“Can you imagine my surprise,Lola, when Amyntas came to me, a few days after you and I parted ways, to tell me that our father was not only alive, but had no recollection that you even existed?”
Lola’s throat bobbed.Amyntas. That name was familiar.
“That’s the deal you made, right?” he continued as all the blood left my mate’s face, leaving her sickly pale. “Your soul in exchange for our father’s life. In exchange for their memories of you.”
That seemed to support what she had told us pretty well, but her hand tightened around mine. She was nervous. Anxious about her brother being here.
Maybe it was the perfect opportunity to get more information on her past. On the wholeMaidenthing.
“Your fuckingsoul, Anastasia?” he continued, revealing her birth name.
Pretty…I wondered why she changed it. Was it to hide from him? From other people looking for the lost Maiden? How many times did she have to switch names?
“Watch it,” Lola spat.
She gave me a concerned look. What was she worried about? My reaction? My—
Fuck, she looked terrified. Distressed. So much that I could hear her blood pumping through her veins.
“Watch it?” he repeated with a scoff. “Send the Thor look-alike away, we gotta talk.”
“I said I’m not moving,” I answered, tightening my hold on her hand.
I got you, my sweet temptress. He won’t bother you tonight.
“And I said—”
Another lightning strike hit, this time not missing him.Bingo. I smiled. Once the smoke had vanished, her brother was nowhere to be seen. She gasped, dropping my hand as she rushed to the spot he previously stood in. Lola paused to stare at the enochian symbols burnt in the wood.
“What did you do?” she panicked.
“Relax,” I muttered, shaking the electricity off my limbs and retracting my wings. “I just sent him out and banished him from the fucking house.”
Her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. She really had no idea what Divines could do, did she?
“You can do that?”
I nodded, crossing my arms over my chest as I looked outside through the window. She followed my line of sight, and there her brother was, casting an angry look at us from the street.
“Well,shit.That’s a convenient power.”
A scoff escaped me as I let myself fall in the armchair we were previously making out in. “Yeah. I don’t like unwanted visitors. It’s not permanent, though. The rune will vanish in about two to three days, and he’ll be able to break in again.” The scared look was back on her face. I frowned, extending my arm to her. “Come here.”
She hesitated, but I wasn’t sure why. Was it that the moment was gone? Fuckingcockblocker.
“I think I should head back home,” she said, rubbing her palms on her naked arms. Her dress was all wrinkled and her hair had wild strands sticking out in all directions.
God, she was beautiful.
“Isn’t that guy—yourbrother, living there too? You didn’t seem too keen to talk with him.”
She sighed, closing her eyes and tilting her head back toward the ceiling. The delicate silver chain hanging around her neck and disappearing in her cleavage glinted in the faint moonlight coming from outside. Maybe we should have turned the lights on…We definitely would have seen the creep hiding in the corner then.
“I-I don’t know. I guess it took me by surprise to see him, and I wasn’t ready to have that weird conversation yet. I mean, I thought he’d forgotten about me like the rest of our family. I thought he was—I don’t know, dead? Certainly not that he changed his name and became the infamous first Vampire.”
I straightened, reaching for her and sliding my hand on her waist to pull her to me. She rolled her eyes but didn’t fight me as I led her to sit on my lap.
“So…you want to go back to your apartment? Talk to him now?” I prodded.
