“Hey, he doesn’t know better, Feral.” Eros shrugged, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. I wasn’t a smoker, but one did sound good in a situation like this. “He’ll learn. In the meantime, these poor people only have a few minutes left. We could call the ambulance and ditch, but…”
His voice trailed off, and a barbed silence filled the room. He didn’t have to finish for everyone to pick up his meaning. By the time the ambulance got here, it would be too late.
“Humans die,” Vin snapped. “Letting nature take its course would be a greater mercy than anything else we can do for them.”
Corry’s face went chalk white. Eros crossed to the other side of the room, stepping over Philip Cross to crouch beside Vincent. Smoke swirled around him as he puffed on the cigarette. “Come on, Feral. You know what I’m getting at. I know what your blood can do.” His voice dropped to a whisper too low for Corry to hear. “Heal them.”
Vincent’s scowl hardened. “Say I do. That doesn’t take away their memories of what happened.”
“We’ll mesmerize them.”
“Oh, come the fuck on. You know neither of us is that good at mesmerizing.”
Eros shrugged. “No, but Sterling is.”
Vin’s eyes narrowed into deadly slits. “You know we can’t tell him shit without the king finding out. I swear the sick fuck’s got a whole damn surveillance system shoved up the priest’s ass. Do you want the king coming down on this place like a goddamn biblical plague?”
Eros rocked back on his heels and leveled his den brother with a brand-hot glare through the haze of cigarette smoke. “Whatever hell the vampire king brings down on us, we can live with it. We’ve suffered worse. Least we can do is save the poor kid from as much suffering as we can.”
Vincent paused, considering his options. He didn’t take long to mull it over. He loved Corry.
He loved all his brothers. And the cagey fuck resented it. But he couldn’t change that fact, and he couldn’t pretend it wasn’t true anymore.
I saw how he looked at Corry, sobbing over his dying mother with his twin and father just feet away.
And I saw how he looked at Eros.
And for the first time, I could clearly see past the mask of resentment he wore.
“Fuck me,” the fae seethed and then trailed off into a string of fae curses as he ripped his wrist open with his fangs and held his gushing blood over Sue Cross’s mouth.
“Make sure your mother swallows every drop, Corry.”
Eros cackled, and I smiled. This was a horrifying memory, sure. But at the same time, it was… heartwarming.
Corry had come close to losing his family. And in a way, he had indeed lost them. They were still alive, but he no longer belonged in the same world with them. It would have been easy for Eros and Vincent to brush them off and let them die.
They’d saved them for their new brother. So I guess Corry had lost a family this night, in a matter of speaking, only to gain a whole new one.
Another few minutes passed, and as Corry’s parents and twin stirred back to life after taking Vin’s blood, I decided it was time to leave and turned for the door.
The second I turned around, I found myself staring at the last face I ever wanted to see.
My father.
His knife-sharp eyes stabbed through my lungs, leaving me gasping for breath. It was almost like he knew I was here, and he was looking right through me. That was just it. He was looking through me, notatme.
I had to grapple with reason as pure panic filled my lungs. Thomas Knight wasn’t really here. This was just a memory of him.
After the last incident of running into him in the dreamscape, Sterling and I had fully sealed our bond, which had severed the old one he’d had with his master completely. The Vampire King’s access to Sterling’s mind was closed off for good. Still, knowing this was just a memory and nothing more somehow didn’t stop the panic attack.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t do anything but watch as he stepped through me, with Sterling in tow behind him.
Sterling stood tall, unflinching. He was just as formidable as always, his dark sweater and slacks failing to hide his powerful build. But despite the intimidating aura radiating off him, the vampire felt deader than ever.
The memory had been bad enough to watch before, with all the gore and bloodshed. But seeing Sterling like this, just a husk next to his abuser, was the hardest part to watch.
