Chapter 14 - THE BULLET FOR MY QUEEN
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I let the heavy steel combat knives slip from my fingers.
They clattered loudly against the wet concrete.
"Let her go, Moretti," I said, stepping forward until I was only ten feet away from the barrel of his gun.
"Your men are dead."
"Your family's territory is currently being seized by Arthur's battalions."
"You have lost everything."
"I still have the power to take what you love most!" Moretti screamed, his knuckles turning white as he tightened his grip on the hammer.
Clary looked at me through the rain dripping from her hair.
She didn't look afraid anymore.
She looked at me with an intensity of love and devotion that burned brighter than the fires dying around us.
"Declan," she whispered, her voice steady and clear.
"I love you."
Before Moretti could register her words, Clary slammed the back of her head with all her remaining strength directly into Moretti's broken nose.
Cartilage crunched under the impact.
Moretti screamed in pain, his aim jerking sideways.
I lunged forward with the speed of a striking panther.
BANG.
The gunshot echoed like a cannon inside the metal warehouse.
A searing, white-hot agony tore through the right side of my chest as Moretti's bullet ripped into my flesh.
The impact staggered me, but it did not stop me.
I closed my hands around Moretti's throat before he could cock the hammer a second time.
With a single, violent twist of my powerful shoulders, I snapped the spine of the man who had dared to threaten the woman I lived for.
Moretti's limp body dropped to the floor like a sack of wet sand.
I stumbled, falling to one knee as dark blood poured from the wound between my ribs.
"Declan!"
Clary broke free of the loosely tied ropes and fell to her knees in the blood and water beside me.
She ripped the silk fabric from her gown and pressed it with all her strength against my bleeding chest.
"No, no, no!" she sobbed, tears washing the grime from her beautiful face.
"Stay with me, Declan!"
"Look at me!"
I raised a blood-smeared hand and cupped her trembling cheek, feeling the soft warmth of her skin under my rough fingers.
"Don't cry, little bird," I choked out, a faint smile touching my lips.
"You're safe now."
"I don't care about safe!" she wept, pressing her forehead against mine as her tears mingled with my blood.
"I need you!"
"You can't leave me alone in this dark world!"
She began to sing.
Right there on the filthy concrete floor of Pier 42, surrounded by corpses and pouring rain, Clary sang through her broken sobs.
The sweet, pure melody filled the hollow warehouse, wrapping around my fading consciousness like an unbreakable chain.
May you like
Her voice was the light that pulled me back from the edge of the grave.
The last thing I saw before the darkness swallowed me was the reflection of her tearful eyes shining like twin stars in the rain.
