immortal body. I love you, Arianna?

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Chapter Comments

GUGHT HE FINALLY ADUITS IT The too much time in between updates but I fully understand f It gets in the way sometimes. I do look

card to more uprletes as this is one of 7 books Thave to wait for updates after hinge reading every single one of them!