Seraphine licks the blood from her nail. “Maybe I’ll feast on her, drain her slowly. Make you watch while you’re helpless.” She yanks Evelynn’s head back, causing Evelynn to cry out.
Every instinct screams for slaughter.
“Actually…” Seraphine grins. “Maybe that’s what it’ll take for you to remember who you are. Taste her. Be the monster I know you are.”
“He’s not a monster,” Evelynn grits through thepain. Seraphine curls her lip and jerks her hair harder. “You’re the monster,” Evelynn whispers.
Seraphine sneers. “Pathetic mortal. I’ve hunted with Lucian. Fed with him. We’ve fucked beside screaming victims while they begged for mercy.”
Evelynn’s gaze nearly breaks me. Then Silas steps beside me.
“Leave now,” he says coldly, “and your life will be spared.”
Seraphine laughs. “You’re fast, Silas, but not fast enough.”
“You kill her, you kill Lucian,” Cain adds. “Is that what you want?”
Seraphine hesitates. “She’s mortal. The bond can’t be the same.”
“You sure?” Cain presses.
Silence.
Every instinct in my body is screaming to move, to kill, to tear her open where she stands, but one wrong step and Evelynn dies.
Then Seraphine’s eyes flick, calculating. “Fine,” she says coldly. “She lives, for now. And you let me go.”
She releases Evelynn, then backhands her hard.
Evelynn’s body crumples before I can reach her.
Seraphine is gone in a blur of shadow and spite.
I’m at Evelynn’s side instantly, scooping her up,crushing her to my chest, my hands frantic as they search her throat.
There. A pulse. Alive.
The relief doesn’t soothe me. It only sharpens the fury into something unholy.
Silas turns on the brothers. “Go after her,” he barks.
Clutch hesitates. “But the deal…”
I lift my head slowly.
They feel it before I speak. The shift in me. The predator in me rising.
“She hurt what is mine,” I growl. “She will try again. You will find her.” My arms tighten around Evelynn’s limp body. “And when you do, you will not show mercy. You will tear her apart. Limb from fucking limb.”
No one argues. They vanish.
I don’t watch them go. All I see is Evelynn, caged in my arms, her face pressed over my dead heart. My hand slides into her hair, trembling despite centuries of control, my thumb brushing over her cheekbone, her mouth, her closed lashes.
My marked. My human.
Mine.
Rage and terror coil together in my chest until Ican’t tell where one ends and the other begins. I press my forehead to hers.
