Revenant's Kiss | ONC 2022 Shortlister ✓

F I F T E E N

A wicked smirk stole across my lips the moment my eyes rested on the five Eagles bedded down for the night. They slept so peacefully on the cots I almost hated to wake them.

I rolled my eyes. Ha, I would fucking enjoy slaughtering them all whether they were asleep or not. But I was no pussy. I wanted a fair fight, and I craved to see the terror dilating their pupils when they realized they wouldn't live to see another day.

Picking out my first victim, I stalked forward and slammed the karambit deep inside her stomach. With a quick twist of the blade, I was rewarded with a scream loud enough to raise the dead.

"What the hell—"

I silenced the questioner with a quick flick of my wrist as I sent the karambit spinning into his throat.

Chaos broke out after my second kill as the sleepy soldiers tried to register what was going on. They yelled at each other while the first girl screamed and writhed in her cot like a seizing hospital patient and the second clutched at the blade embedded beneath his chin.

One of the three remaining soldiers fell from the bed and stared up at me in shock as he stumbled to his feet. "It's Pierce!"

Two of them ran at me but I backed out at the last moment and they collided together with a sickening crunch of head smashing against head.

I pulled out the pistol I took from Hayden's body, releasing a bullet into each of their foreheads for good measure before dashing forward and grabbing the karambit from the throat of my second victim.

"Please, don't kill me!" The remaining Eagle pleaded from where he groveled on his knees in the middle of my destruction. Crocodile tears streamed down his ashen face and he stared up at me as if I were some deity he wronged.

I clasped the bloodied karambit in one hand while lifting the pistol with the other. My aim never wavered from between his fearful eyes and I lifted my chin. "Tell the devil I said hi."

The pop of the discharging round filled my ears and I stared at the darkened hole it left in the soldier's head before kicking his body over. Blood pooled on the wooden floor beneath my feet, and I gazed up to see it splattered on the white cots as if a careless artist flicked a brush of red paint across a spotless canvas.

The burning wrath and relentless savagery that consumed my being was gone, and in its place grew the ice cold tendrils of emptiness. Here I was surrounded by dead bodies of what used to be my own people with the only person I cared about on the verge of losing himself if he hadn't already.

I needed to get back to Soren, but a part of me didn't want to face him without knowing if I could bring him back. What was my life without Soren being. . .Soren? Nothing. Empty, and void of the color and vibrancy he brought to my black and white world.

Despite my hesitancy, I found myself slowly walking out of the room and back down the dim hallway. I passed over the body of the soldier I'd pounced on earlier and lifted my gaze from the thick puddle spreading across the floor to the cage a short distance ahead.

Soren stood just as I left him, but he seemed more alert. His gold eyes peered at me with marked curiosity and he tilted his head and watched as I took the keys from the corpse of one of the guards.

"Soren, I'm coming in now," I stated softly as I tried not to let the sudden feeling of despair break me down. The soft click of the key fitting into its hole filled the unearthly silence before the creaking of the gate followed as I stepped inside.

I knew this could go oh-so-wrongly, but I prayed with everything in me that it wouldn't. I'd lost enough, been through enough, and had enough of this to last an eternity. I refused to let Soren be a part of it, but on the high chance he was, I wouldn't hesitate to blow my own brains out.

The soft growl emitting from Soren didn't deter me even though it should've. I swallowed back the terror and continued my slow approach despite how hard my heart was beating. "Soren. It's me, Daytona."

He stared at me with his beautiful revenant eyes, his tan skin marred with streaks of dried blood. His visage was the most terrifyingly attractive thing in the world, like being up close and personal with a majestic male panther, and I couldn't resist the pull it brought.

A few more footsteps brought me directly in front of him. Tears built in my eyes and I couldn't hold them back, their warm bodies falling from my cheeks like miniature skydivers. All the things I wanted to say lodged in my throat, choking me down more than the sorrow.

If I hadn't given in, Soren would've been okay. This was all my fault. Why was I such a fucking failure?

Throwing my arms around Soren, I hugged him close to my body as if he would fade away at any moment. My face dampened at the onslaught of tears and I buried my head into his chest, feeling his body stiffen but he made no move. I didn't sob or wail. My grief was horribly discreet and as persistent and almost as silent as bleeding from an unstitched wound.

"Please," I whispered brokenly, my chest heaving with shaky and hitched breaths. "I need you."

Soren's arms unsteadily reciprocated my embrace and I glanced up in a flare of hope. He stared down at me, his cheeks glistening with tears of his own as he gently cupped my face with a shaky hand and smeared away the damp trail. "I. . .need you too."

My lips parted in my attempt to express the sudden joy wrapping around my being, but no words came out. Only more tears cascaded from my eyes and I pressed my face against him again. Sobs wracked my body as relief and happiness crashed over me in continuous waves, but he kept me close the whole time.

I looked up at him after my crying subsided and laughed despite the remaining tears, gently smacking at his chest. "Don't you ever fucking do that again."

"I'm sorry." He frowned, hurt ablaze in his eyes as he gently pushed the hair from my cheeks. "I never meant to—"

My lips silenced his words as I pressed them against his without warning. Half of me was afraid he would shove me back, but when he responded by deepening the touch on his own, all my fears melted away.

A sweet smile took over his mouth and broke our kiss seconds into it, but I didn't mind. His strong arms wrapped around me moments before he lifted me from the ground as if I was weightless. "You're the best thing to happen to me," he admitted shyly.

My pulse skipped a few beats, and I swallowed back a fresh round of tears. No, he was the best thing to have happened to me. And nothing could ever change that.