Scarlett, bleeding from her cheek, stands.She advances, wearing the same fury as Octavia.As she places her katana against his neck, she sneers the kind of rage that only a woman can wield.Octavia draws her fists back snarling, ready to pounce.
We work together as a team.Red and Quinn saving Dahlia.Remy, Bella and Morrigan holding Roman as Scarlett and Octavia guard him, ready to force him into submission.
Morrigan sweeps around to eyeball him.“We should have ended you when we had the chance,” she says.
“And I should have killed you when you lay in my bed.Both of you,” he spits, glancing between us.
“Who turned you?”Octavia’s voice is so low, so filled with sharp edges it cuts the air like razors.
Roman laughs.“Get fucked.”
“Force him,” Scarlett says, holding her sword tight under his chin.
Octavia’s tone changes; it melts into silk and rivers.“Tell me who turned you.”
Roman’s face relaxes into a compliant sort of daze.Is this compulsion?He shakes.But Remy and Bella’s hands move faster, blurring into a haze.The lattice-like cage tightens around him, hissing as it sears into his flesh.
Roman screams out.
“Who turned you?”Octavia asks, her tone so deep, so rich, I have to fight myself from falling to my knees and answering for him.
Roman trembles as he fights not to answer.His nose drips steady rivulets of blood that cover his lips and chin.
Finally, he sags, his eyes dulling into a muted, distant expression.
“No one.Or they didn’t change me knowingly.I swallowed some blood splatter in the club the night I had a visitor.”His eyes slide to mine and I swallow hard.I’d managed to keep that quiet for so long.There are a few confused looks thrown my way, but thankfully Octavia drags everyone’s attention back to Roman.
“Then how did you die?You were on a fixed regimen of transfusions to keep you alive,” Octavia says.She uses the same silky, golden tone.It flows so smooth I think I’d do anything for her, tell her whatever she needs to know.
“Penelope visited one night and got close enough for me to steal a hairpin.”He looks at me.I swallow hard knowing there will be repercussions from my little excursion.
Fuck.My fingers brush my hair, the memories drifting back.He made me lean close and then attacked me.He must have slipped a hairpin from me then.
“I used it to pick my cuffs.But I was caught.There was a fight.They drained me, but when I woke, I fought back, hard.Your bouncer, Erin, I think her name was, said she’d had enough of my shit and broke my neck.Silly woman didn’t even know what she’d done.”
A muscle in Octavia’s jaw ticks.“And your fangs…?”
“I was disgusted with myself.You… your species disgusts me.Newborns aren’t known for their self-control.I pissed off a gang of vampires.”He shrugs, then winces as the lattice digs into his flesh.
But he continues, lost in the cadence of compliance.“They said my fangs would sharpen up eventually.But it left me hungry, pissed off and disgusted.It’s Penelope’s fault I’m like this, and there’s no one’s blood I’d rather drain than you two.”He fires a filthy stare at Morrigan and me.
“Too bad,” Morrigan says and hands me one of the stakes, nodding in Roman’s direction.“You do the honours.”
I take it and stare at the wooden spike.But I realise this wasn’t just my fight.
It was both of ours.
He may have come for me tonight, but he came for Morrigan first.I take her hand and curl it around mine.“Let’s do it together,” I say.
We bring the stake up as Morrigan’s silvery threads of magic weave around our conjoined fists.A surge of energy pools in my palm.I’ve never felt so strong.There’s no coming back from this.Not for him.Not anymore.
Roman must realise this because he twists and contorts, fighting with every ounce of strength he has left.But Scarlett’s katana cuts into his neck, and Remy and Bella’s lattice prison tightens around his body, pinning him in place.
“Fuck you!”He shrieks.
Together, Morrigan and I plunge the stake into his chest.He screams, his skin flushing white and then he goes limp, grey and mottled veins spread over his skin as he desiccates before our eyes.
“It’s over.It’s finally over,” I say.
