“What the fuck are you?” Jameson sneers. “Some little underborne freak? Let me guess. She’s your fated mate, huh? Gonna tell me you’re soulbound or some shit?”
He laughs, the sound cracked and wild, as saliva drips from his bottom lip.
I smile, my eyes glittering—already savoring the beautiful, inevitable end of him.
“Fate?” I echo, my voice jagged and cold. “You think this is about fate?”
I shift slightly, and the shadows press against the cab walls, stretching thin across the glass, scenting for blood and lies.
“This isn’t some lovesick fantasy, Jameson. This is older. Deeper. Even brushing against the truth would unmake you. It would gut your sanity and strip your skin off in ribbons.”
I tilt my head, studying him the way a predator sizes up something already wounded.
“I don’tloveher.”
I growl, leaning protectively over Aurora’s limp body.
“Ibelongto her.”
Jameson backs up against the door, and Aurora’s head lolls to the side, dangling between his legs.
She’s still breathing and still has a pulse. Thank fuck.
“You know, don’t you?” Jameson asks, a smirk forming on his lips.
Smirk all you want, asshole. She just bit your dick off, and I’m about to do worse.
“She’s a Daughter,theDaughter, and she doesn’t even know it. No one’s fucked her yet. She never got her power, and she has no descendants. She has to die, and then this all ends,” Jameson spits, his eyes wild with conviction.
“I’ve known politicians who started wars for fun. Vampires who’ve existed so long they’ve calcified into dust, ego, and MLM schemes. And one social media mogul who built an empire on weaponized positivity and snacks on serotonin hits like candy. But somehow, Jameson,youare the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever met.”
I bare my teeth. “Do you really think I would side with a member of the Disciples? I am a monster, after all—one you bottom-feeders never knew existed.”
My shadows churn around us, eagerly thrumming with bloodlust.
“And because you dared to touch her, because you tried to take her from this world … from me … you will pay with your life.”
Jameson lunges for the door, but the shadows catch him mid-reach, snapping tendons and splintering bone. He shrieks, nothing but meat and panic, begging for a mercy I burned out of myself long ago.
I will take my time with him, make him feel the pain Aurora felt, but first I need to get her inside to Louie.
What’s the opposite of a cosmic punch to the dick? A star-soaked blowjob? Because that’s how it feels when I spot syringes filled with a yellow liquid in the cup holder.
“Well now, what’s this?” I ask playfully, reaching for the syringes.
Jameson whimpers, holding his broken wrist against his chest. When he looks down, a strangled cry rips from his throat, almost like he forgot about his shredded cock.
The adrenaline from the assault and attempted murder must have finally worn off.
“Jameson, did you drug her? But of course you did.”
The shadows tighten around his wrist on instinct, grinding bone against bone until they crunch like gravel beneath car tires.
“Because you couldn’t handle her awake. Couldn’t handle what she’d do to you if you gave her the chance. You knew she was stronger than you. You knew she would burn through you like flash paper. And you couldn’t stand it.”
Fucking pathetic.
I jam the needle into his neck until it scrapes against bone, then push the plunger.
