He wasn’t too interested in me explaining how women were actually fucking badass, but it didn’t matter. He would never have my mother, who truly would burn the world for the people she loved. He would never have a Blair, with all her gaudy glitter-pink accessories and killer instinct when it came to the people and city she loved. He would never have an Amelia, whobrewed the best tea in the world and could also destroy awful artifacts.
He would never even have a Mei, sitting quietly in her gilded penthouse apartment, calling him a dumpling and explaining how death is a betrayal.
“That reminds me,” I said, suddenly chipper as I thought of Amelia and the ring, carefully not watching Davin stand and creep toward him from behind. “I gave your shitty artifact to a friend of mine, and she destroyed it. So no more invading people’s minds for you and your minions.”
His eyes narrowed and I could hear the tips of his teeth grind together. It was an odd noise, high and screechy, unlike the deep sound of the usual human molars and their huge flat surfaces grinding. “That’s well enough,” he said, even though he was clearly not happy about it. “It was a dangerous thing. As you said, look what it did to your uncle when he got addicted to its power.”
Ah. Well, that explained that.
Suddenly, Tadhg froze, his eyes narrowing, and he turned his head, and started to follow with his whole body.
I couldn’t...he’d already hurt Davin and Twist, and I couldn’t let it happen anymore. No more. I lunged forward, spear held tight in both hands.
He didn’t even turn toward me, so focused was he on the fact that Davin had been sneaking up on him, and the spear point sliced through his chest like a hot knife through butter. Straight in, with just a shove to get past his breastbone, through the center of him and right out the back. Every second of it felt...itfelt.
The slight resistance of his body. The squish of things cutting and breaking and tearing, then the slide of blood from the edges of the wound.
Tadhg turned back toward me, astonishment on his face.
He hadn’t actually expected me to stab him.
Fair enough.
I’d practically let him murder the beings I cared about most in the world because I didn’t want to fight, but...I wasn’t going to actually do that. They were mine, Davin and Twist, and it was better for me to feel like a monster about one death than to lose them forever.
Never one for the underkill, Davin shoved up behind Tadhg and...sunk his huge vamp canines into my grandfather’s neck. Not in that sexy up against the wall vampire bite way, but in a terrifying animalistic “I’m going to rip your throat out” way.
Still sexy, though.
What?
My boyfriend was sexy.
And he did indeed yank his teeth back out through the skin a moment later, pulling out a chunk of flesh with him, and then spitting it against the glass wall of the cell closest to himself, looking utterly disgusted. Also, covered with blood.
Then he stepped away from Tadhg to avoid catching him, or probably, to avoid getting any more blood on himself.
My grandfather started to collapse to the floor, so I let go of the spear a moment before remembering that letting go of it meant it would disappear. A fountainous gush of blood followed the sudden lack of a spear haft through his chest, almost like one of those hyper-violent movies I’d never liked to watch.
I’d always thought them unrealistic, but it turned out that a still-pumping dragon heart could make blood do super gross things.
It didn’t last long, though. Because it was only a few seconds before my grandfather’s eyes went glassy and empty, while the look of stunned disbelief stayed on his face after all consciousness was gone.
Twist limped up to my side, and leaned some of her weight on my leg, panting heavily.
That was it.
I—we—had done it.
Tadhg was dead.
CHAPTER 33
Davin was the first to break the silence, coughing and then spitting again, the look on his face like he’d just accidentally consumed literal shit. “Fuck me,” he said, almost gagging and then spitting again. “I don’t believe I actually bit someone. That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
There I was, standing over my grandfather’s dead body, my uncle and cousin sitting there in cells opposite each other staring at me, my poor kitten injured protecting me...and I couldn’t help but laugh.
My boyfriend the vampire was grossed out by blood.
