fangs to grow before using them to tear into my own flesh, doing so deep enough to cut through the radial artery that supplied oxygenated blood to my arm. Once done, I lowered my hand and held the cup so that the blood could flow freely down my arm and fill a holy grail of my own making.
“Brothers of the McBain clan, each of you sold your mortal souls to a noble cause. Therefore, let it be known that on this day you earned those souls returned, for your debt to me as its keeper has been honourably fulfilled. Drink now from the Hell’s own Holy Chalice of souls, and reawaken as the keepers of your own fate,” I said as I passed the rim of the cup to each of them so they may drink my own sacrifice, one that, unlike all others, wouldn’t gift them with my essence as a vampire. No, it was a symbolic awakening that had the power to release their souls once the ritual was complete.
Which was why I held it out in front of Trice who knelt in between his two brothers and told him,
“You are the first to bleed, shifter.” His eyes widened a moment before acceptance took its place. Then he unsheathed one of his daggers strapped to his chest and used it to slice open his hand. After blood gushed from the deep wound, he held his fisted hand over the cup and let his own blood flow inside. I nodded when it was enough, before gesturing with my head for the other two to follow their brother’s actions.
Once all three of them had bled into the cup, there was only one thing left to do, and that was swallow it all back so my own soul could recognise the sacrifice. So it could latch on to those I summoned and free them to the surface, something that made me fall back to my knees from the force of it before I tore my head back and I opened my mouth to let loose a silent scream.
It felt as though someone else’s beast was inside my vessel, now trying to tear its way free of me! So, I freely let it, now allowing it to go back to its original host, where it was to be reunited and reborn back into its fated life. A burst of white light knocked us all back with the force of not one soul, but all three leaving me at once. My own Holy Chalice then fell from my grasp and disappeared as soon as it hit the ground. Going back to where it had been summoned from, sealed away in my largest vault back at Blutfelsen.
It was a powerful weapon in itself, just like the Eye of Janus, only this was one of my own making. Which meant that as I picked myself off the ground, I couldn’t help but think of that weapon and the immense power that was now in the hands of the enemy.
In fact, my only solace was that Amelia would soon be safe and in the hands of her father. Because, in reality, he was the only one who could protect her now. He was the only one that was surrounded by his own men and those loyal to him. No one but her mother had been infected with what I was now considering a disease of the Gods…
My venomous blood given to only one other being alive.
Still to this day I had been unsure how she had survived it, as even a drop would kill the strongest of my kind. Which was why I had learned to keep it contained. It was why my arm remained the way it was, a charred Hellish limb that had the power to destroy and kill all it touched. A piece of me that was concentrated evil I kept covered.
Oh, it’s power had killed in the years since it had consumed my hand, but only one had ever survived it, and it was only now I was questioning why? Was it because Amelia had been born with a small part of it or was there some other reason? She had bitten it that day and it had possessed the power to drain her of her supernatural side. Had that been the only way she had survived it, because of what she had been prepared to gift it in return of keeping her life? Of course, as a child she would not